August 27th, Monday.

Pei Qian came to the company as usual and checked the status of each department.

“Huh? The Morning Dew Gaming Platform launched a bug-finding contest over the weekend?”

“And they’re being criticized?”

Pei Qian briefly looked at the online discussions and was surprised to find that the Morning Dew Gaming Platform was being criticized again.

Wait, why say “again”?

Clearly, Pei Qian couldn’t remember how many times this month the Morning Dew Gaming Platform had brought him pleasant surprises.

This time, the trigger for the criticism was the platform’s bug-finding contest.

According to the rules, anyone who found as many bugs in a game on the platform as marked would receive a 1,000 yuan reward, and finding one more would earn a 100,000 yuan reward.

This activity indeed generated an extremely enthusiastic response when it was launched.

Because players had never seen this kind of activity before!

Players were used to bugs in games. But now, a gaming platform was actually inviting players to come find bugs? And offering rewards for finding them?

Moreover, they had offered an astronomical prize!

Currently, there weren’t many games on the platform, only about a dozen or so, all mobile games. These games were submitted to the Morning Dew Gaming Platform around the same time as “Empire’s Blade,” having just finished fixing bugs and officially launched not long ago.

The number of bugs in these games ranged from 1 to 3.

Some older games that had been operating for a long time and had 0 bugs recorded on the platform also participated in this activity, though players couldn’t get the 1,000 yuan reward for these—they could only win the 100,000 yuan prize.

Finding just one or two bugs in a specific game to earn a hundred thousand yuan—what a temptation!

So the news spread quickly, and a large number of players flooded into the Morning Dew Gaming Platform, hoping to get a piece of the action.

Pei Qian checked the time; this activity had officially launched on Friday and had now been running for an entire weekend.

And this activity had produced some chain reactions.

For instance, the not-recommended rates for those two games had stabilized!

Originally, the not-recommended rates for these two games had reached the edge of being taken down, and the rate was continuously accelerating. But after the bug-finding activity started, they had survived.

The recommendation rates had even shown a noticeable increase.

However, this wasn’t because the platform’s players had a change of heart, but because… players wanted to keep these two games available to find bugs!

These two games had been running on other platforms for a long time and naturally had very few bugs. For players, the fewer bugs a game had, the more worthwhile it was to search.

According to the platform’s rules, if a game was marked with 0 bugs, then players would get 100,000 yuan for finding just 1 bug; whereas if another game was marked with 3 bugs, players would have to find all 3 bugs just to get 1,000 yuan, and find a 4th bug to get 100,000 yuan.

In the players’ view, there was obviously a big difference in the difficulty of finding bugs between these two types of games.

Thus, games with fewer bugs naturally became highly sought after. Many players rushed in to experience these games, some even spending a little money to unlock specific gameplay features, all to search every corner of the game for bugs!

This weekend, the Morning Dew Gaming Platform had also launched a new batch of games, including “Empire’s Blade,” all of which had fixed their bugs to meet Tang Yishu’s standards.

Among these games, those with fewer bugs naturally became prime targets. Players instantly swarmed in, directly filling all the newly opened servers to capacity.

On the surface, this seemed like a good thing, as it brought a lot of attention to the Morning Dew Gaming Platform.

But after fermenting over the weekend, things had slowly begun to change.

The direction of online discussions had turned negative!

“Scammers! This gaming platform is completely and utterly fraudulent! I clearly found a bug, but after submitting it, the officials didn’t respond at all!”

“Great job, master! Upload the video to AiLiDao website, we’ll like it for you, so the officials can’t pretend to be deaf and dumb anymore!”

“This platform is truly despicable. If you don’t have money, why pretend? You announced a 100,000 yuan reward, but you’re too stingy to pay out. Are you trying to have it both ways?”

“Huh, you all found bugs? I’ve been playing day and night, without sleep or rest for two days, but why haven’t I found any bugs at all…”

“I did find several grammatical errors, but the officials are sly—they said these don’t count as bugs! Only programming bugs qualify!”

“Forget it, let’s just criticize them harshly. This platform is just playing us for fools; they never intended to pay out!”

The people complaining online basically fell into two categories. The first claimed they had found bugs but received no response from officials, suggesting they were trying to default on payment; while the second category claimed the officials were simply creating hype maliciously by randomly writing down a number of bugs, tricking players into searching for them, using this gimmick to generate attention.

The latter group was basically incited by the former. Many people joined in the criticism, but they might not have actually found any bugs in the games. They were just swept up by the wave after seeing others complaining.

Pei Qian was both surprised and delighted.

Who came up with this activity?

Most likely Meng Chang!

Li Yada was too pure-hearted, only knowing how to design games; she probably couldn’t think of such a devious idea.

Moreover, this kind of activity that looked good on the surface but was actually full of traps perfectly matched Meng Chang’s personality and motives.

