11
New Main Quest
After all the performances concluded, the room had dissolved into tears.
Two packs of tissues were no longer enough. The tabletop, which originally only held scripts and milk tea, was now piled high with napkins by the time Jiang Qi left the room.
The three girls who had arrived happily to play the script were now crying as if Jiang Qi had swindled them out of all their possessions.
If one had to ask who cried the most pitifully, it would undoubtedly be Jiang Wanwan.
While others shed tears, she provided the soundtrack; when others stopped, she continued. She cried when others shared their stories, cried when questioned, cried when Jiang Qi played the scumbag, cried when he played the boss, and cried when he played the father. Regardless of whether the plot had anything to do with her, she cried.
Jiang Wanwan’s crying wasn’t loud wailing but rather a subtle, sobbing whimper that blended seamlessly with the background music. If such BGM were played during a horror movie, it would likely be quite effective.
Jiang Qi only knew that Jiang Wanwan was skilled at fake crying when she was beaten with a clothes hanger by her aunt as a child, but he never expected her real crying to be just as impressive.
How did that saying go? Crying like a plant.
Oh right, she actually was a plant.
Taking advantage of the six people in the room reading their scripts, Liu Lan quietly slipped out to share the joy of her first successful Emotional Script session with Jiang Qi, who was still at the doorway and hadn’t gone downstairs.
“How was it? Isn’t it particularly satisfying and thrilling to watch others cry?” Liu Lan’s face was filled with excitement.
Jiang Qi nodded somewhat reservedly. The one crying the most pitifully inside was Jiang Wanwan. As her cousin, how could he remain indifferent to his only cousin crying so miserably, even feeling a little happy about it?
“Indeed,” Jiang Qi nodded reservedly in agreement.
The act of watching people cry is inherently peculiar.
The more pitiful the crying, the more peculiar it becomes.
Two hours later, the six players came downstairs.
Jiang Wanwan was still softly sobbing as she descended, her eyes swollen from crying.
The tall girl beside her couldn’t help but laugh at her appearance: “Wanwan, you were way too exaggerated today. You cried through two whole tissue packs during the performances. I stopped reading my script halfway through and just watched you instead.”
Jiang Wanwan sniffled somewhat indignantly: “Nonsense, you were crying even harder than me at that point! Wenqin, tell her, isn’t that right?”
Chen Wenqin shook her head very honestly: “You cried the most dramatically, you never stopped crying the whole time.”
Jiang Wanwan: …
The tall girl laughed heartily: “She’s like this in the dorm too. Last time when we watched that show, what was it? The male lead was going abroad or something, she cried so much that if I didn’t know she was single, I would have thought she’d been dumped.”
“I did not! My cousin is right here, don’t talk nonsense! I never cry when watching shows!”
Hearing this, everyone simultaneously turned to look at Jiang Qi.
Jiang Wanwan then began introducing her classmates to Jiang Qi.
All five people who came today were Jiang Wanwan’s classmates. The tall girl was named Gao Qin, Jiang Wanwan’s roommate, who played Mina’s role. The one who played John’s role was her boyfriend Liu Chang. The other two boys were named Wu Lin and Liu Nan, both complete newcomers dragged along by Jiang Wanwan to make up numbers.
“Boss, how much is today’s script?” Chen Wenqin aimed her phone at the QR code at the front desk to scan.
“This is a newly arrived Exclusive Edition, 158. Since you’re all Wanwan’s classmates, I’ll give you a discount – 138,” Jiang Qi said.
“Okay.” Chen Wenqin promptly scanned the code and paid, covering all five people’s fees in one go before showing her phone to Jiang Qi. “138, remember to transfer me your shares later.”
The group chatted and laughed as they headed toward the door.
“Didn’t you say this was your cousin’s store? How come it’s your cousin’s now?” Gao Qin asked curiously.
“My cousin had to go abroad for something, so my cousin is managing it for her. They’re siblings.”
“Your brother’s acting was pretty good! He played that scumbag so convincingly I wanted to slap him.”
“Of course! My brother is really good at playing scumbags,” Jiang Wanwan said proudly, turning back to wave goodbye to Jiang Qi.
Jiang Qi: …
You don’t need to be so proud about your brother being good at playing scumbags.
After the six left the store, Jiang Qi took advantage of Liu Lan cleaning upstairs to check the system panel, only to find that both satisfaction and reputation were still at 0.
But these six customers had clearly reacted well.
He thought his own acting had been decent earlier, Old John was practically acting true to life so there were no issues there, and he could tell from Liu Lan’s hosting that her broadcasting background served her well – her tone, delivery, and pacing were all quite good.
Could the script be the problem?
But Jiang Qi didn’t think so. The three girls had been crying their eyes out, the three boys were fully engaged, and he’d even caught one of them quietly sobbing twice. From their conversation after paying, everyone seemed quite satisfied.
So where exactly was the problem?
