Chapter 266 - 227: Monkey, Will This Work?

Chapter 266: Chapter 227: Monkey, Will This Work?

Damn!

’The video yesterday was so by-the-book, but today it’s a complete transformation! Who could possibly resist this? I can’t! I’m buying it all!’

Sun Xuezhen felt her appetite completely piqued by the video, which was less than five minutes long. She quickly went back to the ordering page. As she was selecting her items and preparing to check out, her eyes fell on the "Membership Top-Up Promotion" section she had glanced at yesterday. Then she saw her current total was 36 yuan...

’Maybe I should just top up a hundred yuan?’

’But a hundred yuan won’t even last a week. Maybe two hundred would be better... No, forget it, let’s just do five hundred... Wait, if I top-up a thousand, I get four hundred for free! And today’s the last day of the promotion. If I miss it, the deal is gone...’

After some hesitation, Sun Xuezhen ultimately chose the highest top-up amount.

And Sun Xuezhen wasn’t the only one. Plenty of people were captivated by the video, which was on par with a professional food documentary...

Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant.

After the lunch rush, Xu An dragged his exhausted body to the cooler, pulled out a Coke, and chugged half of it before he started to feel human again. He then walked behind the cash register, opened the Xu’s Fast Food ordering website, and logged into the admin panel to check on the day’s membership card data.

The in-store foot traffic hadn’t been very high. Most of the people who wanted a membership card had already signed up yesterday. Today, they had sold barely over a hundred cards in the restaurant.

Now, all his hopes were pinned on online membership sign-ups...

A full day had passed since three o’clock yesterday afternoon. The number of new online members was—2,726?

Xu An rubbed his eyes in disbelief and looked again at the new members column. The number displayed was indeed two thousand seven hundred and twenty-six!

’That’s an increase of almost 1.5 times yesterday’s total!’

Xu An hurriedly exported the membership data and sent it to Tang Wen. He then ran to the office in the second store, standing anxiously behind her as he waited for her to finish organizing it.

Fortunately, they had yesterday’s spreadsheet template. After Tang Wen imported the new data and applied it, all the figures Xu An wanted to see were laid out clearly before him.

Twenty-one cards with a 1,000-yuan top-up, 431 cards with a 500-yuan top-up, 1,369 cards with a 200-yuan top-up, and 905 cards with a 100-yuan top-up... The total top-up amount was six hundred thousand, eight hundred yuan!

GULP.

His Adam’s apple bobbed involuntarily. Xu An’s mouth suddenly felt dry. The number was simply unbelievable...

Adding yesterday’s 210,000 yuan from membership top-ups and the 350,000 in cash he had on hand, Xu An’s available funds now totaled 1,160,000 yuan... He was only 140,000 yuan short of the 1,300,000 Mr. He was demanding... And there were still nine hours left until the promotion ended...

GULP.

He swallowed hard again, a look of delight dawning in his eyes. ’This means I don’t need to get a loan from Han Nan Financing Guarantee Company! I’ve saved 180,000 in interest and over 90,000 in fees!’

The customers got a discount from the promotion, and Xu An got the funds he desperately needed. It was a win-win!

Just as Xu An’s smile was starting to look a little deranged, Tang Wen’s voice piped up beside him.

"Boss, the peak for membership top-ups was at eleven o’clock, right after we uploaded today’s new video to the ’Brand Story’ section. Based on the data from yesterday and today, it’s clear that traffic starts to surge about five minutes after the video goes live, whether it’s on our Weibo account, our WeChat public account, or any other platform... The website backend shows today’s video has eighty thousand views!"

"Contact Wu Yongfeng and have him come to the store this afternoon," Xu An decided without a moment’s hesitation after watching the video. "We’re signing him to a full-time contract and making him an official employee!"

At Qing’s aunt’s house.

"Qing, you have to help your aunt! I don’t even care about the apartment anymore, but we have to get the deposit back! It’s eighty thousand yuan! That’s two years of scrimping and saving!"

After learning the truth about Mr. He, Qing’s aunt was in a complete panic. She could only cling to Qing as her last hope, begging him desperately.

"Don’t worry, Aunt Tan. Just do as I say," Qing said, pulling a folded square of paper from his back pocket and handing it to her. "You’re going to call Mr. He in a bit. Just read from this script, and whatever you do, don’t let him suspect that anything is wrong..."

He trailed off, noticing how his aunt was so nervous she was twisting the hem of her shirt. He couldn’t help but sigh. "You know what? Forget it. It’s better if I talk to Mr. He. Aunt Tan, just go hide in the bedroom. Don’t come out unless I call for you. If you get too emotional and he senses something is off, we won’t get a single penny back!"

With Qing’s half-threatening, half-reassuring words, his aunt finally retreated into the bedroom, where she began pacing anxiously around the small, open space.

Qing watched his aunt disappear into the bedroom before pulling a digital voice recorder from his other pocket. He then dialed Mr. He’s number, turned the speakerphone volume all the way up, and pressed the record button.

"Hello, who is this?"

"Ah, hello! Is this Mr. He Hanlong?"

"This is he. Who are you, and what do you want?"

"Oh, hello, Mr. He Hanlong! I’m Aunt Tan’s nephew. I came to see your apartment last week, number 1203 at Azure Sea Garden. Do you remember me?"

"Oh... right, I remember. What’s up? Did you get the money together? Ready to sign the contract?"

"Almost! We’re getting there! I’m actually calling you today, Mr. He Hanlong, because I wanted to ask a few more things about the apartment..."

Following the script Xu Dongliang had given him, Qing asked Mr. He a series of questions. He eventually baited Mr. He into confirming his own full name and stating that the apartment at Azure Sea Garden was being sold to his aunt, along with other key details.

Mr. He, on the other end of the line, seemed eager to allay Qing’s concerns and even made several additional promises.

Things like how he wouldn’t be moving out any of the large furniture, like the sofa and coffee table, and would just leave them for his aunt. Or how he had already paid the property management fees for the next two years and wouldn’t be charging her for them. And how as soon as his aunt had the money, they would go straight to the property registration center to handle the deed transfer...

"Yes, yes, thank you for your patient answers, Mr. He Hanlong! Don’t you worry about the payment. We’ll have it all ready by Monday afternoon, Tuesday morning at the latest! Please, you have to hold the apartment for us!"

The call ended on a cheerful, friendly note.

When she heard her nephew say the call was over, Aunt Tan rushed out of the room. "You just asked questions about the apartment," she said, looking confused. "How is that going to help us get our deposit back?"

"Don’t worry, Aunt Tan," he replied. "Just wait here patiently. We’ll have results soon."

After hanging up, Mr. He glanced at the caller ID, a bit puzzled. ’Young people are certainly more cautious these days,’ he thought to himself. ’But they don’t know a thing about the law. He didn’t ask a single important question...’

His musing was cut short as his phone rang again. This time, it was another one of the families who had paid him a deposit...

On the other end of the line sat a heavyset young man. A black voice recorder sat next to his phone, the timer on its small display ticking up, second by second...