Pei Qian's office.
"So, Old Ma, any progress on the location scouting?" Pei Qian asked while sipping his tea.
"Nope!" Ma Yang replied confidently.
Pfft!
Pei Qian nearly sprayed tea all over his desk.
But instead of being angry, he looked... pleased.
See? Old Ma never lets me down!
If everyone were as "reliable" as Old Ma, I'd have long since turned all the system's money into personal losses!
Ma Yang continued, sipping his tea like a master tactician. "Right now, my top priority is finding the right assistant."
Pei Qian tensed slightly.
He trusted Ma Yang.
But he didn't trust whoever Ma Yang might recruit.
Because Ma Yang was exactly the type to be easily bamboozled—what if he unknowingly hired some actual expert, someone great at running internet cafés, and then Ma Yang followed his advice blindly…
The consequences could be disastrous!
Pei Qian had to be on guard.
"What kind of assistant are you looking for?" he asked.
"I found a promising talent on Tieba," Ma Yang said, "I'm working on poaching him with a generous offer!"
Ah—a Tieba hotshot?
Excellent.
Pei Qian's heart settled.
Tieba was a land of hidden dragons and crouching tigers.
Especially in this era, around 2010, Tieba was still booming—a chaotic mix of the gifted and the clueless.
Sure, there were talented folks—but there were also plenty of people talking big and pretending to be pros.
Statistically speaking, the odds of Ma Yang picking the latter were far higher…
"Tell me more," Pei Qian said calmly, sipping more tea.
Ma Yang perked up, encouraged by the attention and ready to report.
"The guy I found is a sub-moderator on the GPU forum, one of the most respected figures there! He's a real expert and super well-known!"
"I figured, since we're opening an internet café, the most important part is the computers, right? And buying pre-built PCs these days is just lame—you want something unique, you've got to build your own rigs!"
"But I don't know a thing about hardware, so I decided to bring in a top-tier expert who can help. He's got a way better grasp of components than I ever will. Good call, right?"
Pei Qian nodded emphatically.
"Excellent! Very good!"
He'd been a little worried at first, but when he heard the guy came from the GPU forum (aka 卡吧, "Ka Bar"), he instantly relaxed.
There's a saying among netizens:
"3k budget into Ka Bar, walk out with four Titan GPUs."
"3k budget into Tu Bar, open an internet café across from a school."
"Ka Bar" and "Tu Bar" were both popular hardware forums on Tieba, but they had completely different styles.
Ka Bar folks were notorious for pushing users to upgrade—"Add a little more money for better performance!"
Tu Bar guys were budget warriors, focused on efficiency, reliability, and saving money.
If Ma Yang had found someone from Tu Bar, Pei Qian would have been worried.
Why?
Because Tu Bar experts were too good at cost-saving.
If they helped build PCs with super low budgets and implemented a "low-cost, high-volume" strategy, the café might actually become successful.
Especially in 2010, when affordable cafés were still in high demand—poor students flocked to places with cheap access, and most games didn't need high-end machines anyway.
A cheap and accessible café like that? It'd be full of hardcore players like Bao Xu who would practically live there.
But if the recruit was a Ka Bar expert?
Now that's more like it!
The whole café would be filled with rigs that cost upwards of 20,000–30,000 yuan each… chef's kiss.
A glorious, beautiful money pit!
Failure would be all but guaranteed.
Pei Qian was delighted—Ma Yang had truly lived up to expectations.
"Good. This kind of expert—you must get him on board!"
"Make sure you treat him with respect, offer a high salary—when you're trying to recruit a hidden expert like this, shouldn't you be offering at least 8,000 yuan a month?" Pei Qian said, fanning the flames with great enthusiasm.
Ma Yang looked a little awkward.
"To be honest, Brother Qian… I'm only making 5,000 yuan right now…"
Pei Qian had originally set Ma Yang's salary at the maximum for an intern—4,000 yuan a month. After the company-wide 30% raise, he'd only just cracked 5,000.
Pei Qian chuckled.
"Relax, would I ever shortchange you? Once this mission is complete, I'll give you a raise! You'll get bonuses too!"
Ma Yang was overjoyed.
"Awesome! Don't worry, I'll give it everything I've got and make this internet café a roaring success!"
"How many times have I told you—it's not an internet café!" Pei Qian corrected him.
"It's a large-scale entertainment complex, integrating internet access, gaming, hardware retail, movie-viewing, and more!"
"Got it, got it—giant entertainment net-café," Ma Yang said with a grin as he downed the last of his tea. "Back to work I go!"
Nice.
Things were moving along smoothly.
Pei Qian was very satisfied.
The game project? Locked in.
Ma Yang's net-café experiment? Ka Bar veteran on the case—solid.
That just left Huang Sibo.
Still a bit of a wildcard.
Pei Qian decided to check in—Huang hadn't been in the office for a while, and nobody knew what he was up to.
Better to get a status update.
"How's the Dream Fund coming along? Have you decided what direction to invest in?"
Huang Sibo replied shortly after:
"I've decided on the general direction, President Pei! I'm going into film and video."
"This has always been my dream, but the industry is too hard to break into, so I went with games instead."
"Now that I finally have the chance, I'm going to chase the dream!"
Pei Qian was so delighted he smacked his thigh.
The film industry?!
Perfect!
If there's any field where you can burn through cash at lightspeed—it's film!
Though…
Only a million yuan? Isn't that a bit too light to make a splash in the movie biz?
Pei Qian was suspicious.
"Do you have enough funding? I can give you more investment, it's no problem."
He'd just found a golden opportunity to lose money—of course he wanted to double down.
Pei Qian had long planned to enter the film industry to take some hard losses, but hadn't gotten around to it yet.
Now that Huang Sibo was spearheading the effort? Even better! Less work for him.
But Huang replied quickly:
"No need, no need! You've already given me a million with the Dream Fund—I can't ask for more!"
"And I'm not making some big-budget blockbuster, just some short videos. Equipment and post-production needs are minimal, a million is more than enough!"
Short videos?
Pei Qian's heart skipped a beat.
"You're not making a series called Unexpectedness by any chance, are you?"
Huang Sibo replied, confused:
"Unexpectedness? What's that?"
Pei Qian exhaled in relief.
Phew. As long as it's not that.
"Got a script? A director?" Pei Qian asked.
"Not yet! But don't worry, I'm looking. Once I have a script, I'll send it to you first."
"Alright."
Pei Qian felt much better.
Shooting short videos in this era? Almost guaranteed to flop.
They were hard to gain traction, and even if they did somehow go viral, monetizing them was still extremely difficult.
Highly likely to lose money across the board.
Looks like Huang Sibo's project… is looking great.
<+>
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[1] https://www.patreon.com/collection/1399284?view=expanded
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