Chapter 620: Curfew

Feng Nanshu had an 8 PM curfew set, but I had to be back by 8 PM myself, to make sure she wasn’t running around everywhere.

So, is this curfew for her or for you?

Zhou Chao and Ren Ziqiang twitched a smile, thinking, “Jiang is truly Jiang; he might skip classes, but he has a grasp of Chinese grammar that we just don’t understand.”

While chatting, Jiang Qin tidied up his bed and climbed in: “What’s new at school during my absence?”

“Oh yes, recently, the school’s delivery platform went wild with discounts, made me eat till I was round.”

Zhou Chao patted his belly, feeling like the weight he worked hard to shed had come back.

Honestly, some people don’t suit being too thin; Chao looked better with his weight back on.

After hearing this, Ren Ziqiang also showed his hand: “I eat six meals a day, whatever is tasty, but never spend more than five bucks each, absolutely delicious.”

“That really is fresh news, I had no idea.”

Jiang Qin said with a twisted mouth.

College students like Chao and Qiang eat heartily but don’t delve into why platforms offer crazy subsidies.

They felt they missed cheap deals during Jiang’s week away, not realizing it was all because he was backing up the little rich girl.

At this moment, young master Cao seemed to revive, adding: “Those days, I splurged like a king, lunch and dinner were like feasts. Jiang, the meals you had at the internet conference couldn’t compare, check my social media if you don’t believe me.”

“I believe, I do.”

“Too bad prices went back up as soon as you returned. Such is life.”

Cao Guangyu felt like he finally beat Jiang in one aspect: “If you had come back two days earlier, you could’ve enjoyed those meals too. Qiang and Chao have been freeloading my late-night snacks all week.”

Zhou Chao and Ren Ziqiang nodded: “Cao was indeed generous last week.”

Jiang Qin leaned against his headboard: “All that you said, I’m unaware. All I know is that there’s this Meal Point app. I didn’t like it, targeted it at the college market. Hungry didn’t catch on, mistakenly thought I was targeting them, went crazy with discounts and Meal Point started losing business, had no choice but to drop prices.”

“?”

“The price war lasted a week and Meal Point disappeared. Hungry then realized I wasn’t targeting them and gradually returned to regular pricing.”

Jiang Qin adjusted his sitting position: “As an O2O magnate, speaking now roars like a lion.”

Room 302 fell silent suddenly, only a small moth flew around the white light bulb at the dorm’s ceiling, as if it was the only thing moving in the whole world.

After a while, Chao, carrying a washing basin, paused by Cao’s bed, reached out to check his breathing.

“Still alive?”

“Still alive,” Chao touched his face, “he’s still warm.”

Ren Ziqiang exhaled in relief, thinking it must be his bro Cao, facing a direct blast and still alive, truly indestructible.

Then he turned to face the wall corner and started sweet-talking Wang Linlin on the phone.

Meanwhile, Jiang Qin also pulled the quilt over himself, checked his phone and saw the WeChat group for room 503 had reached 99+ messages.

The messages were useless, just spamming emoticons.

These emoticons showed a round-headed kid sipping bubble tea, sent by Gao Wenhui and Wang Haini, who also tagged him, seemingly for him to see.

Messages from the little rich girl were mixed among these emoticons, seeming a bit frantic.

【Don’t send this, Wang Haini, you’re a bad person】

【Gao Wenhui, you’re bad too, I won’t give you bonuses anymore】

She also sent two emoticons, one a frowning round-faced little girl, the other a pitiful-looking little hamster.

Jiang Qin looked for a while but couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

What’s so nice about these emoticons? The little rich girl and her dormmates are inexplicably absurd.

“Feng Nanshu, go to sleep early, don’t stay up too late.”

“Got it, going to sleep now.”

Feng Nanshu sent an “I’m obediently sleeping” emoji and the group gradually quieted down.

The next morning, sunlight streamed in from the window. As soon as he opened his eyes, it was bright daylight.

Jiang Qin drove to the Group-buy Headquarters, gathered the Linchuan brand representatives for a meeting. One, he introduced a radical upgrade plan for the business circle 4.0; two, he requested them to send a manager to Shanghai for the Wanzhong Gathering project discussion.

The strategic partnership model of Linchuan Business Group, which he established, is now very mature, collecting profits together.

Online, using Group-Buy as a platform to attract user traffic; offline, using Wanzhong as a platform to aggregate resources of the business district.

Plus, the Group-Buy Supply Chain, providing supply and cost compression from the source.

