Chapter 84 Would You Like to Come?

Mu Xin still chose the construction site at Hueston Woods for the meeting; he wanted this person to see the most authentic version of things.

A black Mercedes S-Class slowly drove into the temporary parking lot; the license plate was from Florida, not local to Ohio.

Mu Xin raised an eyebrow. Driving from Florida would take at least a dozen hours; this person wasn't just here for a casual look.

The car door opened, and a man stepped out.

He looked younger than his actual age, with a slender build, wearing a dark gray linen suit without a tie; the top button of his white shirt was undone, revealing a patch of bronze-colored neck.

His face lacked the exaggerated smile common among American businessmen, his expression calm.

He stood by the car, not rushing over, but instead looking around first.

His gaze swept over the tower cranes on the site, the high ground by the lake, and the canopy of the distant beech-maple old-growth forest, before finally landing on Mu Xin.

His pace was unhurried; the gravel road crunched under his feet, and a layer of dust quickly coated his leather shoes.

"Mr. Mu." The man extended his hand, his voice carrying a faint French accent.

"Jean-Luc Dupont. You can call me Jean-Luc."

"Mr. Dupont, welcome." Mu Xin released his hand and made a gesture of invitation. "Shall we take a look first?"

"Call me Jean-Luc," he said. "The word 'Mr.' sounds too formal on a construction site."

Mu Xin smiled without responding and turned to walk toward the site. Mu Xin took him around the site for an hour.

Robert followed behind, holding construction blueprints, ready to answer technical questions at any moment.

But the questions Jean-Luc asked were fewer than Robert had expected. It wasn't that he wasn't asking; it was that he understood with a single glance.

When they reached the foundation of the main building, he crouched down and ran his fingers over the surface of the poured concrete, smelled it beneath his nose, then stood up and brushed the dust off his hands.

He turned his head to look at Mu Xin and asked a question completely unrelated to concrete: "Why do you want to build this hotel?"

"Because the population of Oxford Town plummets as soon as summer vacation starts," Mu Xin said. "Once the students leave, the town becomes empty; I need them to stay."

"Interesting." He finished, then turned and continued walking forward.

They walked to the high ground by the lake, the same spot Mu Xin had first brought designers to see. It faced Acton Lake directly, with a wide view and no obstructions.

Standing here, one could see a panoramic view of the entire lake.

Jean-Luc stood at the edge of the high ground, hands in his pockets, watching the lake, silent for a long time.

"Rick told me that you only took ten minutes to choose this spot." He spoke, his gaze not leaving the lake.

"About that," Mu Xin said, standing next to him. "When I saw it, I just felt that this was the place."

Jean-Luc turned around and looked at Mu Xin.

"Mr. Mu, do you know what the first thing most people do when building a hotel is?"

Mu Xin shook his head; he had no interest in knowing how others did it.

"Crunching numbers." Jean-Luc's tone was flat. "Site selection depends on average transaction price, design depends on cost per square foot, service depends on the staff-to-room ratio; all decisions revolve around Excel spreadsheets."

"It's not that those numbers aren't important, but when every decision you make is about calculating how much money you can earn, you cannot build a truly good hotel."

"Your hotel, from site selection to design to construction, is losing money on every front."

"An investment of 120 million, and that's not counting the additional capital you injected later."

"The CFO of any hotel management company would reject this outright upon seeing that number, but you didn't do that math."

"I did the math," Mu Xin said. "I just don't care."

"Rick said you were a madman," he said. "I don't think he was right now."

"Then what am I?"

"You aren't a madman." Jean-Luc turned back to look at the lake. "You're just rich enough that you don't need to care about the standards of a madman."

Mu Xin didn't respond; he didn't know how to answer. He couldn't exactly tell him he had a system, could he...

Jean-Luc took a pack of cigarettes from his inner suit pocket, pulled one out, tapped it against the pack, and lit it.

"I worked at Cheval Blanc for seventeen years. Do you know what my biggest success was?"

"The Paris location," Mu Xin said.

"No," Jean-Luc shook his head. "It was making that crowd accustomed to LV and Dior believe that a hotel isn't fashion."

"Fashion changes every six months; a hotel is still standing there sixty years later."

