While pondering, there was a knock at the door.

Looking up, he saw Meng Chang had arrived.

Clearly, it was the end of the month again, and Meng Chang had come to calculate his commission.

Pei Qian glanced up, then handed the notebook to Meng Chang.

“The last bit was somewhat unfortunate,” Pei Qian said.

The publicity plan for “The Successor” had been maintained well, a lot of money had been spent, but it never gained traction, and the rating had dropped to 6.0.

In short, it was a mess.

Based on previous progress, after Meng Chang started the second round of publicity while maintaining this state of spending money without making waves, he might have actually been able to get the full commission.

Unfortunately, it was that Young Master Tian again, who inexplicably popped up.

This Young Master Tian had indeed posted an update.

Actually, Pei Qian had just mentioned it casually at the time.

He said Young Master Tian definitely wouldn’t post a video, at most he might post an update, meaning there was only a tiny probability that Young Master Tian would post anything.

Because Pei Qian felt that for Young Master Tian to wade into this murky water, the risk was too high and the benefit too low—not something a smart person would do.

But unexpectedly, not only did Young Master Tian wade in, he even did a butterfly stroke in the murky water!

The damage was no less than if he had posted a video.

Pei Qian was also puzzled. Had this Young Master Tian lost his mind? Tenda hadn’t paid him, had they?

How had he hyped “The Successor” into an epoch-making masterpiece?

And he even said that the day after “The Successor” finished airing, all arguments about it would naturally disappear?

Pei Qian was very nervous and searched for this date on Baidu, but found absolutely nothing.

The search results were all things like “What holiday is January 13th?”, “January 13th lunar calendar inquiry”, “Destiny analysis for those born on January 13th”, “What zodiac sign is January 13th?” and so on.

At times like this, Pei Qian really wanted to say two things.

First: Riddlers get out of here!

Second: Trash Baidu!

Although the Useful APP was now somewhat useful, it wasn’t completely useful yet. It was foreseeable that for a long time to come, the number of times Pei Qian said “Trash Baidu” would not decrease.

Although Young Master Tian had been an annoying riddler, and netizens hadn’t guessed what was special about January 13th, the buzz had genuinely been created.

Previously, many people were criticizing “The Successor” online and giving it low scores, which annoyed many viewers who liked “The Successor” or were original readers. Adding to this was the official backing for film reviews supporting “The Successor,” as well as Young Master Tian’s stance, and the tension between both sides grew increasingly intense.

Young Master Tian’s simple update couldn’t completely turn the tide, but it did pour oil on the fire.

This mystic-like statement attracted a lot of attention, with haters taking it as a joke and mocking supporters of “The Successor,” just waiting for January 13th to pass uneventfully so they could continue attacking “The Successor” and start celebrating.

In short, the buzz had risen somewhat.

This directly led to a significant reduction in Meng Chang’s potential commission, dropping sharply to 76,000 yuan.

Although this was quite good compared to his previous base salary, after all, Young Master Tian’s single update had at least halved his commission. Someone without psychological resilience would really struggle with this.

Pei Qian felt that Meng Chang’s attitude toward Young Master Tian was probably similar to his own attitude toward Qiao Laoshi.

Mortal enemies!

Therefore, Pei Qian could empathize deeply and expressed his sincere “regret.”

Meng Chang also sighed quietly: “Yes, but there’s nothing we can do about it.”

If they hadn’t used Young Master Tian’s account to post an update, the Pei-style publicity method would have been imperfect, and they could only sacrifice more than half of the commission.

Although the 200,000 dollars had already been completely invested, and if successful, the returns would completely overshadow this small commission, still, the lost commission was over 100,000 yuan!

Meng Chang couldn’t say he wasn’t pained by this.

However, having followed Mr. Pei for so long, Meng Chang had learned through multiple painful lessons that you have to give up something to gain something.

After reviewing everything, Meng Chang had no objections to the commission.

Pei Qian put away his laptop and said, “For next month’s publicity plan, you have two choices: Shangyang Games’ ‘Safe and Civilized Driving’ and Tenda Games’ ‘Ghost General 2.’ I’m told the steering wheel and hardware equipment engineering samples have already been made, and mass production is underway. As for the game, a demo is already available, but the complete version will be released mid-month.”

“‘Ghost General 2’ will probably be released at the end of next month or the beginning of the month after.”

“Both projects are somewhat difficult this time, so go and investigate them first.”

The reason he said the difficulty was high was mainly based on two considerations.

First, both were game projects, and Tenda’s game projects were bound to receive attention, naturally having high buzz that would be difficult to suppress.

Although the gameplay of “Safe and Civilized Driving” was rather boring, and Pei Qian was counting on the gameplay to discourage players, relying solely on this didn’t seem reliable.

Second, the timing was relatively awkward.

