Chapter 5 – The Expansion Begins
Chen Rui stood at the center of the newly opened second store in the outskirts of Yuezhou, arms folded, surveying the chaotic scene with satisfaction. Delivery boxes littered the floor, a technician was yelling about missing power cables, and the cashier was struggling with the newly installed point-of-sale system.
Perfect. A total mess.
This store was three times bigger than the first one, with higher rent, more inventory, and double the staff—most of whom were undertrained. He'd picked a location with low foot traffic and intentionally stocked obscure, outdated electronics: shortwave radios, CRT monitors, and surplus Soviet DVD players with Cyrillic menus.
"Boss, the store's already losing 3,000 yuan a day!" Zhang Tao, his assistant manager, said nervously, holding a clipboard.
Chen Rui grinned. "Only 3,000? We need to push harder."
Zhang Tao stared at him, clearly wondering if Chen Rui had lost his mind.
"I've scheduled ads in five local newspapers," Chen Rui continued. "All promoting our lowest-selling products. We'll throw in free gifts—those defective walkmans we got from that warehouse in Fujian."
Zhang Tao looked as if he wanted to object, but Chen Rui had already moved on, clapping him on the back.
"Let's aim to lose 10,000 yuan a day by next week."
Back in his apartment, Chen Rui flipped through the latest financials.
Store #1 was still dragging in a small profit, thanks to its prime location and low costs. The second store was bleeding money exactly as intended. But he couldn't stop now.
If I want to lose real money, I need scale.
He circled a map of Hunan province, marking down cities with low-income populations, high commercial rent, and unreliable logistics networks. Then he drew lines from each one.
"I'll open ten more stores," he murmured. "And I'll make every one of them worse than the last."
Three weeks later, Chen Rui was in Changsha, staring at a storefront squeezed between a pawn shop and a noodle stall. It was dim, damp, and smelled faintly of mildew.
"I'll take it," he said.
The landlord's jaw dropped. "You—what? You haven't even seen the back room!"
"I don't need to," Chen Rui said. "Sign the lease. Five years. Pay in full."
As his team stumbled through the setup—wiring shelves, taping crooked banners—Chen Rui rolled out his newest idea: Buy One, Get One Free on Broken Items.
Customers flocked in, mostly out of curiosity. A few even bought things. But most walked out shaking their heads.
Chen Rui didn't care. He just wanted the store to hemorrhage money.
Later that month, a problem emerged.
"Boss," said Liu Yan, the accountant, "somehow… even with all this spending, you're still breaking even overall."
Chen Rui dropped his chopsticks. "What?!"
"The Changsha store is burning cash, yes. But your first store just signed a bulk deal with a local school district. And the Yuezhou one—well, someone posted a video about our 'crazy promotions.' It went kind of… viral."
Chen Rui's eye twitched. "So, we're making money because we're too terrible?!"
Liu Yan nodded carefully. "People say we're so bad, we're good. Like some kind of novelty."
Chen Rui slumped in his chair.
Losing money is harder than I thought.
But his eyes narrowed. He wasn't done.
If small losses weren't enough, then he'd go bigger.
Nationwide expansion.
He reached for the phone.
"Get me a list of every failing electronics wholesaler in the south. I want to buy all their junk. All of it."