Pei Qian supported his head with his hand, falling into silence.

He had to admit, there were experts among the netizens.

They had analyzed the cause and effect of this matter so clearly, even more thoroughly than Pei Qian, the hidden boss behind Morning Dew Gaming Platform.

But…

This wasn’t a good thing at all!

Morning Dew Gaming Platform had acquired the art of slaying dragons?

This wasn’t about slaying dragons; it was clearly about slaying him!

Of course, Pei Qian understood what the netizen meant by “the art of slaying dragons.” The implication was that Morning Dew Gaming Platform’s mechanism formed a sort of dimensional reduction attack against other gaming platforms. It was a magical, completely different level of technique with immense power that was difficult to imitate, hence the name “the art of slaying dragons.”

And as long as they found the perfect opportunity, such as a super hit game, then this dragon-slaying art would have its place.

But no matter how he looked at it, Pei Qian felt that this dragon-slaying blade was aimed at himself.

“This is a disaster!”

“I was hoping this connoisseur system would help me make an extreme comeback, but even before it’s officially implemented, it’s already declared that I’m done for?”

Pei Qian wasn’t willing to give up. Pressed under the Five Finger Mountain, he had thought he was about to turn the tables, but after struggling for a long time, he realized he had only turned over—from lying on his stomach to lying on his back, being pressed down even more firmly…

But no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t come up with a good solution for the time being.

When he handed over many rights to the players, many things were already out of his control.

“Since I can’t think of a better solution right now, I shouldn’t act rashly. Let’s wait and see.”

“After all, a gaming platform doesn’t become wildly popular overnight. There should still be time to think carefully.”

Pei Qian silently closed the relevant web pages and once again fell into deep thought.

……

……

September 26th, Wednesday.

Shortly after Pei Qian got out of bed, he received a call from his good brother Eric.

“Calling me so early in the morning, are you not going to let me rest properly?”

Pei Qian looked at the time; it was just past 9 AM. He had just woken up and hadn’t even had time to brush his teeth.

However, since it was a call from his good friend, he had to answer it immediately.

“Mr. Pei, uh…”

After greeting him, Eric on the other end of the phone fell silent for a moment, speaking a bit hesitantly.

Pei Qian couldn’t help feeling a bit nervous and quickly asked, “What’s wrong? Your higher-ups don’t agree?”

Eric paused slightly and explained, “After I reported back, the headquarters’ higher-ups urgently convened a meeting to discuss it, and… they accepted most of the conditions.”

Obviously, the higher-ups of the Dyack Group hadn’t expected Mr. Pei to accept all these conditions without hesitation, and they too felt a bit uneasy.

They hurriedly held a meeting to discuss whether there might be some trap behind this.

Pei Qian continued to ask, “So what was the result of the discussion? Which conditions weren’t accepted?”

He was a bit puzzled. This was clearly an unequal treaty, with a long list of obligations that GOG had to fulfill, while ioi had almost none.

What could the Dyack Group’s higher-ups possibly not accept?

Eric explained, “To be precise, they hope to add one more condition to the original terms.”

“Both sides will jointly fund a new activity.”

“This activity is called ‘Gods’ Fantasy, Summit Together’—of course, this name was proposed by Mr. Zhao Xuming.”

“The content of the activity is to set a popularity target for both games, with popularity mainly referring to player activity and online numbers. When both games reach their respective goals, players can receive generous physical rewards.”

“Of course, these physical rewards will be jointly provided by our two companies…”

As Eric continued speaking, his voice grew increasingly quiet; even he felt a bit lacking in confidence.

Making excessive demands repeatedly was indeed somewhat inhuman.

But there was no alternative. Business matters couldn’t be handled with softness, especially when dealing with the cunning Mr. Pei. There was no room for compassion.

So, he still carefully introduced the details of this activity.

Pei Qian nodded, “Oh? This activity name is quite good. Mr. Zhao is impressive.”

He thought seriously for a moment and quickly understood the intention behind this activity.

The name “Gods’ Fantasy, Summit Together” was quite well-chosen. He hadn’t expected Zhao Xuming to have some talent in naming.

But thinking about it, Zhao Xuming was after all the general manager responsible for Longyu Group’s agency of ioi, so this was his area of expertise. Coming up with a nice name wasn’t surprising.

Why choose such a name?

Because GOG’s full name was “Glory of Gods,” while ioi’s full name was “Imagine of Infinity.”

As for why these two games had such similar names, it was because Pei Qian had followed this format when naming GOG.

This activity took half from each game’s name, forming “Gods’ Fantasy.”

Adding “Summit Together” suggested that the two games were joining hands, living in harmony, and making money together.

Of course, this was all for show on the surface for the players. Behind the scenes, they might hate each other’s guts, but they had to maintain appearances.

