“It’s okay, just tell me the truth. How many customers have come these past two days, how many have dined, and how many have reserved meals for later?” Pei Qian asked patiently.

Lin Canrong answered truthfully, "Eight customers have come in the past two days, three have dined, and one has reserved dinner for tomorrow."

"Hmm... hmm?"

Pei Qian was quite satisfied with the first two numbers.

So few people were nothing to worry about.

In a few days, when Zhang Zuting posted a new Weibo and this one was pushed down, there definitely wouldn't be any new customers.

But, one customer actually reserved dinner for tomorrow?

Rich people really were abundant.

Pei Qian thought for a moment and asked, "What dishes did they reserve?"

Lin Canrong listed several rare dishes, including tomahawk steak, caviar, matsutake mushrooms, and so on. The quantity wasn't large, seemingly only for two or three people, but the price reached over ten thousand.

Moreover, this customer had already paid a 20% deposit.

Pei Qian fell silent.

He really didn't understand the world of the rich.

Although Pei Qian himself gorged on these things, even inviting his employees to feast together, it was all to spend money urgently!

Spending all the money meant he could exploit the system, and the system would replenish the money, so Pei Qian could spend it without any heartache.

But if Pei Qian had to pay out of his own pocket for these things, even a common dish costing three or four hundred yuan would feel expensive!

Looking at this customer, casually ordering over ten thousand yuan’s worth.

Pei Qian was originally optimistic. Ming Yun Private Kitchen had received less than a double-digit number of customers so far, and the situation was originally looking great.

He never expected that among these few customers, there was actually a hidden tycoon???

For a moment, Pei Qian felt confused about the situation.

Lin Canrong saw President Pei's silence and didn't quite understand what he was thinking.

Logically, this should be good news, right? But why didn't President Pei have even a hint of a smile on his face?

Pei Qian pondered for a moment and asked, "Can you tell where this person is from by their accent?"

Lin Canrong thought for a moment, "They spoke Mandarin, but with a slight accent. Probably not a local from Jingzhou, sounded a bit like someone from Pingcheng."

A coal boss?

That was Pei Qian's first reaction.

But thinking on the bright side, since they weren't local to Jingzhou, maybe they were just here recently for business or a trip, and probably wouldn't live in Jingzhou permanently.

If they didn't live here permanently, that was good.

Even a tycoon probably couldn't afford to eat here every day, at most they'd come over when entertaining guests or for business banquets.

Thinking this way, it probably... wouldn't let Ming Yun Private Kitchen earn too much money, right?

Thinking of this, Pei Qian felt a little relieved, feeling that he had been a bit too jumpy lately.

Now that the private kitchen was open, since it had to entertain his own employees, how could there be no leaks?

Having a few tycoons come to eat was originally within the plan. In the long run, this private kitchen would still lose money.

So, there was no need to be so nervous.

After hearing that this tycoon wasn't a local from Jingzhou, Pei Qian felt much more at ease.

The two chatted casually about the daily operations of the private kitchen, and Little Sun drove back.

"Then let's leave it at that. Remember our service motto: even for tycoons, the rules can't be broken. Just have the waiters treat them with a normal attitude."

"Also, our store name cannot be spread around."

Pei Qian gave a few more instructions and got into the car to leave.

After seeing President Pei off, Lin Canrong carefully pondered the deeper meaning of his words.

"President Pei means that even if we encounter tycoons, we don't need to be too nervous, because Ming Yun Private Kitchen will have many, many tycoon customers in the future?"

"If we break the rules for one tycoon now, then when there are more tycoons in the future, the rules will become meaningless."

"Yes, that makes a lot of sense!"

"President Pei really has a long-term vision. He thought of what Ming Yun Private Kitchen would look like when it becomes a huge success when he made the rules. Truly planning ahead."

"So President Pei is also reminding me not to be easily satisfied. How can I be so happy just because one tycoon came? I'm the manager of this place, I need to be calm."

"In the future, tycoons coming to eat will probably be the norm."

"I'll go and convey President Pei's spirit to the staff now."

Lin Canrong felt that the future of Ming Yun Private Kitchen was bright and happily went to share this good news with the others.

...

...

August 21st, Saturday.

At Ming Yun Private Kitchen, they were preparing for the dinner party that evening.

Qiao Liang planned to go to Jingzhou in the morning to wander around and have some fun, then work overtime in the afternoon and continue playing *Turning Back is the Shore*.

President Pei was so generous, he had to complete the task with guaranteed quality and quantity.

Meanwhile, at Shang Yang Games, the development of *AOG: Enhanced Edition* had been completed, and they were just waiting to test it one last time before officially launching the advertising and promotion.

Today was Saturday, and according to President Pei's consistent requirements, overtime was not allowed on holidays.

As the director, Lin Wan initially wanted to persuade everyone to go back, but with the game's launch date approaching, Wang Xiaobin and Ye Zhizhou couldn't sit still at home and strongly requested to come back and work overtime, so Lin Wan had no choice but to approve.

Of course, Lin Wan herself couldn't stay idle.

Thinking that the game she had poured her heart and soul into would officially meet the players in a week, everyone felt both excited and apprehensive.

The micro-client of *AOG: Enhanced Edition* was finally controlled at 370MB, which completely exceeded everyone's initial expectations.

The original *AOG* was a web game that could be played instantly.

Most web games have micro-clients controlled within 5MB.

A few web games have micro-clients between 30 and 50MB.

Any larger than that wouldn't be called a micro-client anymore, because according to the standards of web games, the time it took to download 370MB of data was too long. Players might as well just play a client-based game.

The vast majority of web game players would find it hard to tolerate downloading 370MB of data.

But Lin Wan had no better option, because according to the previous standards, *AOG: Enhanced Edition* had been transformed from 2D to 3D, and the art resources had been redone. No matter how much these resources were compressed or optimized, it would be difficult to reduce them further.

