The characters of Losing Money To Be A Tycoon. Beware, spoilers alert!
Pei Qian (裴谦)
A graduate of Handong, majoring in humanities. After graduating in 2013, he worked as a cog in the society, dealing with politics, bosses and job changes in his corporate life. Single and living alone before he transmigrated back to 2009, he received the Wealth Conversion System.
Notable Positions:
Boss of Tengda Network Technology Co Limited.
Creator of The Lonely Desert Road
Developer of Ghost General
Concept Creator of Game Designer
Main actor of Boss Pei's Daily Life
Creator of Hardcore Reviews
Scriptwriter of Tomorrow is Beautiful
- Actually, I Am Him: Since Pei Qian never reveals himself to the public, whenever a new employee or a new stakeholder is able to connect with him, they are inevitably surprised since he's younger than they thought and/or he's the actor of "Boss Pei Daily Life".
- A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
- To his employees, Pei Qian is a Benevolent Boss that guides people to success. To the readers, Pei Qian can be cruel enough to give (what he presumed to be) bad business advice and/or worse, hire reviewers to influence the success of his products in order to secure his losses.
- In terms of other businesses, when he's an ally he will give everything to support your venture, especially in spending money; when he's your enemy, you will be facing an unintentional threat that can make you feel defeat through psychologically playing your emotions and logic.
- The B Grade: While he only attends college classes when it is mandatory, he did try to take his studies seriously and take offense when his scores were lower than Ma Yang. In his defense, he has a company to manage.
- Benevolent Boss: The employees under Tengda sees Pei Qian as this, since he provides very good employee benefits like healthcare, fitness and meals despite the reduced workdays even when Tengda grows bigger (9-5 weekends only compared to Chinese's competitive ventures where 9-9 for 6 days is the norm). The truth though is more selfish in Pei Qian's part.
- Berserk Button: While he has many things that he reacted ranging from surprised to fuming note , scalping (trading a stock from 1 company to a 3rd company for a small profit) is this for this, developing many ways note to weaken their ability to do so. Because if the founder is unable to directly profit from his projects, scalpers who's only effort is to buy and sell, especially with the improved technology and communication, should never benefit from it.
- Butt-Monkey: Most of the time Pei Qian wants to make a loss in a project, the project ended up earning him a profit or an increase in reputation.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Him having a system, since exposing it will have the system kill him.
- Crazy Enough to Work: Pei Qian tries to develop industries in the mindset where the concept (like making an internet cafe very high end with a lot of facilities or redesigning an apartment where people are not able to purchase furniture in a room that barely has furnishing) disincentive buyers, along with the high cost compared to other companies, but other factors make it work and turning Tengda into a trendsetter for the new industries.
- A Degree in Useless: Subverted, in his past life his degree in humanities did earn him a position as a middle manager, it's just that in this life where he manages his business that expanded to an empire, a college degree feels pitiful in comparison.
- Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Pei Qian (and by extension, Tengda) is a very difficult opponent to face in business mainly due to this. As winning against him, Pei Qian don't mind since he got what he actually want (losing business funds to get his personal funds), and losing against him just helps Tengda much to his irritation.
- Hidden Depths: He's a pretty skilled plot maker in some of his projects he personally participated in (and is enhanced further with his employee's execution).
- During Game Designer where he personally take control of all the creative decisions, Lin Wan found a lot of insights about the rise and fall of different gaming industries.
- When the presented his written script of Tomorrow Is Beautiful to the crew, the hesitant Lu Zhiyao is convinced to take part by Zhang Zuting (a notable Hong Kong actor) who praised the script.
- Mole in Charge: To the business he personally founded in order to make a loss.
- Powerful and Helpless: Due to a system's clause that a week before the settlement date he must have a finished project to sell, otherwise the settlement will be delayed, when his products make a profit he could only spend the rest of the time helpless until the next settlement period. This has before less frequent with his getting more ways to spend the profits to make his loss.
- Punny Name: His name in Chinese, can be sounded as 赔钱, translated as spending money. True to the trope, he's spends a lot of money with the help of the system, but ironically, he will get will back as either system funds or reputation.
