Losing Money to Become a Tycoon: Starting with Games
Chapter 403: What on Earth Happened in This Past Week?
That afternoon, after leaving Feihuang Studio, Pei Qian got into the car and headed toward Huanyu Sky Street.
He had just finished watching the rough cut of A Better Tomorrow. Overall, his feelings were mixed.
The good news was that the film's editing was still poor, the special effects hadn't been added yet, and the plot was indeed rather "toxic." It really looked like the kind of movie that would flop at the box office.
The bad news, however, was that all of the actors in the film were performing extremely well. Especially the three main actors—Zhang Zuting, Lu Zhiyao, and Lin Ruyi—who were practically competing with each other in acting skill, which made Pei Qian increasingly uneasy.
Lu Zhiyao had completely corrected his usual problem of overacting. Lin Ruyi didn't look like a rookie actor at all. And as for Zhang Zuting, there was no need to say much—his Best Actor–level performance was flawless.
What kind of reception this movie would receive after release was something Pei Qian truly couldn't predict.
Still feeling conflicted, Pei Qian arrived at Huanyu Sky Street.
"President Pei, should I go up with you?" Xiao Sun asked.
Pei Qian thought for a moment. "No need. Just wait for me in the car. I'll take a quick look and come right down."
He didn't think too much about it. He only wanted to confirm that the Shared Phone Booth was operating safely, then he would rush back near Handong University to meet Lin Chang.
He took the direct elevator straight to the top floor.
It was Saturday afternoon, so Pei Qian had already prepared himself for Huanyu Sky Street to be crowded. However, when he stepped out of the elevator, he still froze for a moment.
He glanced toward the cinema entrance and felt puzzled.
"Huh? Why are there so many people? Is there some big movie premiering today?"
But when he looked closer, Pei Qian was stunned.
There were indeed many people in front of the cinema, but they didn't seem to be there to watch a movie at all!
No one was maintaining order, yet everyone had naturally formed two orderly lines.
Both lines moved quickly. One line simply stopped in front of the phone booth to take a photo and then left. The other line took a number from the ticket machine in front of the booth before walking away.
Then Pei Qian looked more carefully at the exterior of the phone booth.
On the front was a gigantic illustration:
Guardian of Justice — Zadkiel!
This huge artwork completely covered the main front of the Shared Phone Booth. In the image, Zadkiel stood tall and muscular, his gaze firm as he looked straight ahead. Behind him were countless weapons embedded into the ground, highlighting his heroic presence.
Many people were lining up simply to take a photo with this massive illustration.
And unlike a typical poster—or even typical game concept art—this piece had been hand-painted by Ruan Guangjian. The thick-paint technique gave it a free, expressive style that immediately felt artistic at a glance.
Since it looked so impressive, it was no wonder that people visiting the mall would come over just to take pictures with it.
Standing in front of the booth and staring at the giant illustration, Pei Qian was speechless for a moment.
"...What the hell."
He had asked Ruan Guangjian to draw something casually to decorate the Shared Phone Booth, but he definitely hadn't told him to paint Coin-Spraying Hedgehog!
For some reason, Pei Qian had the strange feeling that this Coin-Spraying Hedgehog was staring right at him, with the faintest hint of a smirk on its face—as if it were mocking him.
Then he looked at the phone booth itself.
On the side facing the escalator, the display clearly showed the current queue number:
Number 14 — Remaining Time: 7 minutes.
Pei Qian's heart sank. A vague sense of dread rose within him. He pushed through the crowd to take another look and discovered that the number on the ticket machine had already reached 29.
In other words, since this morning, 14 people had already taken numbers and experienced the Shared Phone Booth, and 15 more people were currently waiting in line!
Of course, it was also possible that some people had taken a number but never came back to actually use the booth, though there probably weren't many like that.
When Pei Qian first saw how quickly the line was moving—and noticed that people weren't actually entering the phone booth—he had felt a bit relieved. He had assumed that everyone just liked looking at the booth from outside and didn't really want to go in and spend money.
But now he understood.
This wasn't a case of nobody lining up—it was that the system had been upgraded to number-based queuing, making it even more advanced!
Pei Qian quickly took out his phone and scanned the QR code to download the Shared Phone Booth app.
The previous version of the app had been extremely simple, with only a QR-scanning function. But now, the features had increased significantly.
