Watching Mr. Pei leave, Ye Zhizhou stared at the shelves stacked full of Safe and Civilized Driving Simulators, lost in thought.

Regarding the matter of acquiring licenses from car manufacturers for the “Safe and Civilized Driving” game, Mr. Pei’s attitude had clearly undergone a significant change.

Before the game was released, Mr. Pei’s attitude was relatively easygoing.

Buying licenses was acceptable, but absolutely not at high prices. He had made it very clear to the car companies from the start that this game was different from others—collisions would indeed cause serious vehicle damage. If they accepted the price and conditions, Shangyang Games would pay for the licenses; if not, they would part ways.

Now that the game had been released, Mr. Pei’s attitude had changed again.

Not only was he unwilling to pay licensing fees, but he was demanding that car manufacturers pay Shangyang Games and even provide sample cars for crash tests. The conditions had become much stricter than before.

Knowing that Mr. Pei’s change in attitude was definitely not on a whim, what deep considerations lay behind this decision?

At this moment, Ye Zhizhou felt regretful that Wang Xiaobin was still suffering and couldn’t help him strategize.

But that was fine. As a qualified Tenda department head, he should have the ability to independently solve Mr. Pei’s puzzles and complete tasks.

“Mr. Pei’s change in attitude indicates one thing: before and after the game’s release, the objective environment for cooperation with car manufacturers has changed. So, how exactly has it changed?”

“Hmm, before the game’s release, there was uncertainty about whether it would become popular, which already created a screening effect, so we didn’t need to screen again? And after the game’s release, since it’s already successful, many car manufacturers have followed the trend and come forward, so there might be some opportunists trying to take advantage, hence the strict control to be responsible to players?”

“That must be the reason!”

Ye Zhizhou suddenly understood the logic.

The objective environment of the game’s release had indeed changed!

Before the game’s release, nobody knew whether “Safe and Civilized Driving” would succeed. Due to the game’s characteristics, car companies worried that severe vehicle damage would affect their corporate image, so they were unwilling to cooperate. This in itself had already served as a certain screening mechanism.

Those manufacturers who signed contracts with Shangyang Games and acknowledged the game’s vehicle damage were mostly those who genuinely needed to leverage Tenda’s popularity and were confident in their own brands.

They knew that “Safe and Civilized Driving” would collaborate with IIAS and implement real crash data in the game, yet they still chose to cooperate—this alone was enough to explain everything.

But after the game became popular, the situation changed.

Many car companies, seeing the opportunity to ride the wave of popularity, had started to relent.

This created a problem: some car manufacturers might try to take advantage and haggle. If Shangyang Games had to negotiate with each company one by one, it would inevitably waste a lot of time on disputes, and it would be difficult to treat everyone fairly.

Some car companies, relying on their strong brand advantages, might demand preferential conditions and request that Shangyang Games make concessions on certain details. Others might have simpler intentions and follow Tenda’s regulations completely.

In the end, companies that haggled might gain advantages, while those that didn’t might lose out.

Wouldn’t that be taking advantage of honest people?

Mr. Pei’s attitude was simple: treat all car companies equally and use seemingly strict screening conditions to complete the selection process for all manufacturers!

Behind this was clearly Mr. Pei’s strong confidence in the “Safe and Civilized Driving” game.

Mr. Pei believed that these mandatory screening conditions would save time and effort, maximizing the fairness of different vehicles’ performance in the game. Moreover, there was no rush to obtain vehicle brand licenses; as the game attracted more players and its influence grew, car manufacturers who initially refused these conditions would eventually accept them.

The earlier a car company accepted these conditions, the more it demonstrated sincerity in cooperating with Tenda and confidence in its own products, naturally earning more and better exposure opportunities in the game.

Realizing this, Ye Zhizhou understood.

Whether car companies licensed or not wasn’t something Shangyang Games should worry about.

Whether they wanted to license or not, there would always be other manufacturers begging to do so.

The game was already successful—why worry about this?

The primary goal of “Safe and Civilized Driving” wasn’t to obtain licenses from as many car companies as possible, but to be responsible to players and for the social impact the game created. They needed to ensure that the information players received about vehicles in the game was authentic, effective, and reliable.

Only by making the game good and authentic would they earn the right to consider other matters.

“Mr. Pei is truly formidable, seeing through to the essence of the problem at a glance!”

Ye Zhizhou sincerely marveled, immediately heading back to Shangyang Games to handle subsequent affairs.

…

After lunch, Pei Qian returned to his office, feeling somewhat dejected.

The morning’s events had been somewhat discouraging for him.

Every time settlement approached, bad news seemed to arrive one after another. What could he do?

The critical thing was that even after “Safe and Civilized Driving,” the crisis wasn’t over—highly destructive games like “Ghost General 2” and “Bullet Hole 2” hadn’t been released yet!