- Ridiculously Average Guy: Pei Qian. The novel don't elaborate why he is chosen to travel back to time with a system, as at that time he's just an average worker in his late 20s living alone, without any sort of trauma that affected him and his parents are living fine, just having an average life that Pei Qian wants to improve.
- Secret Identity: Due to not wanting to be bothered personally and not wanting his parents to find out, Pei Qian deliberately makes his presence low, with his public persona with Tengda being a mid level employee for the film sector Fei Huang Workspace, with accolades as an actor of "Boss Pei Daily Life" and the main scriptwriter for the dystopian sci-fi "Tomorrow is Beautiful".
- Secretly Selfish: Pei Qian provide generous benefits for his employees (and his acquaintances) not because he's benevolent, but because he has a higher chance to earn more personal funds this way.
- Self-Made Man: Played With, the system main feature is just mainly giving him money to spend on his business, so most of the time Pei Qian & Tengda build most of their wealth by creating things to the market.
- The Stoic: The continuous successes of Tengda help develop Pei Qian to have a poker face in order not to show bitterness or surprise to his employees.
- Wrong Assumption: Part of why a lot of his projects goes against his predictions.
- At the start, he chose games as a starting point because he's a gamer and can simply not follow the great games he played 10 years before the transmigrated. However, the combination of his game knowledge that may unconciously influence his criteria and Tengda's execution that is above average at worst, lead to Tengda's games being able to create headlines in the industry at the very least and create profits.
- When hiring his gaming team, Pei Qian deliberately chose employees that does not seem to have the work experience and/or the ability to execute well and provide them with more than good work-life balance (like working 9-5 for weekdays only and overtime needs to be approved) and salaries. But instead of having an awful team that slacks off at will, he ended up having creating an elite team that has strong execution, creativity to focus and very dedicated to their job, especially with the success of Tengda's projects.
Ma Yang (马洋)
A Handong student, who lives in the same dorm as Pei Qian. In the timeline before Pei Qian transmigrated, despite being a determined and enthusiastic student, he is not able to secure a good job in the city. In the end, he worked in a job his parents found for him in his hometown. Due to his ability (or lack thereof), Pei Qian hired him in order to lose money more efficiently.
Notable Positions:
Concept Creator of Ghost General
Staff of Tengda's Gaming Department
Manager of Fish Catching Internet Café
Manager of Dream Realization Ventures
Manager of Bunny Tail Livestream Platform
- Beginner's Luck: His first investment for Dream Realization Ventures is investing the entire 20 million RMB Pei Qian given to Finger Games' Imagine of Infinity, or IOI for short. Pei Qian becomes pale hearing it since, the real life counterpart is Riot Game's League of Legends.
- The Dilbert Principle: Pei Qian hiring him and then putting him into various top management positions despite Ma Yang lack of ability is because he banks on Ma Yang inability to execute tasks by himself.
- The Fool: His lack of social grace (complaining about the lowered comfort level in another gaming studio during a learning exchange) and having no self-awareness (especially in gaming) overshadowed his other normal traits, an example being usually scoring higher in his test than Pei Qian (although in Pei Qian's defense he has a business to run).
- The Lancer: Initially working under game design, he's this for the physical businesses in Tengda, where he at least transferred to 3 different ventures.
- The Load: Pei Qian considers him as this, due to mainly his lack of self-awareness and his aptitude has a mid-level cap that prevent him from improving further, therefore a good candidate for Tengda in losing money.
- Another example is his skills in playing the Dota counterpart Gods Rising, where he's a handicap in his team due to him focusing more on playing by himself over helping his team.
- Nice Guy: Despite his ineptitude, he has a strong moral character and initially won't join Pei Qian's plan to make money because he felt Pei Qian shouldn't not emulate the success of "The Lonely Desert Road" with his new found cash...until Pei Qian admitted he made that game.
- Secret-Keeper: For Pei Qian in his starting identity as a university student and is willing to distance their private relationship in Tengda
Xin Hai Lu (辛海璐)
Once an assistant for the vice-president at a famous enterprise, she resisted the vice-president who acted inappropriately when drunk. Resign on her own and tired of working in a large company, she decided to start over in favor of working in a smaller enterprise, and her resume is discovered when a client wants to seek out the most expensive assistant in her group.
