Chapter 1049: A Theoretical Question?
"Ticket..." Chen Junnan stared at the difficult-problem booklet in the other's hand, hesitating for a long time. "Is Old Qi connected to this 'Ticket' thing?"
"Yes." The snake-man nodded, then changed his answer a second later. "Probably."
"Alright then..." Chen Junnan nodded after hearing this. "In that case, I'll reluctantly help you out this once."
The snake-man stared at Chen Junnan upon hearing this and said, "Watch your mouth. What do you mean 'reluctantly help you out'?"
"Aren't you asking me for a favor?" Chen Junnan said. "I've agreed now. I'll tell Old Qi when I get out."
"That's not right..." the snake-man said. "It was me who helped you store your 'characters' first, then you help me find Qi Xia. This isn't me begging you—it's a mutual benefit for both of us, isn't it?"
"Store 'characters'?" Chen Junnan blinked. "Did that happen? I don't remember."
"Fine." The snake-man nodded and pointed at Jin Yuanxun. "No need to compete then. I declare the winner this time to be..."
"Bro! Bro!" Chen Junnan hurried forward and grabbed the snake-man. "I was just messing with you! You get worked up so easily."
Jin Yuanxun, who had been watching Chen Junnan and the snake-man chat for ages, finally couldn't hold back.
"Bro, are you two done colluding?" he asked.
"...?" The snake-man paused and pointed at Chen Junnan, saying to Jin Yuanxun, "You can learn Chinese from anyone, just not from him."
"Hey? Why?" Jin Yuanxun asked.
The snake-man shook his head. "I wouldn't be surprised if you picked up a mouthful of Sichuan dialect, Shanxi dialect, or even Cantonese from here. But I'm afraid you'll end up learning a whole bunch of filthy talk."
After saying this, the snake-man went to his seat and pointed to the two chairs in front of him, indicating for them to sit down as well.
Then, under their nervous yet somewhat expectant gazes, the snake-man directly flipped the booklet to the last few pages.
"Snake Bro!" Chen Junnan reached out to stop him. "You can't do that!"
"What can't I do?"
"I glanced at your booklet earlier—the further back you go, the more abstract the questions get. How about starting from page one?"
"There are only three questions. Are you going to tell me how to do it?" The snake-man lowered his head, looking at the questions on the page, and said, "Let me make this clear first... once the game ends, you accept your loss. If you keep being difficult, 'Xuanwu' will have to come and have a chat with you."
"I know my limits."
The snake-man cleared his throat and said, "Please listen to the question."
The two sat up straight, as if they were in a classroom.
"A restaurant, in order to improve service quality and customer satisfaction, set up a message book on the wall inside the store. It encouraged all customers to write down any problems they had—from the interior decoration to the taste of the dishes. Soon, the owner received a bunch of opinions and improved every single one of them. If someone said the lighting was too dim, he brightened it. If someone said the dishes were too salty, he reduced the salt. Yet the business didn't get better. Instead, it went from being packed full to having few customers, and eventually he had to sell the place. Why is that?"
After hearing this, Chen Junnan turned to look at Jin Yuanxun and asked, "Did you get that?"
"Got it," Jin Yuanxun said.
"Alright, you answer then."
"Why? Oh?" Jin Yuanxun said. "You're the older bro, you answer first."
Chen Junnan blinked after hearing that. He felt Jin Yuanxun wasn't that easy to fool, so he turned to the snake-man and said, "Fine, I'll go first. I don't bully kids."
"Okay." The snake-man nodded.
Chen Junnan stroked his chin. He felt that this kind of question really wasn't his forte. He figured Qi Xia would have already answered it by now, but he himself couldn't grasp any clue.
A store that focused heavily on customer experience ends up closing?
Forget this specific store—even in his own memory, there were plenty of stores that conducted customer follow-ups and satisfaction surveys. Why didn't they go out of business?
Chen Junnan believed the key point of this question wasn't about valuing customer experience; that was probably a red herring. The problem lay with the store itself.
"I suspect it got sabotaged," Chen Junnan said.
"Hmm...?" The snake-man raised an eyebrow. "Elaborate."
"Because you said it was packed full, so it's easy to attract jealousy," Chen Junnan said. "In this world, fellow tradesmen are always enemies. I suspect it was ganged up on by other restaurants. The messages on that board could have been fake—written by people sent from other stores to mislead the owner. But the owner didn't know, followed them blindly, and ended up failing."
"Sabotage by competitors...?" The snake-man thought for a moment. "That does make some sense."
"What do you mean 'makes some sense'?" Chen Junnan said. "That's the truth. Just judge it now—who gets the kid?"
"...?"
"Who gets the 'character'?" Chen Junnan added.
"We'll get to that..." The snake-man turned to look at Jin Yuanxun. "We have to hear both answers first. So calm down and let me listen to the other contestant's answer."
Jin Yuanxun cleared his throat. Chen Junnan thought he wouldn't have a reliable answer, but the kid let out a sly laugh and said:
"Ay, bro, you can't answer this?"
"What are you bragging about? Can you?" Chen Junnan asked.
"My family used to run a barbecue place."
"I object!" Chen Junnan immediately raised his hand to the snake-man. "Reporting to the teacher—someone is committing cheating!"
"How is this cheating?" Jin Yuanxun said anxiously. "Bro, don't talk nonsense... When my parents ran the store, how was I supposed to know I'd be answering questions later? Oh?"
"Fine, fine. Go on then." Chen Junnan nodded. "Let me see if that little head of yours actually works."
"Ay, I really do know," Jin Yuanxun said. "The problem with this situation is... he didn't filter. He unilaterally improved every opinion people gave, and that's not right."
"Oh?" The snake-man raised his other eyebrow. "Elaborate."
"Because the ones who give opinions are always a small minority, oh." Jin Yuanxun said. "The owner satisfied the minority at the cost of the majority. That's why the number of customers kept shrinking, I think."
"Hisss..." The snake-man and Chen Junnan both fell into thought.
The snake-man turned to look at Chen Junnan. "I'm the snake. It's fine for me to hiss. What are you hissing for?"
"You stop your hissing first. I think what this kid said might not be right either," Chen Junnan said. "Think it over carefully—isn't that thing of yours a logic puzzle? This kid answered using 'business wisdom'—is that even on topic?"
The snake-man lowered his head and thought for a moment, then said, "To be honest... this isn't just about 'business wisdom.' It also reminds me of a famous theory. Looks like this young man gave the correct answer."
"A famous theory...?" Hearing those two words, Chen Junnan couldn't help but feel sensitive. "How did a theory get dragged into this?"
"Once a theory gets involved, it proves the answer is infinitely close to the truth." The snake-man lifted his head and said, "The first round goes to this young man surnamed Jin."