If I ask you to set up a stall, why do you always run to deserted places?

at the same time.

Qiping Technology is located a three-hour drive away.

A piercing alarm suddenly sounded from Zhang Wei's computer.

"Holy crap!"

Zhang Wei almost threw away the coffee he had just brewed, and Zhao Lei and Sun Hao next to him turned their heads at the same time.

Which project?

"Qingtu Travel!"

Zhang Wei quickly opened the backend, fully alert. "The number of visitors is still rising; over two thousand people came in just one minute!"

"How much?" Zhao Lei wondered if he had misheard.

Qingtu Travel is a local company that offers short-distance tours. They mainly sell tickets for nearby scenic spots, hotels, and day trip packages.

Their mini-program, which Qiping Technology developed last year, typically receives several thousand visits a day, with a maximum of twenty to thirty thousand visits during holidays.

But it's not the weekend, nor is it a public holiday. Around nine in the morning, the backstage area was bustling with people, with numbers surging up one after another.

In less than 20 minutes, more than 20,000 people had rushed in.

"Is someone exploiting the API?" Sun Hao asked.

"It doesn't seem like it." Zhang Wei pulled up the access records. "The phone number, device, and order address are all different; they're all normal users."

No sooner had he finished speaking than department manager Wang Jianguo burst through the door.

The phone in his hand was still on speakerphone.

On the other end of the phone, a man's voice was trembling with anxiety, "Manager Wang, please take a look! Our three buses going to Mount Tai tomorrow were only released two minutes ago, and all 147 seats have been locked!"

"Isn't it a good thing that they're sold out?" Wang Jianguo asked.

"What a load of rubbish! The system is completely frozen! Some people have already paid, but their orders are still showing as 'confirming'!"

Manager Hu of Qingtu Travel was almost in tears. "Our customer service hotline has been ringing off the hook! Some people think they didn't get tickets and keep making payments like crazy. Others are asking if they can buy hanging tickets to hang on the roof of the bus! I just contacted four buses to prepare to add another 196 seats, but your system keeps going in circles. How can I dare to add any more now?"

Wang Jianguo's expression also turned serious. It doesn't matter if the orders are a little slow, but when it comes to things involving seating, the worst thing is to place duplicate orders. There are only 49 seats in a car. You can't just cram 11 more seats onto the luggage rack when 60 people arrive at the end, can you?

"Don't put out the new seats yet," Wang Jianguo said immediately. "Give us half an hour to finish checking the thirty-one pending orders first."

The phone call had just ended when Zhou Qiming came out of his office. "What happened?"

"Qingtu Travel's mini-program suddenly received over 20,000 visitors," Wang Jianguo said. "They were all buying Mount Tai tour packages."

Is admission to Mount Tai free today?

"no."

"What happened?"

There was a two-second silence in the conference room.

Yeah, there has to be a reason, right?

More than 20,000 people are not migratory birds; it's impossible for them all to suddenly decide to line up and fly to Mount Tai at the same time.

Sun Hao went through the source of the visit again, and soon he saw several words with a very high repetition rate in the search terms.

[Taishan Crispy Cake]

【Master Su.】

[A breakfast stall atop Mount Tai.]

"It seems like they went there for a stall," Sun Hao said.

"What kind of stall could attract 20,000 people?" Zhou Qiming asked.

Zhang Wei had already taken out his phone. He searched on the short video platform and found that Tang Guo's live stream was ranked number one.

As soon as the screen opened, the group of people froze.

On the top of Mount Tai, a young man in a black coat stood behind a chopping board.

A dozen or so shortbreads were sizzling in the pot, and the line next to them went around the rest pavilion and then turned a corner along the stone railing; the whole scene was too big to fit in the camera lens.

"Isn't this..." Wang Jianguo leaned closer to the screen, his eyes widening, "...the guy who sells fried rice under the bridge?"

"That's him!" Zhang Wei slammed his hand on the table. "Master Su!"

Zhao Lei and Sun Hao also recognized her. Back then, they used to use talking to clients as an excuse to run to the south of the city every day just to get a bowl of egg fried rice from Su Yun.

Later, Wang Jianguo joined, and then Zhou Qiming caught them red-handed under the bridge.

Who would have thought that, after a period of time, the fried rice stall under the bridge had moved to the top of Mount Tai?

The items they sold changed from fried rice to shortbread.

The only thing that hasn't changed is that the queues are still ridiculously long.

During the live stream, Tang Guo was loudly reminding everyone.

"Don't rush to Mount Tai blindly! We've already sent out over 800 numbers today, and those who come later might not get a table!"

No sooner had he finished speaking than the alarm on Zhang Wei's computer went off again, indicating that the number of visitors per minute had jumped from 2,100 to 2,800.

