Chapter 419: Chapter 339: Blindfolded Kiss

The reporters gathered outside the Youu Tea shop were indeed arranged by Cheng Zhu.

Even the scalper being interviewed was handpicked by Cheng Zhu from a gang of scalpers.

Consider them informally acquainted, almost like associates.

Previously, this professional gang made money twice from Cheng Zhu’s place, both as sham customers and by reselling milk tea.

Now, it was their turn to pay back.

In terms of business acumen, Lin Lu clearly lagged several levels behind Shen Qingning.

She couldn’t understand why Cheng Zhu would want to expose the scalpers.

“How awful!” Lin Lu thought.

These last two years, people genuinely hated scalpers.

They appeared not just outside places like milk tea shops, amusement parks, restaurants, and concert venues… but even hospitals.

In the grand scheme, scalpers affected milk tea shops only by increasing the wait time for regular customers, filling the queue with these resellers.

But don’t forget, the presence of scalper organizations also indirectly indicated that a store was genuinely popular, not just a facade!

Seeing Lin Lu’s baffled expression, Cheng Zhu chuckled and said, “The interview today will be released on the 30th of this month.”

“What? Isn’t the next day New Year’s Eve, followed by New Year’s Day?” Lin Lu exclaimed.

You see, business for Youu Tea would definitely explode during New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.

“Wouldn’t that make the impact even worse?” she naively asked.

Cheng Zhu held her hand and explained, “Right now, Youu Tea’s popularity is skyrocketing online, limited only because the shop is only in Hang City and people from other places can’t taste it, hence the geographic limitation on popularity and traffic.”

“But, with enough buzz and a gimmick, don’t you think that it will cause others to spontaneously expose the chaos caused by scalpers?” Cheng Zhu queried.

Lin Lu finally caught on, “Yes!”

The chaos brought by scalpers had indeed been a social issue under the spotlight in recent years, frequently topping Weibo’s trending searches and making headlines.

Add in a trend-setting viral milk tea shop, and the traffic won’t stay low for long.

Over time, local media in Hang City and various local marketing accounts would undoubtedly make their way to Youu Tea to dig up stories.

This was inevitable.

If that was the case, why not find someone myself, control the narrative, to prevent others from setting the pace?

Being prominent draws attention; as of the end of 2014, Youu Tea was undoubtedly the leading milk tea shop in the country, outperforming any other milk tea shop nationally!

There would inevitably be various complications down the road.

This way, the coverage could turn out to benefit my tea shop.

And, by the way, catch the attention of those in the venture capital community who had been keeping watch on Youu Tea.

Lin Lu was still a bit worried, so she asked, “But, the issue with scalpers always has a negative impact, doesn’t it?”

Hearing this, Cheng Zhu gently rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb, signaling her to not worry.

“I just mentioned it, when will the interview be released?”

“The 30th,” Lin Lu responded.

“On the 29th, I’ll release Youu Tea’s official mitigation measures for dealing with the scalper chaos,” Cheng Zhu declared.

Lin Lu turned and looked at this crafty guy up and down, incredulously.

–So crafty!

…

…

The interview with the reporter was now nearing its end.

After the interview wrapped up, Cheng Zhu walked over and gave the scalper a pack of cigarettes.

Then, seemingly just chatting with the interview team, he moved to a corner and slipped a red envelope to each member.

Since he guided the content of this interview, some points were designed as sensational by him.

Therefore, his aim wasn’t just to get it trending locally in Hang City.

He wanted it to hit the top of the Weibo hot search list!

The topic and gimmick were strong enough, and the social focus on the scalper issue was high enough–it was an excellent opportunity right before New Year’s Day, not to be missed.

He had been planning this publicity wave for almost half a month now, waiting for this moment.

In fact, Youu Tea should already be broadening its audience beyond Hang City, so that when shops open in other cities, they could boom right from day one.

Restricted to one city, what’s the point?

Such small business, with Cheng Zhu’s current financial status, didn’t catch his interest.

Outperforming any milk tea shop in the country–do I really care?

I am meant to be the lifelong rival of traditional milk tea!

Lin Lu, holding little Youzi’s hand, watched Cheng Zhu busy himself.

Interestingly, seeing one’s elders busy with work often felt trivial to a young girl. But seeing a man she fancied busy at work was mesmerizing.

She found Cheng Zhu quite charming at that moment.

Little Youzi, on the other hand, was just thinking, “When will brother finish? How long must I wait?”

Lin Lu looked down at the little girl and asked, “Little Youzi, don’t you sometimes think your brother is amazing?”

She found it miraculous that Cheng Zhu sometimes didn’t seem like an ordinary college freshman at all–his thoughts were completely different than those of his classmates.

Most importantly, he came from an ordinary family.

Lin Lu had indeed seen young people nurtured by their families to possess abilities far beyond their peers.

But Cheng Zhu seemed even wilder, more like a prodigy.

“Brother has always been amazing,” Cheng Youu, naturally a fan of Cheng Zhu, added, “Sister Lu, did you just realize that?”

Lin Lu couldn’t help but laugh and squat down to gently pinch her little nose.

Soon Cheng Zhu had wrapped up everything.