Notable Positions
President Assistant of Tengda Network Technology Co Limited.
- Almighty Janitor: Her starting role is the president's assistant and the position didn't change even though Tengda's rapid expansion makes her role more of a vice-president that helps manage the operations of Tengda's many ventures. At the end of the story Pei Qian noted her efforts being above her supposed position, and promoted her to Tengda's executive vice president where she has the highest authority among the vice presidents and mediates future conflicts between Tengda's different ventures.
- Bit Character: Despite her role and importance in the admin side, outside of her introduction she's surprisingly not given a chapter dedicated to her and her thoughts on Tengda in general.
- Failed a Spot Check: Somehow, from influencing Pei Qian to hire Lin Wan until they found out their rent on their building, Shenhua View, has lowered drastically from 4 RMB per square feet to 1.5 RMB per square feet, she never realize, or chose not to inform Pei Qian for some reason, that Lin Wan has a familial relationship with the Shenhua Corporation.
- Informed Attribute: Her backstory including resisting a vice-president who acted inappropriately when drunk, showing that she has a strong character. But the pleasant & almost conflict-free environment in Tengda and her lack of character focus never have her show off that trait.
- Omniglot: Downplayed, aside from Chinese she is fluent in three other languages. We only know one of them is English as she used her skills to help Tengda's game department in reviewing translation made by other companies to launch the English version of 'Repent And Be Saved'.
- The Reliable One: Enforced by Pei Qian, who wanted her expertise in getting things done in the admin side, with the caveat that when it comes to decision making, she can only give suggestions to Pei Qian, otherwise she must remain silent and won't question overtly.
Bao Xu (包旭)
An internet addict who sustains himself by playing games at internet cafes to the point he lives in it. Before Pei Qian personally hiring him for his ability in this timeline, he will be known at school for wearing the same clothes through the 4 seasons and dropping out of school in his second year, making his family worried for his future.
Notable Positions
Staff of Tengda's Gaming Department
Concept Designer of Ocean Stronghold
Unwilling Traveler
- Butt-Monkey: When travel is included, even when he's not voted 2nd for the Dream Fund Award for the first time, it is around the time Pei Qian included a rule that the 2nd place must bring another person with them. And since he's available most of the time...
- Crutch Character: His vast gameplay knowledge positions him as a go-to-guy for gaming advice in the perspective as a gamer, but as sometimes he's not available due to traveling and trying to lay low, leaving the other staff and the chief planner have to plan & develop by themselves.
- The Dog Bites Back: Bottling the stress from his constant experience from travelling around and being playfully mocked by his colleagues, when he found out he's gotten 1st in the Outstanding Employee Selection note , an ill comment from Huang Sibo & the other following along cause him to lash out by using his Dream Fund to create a tourism business...with the intention to make his colleagues suffer.
- Hidden Depths: He's insightful with revealing their situation when the company is rising too soon will subject it to Tall Poppy Syndrome.
- Just One More Level!: His addiction to games in general, he admits in an interview that if it wasn't for Pei Qian and being forced to travel around, he might be destroyed by his obsession.
- The Lancer: For Tengda's games department, due to his vast gaming experience in different games, he's proficient at providing suggestions to improve the game play.
- Mundane Luxury: After working at Tengda, he's content with just playing games in a highly specialized gaming computer while working on their new games from time to time, so don't give him vacations that forces him to travel everywhere.
- NEET: He's a slacker who's obsessive with gaming to the point of living the different internet cafes and would have lose himself in the obsession if Pei Qian didn't hire him.
- Running Gag: When there is a travelling option available at Tengda, he is going to be chosen.
- Taking You with Me: The initial reason why he create Suffering Travels is to get back at his colleagues for mocking his tendency to get vacations and putting him into them.
Huang Sibo
A mid 20s worker switching careers midway, he worked 6 months with a lot of overtime in the industry, being a mediocre administrative planner for 1,500 RMB a month. Seeing a hiring notice at Tengda, he decides to take the interview and stumble upon his manager. To his surprise, his more experienced manager is not hired, but he is, and becomes the first chief planner of Tengda's gaming team.