The most obvious change was the addition of a queueing system.
As long as you took a number at the machine by the phone booth entrance, you could join the queue and fill in your estimated usage time inside the booth.
The system would add up the estimated times of everyone in the queue so users could know how long they would have to wait.
When their turn was approaching, users could come back to the booth in advance and wait.
This page also allowed some other actions, such as giving up your spot in the queue.
With this system, people no longer had to stand around waiting in front of the booth. Instead, they could use the estimated time to plan other activities—such as shopping, buying drinks, or getting desserts.
Pei Qian checked the estimated waiting time on the app.
It had already reached three hours!
And people were still continuously taking numbers.
Pei Qian did a quick calculation of the pricing, and his face immediately turned pale.
15 minutes for 10 yuan, 40 yuan per hour.
From the looks of it, ever since the mall opened this morning, the phone booth hadn't had a single idle moment. Over the course of a day, it would likely operate for eleven or twelve hours.
By that calculation, it could earn four to five hundred yuan a day!
Of course, this was partly because it was Saturday, when the foot traffic in the mall was high, ensuring constant usage.
On weekdays, the earnings would definitely be lower.
But no matter how he calculated it, the income was still very considerable!
Pei Qian was extremely puzzled.
What on earth? It was just a phone booth. If someone stayed inside for an hour, what could they possibly be doing???
He tried to peek inside.
However, the curtains inside the booth were drawn tightly, making it impossible to see clearly. He could only faintly hear music coming from inside.
There were many people on this floor and it was quite noisy, so the music sounded faint and intermittent.
Still unwilling to give up, Pei Qian circled the phone booth once.
But the curtains were drawn rather tightly. There were some gaps, but Pei Qian obviously couldn't stoop to outright peeping.
He vaguely saw two people inside, but couldn't clearly make out what they were doing.
After circling around once, Pei Qian discovered a stack of flyers on the other side of the phone booth's electronic display.
They were placed there for anyone interested to take.
He picked one up and immediately realized this wasn't an ordinary promotional flyer.
There were both text and images printed on it. The images looked like screenshots from a TV program.
"Customer Suffers Sudden Cardiac Arrest in Mall, AED Successfully Saves Life! 'Shared Phone Booth' Hides a 'Life-Saving Device'"
"Recently, in a shopping mall in Jingzhou City, a young man's life was saved by mall staff using an AED."
"The scene shown in the image took place on the top floor of Huanyu Sky Street Mall in Jingzhou City. A man suddenly collapsed after exiting a cinema. Mall staff who rushed to the scene immediately divided tasks—calling emergency services while dispersing onlookers and beginning rescue efforts."
"At the critical moment, staff quickly retrieved an AED (Automated External Defibrillator) from the nearby Shared Phone Booth and used it to perform emergency treatment."
"After four AED defibrillations, by the time emergency responders arrived at the scene, the man had already largely regained his heartbeat and breathing."
"The man was then sent to the hospital for further treatment. Medical personnel stated that fortunately the man had received assistance from the AED; otherwise, the consequences would have been unimaginable."
"Experts say that among patients suffering sudden cardiac arrest, more than 85% are caused by ventricular fibrillation, which can only be eliminated through electrical defibrillation. If an AED can be used shortly after cardiac arrest occurs, the success rate of rescue can increase dramatically. This is why there is the saying of the 'Golden Four Minutes.'"
"According to statistics, over 90% of sudden deaths occur outside hospitals, so the key to saving the life of a cardiac-arrest patient lies in how quickly an AED can be obtained to perform defibrillation."
"However, at present in our country, the availability of AED devices remains relatively low. Our reporter visited several subway stations in the capital and received the same response everywhere: AED devices have not yet been installed."
"And yet in Jingzhou, a small phone booth actually 'hides' such a life-saving device—and it has already proven its effectiveness. This was certainly no coincidence, but rather the inevitable result of the public safety awareness and social responsibility of the project's founder."
"Zhang Wang, the founder of the Shared Phone Booth project, stated that in his vision, the Shared Phone Booth is not only meant to be a cultural landmark of the city and a quiet sanctuary amid the bustling metropolis, but also a beacon for carrying forward social responsibility—"
Pei Qian was completely dumbfounded.
"Didn't I just stay away for a little over a week? How did something this big happen?!"
