Chapter 241: International Hotel Day?

The afternoon sun was gentle and not overly intense as the announcer on the podium solemnly read out each department’s submissions, her sweet voice carrying across the field.

The girls weren’t impressed by her affected pronunciation, even finding it a bit off-putting, but the boys felt a tingling sensation all over.

Some dude even took the chance to submit a love letter, signing it “The one who’s always secretly loved you”. Combined with that sweet little voice, the sour smell of literary hipsters wafted everywhere.

Ren Ziqiang had already returned from the competition, placing fifth in the preliminaries without winning anything, but he enthusiastically summoned the boys in the class, asking if anyone wanted to go check out the women’s events.

He said when he was halfway through his lap, he discovered the scene over there was simply overwhelmingly spectacular.

The female college students pouring sweat on the track and in the sand pits were so lively they were practically bursting out.

He claimed if his eyes hadn’t been dazzled from running over there, he definitely would’ve taken a top three spot in that last race.

“Heroes truly struggle before beautiful women!”

Hearing Ren Ziqiang say this, the male audience members immediately stood up, genuinely eager to follow along.

Actually, Old Ren wanted to call Jiang Qin too, feeling a bit shy about blatantly ogling alone, but it’d be different with Jiang Qin leading the way since he had a thick skin.

With Jiang Qin taking the lead in watching, he wouldn’t feel embarrassed either.

But after considering for a while, he shook his head, thinking forget it, since Jiang Qin said Feng Nanshu had trained in authentic Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

“Damn, Old Ren is getting more and more inconsiderate, actually not inviting me to see the good stuff.”

Jiang Qin grumbled a complaint, put down the flyer in his hand and was about to go share in everyone’s fortune.

But as soon as he lifted his butt, he saw Feng Nanshu staring at him blankly with a pair of clear eyes before pursing her little mouth and turning her mini electric fan towards him.

“What are you doing?”

“You’re sweating, blowing some wind for you.” Feng Nanshu said with a straight face.

Jiang Qin coughed, sat back down properly, and peeled two pistachios to feed into her little mouth.

“Jiang Qin, more to eat.” Feng Nanshu opened her mouth.

“I’ll peel three more for you, then can I go over there and have some fun?”

“No.”

“…”

Gao Wenhui couldn’t help coming over when she heard: “Jiang Qin, she’s eating too. Peel three for me too.”

Jiang Qin glanced at her: “Do you have abs? How can you just shamelessly say you want to eat?”

“Hehe, you were just saying you didn’t want to look, but turns out your mind is always on it, bringing it up so readily. So bad.”

Just then, the inner track of the field closest to the spectators’ seats erupted in exclamations as the men’s sprint finals determined the ultimate champion.

The faux hawk dude lifted the hem of his short-sleeved shirt again, revealing his glistening abs, even flexing them a couple times. Jiang Qin gnashed his teeth seeing it.

Damn, way too pretentious. He hated this kind of pretentious behavior the most.

If you have abs, knowing it yourself is enough. Flashing your pubes for what? Even with his wealth, he never rushed to the podium to broadcast it with a loudspeaker.

“Let’s go, not watching anymore. Putting on airs like that is really unlikeable.”

Jiang Qin handed the electric fan to Gao Wenhui, took the little rich girl’s hand and left the field, heading to the entrepreneurship base.

Riding the winds of the sports meet, the first day of group-buy service was exceptionally popular. The 40% off king rooms at Vienna Hotel were all sold out, marked as full by the system.

He had Su Nai pull up the backend to check the detailed consumption data, discovering not only male students bought vouchers, female college students did too, at a ratio of about 8:2.

What kind of fairy-like girlfriends were this twenty percent of users? Actually able to dedicate both their wallets and bodies, truly moving people to tears.

Perhaps this type of pure love could only be seen in one’s student days.

Besides the king rooms at Vienna, the hotpot combo meal at Wanzhong Mall also completely sold out, which wasn’t really a surprise.

Since it happened to be a weekend, it was very common for college students to gather for a meal. Since they’d eat out regardless, no one would pass up a 40% discount.

Therefore, the combo meal vouchers for Spicy Green Pepper Grilled Fish, Charm Night KTV, Wood Charcoal Grilled Steak and Dadi Cinema were also nearly sold out.

Perhaps due to college students’ restraint, the new guest experience voucher and half-price ear cleaning voucher at Water Joy Honey Language – Junhan Bathhouse only sold half before the consumption list stopped moving.

Jiang Qin knew the students who bought vouchers first were the bold and daring ones, while those who didn’t buy weren’t uninterested, just secretly observing.

Once the first batch of students went to experience it, left good reviews for certain technicians and expressed they’d come again, the other half of the experience vouchers would definitely sell out without any left behind.

So rounding up, all service vouchers were sold out on the first day of the group-buy launch.

Could this be considered a success?

Selling out should be considered quite successful, right?

