Internet Cafe Membership System

Half an hour later, Chen Hao looked at the neatly arranged drinks and snacks on the three shelves and smiled in satisfaction.

The first shelf held all kinds of filling dry goods—instant noodles, ham sausages, biscuits, bread, and the like.

The second shelf displayed drinks of every brand: Happy Water, coffee, Sprite, Jianlibao, bottled water—everything was available.

The third shelf was crammed with miscellaneous snacks: chips, shrimp crackers, sunflower seeds, ham sausages...

The three shelves covered over 80 percent of the commonly used food products in a supermarket, practically forming a miniature supermarket of their own.

In later years, supply chains would be king. Gas stations would have car washes, auto parts shops, and repair stores beside them; courier stations would also run supermarkets, community group-buying services, advertising, and other side businesses. The courier service would draw in traffic, until the side businesses earned more than the deliveries themselves.

The later internet cafes, esports venues, and esports hotels all followed this model. Several business models were combined into a closed loop, offering netizens one-stop services for food, lodging, and internet access. However, the conditions for esports hotels did not yet exist, and the current environment was unsuitable as well.

Being one or two years ahead of the times made someone a genius. Being ten years ahead made them a lunatic. LeTV was one example, buying up massive amounts of film and television copyrights ten years early; building electric cars was another. Otherwise, there would not have been the saying that Jia Paopao would return to China next week.

Therefore, Chen Hao planned to develop his internet cafe along the lines of future internet cafes. He would first introduce snacks and drinks, then later bring in gaming themes to give netizens and players a sense of belonging.

The reason Chen Hao had stopped his father from opening another branch was that the move had been too big and too aggressive, leaving too little room for error.

Chen Hao planned to keep the money meant for opening a new branch and use it to directly upgrade Pentium Internet Cafe. By improving the computer configurations, number of computers, decor style, and everything else in a unified manner, he could focus on differentiation. The investment would be small, results would come quickly, and the ability to withstand risks would naturally be stronger.

Even if laws banning minors from accessing the internet were introduced later, they could still make money as long as they built up their reputation and had a large enough core customer base.

Chen Hao spent another half hour putting price tags on all the food. Every item cost fifty cents more than it did at the supermarket.

When he had negotiated with the owner, he had gotten lower wholesale prices as well. The difference between buying and selling was the profit Chen Hao, the middleman, earned.

Of course, this was practically a drop in the bucket for his tenfold plan. Still, catching a rabbit while raking grass was better than doing nothing, so he did it casually.

The clattering of keyboard keys continued.

The system framework and core logic were finished. Only a few pages still needed polishing, followed by overall testing and bug fixes. It should be done in another two hours!

A little after six, Chen Hao hurriedly wolfed down the delivered meal. Only some finishing work remained. One final sprint, and he could finish it in one go.

At 7:23, Chen Hao stood up and stretched. It felt absolutely amazing. After sitting all day, he somehow did not feel bad at all—his lower back did not hurt, and his neck was not sore. That would have been unimaginable after turning thirty.

Ah! Being young was great.

After musing for a while, Chen Hao got up to inspect his territory.

"Besides show me the money, there's another secret manual: black sheep wall. Take it and give it a try." He tore off a note and handed it over.

"Oh, Wild Baseball Fist is already level nine? Pretty fast. Don't give up. Persistence is victory."

"If Practicing Baby trains like that, when will you ever finish? Go straight to the Broadsword Guard. Raise your blade, bring it down—crack, and there goes one. Isn't that much faster?"

"That's not how you use Jump Snipe. Watch how I do it. After jumping, immediately pull in the opposite direction, crouch as soon as you land, and keep the crosshair level the whole time. Fine-tune it after landing, find the right moment, then biu~! One-shot kill! Ah, right! See? Isn't that much better than before? Just keep practicing. This stuff comes with familiarity. Time is the best teacher!"