“Getting impatient, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Not at all, seeing you sneakily doing your mischief was rather amusing.”

“What do you mean ‘mischief’? Watch your identity and stance!” he deliberately stressed her identity.

Lin Lu got excited again, “Okay, okay, not mischief, it’s business warfare!”

“That doesn’t even qualify as business warfare, do you know why?” Cheng Zhu asked.

“Why, how can this not be business warfare?”

Cheng Zhu looked up at the LED screen displaying a Youu Tea advertisement, feigning profundity, and mysteriously said, “Because I don’t have any competitors for now.”

…

…

Lin Lu had long been accustomed to Cheng Zhu being a habitual show-off.

Honestly, it was exactly because of this that she found Cheng Zhu more lively and youthful.

Yet, what Cheng Zhu said was indeed true.

Lately, he was somewhat looking forward to encountering a few decent rivals.

During his time in e-commerce, his adversaries were all old-school e-commerce folks.

These people, leveraging the innate advantages of QQ products in e-commerce and knowing various in-platform tactics, could thrive.

Cheng Zhu’s strategies were almost always based on driving external traffic, a tactic these folks couldn’t compete with; they could, at most, follow his lead and feed on his leftovers.

They imagined themselves as enemies of Persistent Visit, but were actually just shadowboxing.

Cheng Zhu wasn’t even sitting at their gaming table–it was all in their heads.

However, the outcome was that Cheng Zhu flipped everyone’s tables over.

The milk tea industry might be slightly different since he aimed to build a new force in milk tea, meaning traditional milk tea would be his adversary.

He was somewhat looking forward to having rivals to confront directly; recently, he hadn’t felt physically itchy, but was a bit antsy for a challenge.

–Welcome to the battlefield!

At that moment, Cheng Zhu checked the time and asked Lin Lu, “What are your plans next?”

“I don’t have any plans.”

“So, you came to Star City just to buy a cup of milk tea?” he teasingly said.

“Yes! Is that a problem?” Lin Lu replied indignantly, feeling a bit embarrassed.

“Tonight, Little You and I have to go to my grandfather’s place for dinner, so we can’t have dinner together,” Cheng Zhu said.

“Alright, I have to go home for dinner today too.”

“Then let’s go back to the mall and find a place to sit for a while,” Cheng Zhu suggested.

On their way back to Star City, Lin Lu specifically mentioned, “Our family’s design firm has been booming because of your business. Xia Liang is overwhelmed with orders; he designs until midnight every day. My mom is worried he might die suddenly.”

Laughing, Cheng Zhu held her hand and said, “From now on, any Youu Tea store design will be handled by your family.”

Though every store would have a consistent design theme, there would naturally be variations due to specific construction works.

“Really?” Lin Lu loved this sort of special treatment.

“Do I need to write a contract? Isn’t a verbal agreement enough?” Cheng Zhu joked.

“Then it’s settled.”

“Yes,” Cheng Zhu remembered another matter. “Also, future milk tea cups and bags when renewed will also be provided by your company.”

“Will those need frequent replacement?” Lin Lu was puzzled.

“Other tea shops might not, but mine will do it quite often; it’s an important step,” Cheng Zhu explained.

“Why?”

“Trade secret!”

“You won’t even tell me?”

“Beg me, and I might just tell you,” he casually said.

Who would have thought Lin Lu, this cheeky girl, would actually lose all shame and clasp her hands together, grinning cheekily, “Please, please!”

Cheng Zhu looked at her face and almost couldn’t resist.

“It’s not that I won’t tell you, it’s that I haven’t fully decided yet. It involves an innovative strategy. When it’s implemented, you’ll be the first I tell.”

“Okay then.” Lin Lu was surprisingly easy to placate after making her request.

Girls like her, even if they got angry, were probably easy to soothe.

At around four-thirty in the afternoon, everyone prepared to head home.

Only then did Cheng Zhu realize Lin Lu had not driven.

“You took a taxi?” he asked, slightly taken aback.

“Yeah, you know it’s the end of the year, and my car was sent for maintenance,” Lin Lu responded.

Cheng Zhu hadn’t expected his attempt to attract friends on social media would end up with this girl coming by a taxi.

“I’ll drive you,” he offered. “I’m pretty familiar with the way to your house by now.”

Lin Lu immediately felt that even a simple act of being driven home had become a bit sweeter with Cheng Zhu’s flirtatious words.

When getting into the car, she insisted on sitting in the back with Little You, so that the child wouldn’t be lonely, and only had to sit there buckled up, listening to the adults talk.

She was particularly good with children, and there was a reason for that.

After entering Lin Lu’s residential complex, just before getting out, Cheng Zhu suddenly insisted, “Don’t move, I’ll open the door for you.”

“Huh? Taking the gentleman’s route today?” Lin Lu couldn’t understand.

This was not typical of this bad guy; it just wasn’t in his character.

He didn’t seem like the type to play a gentleman at all.

It just didn’t fit!

Strangely, instead of opening the door on Little Youzi’s side, Cheng Zhu opened the door from the side near Little You.

Opening the door, he reached out his large hand and suddenly lightly covered his sister’s eyes_nanobalaexecutor