Pei Qian was left speechless.

To be fair, what Zhang Wei said made a lot of sense…

The difficult part was that all students’ graduation theses would be uploaded to the CNKI database. If someone dug it up in the future, it would be a complete embarrassment!

He really couldn’t just wing it!

Pei Qian felt a headache coming on.

All I wanted was to be like a normal college graduate, write some mediocre graduation thesis to get by. Is that so difficult?

Founding this damned company was truly the worst stroke of luck!

Seemingly noticing Pei Qian’s inner conflict, Zhang Wei continued: “Regarding the thesis, you can rest assured.”

“After all, you’re just an undergraduate. No one will really hold you to top-tier academic standards. You just need to do better than other students.”

“I can give you a suggestion for the thesis direction. Since you’re not proficient in existing professional research, it’s fine to explore something more trendy. For instance, online novels from Endpoint Chinese Web, or movie scripts from Fei Huang Studio—these can all be included in your research scope.”

“The topic selection is actually quite broad. In fact, the content you might research could be much more meaningful than the topics most students choose.”

“Think about it—existing topics have been researched many times by various experts, scholars, professors, and graduate students. Even if an undergraduate chooses an angle nobody has researched before, can they really produce anything of significant value?”

“Expecting an undergraduate thesis to make academic breakthroughs is unrealistic to begin with.”

“Comparatively, researching Tenda’s literary creations would be more straightforward for you and more meaningful.”

“Plus, you don’t need to worry about troubling Professor Kong. How about this: once you’ve written your thesis, show it to me first, then I’ll find a few young lecturers from the college to review it, and finally present it to Professor Kong. How does that sound?”

Pei Qian thought about it and felt this approach could work.

Zhang Wei’s suggested research direction was particularly sensible.

In modern literature studies, there was a tiny section that touched on internet literature.

Although it was only briefly mentioned, and what it covered wasn’t even the currently recognized, narrow definition of web novels, but rather an older, broader concept of internet literature, choosing this as a topic could work as long as he could provide substantial content.

After Zhang Wei and a few young lecturers gave it a preliminary review before passing it to Professor Kong, it shouldn’t be too embarrassing.

Moreover, Pei Qian couldn’t think of a suitable research direction anyway.

He wasn’t even clear on how he had passed these courses. He’d long forgotten much of what he’d learned in his freshman year. Asking him to randomly pick a professional angle to write a graduation thesis was practically the same as asking him to start research from scratch.

Rather than embarrassing himself in these professional fields, it was better to forge a new path.

For example, analyzing Fei Huang Studio’s movie scripts—even if there were minor flaws, who would dare to call him out?

Having the final say on interpretation was truly advantageous!

With this in mind, Pei Qian no longer insisted on his previous stance and nodded: “Alright, let’s do that. I’ll research and conceptualize a bit, and once I have a general outline for the thesis, I’ll seek your advice, Teacher Zhang.”

“If I forget, please remember to call and remind me.”

Zhang Wei nodded: “No problem!”

He paused, then added: “By the way, Ma Yang has also been assigned to Professor Kong. After all, whether herding one sheep or two, it’s the same effort. You two have similar grades, and both hold high positions at Tenda. It’s fitting for you to be companions.”

Pei Qian’s mouth gaped slightly as he fell into a state of confusion again.

“Ah, this…”

He initially wanted to say this wasn’t appropriate, but after deliberating for a while on his wording, he ultimately said nothing.

Zhang Wei’s reasoning was too sound—Old Ma’s grades were indeed similar to his own. Strictly speaking, Old Ma’s grades were even better than his…

Under these circumstances, Pei Qian had no grounds to ask Professor Kong to accept him but not Old Ma.

There was nothing to be done. He could only hope that Professor Kong had a good temperament and wouldn’t be driven to rage by these two unworthy students…

…

Back at his residence, Pei Qian silently pulled up materials on Tenda-related literary works on his computer, preparing to study them thoroughly.

This concept was quite broad, including original novels like “Turn Back to Shore,” “Eternal Cycle,” and “The Successor,” scripts like “A Beautiful Tomorrow” and “Mission and Choice,” as well as other popular online novels from Endpoint Chinese Web—all could be included in his research scope.

In addition, he also dug out long-neglected textbooks and notes, reviewing knowledge he had once learned, been tested on, and now had almost completely forgotten, trying to find a connection that wasn’t too far-fetched.

Although Zhang Wei had pointed him in a general direction, within that broad framework, he still needed to carefully consider which specific aspect to write about.