"You can open a pop-up shop on the Champs-Élysées, close it in three months and leave, and no one will say anything."

"But you cannot open a hotel in Paris and close it three years later. That's not just closing; that's a disgrace."

"So you left LVMH because they wanted to turn hotels into fast-moving consumer goods?"

Jean-Luc didn't answer; he took a drag of his cigarette and exhaled slowly.

"I didn't leave," he finally spoke. "I was marginalized."

"Their global expansion strategy requires standardization, replicability, and high turnover. Cheval Blanc doesn't fit that model; every Cheval Blanc is unique."

"You can't replicate the skiing DNA of Courchevel onto an island in the Maldives, nor can you replicate the urban DNA of Paris onto the beaches of Saint Barthélemy."

"But they want to do that?" Mu Xin was a bit curious.

"What they want to build is a luxury hotel under the Cheval Blanc brand, not Cheval Blanc itself." Jean-Luc's voice carried a hint of weariness. "Do you understand the difference between the two?"

Mu Xin was silent for a few seconds, then nodded.

"A brand is a label—you just stick it on. The essence is the root—it has to grow."

Jean-Luc turned his head and looked at Mu Xin. "At your age, you shouldn't understand these things," he said.

"I didn't study hotel management; I studied mathematics—math and statistics, and some related things." Mu Xin smiled. "Everything, in the end, is mathematics."

"Relationships between people are game theory, business decisions are probability theory, architecture is geometry, and service is psychology."

"Mathematics isn't just crunching numbers; mathematics is seeing the essence."

Jean-Luc looked at him, silent for a long time.

The cigarette burned to the end; he crushed the butt under his shoe sole, then tossed it into the trash can nearby.

"Mr. Mu, I have a question. What is the positioning of your hotel?"

"A luxury resort hotel," Mu Xin said. "Not a hostel for poor students, and not a three-star hotel for the middle class."

"What I want is a place that makes the wealthy in Cincinnati willing to drive an hour to spend the weekend."

"Not enough." Jean-Luc shook his head. "Luxury isn't a price bracket; it's an experience."

"You can spend a thousand dollars a night at Four Seasons, or you can spend a thousand dollars a night at Cheval Blanc, and the experience is completely different."

"The difference is in the details." Jean-Luc spoke eloquently. "The sheets at Four Seasons are 300-thread count cotton; the sheets at Cheval Blanc are 400."

"Four Seasons has an omelet station for breakfast; Cheval Blanc has a dedicated egg chef. When you order Eggs Benedict, they will ask if you want the classic hollandaise sauce or one infused with truffles."

"The concierge at Four Seasons can help you book a Michelin-starred restaurant; the concierge at Cheval Blanc can arrange a private dinner for you after the Michelin restaurant has closed."

"When you were at the Paris location, did you achieve these things?"

"I did," Jean-Luc's tone lacked any trace of boasting. "Cheval Blanc Paris has seventy-two rooms, two hundred and forty staff, and a staff-to-room ratio of three to one."

"What does that mean? It means every guest can enjoy exclusive service."

"The front desk knows your name, the restaurant knows your allergens, and housekeeping knows what kind of pillow you like."

"For my hotel, what staff-to-room ratio can we achieve?" Mu Xin asked.

"Your design is for two hundred rooms." Jean-Luc didn't answer directly. "By Cheval Blanc standards, you would need at least six hundred staff members."

"Given your budget and construction timeline, it would be good if you could hire three hundred."

"Then three hundred it is."

"Three hundred people cannot achieve three-to-one."

"Then we do two-to-one." Mu Xin's tone was calm. "I don't need my hotel to become a replica of Cheval Blanc; I need it to become itself."

"Two hundred rooms, three hundred staff—one and a half staff members per room. What level is this ratio in the market?"

Jean-Luc thought for a moment. "Higher than Four Seasons, lower than Cheval Blanc. In the North American market, that is already top-tier."

"That's enough," Mu Xin said. "I don't want my hotel to become the best in the world overnight; I want it to be the best in Ohio."

"Once it gains a firm footing in Ohio, then we can think about the rest of the world."

Jean-Luc looked at him. "You are a very interesting person."

"I know." Mu Xin smiled. "So, are you willing to come?"