Chapter 147 The Chosen One

June 1st, Friday.

Meng Chang, wearing a mask, sunglasses, and a baseball cap, arrived near the food market in the old industrial district.

Originally, Meng Chang had completely lost his motivation, but after chatting with President Pei yesterday, the little flame of hope in his heart rekindled.

So, he came to investigate today.

After eliminating one wrong option, three options remained: the food market, the experience store, and the Inspiration Class.

Today was already Friday, and it was impossible to thoroughly investigate all three industries within this week, but Meng Chang still felt that he should push the time forward as much as possible.

The sooner he investigated, the sooner he could determine a promotional plan, and the more money he burned, the more commissions he would earn.

The increased base salary wasn't really encouraging Meng Chang to adopt conservative promotional plans, but rather to make more adventurous ones.

Because without any worries, he should pursue high commissions!

In short, after President Pei adjusted the contents of their agreement, Meng Chang rekindled his enthusiasm for commissions!

Today, Meng Chang was fully armed, wrapping his face tightly, afraid of being recognized.

Not because of any idol baggage, nor because he was afraid of running into fans on the street.

The reason he was so cautious was to guard against President Pei's employees.

Meng Chang had also reviewed his previous failures and found that there seemed to be a huge shadow behind them, and that was President Pei!

Take the promotion of *Mission and Choice* for example. Who in their right mind would change the game's release date for no reason?

Although President Pei said afterward that it was to collide with *Fantasy Battle Remastered*, Meng Chang was still a little suspicious that this might just be a front, and the real reason was to target him.

There were many similar situations.

Every time, Meng Chang felt that he had a good grasp of the situation, but always because of some inexplicable and coincidental trivialities, his plan would fall short and be ruined.

Once or twice was fine, but how many times had this happened!

Was it possible that President Pei wasn't messing with him?

Meng Chang felt that, at the very least, President Pei must have been messing with him in one or two of these failures. The purpose was to ruin his plans so that he could only get his base salary.

Although Meng Chang had no evidence to prove it, he was deeply convinced of this.

Therefore, there must be many of President Pei's informants in various departments.

Even the advertising and marketing department was not immune.

As the saying goes, "Secrets are the key to success, while leaks lead to failure," meaning that the better the confidentiality, the higher the chances of success.

Therefore, this time Meng Chang decided to do everything possible to keep things secret. He would absolutely not let President Pei guess which project he was going to promote until the promotional plan was officially launched.

In this way, the probability of getting a commission would definitely be greatly increased!

Meng Chang pretended to be a curious passerby and strolled around the food market.

Many people in Jingzhou were very interested in Tengda's new industries, so many people were wandering around nearby. These people were of different ages. Some of the older ones might be local residents nearby, old men and women coming to take a walk and take a look, while some young people might have come from afar to see it for themselves.

Meng Chang mingled among them, concealing his whereabouts well.

According to the construction schedule, the food market would not officially open for more than two weeks, so no vendors had moved in yet, and there was still some finishing work to be done on the decoration.

Although the general style of the entire food market had been determined, it was still very difficult to deduce whether it would be a hit based on this alone.

Meng Chang walked around the food market twice, still without any clues.

Based on what he saw, it was difficult to determine whether it would be a hit.

But at this moment, his eyes suddenly lit up when he saw someone he knew.

Wasn't that Li Shi from Fuhui Capital?

If it hadn't been for Li Shi, Meng Chang wouldn't have been in debt, let alone fallen to his current state.

Strictly speaking, Meng Chang hated Li Shi even more than President Pei.

After all, President Pei gave Meng Chang the feeling of being the ultimate villain in a movie, who, although hateful, was powerful and full of personal charm; while President Li gave Meng Chang the feeling of being a lackey of the big villain, who, although not necessarily very harmful, was full of bad ideas and should be guarded against!

It's easier to deal with the King of Hell than a minor devil.

But now was not the time to hold grudges, because Li Shi's appearance would reveal some information.

Meng Chang temporarily put aside his hatred, quietly pretending to be an ordinary passerby casually strolling around, and followed Li Shi not far behind, silently observing.

Li Shi would definitely not come here for no reason, there must be something going on!

Meng Chang had long discovered that Li Shi and several other investors in Jingzhou were closely surrounding President Pei, following his lead.

And Li Shi appearing near President Pei's new industry... this was definitely not a good sign.

Sure enough, Li Shi went all the way to a shop near the food market, and chatted with the owner after entering.

After chatting for about half an hour, Li Shi seemed very satisfied, came out with a smile, and went to the next shop to continue chatting.

Meng Chang carefully kept his distance from Li Shi, staring at his whereabouts from afar.

What was he talking to these shop owners about?

Obviously, he wanted to buy the shops!

There was no other explanation at all.

Meng Chang couldn't help but sneer in his heart: No need to look, another wrong answer eliminated!

This was President Pei's usual trick, and Meng Chang already knew something about it.

When building the Thriller Paradise, President Pei's funds were somewhat insufficient, making it difficult to build the entire Thriller Paradise, including the surrounding supporting facilities.

Therefore, President Pei deliberately divided the surrounding supporting businesses among Li Shi and other investors in Jingzhou.

In this way, the surrounding supporting facilities were available, and the publicity work for the Thriller Paradise was also in place. Although some benefits were distributed, many hands make light work, and more money was earned.