370MB was already the result of a great deal of effort in optimization.

The risk was high, but it had come to this, and there was no turning back.

Thinking on the bright side, perhaps the game's quality, which far exceeded that of ordinary web games, and its fair gameplay could force a change in the tastes of some traditional web game players?

What's more, there was also President Pei's personally orchestrated advertising.

Lin Wan wasn't confident, but she believed that President Pei must have already made arrangements.

Wang Xiaobin knocked gently on the door. "Director Lin, the preliminary promotional work is ready."

"Currently, we are mainly投放 (toufang) [distributing/placing] it on various websites, including novel websites, video websites, game websites, anime websites, navigation websites, and so on."

"As agreed before, our promotional videos will not have mandatory pop-ups or web psoriasis. Only when players click on them will they be redirected to the game's registration and download page."

Although it was still conventional advertising, some of the more annoying advertising methods had been eliminated at Lin Wan's insistence.

In fact, the current state of web game advertising was still full of chaos. Things like inexplicable pop-up web pages and psoriasis ads in the lower right corner were commonplace, and they also gave many netizens a very bad experience.

But it had to be said that this shameless pop-up method was also the most effective.

Rejecting this pop-up method would reduce the advertising effect, and it might not even get any good reputation—because netizens might not even realize it.

But Lin Wan and everyone discussed it and decided to adopt this method.

After all, Shang Yang Games was no longer the Shang Yang Games of the past and had to be completely distinguished from those web game manufacturers without a bottom line.

Lin Wan was satisfied after listening to Wang Xiaobin's report. "Thank you for your hard work. The next task is to polish the game well. Maybe it's difficult to change the players' tastes, but we've tried our best."

Wang Xiaobin nodded, deeply agreeing with Lin Wan's statement.

Although Director Lin didn't manage every detail of everything during the research and development period, this optimistic and high-spirited spirit was indeed inherited from President Pei, which was very rare.

"So, everyone, prepare yourselves. There's one more week for final testing. Let some old players come in to experience it and give their opinions."

"One week later, the game will be officially launched, and the promotional work will be fully launched!"

...

...

In the evening, Ming Yun Private Kitchen.

"See? I told you there was a great restaurant here, but you wouldn't believe me. Do you believe me now? The promoters you found aren't skilled enough!"

Xue Zhebian crossed his legs, his face filled with a smile, feeling very proud.

This meal he reserved yesterday was really worth it!

As soon as he entered the door, Xue Zhebian felt the difference.

The decorations, dining table, and tableware in the entire private room had all been changed!

When he came at noon yesterday, because Ming Yun Private Kitchen didn't have any other guests, Xue Zhebian also chose this private room, but at that time, he hadn't made a reservation, so the private room still had the regular decorations. Although the environment was also very good, it wasn't very distinctive.

Today was different. Because Xue Zhebian had made a reservation in advance, the decorations, dining table, and tableware in the private room were also determined according to the dishes. The entire style was highly unified, including the tablecloth and the arrangement on the table, which showed that it had been carefully prepared.

In short, he felt a sense of brightness as soon as he came in!

The young man sitting opposite Xue Zhebian looked a little older than him, but not yet thirty.

Completely different from Xue Zhebian's nouveau riche temperament, this young man was wearing formal attire, completely in business style. The first impression he gave was that of a career elite.

At this time, he was tasting the food while looking at the review software on his phone with a puzzled expression.

"Jingzhou City has such a high-quality private kitchen, and our promoters didn't find it. How did you find it?"

On the map of the review software, this place was just ordinary empty land, with nothing there.

Xue Zhebian smiled very smugly. "You don't need to know how I found it. You lost the bet, so you're paying for this meal!"

The young man sitting opposite him was named Wang Peng, and he was one of the co-founders of Quanmin Dianping.

As a survivor of the group-buying website battles, Quanmin Dianping has been rapidly expanding from first-tier cities to second- and third-tier cities in recent years, and Jingzhou is one of the key cities in its target.

In order to expand the market and attract merchants faster, Wang Peng proposed setting up "promoters" in each city. The promoters' daily work was to find some undiscovered stores and persuade them to become Quanmin Dianping's partner merchants.

The promoter system did have a good effect. Quanmin Dianping expanded rapidly in Jingzhou and currently covers most of the merchants.

Especially for restaurants with excellent dishes and high standards, promoters would receive generous performance bonuses after successfully establishing a cooperative relationship, so Quanmin Dianping's promoters were making every effort to discover such stores.

Even if the merchants were unwilling to establish a cooperative relationship, Quanmin Dianping's website would at least mark the store, so this situation of nothing being on the map shouldn't have occurred.

It was precisely because of this reason that Wang Peng didn't believe what Xue Zhebian said, and he was a little unconvinced.

He felt that it was impossible for Jingzhou to have a restaurant that was so high-end in all aspects without being discovered by Quanmin Dianping.

The waiter stood smiling nearby, waiting to serve.

Wang Peng asked, "How long has your store been open?"

The waiter replied with a smile, "It's been more than half a month."

Wang Peng was even more puzzled.

He really couldn't figure out what was going on. Quanmin Dianping had so many promoters in Jingzhou, who were looking everywhere for undiscovered merchants every day. As a result, this store had been open for more than half a month, and the promoters hadn't discovered it, but Xue Zhebian had.

This was too absurd.

Wang Peng asked again, "What's the name of your store?"

He was considering whether to win over the owner of this store and establish a cooperative relationship with Quanmin Dianping.

The waiter replied with a smile, "Sir, our store has no name."

"We hope that what you remember is the good dining environment, the meticulous and thoughtful service, and the unforgettable cuisine, rather than a mere name."