Chapter 403 - What Happened Over the Past Week or So? (1/2)

In the afternoon, Pei Qian boarded the car and left Fei Huang Workspace for Huanyu Tianjie. He had seen Tomorrow is Beautiful’s edits. On the whole, Pei Qian had mixed feelings.

He was happy because the film was not very well-edited. There were no special effects at all either. What’s more, the plot looked very toxic. It looked like it had the potential to fail.

Yet, Pei Qian was worried because the actors had acted very well in the film. This was especially so for the three main leads—Zhang Zuting, Lu Zhiyao, and Lin Ruyi. They had delivered excellent performances, which made Pei Qian panic.

Lu Zhiyao had stopped acting in such an exaggerated manner; nobody would be able to tell that Lin Ruyi was a new actress; and needless to say, Zhang Zuting’s acting skills as a movie king were flawless.

Pei Qian could not tell what kind of reaction a film like that would get.

As he tried to organize his thoughts, Pei Qian arrived at Huanyu Tianjie.

“Boss Pei, do you want me to go up with you?” Little Sun asked.

After some thought, Pei Qian answered, “There’s no need. Wait for me in the car. I’ll just take a quick look and come back.”

Pei Qian had not thought much about the trip. He only wanted to check if the shared phone booth was safe. Then, he would go back towards Handong University to meet Lin Chang.

At least, that had been his plan until he arrived at the top floor of the shopping mall.

It was a Saturday afternoon. Pei Qian had already been prepared to see many people in Huanyu Tianjie. However, he became stunned when he stepped out of the elevator.

He glanced at the entrance of the cinema and became confused. “Eh? Why are there so many people? Is there a particularly good movie premiering today?”

After taking a closer look, he was stunned. There were many people at the entrance of the cinema, but it did not look like they were planning to watch a movie! Nobody was maintaining order in the area, but everyone formed two neat lines.

The two lines were moving very quickly. One of them was for people to take photographs in front of the shared phone booth before leaving. The other was for people to take a number from the machine in front of the phone booth and then leave.

Pei Qian took a closer look at the phone booth’s exterior.

There was a huge painting on it: the Guardian of Justice, Modest!

The huge painting took up most of the space on the front of the shared phone booth. Modest’s body was painted to look burly. His resolute gaze was fixed to the front, and there were various types of weapons behind him that made him look even more heroic.

Many people were lining up just to take a photograph with the huge painting.

What’s more, it looked different from the ordinary posters and the game’s concept art. Ruan Guangjian had sketched the painting himself, and he had employed many special techniques. His thick brush strokes looked like they were done freehand. With one look, anyone could tell that it was very artistic.

It was an outstanding painting, and it was no wonder that everyone in the shopping mall wanted to come and take a photograph with it.

Pei Qian stood in front of the phone booth, looking at the huge painting and feeling speechless. “F*ck…”

He had indeed asked Ruan Guangjian to paint whatever he wanted to decorate the shared phone booth, but he had not told him to draw the Coin-Scattering Hedgehog!

For some reason, Pei Qian felt like the Coin-Scattering Hedgehog was staring at him. Its lips were curled up in a subtle smile… as if it was mocking him…

Then, he surveyed the shared phone booth itself.

A monitor was facing the escalator. At the moment, it was displaying the number of the customer being served: 14, and seven minutes left.

Pei Qian’s heart stopped for a moment. A bad feeling overwhelmed him. He looked past the crowd to see the numbers being generated by the machine in front of the shared phone booth. It was now at number 29.

In other words, fourteen customers had experienced the shared phone booth since it opened for business in the morning. In addition, there were fifteen people in line!

Of course, that was not including the people who had taken a number but who had not ended up entering the booth. However, Pei Qian guessed that not many customers fell into the category. At first, Pei Qian had heaved a sigh of relief when he saw many people in line but no one entering the shared phone booth. He had thought that everyone only wanted to look at the phone booth but not pay to enter.

Now, he understood that there were indeed people waiting to enter the booth. However, those people had taken a number instead. The system was more modern!

Pei Qian quickly whipped out his phone and scanned the QR code to download the application for the shared phone booth.

The application had been very simple at first. It had only allowed people to scan codes. However, there were many more functions now.

The most obvious change was the queuing function. One only had to take a number at the door of the phone booth to enter in line. Then, they could fill in the estimated amount of time they would spend inside.

The system would sum up everyone’s estimated time so that users would know how long they would have to wait until their turn. Once it was almost their turn, users could go to the shared phone booth to wait.

Users could also do other things on this page, such as give up their position in the line.

That way, people would not have to stand by and wait in front of the phone booth’s entrance. They could do other things like shop or have desserts while waiting for their turn.

Pei Qian glanced at the estimated time remaining on the application. It was nearly three hours!

What’s more, there were still people taking numbers. Pei Qian did a quick calculation of the price and turned pale.

The booth made ten yuan every fifteen minutes. That added up to forty yuan per hour. From the looks of the current situation, the shared phone booth had probably been occupied since the shopping mall opened for business. That meant it would be occupied for eleven to twelve hours today.

In sum, the shared phone booth could make four to five hundred yuan per day!

Of course, the shared phone booth was only constantly occupied because today was Saturday, and there were more people in the shopping mall.

vere

On a normal workday, the shared phone booth would probably earn less.

Still, no matter what, that was a considerable figure!

Pei Qian was stumped. This is so strange! Isn’t this just a shared phone booth? What are people doing there for an hour?!

He looked around, trying to find out the answer to the question. However, the curtains were drawn in the shared phone booth. He could not see anything, but he could faintly hear music coming from inside.

Since there were many people on this level and it was quite loud, he could hardly hear the music.

Pei Qian refused to give up. He walked one round around the phone booth, but the curtains were too thick. There were gaps, but Boss Pei could not possibly try to peek through the gaps at what was happening inside.

He faintly saw two people seated inside, but he could not tell what exactly they were doing

Still, after making one round around the phone booth, he found a stack of flyers on the other side. The flyers had just been placed there for whoever was interested in taking one.

Pei Qian took one and immediately realized that it was not a simple advertisement like other flyers.

There were words and pictures on the flyer, and the picture looked like a screenshot from a certain television program. ‘A customer suffered a cardiac arrest while shopping in the shopping mall, but he was saved by an AED! The shared phone booth’s hide a ‘life-saving weapon’.’ “Recently, in one of Jingzhou City’s shopping malls, a worker in the shopping mall used an AED to save a young man’s life.

“The scene shown in the picture happened on the top floor of Huanyu Tianjie. A man suddenly collapsed on the ground after walking out of the cinema. When news of this spread to the workers in the shopping mall, they immediately worked together to save him.