The thesis wasn’t particularly long.
Handong University required undergraduate graduation theses to be only 8,000 characters, which was relatively short compared to other universities.
Even though Pei Qian had gotten carried away and written slightly more than required, it still wasn’t up to 10,000 characters.
With this limited length, Zhang Wei finished reading it in less than half an hour.
And after reading the entire thesis, Zhang Wei’s attitude had undergone a complete transformation.
“This paper is truly visionary, with such a grand scope!”
“Could it be that Pei Qian’s previous course papers were merely him hiding his talents? Or perhaps he just casually wrote them with minimal time investment, without showing his true abilities?”
“Hmm, that’s quite possible!”
“After all, Tenda Group spans multiple fields, with particularly outstanding contributions in the cultural domain. If Pei Qian were truly an ordinary student, could he have created so many acclaimed films, games, and novels?”
“He didn’t just ride on others’ coattails either—Tenda grew from a small company, and he spearheaded all these projects.”
“It seems Pei Qian genuinely put effort into this graduation thesis, revealing a portion of his true capabilities.”
“And he even incorporated real Tenda case studies—this must also be a summary of Pei Qian’s own creative theory, right?”
“The only pity is that the references section isn’t particularly extensive.”
“And… what does this last sentence mean?”
Zhang Wei was utterly astonished.
When he first saw the title, Zhang Wei thought this thesis would be grandiose yet hollow, likely a completely failing work.
But as he read on, especially when he reached the abstract and main text, and saw the thesis’s overall framework, Zhang Wei immediately changed his opinion!
The paper could be roughly divided into three parts: First, it analyzed the predicaments faced by literary works in the internet age; then, based on these challenges, it proposed the essential factors for the dissemination and creation of popular literary works in the internet age; finally, it presented the mission of popular literary works in the internet age, supplemented with specific creative examples from Tenda.
It was like a sparrow—small but complete with all five internal organs!
Moreover, the entire thesis contained no unnecessary verbiage, only substantial content, without any padding.
One could even say that if this thesis were used as a skeleton and supplemented with additional content and references, it could easily be expanded into a master’s or even doctoral dissertation.
If one were to be even bolder, it could serve as a higher-level research topic!
This situation was completely unexpected for Zhang Wei.
The characteristics of this thesis could be summarized in several aspects.
First, the professional knowledge it referenced was quite fundamental, but precisely because it was all foundational knowledge, there was no controversy—it was incredibly solid.
Second, the theories proposed in the paper had strong contemporary relevance and foresight. In other words, it directly analyzed some characteristics of current popular literary works that were so cutting-edge it was difficult to judge whether they were right or wrong.
If one were to say it was correct, it didn’t seem directly connected to current theoretical research. But to say it was incorrect wouldn’t be right either, as it made a lot of sense.
Furthermore, humanities differ from sciences. In science, right is right, and wrong is wrong—there’s basically no room for ambiguity, and truth has uniqueness.
But in humanities, the emphasis is on letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend—each has its own reasoning. As long as the arguments are substantive and can be verified with real-world phenomena, they can’t be considered wrong.
Third, this thesis extensively incorporated real cases from Tenda, such as successful games and successful film scripts.
These contents themselves were filled with extensive textual materials, which could also be seen as forms of artistic expression.
Since these works had succeeded in reality, research on their theories naturally became highly credible.
Zhang Wei couldn’t help feeling bewildered.
“I don’t think I can revise this thesis!”
“It’s completely beyond my capabilities.”
“Pei Qian isn’t following the usual pattern at all—how could he write such an undergraduate thesis?”
“And what’s even more outrageous is the last sentence.”
“‘The theoretical knowledge referenced in this paper consists of relatively basic, elementary concepts. Due to the short completion time and insufficient preparation, direct citations have not been included in the paper. If there are any inappropriate aspects, please forgive me. If there are any errors, I welcome corrections.'”
“It seems humble, but when combined with the content of the thesis itself, it gives a rather arrogant impression…”
The more Zhang Wei pondered, the more he felt something was off.
The paper indeed referenced relatively elementary knowledge, but the key was what topic this knowledge was being used to research.
If it were researching some very simple topics, that would definitely indicate the author’s academic theoretical level was low.
Because with limited knowledge, one could only research these particularly basic theoretical topics.
But what if the research involved very advanced, cutting-edge, and grand topics, and actually made some meaningful points?
That would indicate the author used very basic, solid, undisputed knowledge to argue about a current, cutting-edge topic, and did so substantively.
This wouldn’t make people think it was simple, but rather that the author had a solid foundation, was indisputable, believed in the greatness of simplicity, and recognized that different paths could lead to the same destination!
As for Pei Qian saying at the end that the writing time was short, preparation was insufficient, and he didn’t directly cite in the text… this was indeed because Pei Qian was busy with work and didn’t have time to complete it, which was understandable.