Although Pei Qian felt these two games wouldn’t be successful, he had completely lost confidence in his own judgment.

As he was pondering this, he heard a knock at his office door.

Looking up, he saw the face before hearing the voice.

It was Ma Yang.

“Boss Qian! I have something very important to tell you!”

Seeing Ma Yang’s serious expression, Pei Qian almost had a heart attack.

Damn, could it be that something went wrong with Bunny Tail Livestream again?

Don’t scare me like that! I was already frightened this morning; my poor heart can’t take this kind of stimulation!

“What is it?” Pei Qian asked.

Ma Yang paused slightly and said, “The graduation thesis—it’s time to start writing it!”

Pei Qian was stunned for a moment. “Huh?”

He didn’t understand immediately, but after a moment, he let out a long sigh of relief.

You scared me to death. It’s just the graduation thesis? That’s no big deal. I thought Bunny Tail Livestream was making money again!

“Why are you so agitated? It’s just a graduation thesis. We’re liberal arts students, not like those science and engineering students who have to do complicated graduation projects.”

Pei Qian said this because in his memory, he had dealt with a graduation thesis before, and it wasn’t that difficult.

The requirements for undergraduate theses weren’t that high. After all, at Handong University, the student body was roughly divided into thirds: those seeking employment, those going abroad, and those pursuing graduate studies. For students aiming to find jobs, the school would rather they graduate smoothly to boost employment rates, and generally wouldn’t deliberately make things difficult.

As long as the thesis wasn’t particularly absurd, it would basically pass.

It was only at the master’s or doctoral level that thesis requirements suddenly became strict and caused hair loss.

Moreover, the current Pei Qian had donated so much money to his alma mater and provided many employment opportunities. He hadn’t failed any exams, let alone a thesis.

After all, many closed-book exams required memorization, but for a thesis, you could look up information and have advisors provide guidance. With multiple revisions and plagiarism checks, it was almost impossible to be stuck because of it.

Of course, though he said it was simple, it actually required some time investment. Pei Qian thought there was still time to deal with it after this cycle ended.

Ma Yang couldn’t help but give a thumbs up: “As expected of Boss Qian, so calm and collected. Unlike me—I got a bit panicked just hearing about writing a graduation thesis.”

“The final draft needs to be submitted before April 10th, with oral defenses in early May. Many students have already contacted advisors, so Boss Qian, we should hurry up—it’s already a bit late.”

“For undergraduate theses, we can choose any course instructor as our advisor. Boss Qian, who should we choose?”

Pei Qian laughed. Choose who? Old Ma, you’re really overestimating me.

I haven’t attended many classes at all, so I don’t even know these people!

If the first question on an exam was “Select your instructor’s photo,” I’d definitely get zero points!

And now you want me to choose an advisor? Dream on.

Pei Qian coughed lightly: “This matter is easy to handle. We don’t need to choose. I’ll find our counselor another day and have him assign us a reliable advisor. He should be more concerned about our graduation than we are.”

Ma Yang: “Whoa… that makes sense! Boss Qian, you’re so smart!”

“Then I won’t worry anymore—I’ll stick with you! Let me know when you go.”

Seeing Ma Yang trust him so much, Pei Qian felt a bit guilty.

Old Ma, are you sure trusting me isn’t a problem?

Regarding academics, Pei Qian felt that he and Ma Yang were roughly on the same level, and sometimes he might even be less reliable than Ma Yang.

But having already boasted, it wasn’t appropriate to take it back.

Never mind, thesis writing shouldn’t be too difficult. When the time came, he could discuss it with the counselor, and just barely passing would be fine.

Actually, Pei Qian didn’t really need a graduation certificate. Tenda Group was already so big, and he didn’t need to find a job, so what use was a graduation certificate?

But the problem was that if word got out that Boss Pei hadn’t graduated from college, it wouldn’t seem right.

Pei Qian wasn’t afraid of being mocked—probably no one would mock him, as Boss Pei no longer needed a degree to prove himself.

He was mainly concerned that this might become a magazine anecdote, with him being listed alongside the founders of Mircosoft, Apple, and other tech giants as “successful entrepreneurs who didn’t graduate from college.” This could be exploited by people with ulterior motives to promote the “education is useless” theory, which would be quite embarrassing to think about.

Besides, having overcome numerous difficulties over four years of college without failing any courses, would it make sense to fall at the final hurdle of the graduation thesis?

He couldn’t fail at the last moment.

Once he passed this final hurdle, he could say goodbye to his college life.

Thinking about how he hadn’t properly attended classes during these four years but had instead racked his brains trying to lose money, he suddenly felt as if he had been busy doing nothing all this time.