Bao Xu was deeply moved.

As expected of Mr. Pei, he didn’t let me silently contribute and sacrifice, but instead found a solution that satisfied both sides!

Now Bao Xu had no regrets at all and happily hung up the phone.

Afterward, he relayed Mr. Pei’s arrangements to Yu Fei.

“The matter is resolved!”

“I’ll first make some simple arrangements for my work here, and the suffering journey will proceed as scheduled. Tomorrow or the day after, I’ll go to Tenda Games and work with you to properly research the design plan for ‘Ghost General 2’.”

Yu Fei was overjoyed and immediately went back to organize the relevant materials while waiting for Bao Xu’s arrival.

…

After Yu Fei returned to the Tenda Games department, he found that Hu Xianbin was still there, seemingly waiting for news of his successful return.

Sure enough, upon seeing Yu Fei, Hu Xianbin immediately stood up with expectation: “How did it go? What did Brother Bao say?”

The gesture and expression were exactly the same as when Yu Fei had seen Hu Xianbin return earlier.

Only the roles of the two seemed to have been reversed.

Yu Fei’s face was beaming with a smile: “Brother Bao agreed to help!”

“Really? That’s great!”

Hu Xianbin nearly jumped up with joy. Obviously, he was genuinely happy.

Since the game would take at least half a year to develop, if Bao Xu had to help here, it meant he wouldn’t go to Shennongjia, which meant they would suffer much less under Sa Ziran.

Yu Fei added, “But it might be a little different from what you expected.”

Hu Xianbin’s smile froze on his face: “Hmm? What’s different?”

Yu Fei said, “Brother Bao will only stay in Jingzhou for a week to help me complete the design draft, then he’ll go to Shennongjia.”

Hu Xianbin froze.

But immediately after, he patted his chest and let out a long breath.

Still good, escaping for a week was still a win.

For this Shennongjia trip, the first two weeks were wilderness survival, and the last two weeks were sightseeing.

In other words, of these two weeks of wilderness survival, at least the first week would be relatively easy.

Yu Fei continued, “Originally, Brother Bao had already prepared to give up going to Shennongjia, but Mr. Pei said this was also proper work and that the suffering journey shouldn’t be compromised because of the gaming department’s issues. So although Brother Bao will go a week late, he’ll make up for it at the end.”

“That means the wilderness survival content has been extended to three weeks—two weeks at the beginning and another week at the end, while the time for visiting famous scenic spots in the middle remains unchanged.”

Hu Xianbin immediately froze in place.

It was over, all over!

The plan had completely backfired!

He had thought they could have it easier if Bao Xu didn’t go, but never imagined that Mr. Pei would directly add it back on!

Compared to before, there was now an additional week of wilderness survival!

What does it mean to be the architect of your own misfortune?

After a long while, he finally came back to his senses and said to Yu Fei, “Brother, let’s talk about this. You absolutely must keep this a secret. Don’t let the other department heads know…”

If others found out that an extra week of wilderness survival had been mysteriously added because of Hu Xianbin’s suggestion, the consequences would be unimaginable!

Hu Xianbin certainly didn’t want to be beaten to death in Shennongjia by angry department heads…

…

…

October 11, Thursday.

Pei Qian refreshed IOI’s official website as if it were a routine task, once again raising that soul-searching question.

“What the hell are these people doing?!”

“What on earth are Eric and Zhao Xuming thinking?”

“This won’t do. I must make a call and ask.”

Pei Qian simply couldn’t sit still anymore.

The “Gods’ Fantasy, Peak Convergence” event was originally planned to last for two weeks and was now entering its final stage.

The first week was during the holiday period, so Eric and Zhao Xuming might have been on vacation or not sensitive enough to the data changes, so they didn’t come up with any solutions. That was somewhat understandable.

But the second week had already started with normal working days!

It was already Thursday, and there was still absolutely no movement. Wasn’t something wrong?

The original intention of this event was to bring some fresh blood to IOI, but because of that loophole, it had turned into a flow between the two games.

A large number of IOI die-hard players registered GOG accounts to get rewards, and to participate in the event and receive rewards, they had to go through the new player process.

During this process, it was inevitable to play with some real-life friends.

Many of those IOI die-hard players had real-life friends who played GOG. Although completing the new player matches was required to unlock the event, there were no level restrictions for initial team-ups.

If you have to grind anyway, why not play together with friends?

As a result, the problems with this event grew larger as it progressed.

On GOG’s side, players going to IOI’s event had already decreased. Although the event still had two or three days before ending, those persistent players logging in for rewards were just one step away from the finish line. They had already met various online time requirements and were just waiting for the last day to log in and claim their rewards.

In contrast, on IOI’s side, those players who came to play GOG showed signs of getting hooked and seemed somewhat reluctant to go back.

Although the rewards for both sides were not that different in this event, GOG’s daily benefits were much more generous than IOI’s!

Plus, with more players, the matchmaking mechanism worked better, so the overall gaming experience was also better.

All these situations were reflected in the data.

It was clearly visible that although IOI’s data was still relatively high compared to before the event, it was gradually declining. It was estimated that when the event truly ended and GOG players successfully claimed their rewards in GOG, IOI’s data would see another significant drop.