The five people in the meeting room: "..."

Is this an attempt to dissuade people from going, or a ploy to entice them to go sooner?

"Stop watching the live stream!" Wang Jianguo slammed Zhang Wei's phone face down on the table. "If you watch any longer, the people from Qingtu Travel will be showing up at our door with knives."

Zhang Wei quickly sat back down in front of the computer.

Fortunately, although the system was slow, it did not actually crash, and all 147 seats in the three cars were locked, preventing a situation where a seat was sold to two people.

The real problem now is those thirty-one orders that are currently in the confirmation phase.

"How many payment records are there?" Wang Jianguo asked.

"Thirty-one yuan," Sun Hao said.

"What about the seat lockout?"

"Thirty-one."

"Then it's not overselling." Zhang Wei breathed a sigh of relief. "It's just that there were too many visits, and the order confirmations were backed up and didn't come back in time."

"Don't let go yet," Zhao Lei said. "Someone has clicked it several times."

He pulled up the record of one of the users, who had submitted the same phone number five times within a minute.

Fortunately, only one payment was actually successful; the other four were blocked by the system.

"This guy's typing speed is amazing," Zhang Wei exclaimed. "Five clicks a minute, he must have practiced that while buying concert tickets, right?"

"They're probably just worried about not being able to get any pancakes," Sun Hao said.

"You can't turn a 49-seat bus into a train!"

After the three people checked the payment and seating, they pushed all thirty-one orders back to the system. In less than five minutes, all the orders were confirmed as successful.

Manager Hu had just breathed a sigh of relief when he started urging for new seats again.

"All four vehicles have been contacted, and the drivers have been confirmed. Hurry up!"

"Manager Hu, the issue isn't about adding more cars," Wang Jianguo said. "With this traffic volume, even adding new seats will cause congestion."

"What should we do then?"

"Wait twenty minutes." Wang Jianguo hung up the phone and looked at the three people. "Separate the person looking at the routes from the person actually placing the orders."

Now, every time more than 20,000 people refresh the page, the system has to check the remaining tickets, hotels, and car types again.

Most people just come in to take a look, but they end up crowding onto the same street as those who actually pay.

Zhao Lei first introduced the route, and then separated the pictures and prices.

Regular users only view the page and no longer repeatedly occupy the order placement channel.

Zhang Wei added a queue for new orders, so that the next person could continue only after the person in front had finished paying, at least preventing thousands of people from crowding through one door at the same time.

Sun Hao, meanwhile, stayed behind to check the 196 new seats repeatedly, verifying the vehicle model, date, and quantity.

Nobody wants to work hard all day only to have their tickets for tomorrow reschedule for the day after.

At 10:21, the new route reopened.

As soon as the customer service representative from Qingtu Travel sent out the message, the number of orders started to jump.

ten.

Thirty.

Seventy.

In less than six minutes, all four cars and 196 seats were sold out again.

There were no issues with the mini-program, no duplicate orders, and the page automatically turned gray when the last seat was sold.

This train/bus is sold out.

In the conference room of Qiping Technology, several people leaned back in their chairs at the same time.

We've finally stabilized.

Before they could even catch their breath, Manager Hu called again.

Wang Jianguo looked at the caller ID and felt his head spin.

"Are we going to have to add more cars again?"

"We can't add any more." Manager Hu said with a smile this time, "All the available vehicles in the surrounding area have been snapped up by other travel agencies."

"I just want to ask if your system can be upgraded as soon as possible?"

"I used to think that a few thousand people a day would be enough, but now it seems we need to scale it up!"

Wang Jianguo: "..."

Master Su has indirectly harmed all of them!

Zhou Qiming was amused. Why not make money if you can? "Okay, send over your requirements this afternoon, and we'll discuss it privately."

After hanging up the phone, he glanced at the backend of Qingtu Travel one last time.

All seven buses and 343 seats were sold out by the end of the morning.

As a result, more than ninety rooms at hotels near the foot of the mountain were also booked.

Qingtu Travel spent money on three promotions last month, but the total sales they made in the first hour this morning didn't even match the sales they made this morning.

Su Yun never even mentioned the name Qingtu Travel from beginning to end, yet he still helped them so much!

"Is this boss really that outrageous now?" Wang Jianguo couldn't help but ask.

"It wasn't exactly normal before," Zhao Lei cautioned. "Who in their right mind would sell food under a bridge?"

Zhang Wei nodded. "That's right."

In the meeting room, several people discussed for a long time, and then all turned their attention to the cell phones on the table.

The live stream isn't over yet.

Just then, Su Yun lifted the lid of the pot, and a wisp of white steam rushed in front of the camera, revealing that more than a dozen beef pancakes had been baked to a golden brown and glistening color.

