Chapter 1 The Cyberpunk Snack Market

In the afternoon, Zhang Yahui, Bao Xu, and Liang Qingfan finished their on-site survey of potential locations for the snack market and returned to the Sloth Apartments office area.

"So, all things considered, this farmers' market is the most suitable."

"What do you guys think of this place?" Liang Qingfan looked at the two of them.

Bao Xu and Zhang Yahui both nodded. "Yeah, we both agree. Let's settle on this one."

This farmers' market was even more deserted than they had imagined. Small vendors selling various agricultural products had set up stalls here, with goods piled everywhere. The environment could be described as dirty and chaotic.

Moreover, both the vendors and customers in the farmers' market were mostly middle-aged and elderly people, mostly long-time residents who had lived nearby for decades and came here to buy groceries every day.

However, with the decline of the old industrial area, young people in Jingzhou basically no longer lived here, so the foot traffic in this farmers' market was also decreasing.

Many of the small vendors couldn't make money and had moved to other places, so the situation here was getting worse and worse.

When Zhang Yahui and the other two went to the market to investigate, they also met the owner, who wanted to buy the market outright and then renovate it in a centralized manner.

Of course, the original vendors would not be driven away. Instead, they would be relocated nearby, and after the entire market was renovated, they would be given stalls, and the rent would not change.

Zhang Yahui said, "The key issue now is how to plan the entire snack market and what kind of design style to adopt."

Liang Qingfan thought for a moment, "Actually, there are many styles we could design. We could do a traditional Chinese snack street style, or some foreign styles."

"But once a style is chosen, everything related to it must be unified, and it definitely can't be changed. We must be cautious when choosing."

The three of them fell into a brief silence.

As Liang Qingfan said, any style could be adopted, but the key was which style would be more popular.

Bao Xu suddenly had a flash of inspiration. "Hey, I suddenly thought of a good style."

"Do you remember the movie *A Beautiful Tomorrow* that President Pei made before? There's a scene in it that has a cyberpunk style."

"I think that style is pretty good."

"On the one hand, it can be linked to *A Beautiful Tomorrow*, allowing everyone to see the scenes from the movie in Jingzhou; on the other hand, the cyberpunk style is novel enough and more in line with the spiritual core of the snack market."

Liang Qingfan's eyes lit up. "Oh? That makes sense!"

Zhang Yahui was a little confused. "Uh... which scene was that? I've seen the movie, but there are too many scenes in it, and I don't have much of an impression."

Liang Qingfan immediately found the movie *A Beautiful Tomorrow* on the Aili Island website and fast-forwarded to the scene where the male and female protagonists were dating in the external world.

There were four different architectural styles in *A Beautiful Tomorrow*: capsule spaces (cramped, narrow, technological but severely homogenized), external world slums (cyberpunk style, with many small shops, brightly lit), the core area of the external world (spacious, grand, general science fiction architectural style), and the residential area for the upper class (classical mansions).

However, most of the scenes at that time were shot with sets and green screens, and there were no real scenes.

Now, if the scenes from the movie could be recreated with the snack market, it would definitely be a very good gimmick.

Moreover, the theme of cyberpunk is "the combination of low-end life and high-end technology," usually with a somewhat broken social structure against the backdrop of highly developed technology.

In cyberpunk themes, there are always many Chinese elements. One of the most prominent features is that various Chinese characters often appear on those neon signs.

The reason for this is that places like the Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong had a certain influence on the authors at the time. The style of little land, many people, dense buildings, and the simultaneous existence of old and new things is very consistent with the feeling of cyberpunk, so many cyberpunk themes have some Chinese elements.

Later, many Chinese people also created some original paintings combining cyberpunk and Chinese style out of interest, and the effect was very good.

Looking at the images on the movie, Zhang Yahui finally remembered, "This style does look pretty good!"

"The key is that it can be linked to the movie."

"In this way, there will be one more Tengda attraction in Jingzhou. Tourists can first go to the Thrill Inn to play, and then come to this cyberpunk snack market to enjoy delicacies from all over the country."

Liang Qingfan said, "Yes. Not only that, we can also find a way to transform the road from the snack market to the Thrill Inn!"

"The two places are not very far apart, only one or two kilometers. If we can buy all these shops along the way, or rent them for a long time, and then renovate them a little."

"Then, the vendors who perform better in the snack market can move to these shops in the future. In this way, as more and more vendors come, maybe the whole street can become a snack street, forming a one-stop shop for eating, drinking, and playing with the Thrill Inn!"

Bao Xu said, "Moreover, I think we can add some game design ideas."

"For example, we can divide the stalls inside the market into several different tiers: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Diamond. The higher the tier, the better the location and the more seats. If you stay in the Diamond tier for a period of time, you can move to the shops outside."

"The entire snack market can have regular evaluation activities, and several stalls can be randomly refreshed to become half-price experience zones or free zones. Rare stalls can be refreshed regularly, allowing customers to experience the feeling of camping out for rare NPCs."

"Moreover, since it's a cyberpunk style, we definitely have to integrate high technology and down-to-earth feelings, and make some cyberpunk electronic display screens, etc. Ordering and queuing can also have a certain decorative effect."

Bao Xu quickly explained his thoughts.

In his opinion, this place is actually very suitable for adding interactive experiences from games, giving tourists who come to eat snacks for the first time a sense of novelty, which can greatly enhance their play experience.

Bao Xu was also trying his best to help Zhang Yahui and Liang Qingfan design, so that he wouldn't have to travel.

Zhang Yahui was very happy. "Great, this way the general approach to the entire snack market can be finalized!"

"Actually, my initial idea was just to create a place where people could set up stalls. You two have really provided a lot of good ideas."

Liang Qingfan smiled slightly. "We just expanded our thinking a little bit following President Pei's ideas. Although President Pei certainly couldn't have guessed this specific location and packaging, the content we came up with should be pretty close to his original ideas."

"This is President Pei's art of management, giving seemingly broad requirements each time, allowing subordinates to fully exert their subjective initiative, and the final results are indeed convergent."

"Alright, then let's seize the time to complete the design plan for the snack market and get this project on the right track as soon as possible!"

…

…

March 21st, Wednesday.

At the iCL League competition venue the day after tomorrow, two official commentators and a professional player were commentating on the competition footage, practicing their coordination.

The reason for choosing this combination of personnel was mainly for the sake of stability.

One of the two commentators was a control commentator, ensuring that the topic didn't stray; the other was a team battle commentator, ensuring that the team battles were more exciting. As for the professional player, they were mainly responsible for predicting lineups and analyzing the situation.

The division of labor between the three was very clear.

After all, these professional players didn't have much commentary experience. In Zhao Xuming's view, arranging one commentator to lead two professional players, like Rabbit Tail Live, was somewhat risky.

The other commentators and professional players were also practicing hard during this time, because it would soon be their turn to take the stage.

The two commentators today were the two oldest in the iCL League, and the professional player on stage was also relatively good at understanding the game.

Zhao Xuming's idea was to arrange all the most powerful commentators to ensure that this focus battle of the fv team could generate enough attention, so that it could be a hit and leave the audience with the impression that "the official commentary is now as professional as the Rabbit Tail Live commentary."

During his rest, this professional player was also constantly reviewing the footage of the fv team's previous matches.

He had scrimmed with the fv team a few times when he was a professional player, but he was basically beaten so badly that he couldn't find his way around, and he couldn't understand the fv team's intentions at all.

However, as long as he was hindsight, he could still analyze a lot of things.