Super Zoo

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The young girl buying popcorn pointed at Suming, furiously forbidding him to smoke, causing such a commotion that it caught the attention of the two aunties at the ticket counter. They stopped their gossipy chitchat and chimed in, "Hey, put out that cigarette! Can't you see the no-smoking sign? Show some quality, will you?"

While they spoke, the middle-aged man checking tickets also walked over, frowning and speaking with impatience, "If you want to smoke, go outside, okay? This is a public place."

This time, Suming was truly annoyed.

There was no problem with the smoking ban. If someone had stopped them the first time he and Hou Longtao tried to smoke, he would absolutely have complied without a second word. But earlier, they had sat and finished a whole cigarette each, and the group of staff in the lobby had behaved as if they couldn't see them, occupied with their phones or their gossip.

Now their eyes worked? What were they doing just now? It was only because there had been a bit of an argument over buying popcorn.

Besides, even with a ban on smoking, their attitude was still wrong.

Never mind that "the customer is always right" or "service with a smile" cliché, even a normal, courteous reminder would have been acceptable.

"Mr. Wu, over here!" Hou Longtao suddenly stood up, waving his hand inside the cinema, calling out loudly.

All eyes followed the direction of Hou Longtao's gesture, and a middle-aged man in a suit with a slightly balding head came down the stairs from the second floor of the cinema. He appeared to be in his fifties and was indeed Changhe Cinema's boss, Wu Decheng.

"Mr. Su, Mr. Hou, I've kept you waiting. Sorry about that!" Wu Decheng hurried down the stairs, his face beaming with enthusiasm as he came up to greet them.

Man and cigarette arrived together, and by the time he reached them, he had already extended a King Size Zhonghua.

Suming glanced at the ticket checker and the three other staff members who had tried to stop him from smoking, then raised his hand to decline the cigarette, saying with a smile, "There's no smoking here, let's talk in the office."

Wu Decheng paused, then looked up at the no-smoking sign, pondering how that sign had hung there for years with nobody taking notice. Customers and staff smoked whenever they wanted, so what was different today?

After all, he was a businessman. Sensing the chill in Suming's voice and seeing the ticket checker's embarrassed expression, he quickly grasped the situation.

"Go back to what you were doing," Wu Decheng said with a frown and a hint of irritation to the few staff members, before putting on a smile. "Mr. Su, this way upstairs, please."

Under Wu Decheng's guidance, the service staff downstairs went back to their business—as if nothing happened, the daydreamers returned to their reverie, the phone users bowed their heads to play, and the gossipers resumed their chatting.

However, the topic had shifted after this little incident.

"Did you hear? Mr. Wu is planning to sell the cinema. Do you think those two just now could be the bosses coming to buy the cinema?"

"No way, what kind of bosses look that young?"

"Hard to say, I tell you, I recognized one of them earlier. I heard Mr. Wu calling him Mr. Su, and now I remember, isn't the young man surnamed Su the owner of the city zoo?"

The two middle-aged women went back and forth, actually guessing Suming's background quite correctly.

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"Aiyo, that's not good—might have offended the future boss just now," exclaimed a woman, but her tone wasn't one of worry; it was more like she was teasing for fun.

"Hey He, she's talking about you—you just offended your future boss," the woman said to a female sales clerk playing on her phone.

With her head full of blonde curls, Zhao didn't even look up, saying carelessly, "So what if I offended him? What's the big deal; am I afraid of him?"

The middle-aged man who had been zoning out at the ticket checkpoint, ever since Mr. Wu had taken Suming and Hou Longtao away, had been a bit anxious. He had been listening to the other's conversations with pricked ears and now chimed in, "That's easy to say, but he is a leader, after all; we should at least give him some face."

"Give him face?" muttered He disdainfully before going back to her phone.

"Oh, come on, Shen, don't be a coward. You always act like He's big brother around here, don't you? What, when it comes to the wealthy, you don't dare play the hero?" teased the ticket-seller, her joke tinged with spite. Both women looked at the ticket man with a touch of scorn in their eyes.

The ticket man offered an awkward smile, muttering defensively as if to reassure himself, "Well, if I knew he was the future boss, I wouldn't have said so much earlier."

The other ticket-selling woman then said to He, who was buying popcorn, "That's right, your dad used to be Mr. Wu's boss, helped him up the ranks. I heard Mr. Wu still visits your dad every Chinese New Year to pay his respects; is that true?"

"How would I know that stuff? I never get involved, stop asking me," replied He, irritatedly turning away and adjusting her phone so the screen was brighter.

After hitting a somewhat indifferent wall with He, the ticket-selling woman felt ignored and slightly embarrassed, but unable to take it out on He, she tilted her head back and said to another ticket-seller, "Yeah, He is right, it's just a change of boss. We're all from the factory, who doesn't have connections there?"

A small cinema with more people than work, no one's mind truly on the job, naturally bred discord. They might lack the knack for customer service, but they sure didn't lack any of the skills for office politics.

The other ticket-seller, who also disliked He's snobbish, dismissive demeanor, chimed in, "That's true, Sister Wang, if my memory serves right, wasn't the former deputy factory manager your husband's middle school classmate?"

"Eh, we just had a general acquaintance. My husband didn't use to think much of him, who knew he'd become a deputy manager. But he does give my family respect," the ticket-seller smirked.

"Let me tell you, it's the same with me. The former union chairman still calls me 'big sister' and is super enthusiastic whenever he sees me."

"That's what I'm saying, these leaders are nothing special. Just look at our cinema, it's filled with old Changhe employees and their family members. No matter who buys the cinema, they still have to rely on us," she lowered her voice, "and to speak frankly, even if the new owner is loaded with money, if we all stick together and stop working for him, he won't be able to run the place, will he?"

"That's true, we're all old colleagues, of course, we'll help our own. We wouldn't turn our backs on each other, would we?"

While they were gossiping and playing so-called office politics downstairs, upstairs in the office, they were negotiating a deal.

Overall, the negotiations went smoothly, and both parties quickly agreed on a price, including all the equipment, premises, and accompanying assets.

In Suming's view, the total price was within an acceptable range, not exactly cheap, but not expensive either. However, Hou Longtao was somewhat taken aback by the cost of acquiring a cinema; his funds could only cover maybe ten to twenty percent of the shares at most.

The negotiations went smoothly not only because Suming had done his homework in advance but also due to the attitude of Wu Decheng.

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