"Renshu, quick, help me record this. Let’s calculate together.
"Let’s do it several times to make sure we don’t make any mistakes.
"The data on the computer mentioned before that urban road density is approximately 3km per square kilometer, so for a 700 square kilometer city, the urban roads would be about... 2,100 kilometers.
"As for streetlight spacing, it should be at least 20 meters or more, right? Between 20 to 50 meters? Let’s calculate based on an average of 30 meters. With streetlights on both sides of the road, that would be... 140,000 streetlights.
"The problem states that each streetlight has a power of 150W, but we also need to consider the daily average lighting time. Let’s calculate based on 10 hours.
"Multiply these two numbers together, and that’s the final answer.
"...About 210,000 kilowatt-hours."
Since they didn’t have a calculator, the two could only do mental arithmetic, so they were very afraid of making mistakes and each calculated several more times.
Fortunately, the game time was 10 minutes, providing sufficient time for calculation and verification.
At this moment, both felt somewhat relieved that this problem wasn’t too excessive. If they had been asked to directly calculate the annual power consumption and then multiply by 365, just doing the mental arithmetic for that data could have caused their brains to overload."Should we enter 210,000? Do we need to adjust it up or down a bit? Add some margin?" Xu Tong asked.
Li Renshu shook her head, "No need. Adjusting up or down would just be deceiving ourselves.
"Since we’ve already taken average values for uncertain data during our calculation process, this number is already the result after adjustment. Making further adjustments based on intuition might actually cause greater deviation due to incorrect instincts.
"Let’s go with 210,000."
Xu Tong somewhat anxiously entered the number 210,000 into the tablet.
Before clicking the button to submit the answer, she looked at Li Renshu again, "Should we make additional investments?"
Li Renshu considered seriously for a moment, "Yes!
"Currently, there’s already a certain gap between our funding chain and theirs. The key is that we must shatter their confidence before they’ll agree to cooperate with us.
"Since we have data provided by virtual employees, this risk is worth taking."
Xu Tong nodded. After both of them made additional investments in sequence, they clicked the button on the screen to submit their answer.
[Company 17 Limited’s market research results are closer to the actual situation, seizing this business opportunity and earning a reward of 30,000 minutes of visa time.]
[Due to Company 17 Limited’s additional investment of 20,000, they will receive an extra reward of 20,000 minutes of visa time.]
[This market research activity has ended. Please both parties exit and wait for the next business opportunity to appear.]
"Yay!"
Seeing this result, Xu Tong couldn’t help but get excited and high-fived Li Renshu in celebration.
Li Renshu let out a long breath. It seemed they had calculated correctly.
The opposing team’s statements indeed contained elements of bluffing. If they had panicked and lost their fighting spirit because of it, they truly would have had no chance of winning afterward.
The virtual employees’ data played a crucial role.
Without this piece of data, Li Renshu and Xu Tong would probably still be clueless and couldn’t have estimated such a precise number.
Regardless, this additional investment not only gained extra profits but also severely suppressed the opposing team’s psychological advantage.
The two people from Community 8 looked meaningfully in their direction, then silently exited.
...
"Fu Chen! We succeeded!
"Fifty thousand visa time!"
Xu Tong and Li Renshu swiped their work cards through the turnstiles and couldn’t wait to share the good news with Fu Chen.
Fu Chen was also very happy, "I’ve been watching the computer the whole time and recorded three pieces of data. Also, I noticed that employees with higher salaries seem to have a higher probability of reporting this data.
"The data pop-ups all came from employees with salaries above 5,000 who have ’Assistant Manager’ titles.
"Besides that, this data only appears when executives go out for market research.
"Before you left and after you returned, no similar pop-ups appeared."
Xu Tong nodded, "Hmm? I didn’t pay much attention to the timing aspect before.
"But I also noticed the correlation between salary and data. Employees with higher salaries have a higher probability of providing data. The previous data about the movie theater was reported by an employee with a monthly salary of 10,000."
Li Renshu looked thoughtful, "Then it seems these expensive employees indeed have their reasons for being expensive and can’t be laid off casually."
Fu Chen nodded, "So not laying off employees is the right choice."
Li Renshu looked at the refreshed company information interface on the computer and fell into contemplation again.
"It’s still hard to say."
[Company 17 Limited]
[March company account balance: 157,000 minutes of visa time]
[April estimated income: 60,000 minutes of visa time]
[April estimated expenses: 68,000 minutes of visa time]
Although it seemed like a new high had been achieved, careful calculation revealed that crises still lurked everywhere.
Every month, estimated income would decrease by 20,000.
Next month, if they couldn’t complete market research, the company would start operating at a loss.
What’s worse, the margin for error would become smaller as time went on. With expenses significantly higher than the company’s estimated income, failing to complete market research for two consecutive rounds could very likely lead to company bankruptcy.
Li Renshu said, "We still can’t determine exactly when the market winter will end, but judging from the monthly design, it’s quite possible it could last until December.
"If that’s the case, layoffs and salary cuts would be inevitable. Because we can’t ensure we’ll win every market research, and we can’t guarantee that every additional investment won’t result in losses.
"Xu Tong, have you finished preparing the layoff plan?"
Xu Tong nodded, "Yes, I’ve selected four candidates for layoffs. I’ve comprehensively considered their age, position, department, salary level, and so on. It shouldn’t have too much impact on company operations."
Li Renshu thought for a moment, "Are there any with high salaries?"
Xu Tong immediately nodded, "Yes, I laid off proportionally, so there’s one with a monthly salary of 7,000 minutes of visa time.
"Among all employees, that’s considered quite high."
Fu Chen asked, "Should we replace them with someone with a lower salary? After all, from what we’ve seen before, high salaries have their reasons, with higher probability of providing data."
Li Renshu shook her head, "No, probability is unreliable because there are many underlying factors involved.
"The most stable approach is still to lay off proportionally.
"Let’s submit this plan to Aunt Su. Fu Chen, you continue monitoring the computer and recording data. For the next market research, we’ll choose the social field. I should be relatively good at that area, and from the data currently provided by virtual employees, there’s also slightly more data related to the social field."
Fu Chen stood up to return to his office, "Alright."
Although he had already noticed that during non-market research times, there wouldn’t be similar pop-up windows, since there was nothing else to do now, he might as well keep watching for a while longer. What if there were exceptional circumstances?
After Xu Tong submitted the plan, Li Renshu directly stood up and headed to the CEO’s office.
"I think it’s still necessary to explain this to Aunt Su."