This activity was quite successful, at least in stirring up negative public opinion.

The only downside was, how could they not pay people?

They must pay! No matter how many bugs were found, they should compensate accordingly!

Thinking of this, Pei Qian immediately called Meng Chang.

“Hello? Mr. Pei?” From the other end of the phone came the sound of keyboard typing; Meng Chang seemed to be busy with something.

Pei Qian was 120% satisfied with Meng Chang’s work attitude.

Having Meng Chang help keep an eye on the Morning Dew Gaming Platform was truly reliable! So reassuring!

“Was this bug-finding activity your idea?” Pei Qian asked.

Meng Chang: “Yes, Mr. Pei, what do you think?”

“It’s fantastic! Truly a stroke of genius!” Pei Qian didn’t hold back his praise. “But there’s one issue—we still need to keep our word. Whatever amount we promised to pay, we must pay it. We can’t default.”

Meng Chang replied matter-of-factly: “Of course, Mr. Pei, how could we possibly default?”

“But we were off work this weekend, and only started processing these videos submitted by players this morning.”

“We’ll carefully record all the content and publish it on the official website. If someone truly found enough bugs, we will definitely pay the full amount without skimping.”

Pei Qian was a bit surprised: “If you never intended to default from the beginning, why didn’t you inform the players in advance that you’d be off for the weekend?”

Meng Chang smiled: “Of course, it’s for certain special purposes. You definitely understand, Mr. Pei.”

Pei Qian immediately caught on: “Oh! Of course.”

“Very good. Since you now understand your work very deeply and thoroughly, I can rest assured.”

“The momentum of this month’s promotional work is good. Keep it up!”

“It’s almost the end of the month. Just hang in there a bit longer—your commission is beckoning!”

Meng Chang was excited: “Alright, Mr. Pei!”

…

After hanging up, Meng Chang felt greatly encouraged.

Indeed, no matter what unexpected plan he came up with, Mr. Pei could immediately see the intention behind it.

This meant that the promotional plan he had racked his brains to come up with was still within Mr. Pei’s overall strategy.

Meng Chang checked the current public opinion online and shook his head with some regret.

“It’s a pity the timing wasn’t quite right.”

“I thought these players would at least wait for about a week before making a fuss. Didn’t expect them to be so impatient, getting restless after just two days.”

“They should at least have spent a few days seriously looking for bugs before complaining!”

Meng Chang had originally planned everything perfectly. The bug-finding activity was launched last weekend for a two-week period. He estimated that players would completely lose patience by this weekend, which would be the end of the month, and negative public opinion about the Morning Dew Gaming Platform would reach a peak.

This way, Meng Chang’s commission would be maximized.

However, because the players on the platform were all quite impulsive, they lost patience after just two days and started complaining.

This slightly affected Meng Chang’s plan; it would be impossible to drag it out for another four or five days.

The main concern was that if they continued not to respond, players might stop complaining, and negative public opinion wouldn’t continue to grow.

In that case, when the video came out next month, it would be a bit off timing. This promotional plan would essentially have a three to five-day gap in the middle, which was very imperfect.

To maintain the heat of this matter, they could only clarify things a bit first.

Meng Chang had already written a new official announcement and sent it to Li Yada.

This announcement responded to the players’ current doubts, stating that there was no response over the weekend because the company had a normal weekend break. From now on, they would examine and respond to each bug submitted by players one by one.

It also reminded players once again that the videos they submitted must comply with the rules: they must use the official platform version of the game without malicious modifications, the video must not have been maliciously edited or produced, and the bug must be reproducible twice.

If any player was dissatisfied with the results, they could come to a specific location in Jingzhou for a demonstration. The Morning Dew Gaming Platform would livestream it to the entire network. If the bug was verified, not only would round-trip travel and accommodation expenses be reimbursed, but the reward would be doubled.

Of course, when players came to Jingzhou, they definitely wouldn’t be arranged to test in the Morning Dew Gaming Platform’s “feng shui treasure spot,” but rather in a hotel venue, far away from it.

After making all the arrangements, Meng Chang leaned back in his chair and let out a gentle sigh.

“I still don’t have a complete grasp of the Pei-style promotional method. I can’t achieve Mr. Pei’s effortless, freely flowing approach.”

“I feel that my plan, although developing according to the expected plan overall, is often disrupted by unexpected situations. Although remedial measures can be taken, it’s still not as natural.”

“But… it’s still much better than before.”

Meng Chang recalled how anxious he had been when creating plans for commissions before. He had been constantly on edge, afraid that if he overlooked something, the project would explode in popularity ahead of schedule, and his commission would be completely wasted.

But now, Meng Chang no longer had that feeling at all.

Because he had mastered all the details of the project, he had already estimated when and how exactly the project would explode in popularity, so naturally, he was no longer anxious.

Now Meng Chang had only one feeling: he could hardly wait for the end of the month to arrive!