The growth of the takeout industry also helped them support a batch of small fast-food brands rapidly. Now, the Group-Buy + Business Group’s commercial network is practically ubiquitous.

Running an internet platform is all about resource integration, and brick-and-mortar stores need sufficient traffic. This was Jiang Qin’s plan two years ago, and it has now become a reality.

The bosses of Linchuan Business Group almost worshipped Jiang Qin, thinking he was the earthly embodiment of the God of Wealth, expecting him to turn a coin and transform any day.

Hearing the arrangements, the big brands’ bosses mobilized their people, flew to Shanghai, attended the Wanzhong merchant assembly, and signed contracts.

A project that hadn’t even started—merely a proposal—yet its merchant hiring was completed in just three days.

Meanwhile, Joy City faced repeated setbacks in its merchant hiring, causing unrest from the executives to the employees of the Feng Corporation.

Two months ago, Feng Corporation had just gone through a split, with Qin Real Estate breaking away completely, severing business dealings with Feng Shi Real Estate.

Then, Feng Corporation underwent a massive layoff wave; many veteran employees were ‘optimized’.

Those who weren’t laid off felt lucky, grateful to have their jobs intact.

And based on their experience, after a company has made a cut, it usually wouldn’t have another such large-scale layoff for at least three to five years.

However, the reality wasn’t as optimistic.

With sequential investment failures by Hurricane Investment, Feng Shi Real Estate’s Joy City project faced obstacles in attracting merchants.

If things continued down this path, another layoff for cost-reduction and efficiency might become necessary.

The board was also anxious about the current development state of Feng.

“It’s normal for a new brand like Joy City to face difficulties in attracting merchants, especially since all previous commercial real estate projects were launched under the name of Qin Real Estate while Qin Jingqiu was in charge. Although we’re an established company, we now need to rebuild our brand influence,” expressed Feng Shihua, standing by the floor-to-ceiling window with a group of executives seated behind him.

“The location is the most crucial for malls, and our site is better than Wanzhong Mall’s,” he continued.

The Director of the Real Estate Business Group, Huang Weitao, nodded in agreement, “That’s indeed a good point.”

“So we do have an advantage, but since our merchant attracting capability is lacking, let’s offer a two-year rent discount. Let’s build the Joy City brand starting with this.”

In the current industry, Wanda does branding best and Wanzhong does merchant attracting best.

Joy City needs to make initial sacrifices to carve out its share.

With a good location and high traffic, just offer a two-year rent discount to make merchant attracting smoother and kickstart the first mall, establishing brand value. Then, the second and third Joy City malls will naturally draw merchants.

Essentially, they intended to use the first Joy City as a model.

“We’re pumping substantial funds into this project and offering rent discounts, a significant burden for the company,” someone noted.

“But this is the most suitable solution right now. If we hesitate here, following steps would be tough,” remarked Mr. Feng confidently.

“Okay, Mr. Feng, I’ll arrange for the Merchant Department to handle it.”

After the rent discount scheme for Joy City was implemented, it indeed attracted a large number of brand merchants for negotiations.

Just as Feng Shihua predicted, Joy City’s advantageous location and substantial traffic, coupled with reduced rent, significantly boosted its appeal, and merchant attracting gradually smoothed out.

Yet, the worries of the executives and employees didn’t diminish.

Given the slow return on investment for Joy City and now rent discounts, Feng still lacked sufficient profitability.

Although layoffs had saved the group a substantial amount of cash flow, the profit-thin yet heavily investing operation model left them unsure what the future held.

Thus, private discussions began to increase; many people started reminiscing about the times when Qin Jingqiu was in charge.

“If Mr. Qin were here…” such sentiments were repeatedly mentioned during this tricky period.

Feng Shihua occasionally heard these comments but opted to act as if he hadn’t.

Since returning to China, he indeed hadn’t managed to boost Feng’s performance quickly, showing a clear decline compared to the period under Qin Jingqiu’s leadership—an undeniable fact.

Specifically, his two mishaps in investing in the internet industry also diminished his authority.

But he felt this was temporary, confident that Joy City would eventually bring Feng to a peak.

Feng Shihua, hands in his pockets, gazed out the floor-to-ceiling window at bustling Shanghai, his lips twitched slightly as he thought of his daughter and her boyfriend.

Recently, he had thoroughly reviewed Jiang Qin’s information and understood Linchuan Business Group’s partnership model, knowing his future son-in-law was not just involved in internet platforms.

In his industrial chain, the splendid brands were enough to support the traffic needed for a commercial complex.

Thinking this, Feng Shihua would fall into prolonged silence.