That evening, in a private room at Ming Fu Family Restaurant.

“Brother Eric! Come, please sit.” Pei Qian warmly welcomed Eric to take a seat.

Returning to Jingzhou, Eric felt quite emotional.

He had visited Jingzhou several times, and it seemed that each time he came, he could sense some changes in the city, which were clearly inseparable from Tenda’s presence.

Moreover, it seemed that with each visit, Mr. Pei’s attitude toward him became increasingly warm.

From initially not even meeting, to later chance encounters, to now Mr. Pei actively inviting him to dinner.

Eric wondered if this meant that Mr. Pei recognized his abilities and viewed him as a worthy opponent.

Although this thought seemed a bit presumptuous, there was no denying that Mr. Pei’s change in attitude was clearly evident.

Pei Qian said with some regret, “It’s a shame you came a bit suddenly and couldn’t make it for the weekend.”

“If it were the weekend, I had reserved a spot at Nameless Restaurant. Or if you had planned your trip two or three days in advance, I could have also spoken to the restaurant manager to swap times with another customer.”

“The timing is unfortunate, so we’ll have to make do here.”

“When you come back from Europe, let me know in advance, and I’ll definitely arrange for you to have a proper meal at Nameless Restaurant!”

Nameless Restaurant still required queuing, and Pei Qian had only reserved five days each month for himself, including the 20th for a full booking, and the largest private room for each weekend.

If he absolutely needed to use it on a weekday, he could communicate with that day’s reserved customers, move them to the weekend, and compensate with additional dishes—customers would generally agree happily.

But today was Thursday, and Eric had come rather hastily, so there wasn’t time to arrange it. They could only come to eat at Mr. Li’s place.

Although the cost wasn’t low, the taste ultimately wasn’t quite the same.

Eric’s emotions were complex.

For some reason, he always felt that Mr. Pei seemed particularly warm toward him, a warmth that came from the heart and wasn’t at all feigned.

He found this quite strange.

By rights, shouldn’t the two of them be competitors?

Was it that Mr. Pei’s heart was too magnanimous, or was Mr. Pei overly confident?

Even if he viewed Eric as a worthy opponent, this attitude seemed excessively warm.

Soon, one delicious dish after another was served, and Pei Qian didn’t stand on ceremony. He ate while chatting casually with Eric.

“Brother Eric, to be honest, this event was an accident.”

“I didn’t expect it would implicate you.”

Pei Qian spoke sincerely; the event truly was an accident.

Perhaps if Eric hadn’t reminded him to look more closely at the event details earlier, he wouldn’t have suggested changing “new accounts” to “all accounts,” and the event might not have caused such great harm.

The original intent was to sincerely give IOI a blood transfusion, but it had all gone wrong.

Of course, if Pei Qian hadn’t brought it up, the event would likely have still caused some new problems for IOI, but at most the event’s effect would have been poor, probably not leading to the current situation.

So, although Pei Qian didn’t consider this his fault, he still sympathized with Eric, feeling that he shouldn’t have been implicated.

The key concern was that after Eric left, what if IOI’s national server truly collapsed? Pei Qian would be very lonely.

Eric nodded: “I understand what you mean.”

“Perhaps you weren’t targeting me, but the company’s higher-ups, the actual controllers of IOI. But there’s no help for it; in this kind of struggle, pawns are likely to be sacrificed.”

“As a chess player, Mr. Pei, you naturally wouldn’t be particularly concerned about these things.”

Pei Qian: “…”

Well, communication was impossible; Eric had clearly misunderstood the meaning of “collateral damage.”

Pei Qian thought for a moment, but it wasn’t really appropriate to continue explaining, so he changed the subject: “So after you go back this time, roughly how long will it be before you return?”

After a moment of silence, Eric said: “I may not come back at all.”

“My disciplinary action could be light or severe, but I definitely won’t be responsible for IOI anymore, and I likely won’t be involved with Finger Company’s business. The most likely outcome is a demotion, returning to the media department.”

Pei Qian said with great indignation: “That’s too much!”

“How can the Dayark Group treat a veteran contributor like this? The leadership fails to do their job properly but makes subordinates take the blame. They call themselves a multinational company, but they have no vision at all!”

