Of course, this difficulty wasn’t entirely due to Professor Kong’s serious academic attitude and qualifications—a significant part came from the attention from all sides.

Pei Qian’s thesis turning out to be a mess? Causing Professor Kong to pull his hair out in frustration?

That would become a joke circulating online!

Moreover, Pei Qian felt quite guilty, as strictly speaking, Old Ma had probably been unwittingly dragged into this mess because of him.

Pei Qian couldn’t help thinking that if he hadn’t founded Tenda, he wouldn’t have created such a large industry; if the scale hadn’t grown so large, his graduation thesis wouldn’t have attracted the school’s attention; and consequently, he and Old Ma wouldn’t have been assigned to Professor Kong.

In that case, he and Old Ma should be happily playing right now, with their graduation theses only needing to barely pass with sixty points like their usual exams.

So, Pei Qian had originally felt a bit awkward about telling Ma Yang this bad news.

But now, Pei Qian changed his mind.

Why should he bear this pressure alone?

He had to make Old Ma share some of this pressure too—good brothers shouldn’t be so distant!

With this thought, Pei Qian cleared his throat and said, “Old Ma, do you know why I’m under so much pressure? It’s because Teacher Zhang Wei told me that both of us have been assigned to Professor Kong! Having our graduation theses personally supervised by Professor Kong—how can I not be anxious?”

“Think about it: with your level, what will happen when Professor Kong sees the thesis you write?”

Ma Yang’s long face showed a delighted expression: “Really? Does this mean my thesis can receive Professor Kong’s approval?”

“That’s great, Brother Qian! I knew I wasn’t following the wrong person! You can even establish connections with Professor Kong, that’s amazing!”

“With Professor Kong backing us, I’d like to see which professor dares to fail my thesis! I’ll make sure he knows what it means when they say a teacher’s kindness is as vast as a mountain!”

Pei Qian froze, a question mark slowly appearing above his head.

?

Wait, Old Ma, is there something wrong with your thought process?

Is that what I meant?

Why are you so confident that your thesis will definitely receive Professor Kong’s approval? And how did you even arrive at the idea that no one would dare fail your thesis?

This is absurd!

Indeed, no matter what problem they encountered, Old Ma always lacked self-awareness like this.

Well, he was used to it by now.

Pei Qian felt he had miscalculated—not only had Old Ma failed to help him share the pressure, but he had actually made his pressure even greater.

He could only change the subject: “So, do you have a general direction for your thesis yet?”

Old Ma replied with righteous confidence: “No!”

Pei Qian was speechless: “Then how can you be so calm!”

Ma Yang said, “Because I suddenly realized something—Brother Qian, I can rely on you! Look, Tenda has been so successful in the cultural field, what does that indicate? It shows you have everything under control!”

“If you just bring out that same energy you use to dominate the cultural industry, writing a graduation thesis should be effortless for you, right?”

“Then I just need to follow your lead, choose a slightly different angle to research, and isn’t that enough?”

“So ultimately, it still depends on your hard work, Brother Qian!”

Pei Qian was bewildered: “What?”

So your calmness is because of me?

On second thought, what Old Ma said made sense.

How did outsiders view Tenda? A company that had integrated various cultural industries including novels, film and television, animation, and games, with both nationally discussed games and excellent films sweeping box offices worldwide.

And all these successes could be attributed to Mr. Pei’s creation!

What about Huang Sibo, Zhu Xiaocai, Hu Xianbin, Cui Geng… they were just tools working under Mr. Pei.

Being able to achieve such tremendous success in the forefront of culture on a global scale, why worry about a graduation thesis? Couldn’t he just take any project and write something simple about it?

It seemed so reasonable!

But Pei Qian knew clearly that these projects’ success had absolutely nothing to do with him!

He even wanted to know himself how these projects had become so popular!

Not just in the past—over the weekend, Pei Qian had examined all these projects at home and couldn’t find any clues whatsoever.

It could be said that Ma Yang’s confidence stemmed from his trust in Pei Qian.

And Pei Qian’s lack of confidence stemmed from his distrust in himself…

This formed a strange and confusing loop, making Pei Qian deeply realize that he himself was the clown.

Even his good friend Old Ma couldn’t help solve his problems this time, but instead was creating more pressure for him. This showed that the challenge of this graduation thesis far exceeded any previous settlement.

It was too difficult!

At some point, Pei Qian even instinctively thought about simply handing the thesis to Assistant Xin to handle.

But he quickly dismissed the idea.

No, a person must have some principles.

Would it be appropriate for Mr. Pei to have someone else write his graduation thesis? He might as well just submit a blank paper with style!

At least then when people talked about it, they would think Mr. Pei was too brilliant to bother writing such a thesis.

So, he had to complete this thesis himself!

Even if it turned out to be garbage, it would just make Professor Kong lose a few more hairs. He could visit Professor Kong later and bring some health supplements as a gift.