After showing off for a round, Chen Hao relaxed his mind and returned to the counter. Putting himself in the user's shoes, he went through the system again from beginning to end, digging into every detail. He optimized several points and was quite satisfied overall. It seemed the skills he had once made a living with had not rusted away.

At last, the screen stopped on the words "Pentium Internet Cafe Membership Management System," with an animated image of Little Horse Galloping above them.

Ding-a-ling, Pang Ban returned, his backpack stuffed full.

"Thanks for the hard work. How did it go?"

The moment he entered, Pang Ban noticed the newly added items and the various snacks. He withdrew his gaze and reported, "Making the cards will take time. They'll be ready the day after tomorrow. The rest is here." With that, he returned the remaining money to Chen Hao, opened his backpack, and took out a stack of flyers.

In fact, Pang Ban had first gone looking for a graphic printing shop that could make the cards during the day, only to discover that no one in town offered that service. He could only choose the most cost-effective place to print the flyers first, then take a bus to a larger city elsewhere. After several twists and turns, he finally found one and negotiated with the owner. The order would be delivered in one day.

He did not tell Chen Hao any of this. Pang Ban felt there was no need. As long as the task was completed, that was enough!

Chen Hao took the flyers. The design and content matched what he had expected.

But seeing Old Ban covered in travel dust, along with the returned money—which was even less than Chen Hao had estimated the cost would be—Chen Hao could roughly guess what had happened. He gave nothing away.

He placed the flyers in a corner and covered them with a book, then beckoned Pang Ban over to the computer at the counter.

"This is the membership system I just finished programming. To operate it, first enter the administrator account and password. The account is admin, and the password is XXXXXX.

"When someone gets on a computer, check which number they're at and click here. An internet cafe seating chart will appear. Just click the corresponding number, and the system will automatically record the current time as their login time. It works the same way when they get off. It calculates the internet fee based on the time difference, all automatically, so there won't be any mistakes.

"Then all that information will be compiled on the statistics page. Here, this page. For example, it shows each day's turnover, including an analysis of revenue distribution by time period.

"Oh, right, I also added a section for food calculations. It's kept separate from the internet fees.

"As for the specific operations, blah blah blah.

"I already entered the food sales and today's internet usage data in advance. For selling food, you can do it like this, blah blah blah."

Chen Hao demonstrated it once, then had Old Ban simulate the operations to familiarize himself with them.

A few minutes later,

Someone happened to be getting off a computer.

"Getting off number seven."

The next second, Old Ban's voice rang out. "Internet fee is fourteen yuan fifty, one bottle of cola is three yuan fifty, eighteen yuan total."

"That fast?" The customer was astonished. Usually, he had to wait a while before finding out how much the internet fee was.

He spent a while calculating it himself, confirmed that the amount was correct, then happily paid and left.

Watching Old Ban get the hang of it at virtually no cost, Chen Hao felt deeply gratified. It seemed his system's user experience was fairly intuitive.

"Keep using it. If you find any shortcomings during actual use, write them down and tell me later."

Pang Ban nodded. He was still constantly exploring this unfamiliar thing and was clearly very interested in it.

At exactly nine o'clock,

Ring ring ring, the phone rang.

"Hello? Mom, checking the accounts?"

"Old Ban, tell me the turnover for the past two days. For today, just look at the statistics page."

"Yesterday was 849. Today was 1,074."

"Aiya, I haven't even started trying yet. Don't waste phone charges. We'll talk when I get home."

Normally, his mother would come over every two nights around eight or nine to check the accounts and calculate the revenue. But since her son was there today, she did not need to come herself and merely called to ask about the situation.

Chen Hao hung up. He left only the cash normally used for making change and took the rest with him. Before leaving, he reminded Old Ban to keep the flyers secret. If his father asked about anything else, he could tell the truth. The latter nodded.

Working for his own family really did feel different. He was filled with motivation from head to toe.

Clocking out—time to slip away!