Losing Money to Be a Tycoon c1-883

by Inebriation-seeking Blue Shirt, 青衫取醉

  The H4 Club’s GOG team headed straight towards Ming Yun Villas.

  “When the time comes, we can just have the mock competition in a random internet cafe, right?”

  “I heard that there’s a famous internet cafe chain in Jingzhou called the Fish-Catching Internet Cafe. It’s said that it has good hardware and a good environment. I wonder if we will go there for the mock competition.”

  “Is the hardware really good? How good can it be?”

  “Who knows? I think the internet cafe is overrated online. It would definitely be better than the internet cafe we often visit, but it can’t be that much better, right? Anyway, we’ll find out when we get there…”

  There were a total of six members in the H4 team. They hailed two taxis and then arrived at Ming Yun Villas half an hour later. Since they had nothing to do during the journey, they enjoyed the scenery outside the window.

  The biggest sense that they got was that it was really different from Shanghai!

  After all, Jingzhou was a second-tier city without the skyscrapers one could see in Shanghai. There were also no special-looking buildings like the Oriental Pearl Tower. As they looked around during the journey, they only saw ordinary city landscapes and nothing special.

  That made all of them feel better about themselves. In fact, it made them all feel slightly superior.

  That was because they had always heard about Jingzhou being a convenient city to live in, with internet cafes, take-out, and deliveries being easily within reach. In fact, some even said that Jingzhou was nicer to live in than Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou. That caused the H4 club to feel slightly indignant.

  Now, from the looks of the situation, or at least in terms of the buildings; Shanghai was far better than Jingzhou.

  The two cars stopped at Ming Yun Villas one by one. When they saw the wide and spacious villa, the first hint of admiration appeared on the team member’s faces.

  It looked much more impressive than the villa they were staying in on the outskirts of Shanghai!

  However, they quickly recalled that land here was much cheaper. The cost of one villa in Shanghai was comparable to two over here. At once, they felt better again.

  As H4’s Captain Pang Ling surveyed the villa in front of him, he realized that he had been in an inexplicable state of competition ever since he stepped onto Jingzhou soil.

  Once he realized that, he became shocked.

  However, on further thought, it was not strange to feel this way.

  That was because the H4 Club’s team members had been miserably defeated by the DGE Club before. Of course, they would feel all sorts of indignance!

  Everyone was a skilled master. They had only joined the H4 Club after undergoing rigorous training. The H4 Club was one of the longest standing clubs in the country. How many young internet addicts dreamt of joining this club and becoming professional gamers?

  Pang Ling and the others had been extremely proud to become members of the H4 Club’s GOG team.

  However, the DGE Club’s team had ruthlessly crushed their pride. Individually and as a team, H4 had been utterly defeated.

  How could the H4 Club’s team accept that?

  They felt like a bunch of martial arts talents who had trained intensely from a young age to get into a proper sect. Yet, a small sect that had seemed to pop out of nowhere tore down their school and defeated them miserably.

  Of course, they would feel emotionally unstable!

  Thus, everyone in the H4 Club developed insecurity and began comparing subconsciously.

  At that thought, Pang Ling became cautious. He warned himself to remain objective. As a professional esports athlete, managing one’s emotions was the most important lesson.

  Pang Ling sucked in a deep breath and told himself not to overthink but to focus on the mock competition that they would be having with the DGE Club.

  Zhang Yuan walked out and welcomed them.

  “Team Leader Su! Please, come in.”

  Zhang Yuan was very passionate. After all, DGE Club would have to build strong connections with many other local esports clubs in the future. He could not go wrong with nurturing those relationships now.

  “Our training ground is very simple. Please take a seat wherever. It’s going to be lunchtime, and so I’ve ordered take-out for everyone. We can go to Fish-Catching Internet Cafe for the mock competition once we’ve eaten.”

  Team Leader Su nodded. “Alright, we’ll go with the host’s plan. Brother Zhang, just do as you see fit.”

  H4’s team members walked in and looked around with interest. The villa had a yard with well-maintained greenery. Obviously, a professional had been hired for that.

  When they arrived at the training hall, everyone stopped speaking. Pang Ling had no idea how to express his feelings at that moment.

  Is this what you meant when you said your training ground is simple?!

  This villa had been Boss Li’s, and they had kept the renovations the same after buying it over, instead of adding more luxurious decorations. However, the original renovations were already very exquisite!

  Zhang Yuan had even bought various furniture and computers so that the entire training hall looked legitimate and harmonious. It looked nothing like a mere guesthouse.

  Pang Ling compared it to H4’s own training ground and immediately noticed a huge difference! H4 Club’s villa was rented, and it contained the landlord’s furniture and random items. Since they couldn’t throw them away, they had no choice but to put them to good use.

  Thus, the entire place looked quite haphazard.

  They had furniture from the landlord and newly purchased furniture which were different in style. What’s more, they didn’t look that nice.

  Needless to say, the hostel’s conditions were even worse. Some slept on bunk beds, and some slept alone on double beds. Many team members also had to buy their own simple wardrobes because they did not have any.