Of course, with weekend, sports meet, 40% off, these buffs stacking together, it’d be hard not to sell out. Just like “posting a link” for livestream hosts in later eras – as long as the user base was huge enough, anything would sell quickly.

But most importantly, it was actually college students’ trust in the group-buy platform.

Spending money to buy a voucher without worrying about being scammed showed the group-buy reputation was already quite impressive. It also showed online spending habits had already matured considerably.

“Alright, no need to keep staring once it’s sold out. Su Nai, go have fun.”

“Okay boss, then I’ll go to the field to see abs. Miaomiao has been calling me several times, saying I missed quite a few good-looking ones!”

Su Nai shut down the computer while speaking, her eyes filled with excitement as she ran out the door.

Jiang Qin furrowed his brow, thinking to himself, is having abs really that impactful on male attractiveness?

Why do all girls love abs?

He turned his head to look at Feng Nanshu, discovering the little rich girl was sticking out her round, full little butt while quietly petting the dog.

After casually watching for a dozen or so seconds, Jiang Qin coughed and sat back down in the boss chair, personally experiencing the group-buy service.

After the user placed an order online, the system would generate a discount code, and their phone would receive a text message within about five minutes.

Then the business would perform a backend verification of the discount code to complete the transaction.

However, there was still one issue currently troubling Jiang Qin quite a bit, which was the settlement method.

The four major banks had just upgraded their online banking systems. To control potential financial risks from third-party payment tools, they still required users to operate with a USB key, causing delays in transaction functionality.

Moreover, the adoption rate of smartphones wasn’t high, so real online payments weren’t as convenient as in later eras.

Even Taobao still had a cash on delivery payment method at present.

Jiang Qin had two choices now. One was after selling discount vouchers, just like with the group-buy delivery service, to collect money at each dorm building.

The other method was to have the business handle the settlement, clearing accounts once per quarter.

The first method was suitable for a university district but not for later city-wide expansion, because it was simply impossible to go door-to-door collecting money.

Therefore, Jiang Qin chose the second option of having the business collect the money.

This settlement model wasn’t very advantageous for the group-buy platform, but it was actually the best solution. He focused on external promotion and expansion, so compromises had to be made in certain aspects.

However, this settlement method wouldn’t persist forever. He would later send someone to specifically connect with Alipay and finalize an online payment solution through a business partnership.

“Feng Nanshu, are you hungry?”

The little rich girl turned her head: “A little hungry.”

“Let’s go, I’ll take you to Wanzhong Mall for hotpot.”

Jiang Qin took out his phone and called Old Cao, telling him to get Ren Ziqiang and Zhou Chao so they could all meet on the first floor of Wanzhong Mall. Then he shut down the computer, locked the door, and drove Feng Nanshu out the school gate.

That night, as the lights came on, a large group of students were waiting to check in at the front desk of Vienna Hotel, IDs in hand.

Of course, there were also some awkward situations when encountering acquaintances.

“You… you’re also getting a room?”

“Oh yeah, 40% off, I’m here to get a room too.”

The new service staff didn’t know about the existence of the group-buy and were a bit dazed, thinking isn’t this international firing-everywhere day?

On the other side, Water Joy Honey Language – Junhan Bathhouse also welcomed a large batch of young customers. They looked tender and fresh-faced but all wore an aloof expression, pretending to be regulars, mouths curled as if they had a few hundred grand in their pockets.

Jiang Qin had specially signed a contract with Boss Wang, requiring them to provide the most proper services, ensuring a massage was just a massage and ear cleaning was just ear cleaning.

Making money wasn’t shameful, but the flowers of the motherland still had to be protected, not polluted by worldly things too early.

At 10 PM, the night was deep. Gold medal masseuse Liu Cuifen rubbed her sore wrists, feeling like she was back at the meat processing plant.

One young guy after another, endlessly, like stamping pork.

“Manager Xu, why are there so many customers today?”

“The boss seems to have partnered with four nearby universities. They’re doing a promotion today. I’m not too clear on the specifics either. You just work hard, you won’t miss out on the commission.”

On the other side, the wood charcoal grilled steak restaurant near the city library was also packed inside and out, drawing whispers from surrounding shops.

To be honest, although this place usually had a stable customer base, it never had the phenomenon of being fully packed. After all, an internet celebrity economy didn’t exist yet. Even if the wine was fragrant, it still had to ferment slowly over time. No shop could become an overnight hit.

Therefore, this matter was very curious to those unaware.

“Little Zhang, Little Zhang, come here for a sec!”

“What’s up, Brother Guo?”

Boss Guo who ran a barbecue shop came over: “Where did you pull in these customers from?”

“Our boss partnered with universities and is doing a promotion recently. I didn’t expect there’d actually be this many people either.” Little Zhang was young and loose-lipped, saying everything he knew.

“Universities?”

“Yeah, I don’t know the specifics. You can ask our manager.”