Jiang Qi pondered this all the way home but couldn’t figure it out. When he asked Old John, he didn’t know either.
By the time Jiang Qi got home, it was almost 1 AM. After a quick wash, he checked his phone messages before collapsing into bed.
When he woke up the next day, Jiang Qi checked his phone as usual and found a message from Jiang Xiaohong asking him to come over for dinner that evening. Half-asleep, he replied “sure” and casually opened the system panel to see if anything had changed.
Opening the store details page, he was shocked to see:
【Galaxy Theater Club】
Acting Manager: Jiang Qi
Monitoring Range: Entire Store
Reputation: 9 (9 reputation points – just an unknown small shop!)
Satisfaction: 3 (You have only one loyal customer – better than nothing.)
Store Evaluation: On the verge of closing down
Jiang Qi: !!!
There were actually 9 reputation points and 3 satisfaction points!
The mission was complete!
Jiang Qi quickly opened the mission panel and found that the main mission had quietly updated while he was asleep.
Main Mission:
Mission Progress: Reputation (9/100) Satisfaction (3/100)
Mission Reward: 1000 yuan.
Jiang Qi checked his bank balance – sure enough, there was an extra 500 yuan deposited at 1:03 AM.
This meant the mission had been completed around that time.
So it wasn’t that the customers were unsatisfied – the satisfaction ratings just had a delay.
To celebrate, Jiang Qi decided to take Old John for jianbing guozi at the entrance of their residential compound.
With two extra eggs!
Since they needed to promote the store, it was natural to learn about other Murder Mystery Game stores throughout the city. After all, know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated.
After breakfast, Jiang Qi returned home to research Murder Mystery Game stores throughout the city and was surprised to discover that the small city of Xun actually had 57 such stores.
The top-ranked Murder Mystery Game store on major review platforms was called JC Detective Hall, with a perfect 5.0 rating and over 1,000 positive reviews. Located in the most bustling commercial district, its annual rent was probably higher than all the money Jiang Bing had lost from her store over the years.
Most stores were situated near universities and commercial areas, with particularly fierce competition around campuses. Newcomer experience coupons ranged from 9.9 to 49.9 yuan – the 9.9 yuan option was so cheap that even Jiang Qi felt tempted to buy one and try it out.
What puzzled Jiang Qi even more was that he couldn’t find Galaxy Theater Club on any review platforms.
He could only search up Galaxy Bookstore and Galaxy Café.
Such a large store was completely absent from all major review platforms, coupled with its remote location – no wonder business was so poor that Jiang Bing was planning to run away again.
When opening the store in the afternoon, Jiang Qi checked the review apps and asked Liu Lan about this issue.
Liu Lan replied: “I remember Sister Bing said before that since the store was going to close anyway, she didn’t want to waste money buying recommended spots on review websites. She’d rather use that money to print flyers and distribute them on the streets.”
Jiang Qi: “…That actually makes some sense.”
“Do you know how much advertising costs?” Jiang Qi asked casually.
“About three to four thousand,” Liu Lan said uncertainly. “Several review platforms sent people before. There’s a threshold fee of several thousand, bidding positions cost extra, promotions are calculated separately, and they take commissions from coupon sales. I remember some discount app approached us multiple times half a month ago, claiming they could help with promotion and traffic generation. They wanted to list 19.9 yuan unlimited play coupons on their platform and keep all the money from coupon sales.”
“Sister Bing said that’s for scamming fools. Jiang Qi, do you want to buy ads?”
“Can’t afford it.” Jiang Qi immediately felt Jiang Bing made sense. The mission reward was only 1000 yuan – how could he spend several thousand on promotion?
Jiang Qi took out his phone to draft a post for his moments, planning to promote the store there.
While editing, Jiang Qi suddenly remembered he had a better, more effective, and completely free promotion method than social media posts – recruiting downlines.
Jiang Wanwan was Jiang Bing’s subordinate, but there was another perfect candidate in their family who hadn’t been recruited yet.
“Didn’t my sister ask Wen Luo to bring classmates to the store? Wen Luo is my cousin.”Jiang Qi felt this didn’t make sense – how could Jiang Bing not utilize such a perfect high school student like Wen Luo?”
His own friends and university classmates weren’t local – they wanted to support but couldn’t. His elementary/middle/high school classmates were either in graduate school or working – most could only visit during Chinese New Year.
Wen Luo was different. As a flower of the motherland with social circles limited to school, he had plenty of friends.
Back when Jiang Qi was in high school, he often got dragged out by classmates to play board games on weekends and holidays.
Liu Lan clearly knew who Wen Luo was and said: “The store opened this March. Sister Bing said Wen Luo will be in his final year of high school next year and we shouldn’t affect his studies. She plans to ask him to bring classmates during summer vacation.”
Jiang Qi understood – wait until summer vacation to affect his studies.
Coincidentally, they were going to Jiang Xiaohong’s house for dinner tonight. Jiang Qi felt it was time to develop his own downline.