Because at the root of this activity was the hope to divert traffic from GOG to ioi, they had to put on a “we’re brothers” attitude. If they deliberately emphasized the competitive relationship between the two sides, it would definitely provoke resentment from GOG players. At that point, players might prefer to forgo rewards rather than play ioi, which would be quite embarrassing.

As for the specific content of the activity, it could be seen as an escalation of the original content.

This activity was jointly funded by both parties, providing physical rewards, and the way to obtain these rewards was for both games to reach their respective popularity targets.

But the problem was that GOG’s popularity was high, while ioi’s was low.

So, for ioi’s popularity to reach the requirements for collecting rewards, players would have to flock to ioi more, play more games, and make more recharges.

In reality, it was still about finding ways to divert GOG’s players to ioi.

While Pei Qian was seriously pondering the specific details of this plan, Eric was also thinking about his own matters, and there was a moment of silence on the phone.

Eric was considering the higher-ups’ thoughts.

GOG had more players, ioi had fewer, and currently, players were flowing from ioi to GOG. This was an established fact.

Holding such an activity inevitably risked further loss of ioi players.

But with risk comes opportunity.

Although it was difficult to convert GOG players to ioi, surely not all of the diverted players would leave?

Even if only a small portion of players stayed, wouldn’t that be fresh blood?

Surely some people would get tired of GOG and want a change of pace.

If they thought that not a single GOG player would stay, then why should ioi struggle at all? Might as well give up resistance and surrender directly.

The higher-ups of the Dyack Group still believed deep down that ioi had fighting strength; otherwise, they would have sold it long ago.

This confidence made them believe that ioi’s players wouldn’t leave in large numbers because of such an activity.

Moreover, during this activity, all of ioi’s data, whether it was activity, popularity, or recharge data, would undoubtedly look good, which meant tangible economic benefits.

The main concern of the Dyack Group’s higher-ups was not to continue fighting with GOG to the death, as that would hinder their ability to make money.

They hoped to make more money while ioi was still in its current state and to recover losses as much as possible.

This joint activity was actually a good opportunity, as there were data targets in the activity that could only be achieved by recharging in ioi.

Taking some risks in the face of such benefits was normal.

Furthermore, ioi was being quite shrewd by presenting two faces: in the in-game activities, to prevent player loss, ioi wouldn’t give great rewards to players who went to play GOG; but in this “Gods’ Fantasy, Summit Together” activity outside the game, they would bear half of the rewards.

The latter was mainly to silence players and avoid losing the moral high ground, while the former was to minimize their own losses as much as possible.

Eric weighed the pros and cons and felt quite uneasy.

He wasn’t sure if this choice was truly appropriate.

But fortunately, he was now just a messenger and didn’t need to worry about such matters anymore, nor did he need to confront Mr. Pei directly.

In any case, the blame couldn’t be shifted to him.

After both had considered for a while, Pei Qian said, “Alright, I agree to this condition.”

“Let’s create some buzz together, win-win cooperation.”

Pei Qian spoke very sincerely, and in a sense, his action was indeed “win-win cooperation.”

GOG making less money, ioi making more money and lasting a bit longer—wasn’t that win-win cooperation?

Eric laughed, “Of course.”

While saying “of course,” he didn’t believe a single punctuation mark of it in his heart.

Not a single word from Mr. Pei’s mouth was true. Anyone who believed him would not only be sold out but would also end up counting money for him!

By now, after much thought, Eric had probably guessed a bit of Mr. Pei’s intention.

Was it to poach more players from ioi through this activity?

But this was like two masters comparing their internal strength. Although your internal strength might be a bit stronger, you can only use 30% of your power, while I can use 100% of mine. The final result was yet unknown.

After hanging up the phone, Eric reminded himself again that he was just a messenger, and if anything went wrong, it wouldn’t stick to him. Not being in that position meant not being responsible for those decisions, so he shouldn’t meddle.

Zhao Xuming, standing beside him, asked, “So… Mr. Pei agreed?”

Eric nodded, “He agreed. We can start preparing for the relevant activities.”

“By the way, Mr. Pei also complimented you, saying you came up with a good name for the activity.”

Zhao Xuming’s eyes lit up, “Really? Being praised by Mr. Pei, I’m truly fortunate!”

Eric teased, “With Mr. Pei’s appreciation for you, who knows, if ioi really goes under, you might get a position if you jump ship.”

Zhao Xuming hurriedly waved his hands, “You can’t say that! I’m a loyal servant of the Longyu Group! How could I possibly defect to our arch-enemy, Mr. Pei? That’s absolutely impossible!”

“I’m going to prepare for the activity now.”

Zhao Xuming immediately turned around and quickly left the office.