In contrast, GOG’s data had already caught up with its previous levels days ago. Considering that some players would return after the event ended, the player attraction effect of this event was actually quite significant.

Or rather, it had successfully converted a batch of players who were originally extremely loyal to IOI and adamantly refused to touch GOG…

What a mess.

Pei Qian was practically spitting blood. It had all gone wrong, completely wrong!

The original plan was to give IOI a blood transfusion, but why was the blood flowing toward his side once the vessels were connected?

So many preventive measures seemed to have had no effect at all!

The most ridiculous part was that although the loophole was on IOI’s side, they simply ignored it. Their sluggish response was simply incomprehensible.

Pei Qian truly couldn’t wait anymore. After much hesitation, he finally dialed Eric’s number.

Even if the other party misunderstood, it didn’t matter. This call had to be made.

If he couldn’t understand the truth, Pei Qian would simply be unable to eat or sleep, dying in confusion.

The phone rang for a while before it was answered.

“Hello? Mr. Pei.” Eric’s voice was flat on the other end of the phone.

Pei Qian: “Uh…”

If Eric had directly cursed or had confusion in his voice, Pei Qian would have had something to say. But now Eric’s attitude seemed full of indifference, which left Pei Qian momentarily unsure of what to say.

The two were silent on the phone for a few seconds.

Pei Qian thought, we can’t just stay silent like this. He should still ask the questions he had prepared.

“Haven’t you all realized by now that this event is quite different from what was originally planned? Isn’t that too strange?”

Pei Qian regretted it as soon as he said it.

The way he phrased it seemed to carry some ambiguity…

Pei Qian’s original intention was to genuinely ask, but to the other party, it might have sounded like an irritating smugness after victory.

It was as if he was saying, “I planted a trap in the event, thinking you would find it and add some excitement to our battle, but you just stepped right into it?!”

But the words were already out, and there was no way to explain clearly.

Sure enough, Eric misunderstood.

“Mr. Pei, your move was indeed very clever, deliberately guiding us to change an event setting, causing the entire event to produce results completely opposite to expectations.”

“However… I noticed this problem on the second day after the event started.”

Pei Qian was confused: “Then why didn’t you fix it?”

Eric laughed somewhat helplessly: “Because I was powerless to do anything.”

“Didn’t I already mention it when I went to report last time? Although I’m still nominally the head of IOI in Greater China, I’m actually just a puppet.”

“The Dayark Group wants to further strengthen its control over Finger Company and gain more benefits from IOI, and this event aligns with the expectations of the higher-ups.”

“Moreover, the situation of IOI’s national server is completely different from other regional servers.”

“In other regional servers, although there are also loopholes, the difference in player numbers isn’t so large. In the process of two-way flow, IOI’s local data is also growing.”

“For the higher-ups, although this event has some minor loopholes, it’s running well. The cost required to fix this loophole and the negative impact it would cause would be too great, not worth it.”

“All the data during the event period looks good. Who could predict that the data would definitely plummet after the event ends?”

“Moreover, Mr. Pei, not all companies have the same structure as Tenda.”

“If someone insists on fixing this loophole and problems arise in the process, they would bear full responsibility. No one would do such a foolish thing.”

“If nothing is done, then it’s a decision made by everyone together. Even if problems occur, the responsibility is shared by all.”

“Judging from the situation in other regions, doing nothing is the best choice.”

“Of course, the only exception is Greater China, where the consequences are severe due to the huge disparity in player numbers between the two sides.”

“But as I said, I’m just a mouthpiece. When encountering such problems, I can only choose to report them upward. Moreover, this is a global event, and it’s certainly not possible to modify just the Greater China region’s event, as that would make players feel they’re being treated differently.”

“So, after I reported this problem, the higher-ups didn’t give a clear response. They couldn’t reach a consensus.”

Pei Qian: “…”

There was nothing to say.

Perhaps this was the so-called big company disease…

Having been at Tenda for so long, Pei Qian often had the misconception that a company’s will actually aligned with the leader’s will.

At Tenda, although Pei Qian’s intentions were often misinterpreted by employees, he still maintained absolute control over the entire company.

If he wanted to do something, it could generally be implemented very smoothly, even if it was something relatively outlandish.

But the Dayark Group was different. It was a large conglomerate, and high-level leadership wouldn’t pay attention to an event at one of its subsidiary companies.

The directly responsible executives saw that the event data in other regions was still acceptable, lacked motivation, and didn’t want to take rash actions that might lead to blame.

Eric might have recognized the problem, but during the process of following procedures, he couldn’t do much either.

In short, the people who understood the problem might not have the final say, and those who had the final say were too distant to realize the seriousness of the problem.

Thus, as things dragged on, they got stuck here.

This reminded Pei Qian of that famous joke:

In the first stage, we claim nothing is happening;

In the second stage, we say something might be happening, but we shouldn’t take action;

In the third stage, we say we should take action, but due to various problems, we actually can’t do anything;

In the fourth stage, we say we might have been able to do something back then, but now it’s too late.

Pei Qian found this matter incredibly bizarre: “So, this just passes by like this? Doesn’t anyone need to take responsibility for it?”

Eric: “Yes, someone does.”

Pei Qian: “Who?”

Eric’s voice carried a hint of resignation: “Me.”