Now President Pei obviously wanted to repeat the old trick!

It was impossible for Tengda to buy all the shops around the food market, so it deliberately divided a part and left it for President Li and other investors to buy.

In this way, not only did he not have to pay too much money himself, but he could also firmly control all the surrounding shops in his own hands, with unified development and unified planning.

Seeing this, Meng Chang basically confirmed that this food market was likely to be a hit.

Because since President Pei had arranged for President Li and the others to buy all the surrounding shops, he obviously had 100% confidence in this food market.

At that time, even if Meng Chang's promotional plan was very good, and spending money was ineffective, he probably still wouldn't get a commission.

Because President Li and the others would definitely find a way to make this place a hit!

With the favor of so much capital, even if they threw money at it, they would have to make this place a hit.

It could be said that seeing President Li get involved basically meant that this place couldn't be touched.

Because President Li was not only President Pei's puppet and an extension of President Pei's will, but he would also actively implement President Pei's intentions to prevent his own interests from being harmed.

Judging from previous cases, any project that involved President Li was definitely the project that President Pei valued the most.

And for the commercial genius President Pei, "most valued" often meant "definitely a hit"!

Meng Chang didn't stay any longer, immediately gave up on the food market, and took a taxi to the next inspection site: the Tengda Experience Store opposite Yuanda Tiandi.

This counted as official business, so the taxi could be reimbursed.

...

Because the two places were far apart, and there was a bit of traffic on the way, it took Meng Chang almost an hour to arrive at Tengda's Experience Store.

This was Meng Chang's first time at Tengda's Experience Store.

However, after getting out of the car, Meng Chang just glanced at it from a distance before pulling open the car door and getting back in.

"Master, let's go, I've changed my itinerary."

The driver didn't ask any more questions and drove away.

Just now, when Meng Chang got out of the car, he just glanced at the surrounding environment and collected the following information.

Tengda's Experience Store was opposite the GPL league's competition venue, which often welcomed players from all over the country, and it seemed that the GPL Spring Split Finals were about to begin;

Tengda's Experience Store occupied the most perfect piece of land in the entire shopping mall, and the huge glass curtain wall was extremely imposing, and it was even expected to become a new landmark attraction in Jingzhou City;

Two unusually large screens were under construction outside the mall. Once the construction was completed, these two screens would bring a great visual impact to passers-by, and might even be photographed and posted online, causing even greater buzz.

Therefore, Meng Chang didn't intend to go inside at all. He just glanced at it from the outside and knew that this was probably also a wrong answer.

Whether it was the food market or the experience store, even if he racked his brains to come up with a promotional plan and painstakingly tried to reduce the heat, he estimated that it would only last for two weeks at most, and he would only get his base salary.

Meng Chang would never do anything where the effort and the reward were completely disproportionate.

"President Pei is too much. Although he gave me four options, which seems like a lot, at least three of them are wrong! Choosing them would be like working for him for free!"

"There's still one last option, the authors' Inspiration Class."

"I don't know if this option will also be a wrong option, but at least, it has to give me a little room to maneuver, right?"

"Ah, President Pei, please be a human being!"

The more Meng Chang thought about it, the more melancholy he felt.

At first, he naively thought that it was just screwing up the promotional plan, how simple!

But now, Meng Chang increasingly felt that this was an epic difficulty, an impossible task!

And as Tengda gradually grew stronger, the difficulty of this matter would only increase. Because Tengda was such a maverick company, its every move would be watched by netizens, and any behavior would be repeatedly interpreted by netizens. Even a very ordinary promotion could have unexpected results.

Meng Chang didn't know what to do in the future, so he could only take it one step at a time.

...

At more than four o'clock in the afternoon, Meng Chang walked out of the building where Zhongdian Chinese Network's "Inspiration Class" was located.

He had finished his investigation before getting off work!

In fact, Meng Chang hadn't planned to be so fast. According to the original plan, he had reserved at least three days.

He had originally planned to finish the investigation and determine the final project to be promoted by Tuesday.

But he didn't expect the first two projects to be investigated so quickly. He had passed them after just looking at them and walking around a few times, so he had saved so much time.

Although this was a sad story, there were benefits: Meng Chang could quickly formulate a promotional plan over the weekend, and then implement it immediately on Monday.

In this way, he could minimize the possibility of leaks and prevent President Pei from messing around.

"It seems like there are four choices, but in reality, there is only one choice."

"I can only promote this Inspiration Class."

"Although the copyright development plan for this Inspiration Class is very grand, all the plans will only officially begin in two months. The time in between gives me a lot of room to maneuver."

"I need to come up with a foolproof promotional plan over the weekend."

"And this plan must be simple enough, preferably one that doesn't require any preparation and can be directly put on subway stations, bus stations, and billboards."

"The fewer the intermediate links, the lower the possibility of leaks, and the fewer opportunities President Pei has to mess around."

"Yeah, let's do it that way!"

Meng Chang's spirits were lifted.

Although the previous three options were all terrible, and doing a promotional plan would definitely be a rhythm to get his base salary again, it was good that there was still the Inspiration Class option.

Meng Chang felt like he was trapped in a large formation. Although there were crises everywhere and many difficulties, no matter what, President Pei still left him a "life gate"!

As for whether he could seize this opportunity, it would depend on his own good fortune.