“Safe and Civilized Driving” would be released mid-month, with the game and peripherals like steering wheels launching together. Trying to maintain low buzz until the end of the month would be extremely difficult.

As for “Ghost General 2,” although it would be released at the end of the month, its biggest weakness was merely that it was a fighting game, with no major flaws in the game content itself. For reverse publicity, it wasn’t easy to find angles.

Fortunately, Meng Chang wasn’t the same Meng Chang as before. He was becoming increasingly adept at earning commissions.

So, let Meng Chang choose for himself.

After hesitating, Meng Chang said, “Mr. Pei, I don’t really want to choose either. I think both games will be difficult to work with.”

“Can I continue working on the publicity plan for ‘The Successor’?”

In Meng Chang’s view, it would be difficult to publicize either of these games using the Pei-style publicity method.

Because Tenda Games naturally had a good reputation, it would be hard to suppress the buzz in the early stages, and after the game’s release, it would inevitably receive overwhelming praise within three to five days.

For projects like these, there was basically no place for the Pei-style publicity method, and he couldn’t earn any commission.

Given this, he’d rather continue working on the publicity plan for “The Successor.”

This had an advantage of somewhat hedging the risk.

If “The Successor” exploded in popularity by the 13th, then this month’s commission would be gone, but his 200,000 dollars would make a huge profit!

At that point, who would care about a 200,000 yuan commission?

If the worst-case scenario occurred and “The Successor” didn’t explode by the 13th, although the 200,000 dollars would be wasted, he would definitely get the full commission.

Compared to “Safe and Civilized Driving” and “Ghost General 2,” which had minimal chances of success, choosing to continue publicizing “The Successor” was clearly more worthwhile.

Moreover, Meng Chang wanted to continue monitoring the situation with “The Successor” and adjust the publicity plan as needed, even bringing in Young Master Tian again if necessary.

Having studied the Pei-style publicity method for so long, Meng Chang wanted to apply it perfectly once.

And the publicity plan for “The Successor” was only half complete; Meng Chang wanted to complete the other half.

If he could fully apply the Pei-style publicity method once with “The Successor,” Meng Chang felt his skills would definitely have a breakthrough and undergo a qualitative change.

Pei Qian thought for a moment: “Alright.”

He couldn’t help but laugh inwardly at how clever Meng Chang was.

Knowing that publicizing the two games would be difficult, he wanted to continue focusing on “The Successor.”

Pei Qian had no objections to this because there were two purposes for having Meng Chang do the publicity: first, to reduce the project’s buzz and decrease its chances of success; second, to burn through the publicity budget.

The first purpose couldn’t be forced, as a project’s success mainly depended on the project itself. No matter how poor the publicity plan was for a good product, it would only temporarily suppress the buzz and keep it unknown—it would still eventually become popular if it deserved to be.

So Pei Qian’s expectation for Meng Chang now focused mainly on the second point.

As long as Meng Chang could ensure that the publicity funds were spent without achieving the desired effect, that would be fine.

And “The Successor” already looked like a complete failure from the current situation. More publicity investment would be wasted, so why not let Meng Chang continue burning money there?

After all, it was all publicity budget; burning it anywhere was still burning it. If Meng Chang felt more confident with “The Successor,” Pei Qian agreed.

Meng Chang nodded. Mr. Pei was quite merciful, understanding that he wasn’t fully proficient with the Pei-style publicity method yet, and didn’t force him to choose the high-difficulty game projects, but instead allowed him to linger on a medium-difficulty track for another month.

Just as he was about to leave, Pei Qian suddenly remembered something and called him back.

“I have a question, just curious, and you can speak freely.”

“If… I’m just saying if, Young Master Tian was actually within Tenda Group, which employee do you think would most likely be Young Master Tian’s true identity?”

Pei Qian had long suspected that Young Master Tian was hiding within Tenda, and it was very likely to be Tian Mo.

But the reason he hadn’t made a move or sent Tian Mo on a suffering trip was mainly because he thought it might be a team effort, with someone editing videos and modifying scripts for Tian Mo.

After all, Young Master Tian’s videos were too well-made to seem like something Tian Mo could do alone.

But continuing to delay wasn’t a solution either. Now Tian Mo wasn’t even in Jingzhou; he had gone to open a new experience store elsewhere. With him so far away, even if Pei Qian wanted to observe him closely and catch him in the act, it wasn’t very realistic.

Pei Qian felt that hearing different opinions would lead to clarity, while only hearing one side would lead to bias. If he exchanged ideas with others, he might gain new insights.

As the only person in the company whose goals aligned with his own, and someone who had been investigating Young Master Tian and had already made inferences about his real-life personality and character, Meng Chang was naturally the first person to ask.

Hearing this question, Meng Chang was stunned.

He was confused.