Zhang Wei glanced at it for two seconds, then silently swallowed. "Boss."

Zhou Qiming didn't even look up. "I'm not going."

"I haven't said anything yet."

"I know where you're going the moment you move your butt."

"Boss, let me explain."

Zhang Wei said in a serious tone, "We're not going to eat pancakes, we're going to see how to capitalize on the traffic from Qingtu Travel. We can't let this opportunity go to waste."

Wang Jianguo was also very interested.

They were really craving it.

Moreover, Qingtu Travel's system has stabilized.

The new peak in visits is being monitored by dedicated personnel, and order verification, temporary capacity expansion, and customer service calls have all been handed over to the operations and maintenance team.

Even if they leave for a day, it's not like they'll go up the mountain and the company will be gone the next day.

"Isn't Master Su going to set up shop on the mountain for a few more days?" Sun Hao said. "There's no need to rush to go in the next couple of days."

"What do you know?" Zhang Wei retorted immediately. "There are over three hundred people today, but maybe over three thousand tomorrow."

Zhao Lei reminded them, "There are already several thousand people on the mountaintop today."

"That means tens of thousands of people tomorrow!"

"Is it possible to stand on the top of Mount Tai?"

"If there's no room left, you should go even earlier!"

This statement seemed completely illogical, but for some reason, the other people actually thought he was right.

Zhou Qiming was getting a headache from their noise, so he finally raised his hand and tapped the table.

"Let's finish today's business first. Qingtu Travel is going to discuss the upgrade this afternoon. Once the plan is finalized, the project team will have a day off tomorrow."

"Yay!"

The group immediately erupted in excited shouts.

.........

At 4 p.m., Qingtu Travel's upgrade plan was basically finalized.

Wang Jianguo explained the subsequent shifts and monitoring arrangements, and the five men went home to pack their belongings.

They didn't buy Qingtu Travel's bus tickets, lol, there's no way you can buy them, they're all booked.

In the end, Wang Jianguo had to drive to the foot of Mount Tai for the night and then go up the mountain early the next morning.

There was another small problem when booking the hotel.

Almost all the affordable rooms at the dozen or so hotels partnered with Qingtu Travel were booked out.

After searching for a long time, Sun Hao finally found two standard rooms and one single room two kilometers away from the visitor center.

The price is more than 100 yuan higher than yesterday.

"This price has risen too fast!" Zhao Lei said.

"It seems the price hasn't gone up, it's just that the cheaper ones are sold out." Sun Hao showed him the inventory page. "What's left now is already expensive."

Zhang Wei looked heartbroken. "Master Su's pancakes only cost a dozen yuan each, but I spent several hundred yuan on accommodation just to eat them."

"Fine, you don't have to go," Zhou Qiming said.

"That won't do!"

Zhang Wei immediately booked the room.

At 5:30 p.m., Wang Jianguo’s car drove out of the company’s underground parking garage on time.

Zhou Qiming sat in the passenger seat, while Zhang Wei, Zhao Lei, and Sun Hao sat in the back. Just like when they went to the Chengnan Bridge, it was the same group of people.

It's just that back then, you could get fried rice with eggs within a 20-minute drive.

Now I have to spend three hours on the highway and then climb Mount Tai.

Not long after driving off, Zhang Wei opened the backend of Qingtu Travel again.

The system is operating normally.

Although all the Mount Tai tour packages are sold out, the number of page views is still increasing.

"That's fucking outrageous!" Zhang Wei couldn't help but mutter.

Three hours later, the car drove into the foot of Mount Tai.

As soon as they entered the hotel lobby, they saw the printer at the front desk spitting out paper.

The top of the paper was printed with the Qingtu Travel logo, and below it was the newly revised pick-up notice for tomorrow morning.

【Taishan Yunding Breakfast Shuttle】

There is another line of smaller text below.

This tour only covers round-trip travel; we cannot guarantee that you will be able to purchase the pastries.

This hotel was originally a partner hotel of Qingtu Travel.

After the receptionist posted the notice on the wall, Wang Jianguo stood there looking at it for a long time.

"Manager Hu is quick on the uptake."

"Exactly!" Sun Hao exclaimed. "This efficiency is incredible!"

Zhang Wei, however, had no time to complain.

Inside the hotel lobby, a dozen tourists were asking the front desk what time they could enter the scenic area the next morning.

Some people carried trekking poles, some carried insulated bags, and one guy even dragged a small camping box, looking like he wanted to take Su Yun's stall with him.

Zhang Wei's expression slowly changed. "What time are we getting up tomorrow?"

"Around 4:30," Wang Jianguo said.

"It's too late."

"Those four points?"

"Around 3:30."

After discussing it for a long time, the group finally decided to go up the mountain at four in the morning. That night, all five of them set their alarms for four in the morning.