Previously, Pei Qian had thought the deadline for submitting the graduation thesis was far off, so there was no rush, and he could just muddle through somehow.

But now, he had completely changed his mind.

His thesis advisor was Professor Kong! And this thesis would be posted on CNKI in the future, with who knows how many people reading it!

There was no way he could slack off now.

Not only could he not slack off, but he also needed to perform beyond his capabilities to maintain his own image and that of the college, to avoid making Professor Kong “lose face” in his later years.

Thinking about this, Pei Qian felt immense pressure and could no longer remain as calm as before.

After two hours of intensive research, Pei Qian collapsed on the sofa, feeling somewhat hopeless.

He had absolutely no clue!

How had he written his graduation thesis in his previous memories? He had completely forgotten.

“Well, this can’t be rushed. I should plan for the long term.”

“Let me check how players are responding to ‘Ghost General 2.'”

Pei Qian temporarily set aside the graduation thesis issue and checked the players’ discussions about “Ghost General 2.”

Previously, when “Ghost General 2” had just started its promotional campaign, Pei Qian had already briefly seen the players’ reactions, but those reactions weren’t reliable or definitive.

Because at that time, those paying attention to “Ghost General 2” were either core players of Tenda games or core fighting game players, representing relatively niche tastes. With Cai Hong and some professional fighting game players endorsing it, achieving good reviews in this small circle was expected.

But this didn’t necessarily mean that “Ghost General 2” would become popular or profitable, because what truly determined everything was the general player base.

Now that “Ghost General 2’s” promotional plan had been fermenting for two or three days, many general players who hadn’t paid attention before should have also noticed news about this game. Observing their reactions would be quite valuable.

Soon, Pei Qian found what he wanted to see.

“I heard ‘Ghost General’ was getting a sequel and came over excitedly, but then found out it’s a fighting game? Excuse me? I’m genuinely confused.”

“Logically speaking, the ‘Ghost General 2’ theme works for a fighting game, that’s fine.”

“But fighting games are an ancient genre—how many people still play them? Could it be, as many suggest, that Tenda is determined to dominate all game genres? There’s no need for that! Wouldn’t making more mainstream games be better?”

“Indeed, I personally have no interest in fighting games at all.”

“Although card mobile games are constantly criticized, ‘Ghost General’ was completely different from other card games! I think if ‘Ghost General 2’ could inherit ‘Ghost General’s’ payment model and game mechanics, that would be great. Replace cards with high-quality models, add these cool effects and storylines, make it cross-platform for mobile and PC—wouldn’t that be crushing the competition? They’d be making money hand over fist!”

“Forget it, I’ll skip this game and support the next one. It’s not that I don’t want to buy it, but I’m genuinely clumsy and can’t handle fighting games.”

“I noticed something even more terrifying—I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but when Cai Hong was playing this level, his moves were indeed flashy, but he got hit by the boss twice, and each time he lost more than half his health bar. Although he quickly recovered through life-steal, Cai Hong made two mistakes… this…”

“Could this be an extremely difficult fighting game? A truly hardcore one?”

“Very likely. Even a master like Cai Hong couldn’t complete it without taking damage, and the monster stats are so high… I can already imagine myself suffering endlessly once I get in there.”

“Isn’t that perfect? Just like ‘Turn Back to Shore’ back then.”

“That’s completely different! ‘Turn Back to Shore’ was an action game with relatively simple controls—basically just attack and roll buttons. Beginners might suffer at first, but once you adapt, it’s fine. Suffer for dozens of hours, and you’ll eventually get the hang of it. But fighting games? You think you can master them in dozens of hours? Even hundreds of hours aren’t enough!”

“Indeed, fighting games have a much higher skill threshold. Just learning combos requires extensive practice time, which is extremely unfriendly to newcomers.”

“If they copy the approach from ‘Turn Back to Shore,’ this game will likely flop. After all, there are so many difficult hardcore games in the world, and not every one can succeed.”

“Trust in Boss Pei!”

“It’s not that I don’t trust Boss Pei, but he’s managing so many businesses now. How much time does he have to be responsible for these game design details? It’s definitely the game department’s designers doing it. And the current chief designer of Tenda Games is Yu Fei, who has only made ‘Eternal Cycle’ and is completely self-taught. I have absolutely no confidence…”

“I feel Tenda is releasing new games too quickly, so fast that I’m a bit nervous. Compared to before, Tenda has been releasing new games like a gushing well in recent months. Can the quality be guaranteed? I don’t think Tenda needs to blindly pursue quantity. They should slow down appropriately and consolidate.”