In other words, with such limited preparation time, Pei Qian didn’t even have time to list the sources of various basic knowledge references in detail, yet successfully completed the entire framework and wrote an excellent thesis. Didn’t this precisely indicate that Pei Qian’s academic foundation was actually quite high?
The structure was all in his mind!
As for the last paragraph, the message seemed to be: I believe my thesis is probably error-free, but if you think you’re very capable, please point out the errors. I don’t mind arguing and proving my points—let’s have a good discussion.
Zhang Wei frowned slightly, muttering to himself, “This Pei Qian’s academic level is clearly higher than mine!”
This academic level didn’t refer to the ability to search through literature for references, but the genuine ability to research and solve problems.
Pei Qian had already truly applied this knowledge in his daily work, creating literary works that people enjoyed, achieving great success.
And this thesis further summarized his experience and explicitly wrote it out!
How could Zhang Wei revise it?
He didn’t dare make random changes, because after revisions, it might be completely wrong.
The only thing he could do was to help Pei Qian add all the reference citations and annotations, making the entire thesis conform to format requirements.
But was there any point in doing that?
These were all very basic knowledge points—was it necessary to go through this formality?
Zhang Wei was undecided, so he found several young lecturers in the department, sent them the thesis, and asked for their help.
Soon, these young lecturers responded.
“I’ve never seen an undergraduate graduation thesis like this before. It’s not easy to revise!”
“Although I don’t fully agree with some of the theories inside, and the thesis itself isn’t particularly mature, it does have successful cases for reference. I think it’s inadvisable to modify it rashly. How about this: I’ll study it for a few days, and after I’ve figured something out, I’ll get back to you.”
“I think this thesis shows very high academic accomplishment. This is exactly what today’s college students lack. Just keep its original style, don’t change it!”
“I’m not sure how to approach revising this thesis. All I could potentially change are some word choices in sentences, format standardization, and reference citations. But making these changes seems rather pointless.”
Seeing these responses, Zhang Wei was at a loss for words.
He realized these young lecturers had similar attitudes to his own—none of them knew what to do with this thesis!
Because this thesis was in an extremely polarized state: the knowledge it referenced was too basic, with nothing much to comment on, yet the topic it researched was too lofty and grand.
Zhang Wei felt helpless and thought, “Maybe I should just submit this thesis directly to Professor Kong for his decision.”
“A student of this caliber can indeed only be guided by Professor Kong.”
Zhang Wei could have revised some details and added all the referenced knowledge, but he felt that given the level of this thesis, these references were too basic, and whether they were added or not wouldn’t make much difference.
He would show it to Professor Kong first and determine whether further changes were needed.
…
Meanwhile, Pei Qian had just arrived at his office.
On his desk was a detailed report about Finger Company sent by Eric.
Since Finger Company was across the ocean with a time difference, Eric couldn’t frequently report his work to Pei Qian. Additionally, Pei Qian had been in seclusion recently, so there had been even fewer opportunities.
Therefore, Eric had compiled a detailed report about his recent work at Finger Company and submitted it for Mr. Pei to review when he had time.
Pei Qian was also very concerned about the situation at Finger Company, so he sat down in his executive chair and opened the report to check.
Since Eric had taken over Finger Company, a series of palace dramas had unfolded there.
First, Eric had comprehensively transformed Finger Company according to Pei Qian’s requirements.
For the previous executives who were responsible for management and operations at Finger Company, he had basically found ways to persuade them to leave. He only retained some executives with backgrounds as designers and concept artists, leading the remaining designers to reorganize various departments, specifically responsible for developing new heroes and collaborating with the GOG project team.
Of course, quite a few middle-level and lower-level employees had also resigned. For these people, Pei Qian’s attitude had always been to allow freedom of movement, so he definitely wouldn’t obstruct them.
In short, Eric had fully implemented Pei Qian’s requirements to thoroughly merge the two companies!
The only flaw was that a small portion of shares were still held by the original executives. While people could be dismissed, shares couldn’t be forcibly reclaimed.
Pei Qian had originally thought that after making such an unreliable decision, they would be eager to dump their shares and run.
After all, if they didn’t sell their shares now, they would only become less valuable in the future. Why hold onto something just to watch it depreciate?
But initially, Finger Company’s stock price didn’t decline significantly, and these executives didn’t sell their shares.
There were even online discussions suggesting whether Tenda was planning a reverse merger, indirectly absorbing capital from the U.S. stock market through Finger Company.
Some people were quite optimistic about Finger Company’s future. After all, following the merger of the two companies, they had formed a de facto monopoly in the MOBA game market. Since Finger Company was highly controlled by Tenda, wouldn’t Finger Company also share in Tenda’s profits?
So recently, in response to this situation, Pei Qian had given Eric another strategy.
Be more ruthless!