The last time he saw the Shared Phone Booth, it had just been a bare, empty little booth with nothing inside. The area outside had been so deserted that it could practically be described as completely empty.
But now?
Not only were people lining up to go inside, it had even been reported on television!
For a moment, Pei Qian suddenly felt like he didn't recognize this world anymore…
Just then, the door of the Shared Phone Booth opened. A couple inside came out, consciously taking away their used paper cups and microphone covers, while the next couple in line was already waiting outside the door, seamlessly taking their place.
Pei Qian quickly stood on tiptoe and glanced inside the booth.
A drink machine, a karaoke jukebox, a gashapon (capsule toy) machine…
The inside of the Shared Phone Booth was now packed with all kinds of things!
Pei Qian clearly remembered that the last time he came, the booth had contained nothing but a lonely telephone and a water dispenser…
You could drink beverages, play gashapon, sing karaoke, and even stamp check-in seals.
No wonder people didn't want to come out once they went inside!
Obviously, the drink machine and gashapon machine must charge extra. If you added that income as well…
And this was only one of the Shared Phone Booth locations.
Pei Qian suddenly realized something and quickly hurried toward the direct elevator, preparing to leave.
The phone booth at Huanyu Sky Street was already beyond saving. Not only was it wildly popular with consumers, it had saved someone's life and even appeared on TV news!
At this point, even if Pei Qian wanted to remove it, it would be impossible!
But there were still other things he could do—for example, immediately stopping Ruan Guangjian from decorating the other twenty phone booths!
Originally, Pei Qian had thought that since the booth only contained a phone and a water dispenser, nobody would actually pay to use it. So letting Ruan Guangjian paint a big illustration on it would at least spend some extra money.
But now, that illustration had clearly become a cultural landmark, attracting people from far away just to take photos with it—and once they came here, they would naturally enter the booth and spend money!
So he had to stop Ruan Guangjian immediately and tell him not to paint any more booths!
Pei Qian quickly did the math.
Ruan Guangjian could only finish one booth every three days. Painting 20 booths would take about two months.
Only a little over ten days had passed so far, which meant at most four booths had been painted.
There was still time!
While waiting for the elevator, Pei Qian dialed Ruan Guangjian's phone.
"Hello, President Pei. What's up?"
It was very quiet on Ruan Guangjian's side of the line—it didn't sound like he was in a shopping mall at all.
Pei Qian didn't think much of it and asked directly, "Uh… about the phone booths we talked about earlier—how many have you painted so far?"
Ruan Guangjian's voice carried a hint of confusion. "The phone booths? Weren't they finished a long time ago?"
Pei Qian: "???"
He suddenly felt a little dizzy. "Didn't you say it takes three days to finish one? How could they already be done?"
Ruan Guangjian chuckled. "Oh, right. It does take three days to paint one booth—it's way too slow! I figured that if I painted all 20 booths myself, it would take until the New Year, and I still have other work to do. It would delay things too much."
"So I found more than a dozen friends in our group chat and subcontracted the work to them. Each person took one booth and just followed the original artwork I provided."
"Don't worry, President Pei. They're all my friends, and their skill levels are guaranteed. I've checked all the booths myself—the paintings are fine. Occasionally there were small flaws, but I fixed those."
"Uh… President Pei?"
Hearing no response for a long time, Ruan Guangjian thought the call might have dropped.
After a long pause, Pei Qian finally said, "Then… never mind."
After hanging up, Pei Qian silently stepped into the elevator and went down to the underground parking lot.
"President Pei, where are we going?" Although Pei Qian had clearly stayed upstairs for quite a long time, Xiao Sun didn't ask any unnecessary questions.
Pei Qian thought for a moment and said with a dark expression, "Times Mall."
He still couldn't give up. He had to personally check the situation of all the phone booths!
"Alright." Xiao Sun didn't ask further questions and simply started the car.
Pei Qian took out his phone and first sent a message to Lin Chang.
This afternoon, he planned to inspect every single Shared Phone Booth before going to meet Lin Chang.
Lin Chang quickly replied:
"President Pei, please focus on your work. I'm busy as well, so there's no need to be polite."
Pei Qian let out a long sigh of relief. Fortunately, President Lin was so understanding!
After reassuring Lin Chang, Pei Qian immediately dialed Chen Kangtuo's number.
"How's the haunted house project going? Speed it up for me!"
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