In fact, Pei Qian’s true inner thought was that Eric’s abilities weren’t all that great.

Although he had barely posed a tiny threat to Tenda, this threat in Pei Qian’s view was really a drop in the bucket.

But then again, it felt like the higher-ups at Dayark Group were even more useless than Eric.

Among the Dayark Group executives, Finger Company executives, Longyu Group executives, Eric, and Zhao Xuming, all the others were utterly useless; only Eric still had some marginal value.

Picking the tallest among dwarfs made Eric seem to stand out.

And for such a person to be forced to take the blame was truly unjust.

What was more infuriating was, with Eric gone, who would continue to burn money with him?

The attitude of Dayark Group’s higher-ups was very clear: GOG could do whatever it wanted, but they were going to use IOI to make money.

With such people, even if they assigned a new person in charge, it would likely be someone completely ineffective, and dreaming of burning money together would be a fantasy.

On one hand, Pei Qian was speaking up for the injustice done to Eric; on the other hand, he also felt regret for himself.

A money-burning god was leaving!

Eric silently sipped his tea, somewhat puzzled as to why Mr. Pei would appear so righteously indignant.

One might think that Mr. Pei himself had suffered some unfair treatment.

“Companies are different from one another, after all.”

Eric couldn’t speak too plainly; he still had professional standards. Even if he had grievances against his own company, he certainly couldn’t complain extensively in front of a competitor.

He could only express his envy for Tenda’s employees through this kind of vague manner.

Both men ate silently, momentarily at a loss for words.

The first time Eric was demoted, when he met Mr. Pei, he still tried to probe for information to prepare for a future comeback.

But now, he had no such thoughts, because he knew it was completely impossible for him to make a comeback.

After some consideration, Pei Qian said: “Brother Eric, why don’t you come work at Tenda?”

“How much are you making at the Dayark Group? I’ll offer you 30% more to poach you!”

“To be frank, I’ve been wanting to replace GOG’s operations department head for a long time!”

Pei Qian was speaking from the heart; he had indeed wanted to replace Min Jingchao for a long time.

Min Jingchao had been in charge of the GOG project from the very beginning, starting with handling numerical values, game balance, and hero design, and later coordinating with Zhang Yuan’s esports department to arrange competitions or operational activities.

By rights, GOG was originally meant to be just a hedge against IOI’s risks, a game made to casually lose some money. The fact that it had grown to such a scale and earned so much money made Min Jingchao undeniably culpable.

But the problem was that there were always more eye-catching people.

The Tenda Games department was constantly developing new games, and each one was successful. Even when selecting outstanding employees, all the attention was drawn by Hu Xianbin, Bao Xu, and others.

The fact that Min Jingchao had been in charge of GOG for so long yet remained unscathed was absurd!

The next outstanding employee selection was still far off, and it wasn’t certain which outstanding employee would be eliminated.

So Pei Qian couldn’t wait any longer; he had to arrange for both Hu Xianbin and Min Jingchao to leave for his peace of mind!

As long as these two remained, the Tenda Games department would be rock solid, and Mr. Pei would be unable to eat or sleep.

Therefore, Min Jingchao had to go.

After he left, someone new from the gaming department could be promoted to handle GOG’s daily updates and balance, and then logically separate development and operations.

Previously, Min Jingchao had managed both development and operations, so he could arrange version updates according to operational activities, many of which had strong reactions and were well-received.

After separation, this situation should greatly improve.

Moreover, Pei Qian felt that although Eric’s abilities might be passable within the Dayark Group, they couldn’t compare to the harmful potential of Tenda’s veteran employees.

Given Eric’s dismal performance in charge of IOI’s national server, if he moved to GOG, it might have a miraculous effect, helping Pei Qian earn less money.

If he could also preserve IOI’s last spark of life, that would be even better.

Besides, Eric was a high-level executive at the Dayark Group, so his salary was definitely not low. Having someone work in a foreign country for years justified paying some compensation for mental damages. Spending a bit more money to poach talent wouldn’t be opposed by the system.

So after some thought, Pei Qian felt that poaching Eric might be feasible!