  Yet, look at DGE’s villa! It was completely different!

  All the furniture—including the computer tables, wardrobes, sofas for resting, beds for the team members, and so on—had obviously been bought at the same time. They were all the same style, and they fit perfectly into the villa.

  Although there were more than ten computer tables in the training hall, it did not feel squeezy at all. Instead, everything looked like they belonged there. Every computer was flashing with the impressive RGB lights, making them look extremely futuristic and at least ten years ahead of H4 Club’s computers.

  All in all, the environment here was not much different from what one saw in movies. It looked like an intentionally created set, and nothing looked like it had been placed there by coincidence!

  Pang Ling could not help but wonder what H4 Club’s training ground would be called if this was ‘simple’.

  Would it be called a slum or a rubbish dump?

  Manager Su felt the worst. To him, this looked like a venue dedicated to whipping people while they were down.

  When the DGE Club had gone to look around the H4 Club, he had proudly brought the former around. The more he thought about his boasts back then, the more awkward he became now. He wondered how Zhang Yuan and the others had tolerated him…

  Chapter 594

  Team Leader Su and Zhang Yuan chatted in the hall while Huang Wang brought the team members around the villa.

  “This is the massage room, where people will give us full-body massages regularly to prevent us from developing neck aches or backaches.

  “We can come to the balcony once in a while to enjoy a breeze and some alcohol or something. However, we can’t drink too much. We can only drink a little.

  “This is our conference room, where we discuss battle strategies…”

  Huang Wang casually introduced each room to the team members of H4 as the latter became green with envy.

  They even had a massage room and a balcony to enjoy alcohol!

  We didn’t even dare to dream of such things!

&nbs
p; Pang Ling stopped in front of the whiteboard in the conference room. He was becoming increasingly interested in the training schedule written on it.

  “You wake up so early?

  “You go to sleep so early?

  “You even have additional meals?

  “You work out for two hours every day?”

  Pang Ling turned to look at Huang Wang as if finally understanding how he had developed his muscles. The training schedule had completely overturned Pang Ling’s expectations!

  After walking one round around the DGE Club, Pang Ling’s competitive mindset had completely dissipated. It was not because he had figured things out or changed his mindset. Instead, it was because he had been dealt with such a huge blow that he could not afford to compare anymore!

  The only thing that Pang Ling could be proud of before this was that the H4 Club was a longer-standing club with better living conditions and more legitimacy in various aspects.

  However, after seeing DGE’s living conditions, he immediately felt like H4 was nothing more than a peasant club.

  DGE had a massage room and several additional meals for fuller nutrition each day!

  Just one look, and he could tell how legitimate this place was. They probably had a nutritionist do up their training schedule!

  Pang Ling could not understand some other details in the training schedule such as why they had to work out for two hours each day. However, if a professional had done up the training schedule, there must have been a deeper reason for it.

  Pang Ling silently memorized the training schedule.

  Now that he thought about it, there was a reason that they had lost the earlier mock competition. It was not because they were less talented… but because they were less scientific!

  “It’s time to eat! The take-out is here!” Zhang Yuan shouted from downstairs.

  Huang Wang was almost done showing everyone the entire place. At once, he invited everyone back downstairs to eat.

  Pang Ling heaved a long sigh and said to himself, “That’s good. At least we can earn more points in terms of food.”

  Before this, H4 had ordered take-out as well. However, just two weeks ago, their boss decided that having take-out regularly would not be good for the members’ health. As a result, they had just hired a cook for their meals.

  Now, it looked like the DGE Club was still stuck at the take-out stage.

  That meant H4 was leading in that aspect, and it had scored a win.

  However, when Pang Ling got downstairs, he saw the rows of lunch boxes lined up in the cafeteria, and the exquisite, delicious, and flavorful dishes inside each of them. It was then that he realized a problem.

  It was take-out, but it was very different from the kind that they had ordered…

  After having a taste, Pang Ling felt that organizing a mock competition in the afternoon would be useless. They had already been attacked from all directions. He was now having a complete mental breakdown!

  …

  …

  July 23rd, Saturday…

  GOG and IOI’s competitions were taking place on the same day!

  One competition was being held in the east while the other was being held in the west, but both were in average-sized halls. The journey from one to the other would take more than half an hour.

  Small halls would not be impressive enough, but large halls were difficult to rent and took longer to prepare. Thus, both organizing teams simultaneously chose the middle ground without prior discussion.

  Although they chose halls of average size, the total amount of money they spent was anything but average. Needless to say, loads of money was spent on related facilities and advertising in the venues, so that they were beautifully done.

  On top of that, both sides had also spent tons of money on marketing!

  IOI, in particular, maniacally marketed the competition in games, websites, and other channels under the name of an ‘international invitational tournament’. The posters of local and foreign players alike had garnered a lot of attention.

  On the other hand, since GOG did not have locals and foreigners fighting head-to-head, it could not make a big issue out of the same thing. Instead, it had no choice but to depend on their huge player base.