Pei Qian silently sighed and continued to bury himself in Tenda’s successful projects, looking for a possible entry point for his thesis.

……

……

January 29, Tuesday.

In the meeting room of Chi Xing Studio.

“The development of the VR version of ‘Safe and Civilized Driving’ is progressing steadily. Don’t rush—it should be launched next month.”

“As for the information about Chi Xing Studio’s Real-world Services Department, it’s all here. You can take it back and study it at your leisure.”

Lin Wan said, handing a document directly to Ye Zhizhou.

Ye Zhizhou reached out to take it, saying, “Thanks.”

Lin Wan smiled: “That’s too formal. No matter where I am, I’ll always be a member of Shangyang Games.”

Ye Zhizhou casually flipped through the document and found it outlined the current work content and status of Chi Xing Studio’s Real-world Services Department in a relatively concise manner.

After “Property Agent Simulator” became popular, it gradually moved toward becoming an independent rental platform. The primary task of Chi Xing Studio’s Real-world Services Department was to push the game “Property Agent Simulator” toward reality.

On the surface, it seemed similar to what many real estate agencies were doing, but there were significant differences in many details.

Other real estate agencies were also working hard to develop their own APP software and continuously enrich their property listings, but in terms of technical capabilities, they were far behind Chi Xing Studio.

This wasn’t their fault—after all, their development teams were just internet APP development teams, while Chi Xing Studio’s development team was a proper VR game development team!

Whatever functions these real estate agency APPs had, “Property Agent Simulator” also had; but the functions “Property Agent Simulator” had, these APPs might not necessarily have!

Moreover, the profit models and ultimate goals of both sides were completely different.

For real estate agencies, earning platform fees and commission fees was their only profit method, so the APP was, plainly speaking, just a simple money-making tool. Naturally, all the functions of this APP were designed to serve profit generation.

This easily explained why these real estate agencies turned a blind eye to fake listings on their platforms, and why no matter how much these APPs were optimized, they ultimately only improved rather than fundamentally changed.

Because the real estate agencies relied on it to make money!

Optimizing the APP was certainly necessary, but these companies would carefully calculate the cost-effectiveness. If the investment was too large, the risk too high, and the improvement not significant, such APP revision plans would never be approved.

But for Chi Xing Studio, it was different. As the name “Real-world Services Department” suggested, this department wasn’t the main source of profit for Chi Xing Studio, but just a supplement.

Chi Xing Studio’s main profits came from game sales and Doubt VR headset sales, as well as potential derivative value in the future. The Real-world Services Department existed to better serve players.

Therefore, Chi Xing Studio could crack down on fake listings and continuously iterate and develop “Property Agent Simulator” because other revenue streams were constantly feeding it resources.

This put “Property Agent Simulator” into a positive cycle, snowballing and continuously taking users from other real estate agencies. More and more people bought the game and VR headsets, and this money supported the Real-world Services Department to improve further…

Now the development speed of “Property Agent Simulator” had far exceeded Lin Wan’s initial estimates, and this development would continue.

So Lin Wan strongly supported Shangyang Games opening a similar Real-world Services Department, as this was a successful model already verified by Chi Xing Studio.

Perhaps in the future, “Property Agent Simulator” and “Safe and Civilized Driving” could further deepen cooperation and interconnect?

Of course, that would be a matter for much later, as both games still had many follow-up functions to develop. Only after all the expansion functions of both games were fully developed could they consider deepening cooperation.

Ye Zhizhou quickly scanned the document, planning to take it back for careful study.

But before that, he had another question.

“By the way, I have another question. ‘Safe and Civilized Driving’ wants to cooperate with relatively strong domestic new energy vehicle companies. I’m not very familiar with these new energy vehicle companies—do you have any recommendations?”

Lin Wan thought for a moment: “New energy vehicle companies… how strong should they be?”

Ye Zhizhou: “The stronger the better. Technical level, market share, brand value—all are essential.”

To introduce a catfish like Hengyuan Driving School to motivate other car companies to join “Safe and Civilized Driving,” this catfish couldn’t be weak or it wouldn’t make much of a splash.

Lin Wan frowned slightly: “Technical level, market share, brand value—all essential… Do such new energy vehicle companies really exist domestically…”

“Hmm? I’ve got it!”

“A single car company might not have it all, but two companies combined might barely qualify!”

Ye Zhizhou was confused: “Huh?”

Lin Wan explained: “Steffer Automobiles and Shenhua had a self-driving project together five years ago. However, since self-driving technology wasn’t very mature, it remained in the closed research and development stage, so few people knew about it.”

“But I’ve heard that recently the self-driving technology has become quite mature, and production vehicles are about to be launched.”

“Steffer has the technology and a certain market share, while Shenhua has brand value. If combined, they could meet your requirements.”