Notable Positions
Chief Planner of Ocean Stronghold
CEO of ''Fei Huang Studios
Lin Wan
A rich daughter of Shenhua Corporation. Naive and silly about the outside world, her aspiration for being a game designer is opposed by her family and the game company she works under would rather discourage her for pursuing this path. But one learning exchange with Tengda has her inspired and join Tengda.
Notable Positions
Staff of Tengda Gaming Department
Director of Shang Yang Games
- Character Development: She started off naïve and idealistic towards the game industry, believing that games should provide fun to people. Then her experiences in the game industry showed her a lot.
- Working on Sun Strike Studios as an intern shows her how tough and thankless the job actually is.
- Quitting and working in Tengda reconstructed her idealism while tempering her expectations, especially working on Game Designer.
- Being a director of Shang Yang Games and managing a failing game company to success shows how much she has to learn in being a leader and a game developer.
- Managing IOI and ultimately losing to GOG in influence, gives her the experience of losing.
- Being a majority stakeholder for Slow Movement Studios and having a successful start from their Animal Island VR, she partially understand why Pei Qian is worried, as the industry is looking and their next step and she knows her independence means she sometimes will have to make decisions without help from Tengda.
- The Not-Love Interest: She's a newcomer when Tengda is starting to establish, she has the classic game startup story in Tengda and sometimes even lead Tengda's upper management through action and speech. Despite her role that could be used as a romantic lead for Pei Qian, not only Pei Qian is uninterested in romance at that time, he even tries to think of ways to get her leave Tengda due to her status, and succeed doing so by having her to be a majority stakeholder in her own gaming company, albeit backed up by Tengda & Shenhua
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: She's the one who suggests Li Yida the improvement on giving GOG a mobile option, which bites her months later when her team is giving the task of promoting IOI, against GOG who has developed a huge fanbase in the Chinese market.
- Non-Idle Rich: A self inflicted example, as she defy her family's objections of working in the game industry.
- Secret Identity: She is one of the heiress of Shenhua Corporation, where she is expected to inherit one of their many industries. Her refusal and wanting to work in gaming that is opposed by her family forces her to make her own path instead.
Lu Mingliang
Initially an intern of another gaming company, his role consists of filling in forms and completing the occasional odd task. He then passed the initial Tengda interview due to his lack of work experience. After the success of Ocean Stronghold and the first Dream Fund event, he is chosen by Pei Qian to become the next chief planner for gaming.
Notable Positions
Staff of Tengda Gaming Department
Chief Planner of Game Designer
Chief Planner of Repent & Be Saved
CEO of Upwind Logistics
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Downplayed, he admits he do not know what to do after winning 1st for the second Outstanding Employee Selection, as he don't know anything else other than game design. Not wanting to keep the business funds, Pei Qian directs him to become the CEO of Upwind Logistics instead.
- The Reliable One: Pei Qian liked him for this trait since he will fully follow Pei Qian's directives without implementing additional elements that improve Tengda's games.
Li Yada
An employee under Tengda. After Tengda has concluded its 2nd Outstanding Employee Selection, she's randomly selected among the Top 10 of the poll to become the 3rd chief planner of Tengda Games.Notable Positions
Staff of Tengda Gaming Department
Follow Up Chief Planner of Repent & Be Saved
Chief Planner of Glory of Gods
- Almightly Janitor: Due to her period as a chief planner which ends with her voluntarily stepping down, she don't have a huge profile in the game development world outside Jingzhou despite her contributions.
- Gracefully Demoted: After her vacation from getting 2ns in the 3rd Outstanding Employee Selection, she decided to voluntarily step down and pass her position to Hu Xianbin when seeing how well the department is running in order to honor Tengda's tradition. Pei Qian himself approved by keeping her salary the same, with the thinking that she chose of slack off after her vacation and being more threatening than Hu Xianbin.
- Remember the New Guy?: After the 2nd Outstanding Employee Selection, Pei Qian is faced with an unfamiliar team in the Tengda's gaming departmentnote , she randomly selected to become a Chief Planner of Tengda Games despite the lack of foreshadowing about her.
- Team Mom: Despite her young age, she's the one the younger colleagues consult and talk to about their game development progress in Tengda.