  In short, both organizing teams had done everything they could beforehand. What was left was to observe the results today.

  At 1 PM, Pei Qian arrived at the site of IOI’s international invitational tournament on time.

  According to the schedule, there would be four games today, and the top four would be determined. Shang Yang Games had very intelligently arranged for a local team to go against a foreign team in every game. Obviously, they wanted to emphasize the confrontation between the Chinese and foreigners from the get-go, to attract as many viewers as possible.

  Tickets for both competitions were priced so low that it was practically no different from giving them away. After all, neither side was aiming to earn money. They were only trying to get as much attention as possible.

  Pei Qian had bought a ticket for a seat in the back row so that he could supervise the competition. He could only depend on the live-stream to observe how GOG was doing.

  Tengda Games and Shang Yang Games had both prepared live streams without agreeing on it beforehand. What’s more, they had done sufficient marketing for the live streams as well.

  At the moment, the popularity of livestreaming was increasing at a rate that was visible to the naked eye.

  If livestreaming had been ‘on the up’ two years ago before too much capital had been poured into the industry, then the figures for the livestreaming industry was looking different every single day now.

  Moreover, livestreaming platforms were following Aili Island’s model by including bullet screen comments, thus enhancing the viewing experience.

  At the moment, competition between the two biggest live-streaming platforms—ZZ Livestream and Waiwai—was already getting heated. As more and more livestreaming platforms appeared, the competition would only get even more heated.

  Pei Qian had thought about creating a live stream platform to burn more money as well, but he had to wait for the opportune moment.

  It was still too early to enter the industry now. If he was not careful, he could accidentally monopolize the market. Then, he would be done for, wouldn’t he?

  Thus, Pei Qian wanted to wait for other live-streaming platforms to develop first. Once they took off and the industry became a sunset one where nothing could be gained, he would enter it. Only then would he be able to steadily incur losses, right?

  Pei Qian had arrived just in time, but there were already so many people present that there were hardly any seats left.

  That was to be expected. If the seats were empty, IOI would already lose out in terms of atmosphere. As a result, even if they had to hire actors, they had to ensure that the seats were filled.

  Pei Qian accessed the live stream of GOG’s competition using his cell phone, wanting to check how big the difference in popularity was.

  Hmm… there was not much of a difference.

  GOG’s competition was slightly more popular, but IOI’s was not bad as well.

  Pei Qian was not sure if the numbers he was seeing were forged by the platform, but judging from the number of bullet screen comments, there was a significant number of people watching IOI’s international invitational competition online.

  A ‘Sino-foreign confrontation’ was very intriguing indeed.

  Yes, it looked like the concept behind the competition was correct. IOI had hope of making a comeback!

  Pei Qian could not help but celebrate inside. After all, he had thought of the idea himself.

  There would be simple cosplay, as well as singing and dancing at the opening ceremony. After that, the teams would enter, introduce themselves, and warm up; the commentators would chat awkwardly, and then the games would begin.

  The segments at the start were kept simple because most people were here to watch the competition.
Singing and dancing could be used to balance out the event, but too much would cause the entire screen to fill with question marks.

  Soon, the local and foreign teams started fighting. The two commentators were passionate and professional, and the audience was very supportive. From time to time, clapping and cheers would erupt.

  Pei Qian observed the situation for a while before taking his phone out quietly.

  The most embarrassing part was that he could not understand what was happening! That was because he hardly played IOI, and IOI released new heroes very quickly. Thus, Pei Qian did not recognize more than half of the heroes being used in the games.

  At the same time, Pei Qian was very curious about how GOG was doing. Thus, he secretly checked their situation using his cell phone.

  “I am definitely not surrendering to the enemy! My heart is still with IOI! I just want to check how badly GOG is failing.”

  Pei Qian found GOG’s live stream platform on his cell phone and then clicked to access it.

  The first games at both competitions were entering their most intense period. The situation was changing rapidly, and there was a barrage of bullet screen comments.

  However, after reading the bullet screen comments, Pei Qian’s entire body went cold.

  That’s not right…

  Why weren’t people discussing the competition itself, but trolling instead?

  “GOG’s competition is much better! It’s so exciting!”

  “That’s right! There are all sorts of operations, traps, and teamwork, and their plays look very complete. Somehow, it looks different from ‘professional rounds’ in the game. Is this the strength of professional teams?”

  “It’s much better than IOI! There are only lousy teams fighting each other at IOI’s competition!”

  “Their battle skills are not even on the same level. I took a peek at IOI’s competition as well. They say it’s a ‘Sino-foreign confrontation’, but it looks no different from playing professional rounds with random people in the game. They’re all in a state of disunity!”

  “Exactly! I think I derive more joy from observing competitions in Fish-Catching Internet Cafe! The competition that took place at Fish-Catching Internet Cafe’s Live Esports Museum’s opening ceremony was much more interesting than this ‘Sino-foreign confrontation’!”