At noon, Pei Qian woke up.

He had been sleeping very soundly these past few days, though he couldn’t quite explain why.

Perhaps it was the magic of money?

Just thinking about soon having 300,000 yuan to spend freely, completely escaping his current impoverished state, Pei Qian felt much more at ease.

He opened his computer.

Opened the resource site.

Found a new message.

Received the original artwork sent by Ruan Guangjian.

The transfer speed wasn’t slow, but since these artworks were all of such high resolution, the download still took some time.

“The efficiency is quite high, they completed everything on schedule.”

“I wonder about the quality.”

“Please don’t make them too beautiful! Too beautiful can kill people!”

With nearly a week left until settlement, Pei Qian needed to get the finished game released as soon as possible.

The system stipulated that in the week before settlement, Pei Qian couldn’t have any unreleased products.

In other words, one week after a product was officially released, the system would acknowledge that Pei Qian had completed a normal, complete business activity process, and the calculation of profit and loss would count.

If there were unreleased products, the system would postpone the settlement date, which was unacceptable to Pei Qian.

Pei Qian opened the original artwork sent by Ruan Guangjian.

Upon seeing the first piece, he was stunned.

“Holy crap! How is the detail level so high?”

“Is this original artwork that costs 700 yuan per piece?!”

Pei Qian almost thought he was seeing things.

Although he wasn’t very knowledgeable about original artwork, he could still tell the difference between expensive and cheap artwork, the most obvious distinction being the level of detail!

Because every detail in the original artwork was carefully drawn by the artist, more details meant the artist had invested more effort in the piece.

Generally speaking, poster-level original artwork would be priced at thousands or tens of thousands of yuan. The artist would spend a week drawing it, and the details would be especially rich.

Ordinary artwork, costing a few hundred yuan, was usually produced in batches with tight deadlines. Even if the artist wanted to add more details, there simply wasn’t enough time.

But this artwork was much more detailed than Pei Qian had imagined, and it had an extremely distinctive style!

This artwork depicts “Dragon Martial Saint” Guan Yu. Previously, Ma Yang’s requirements document had only set him as a dragon, without mentioning many details.

Yet in this artwork, all kinds of details had been added!

The background of the artwork was a mountain with a strong ink-wash style, covered with green pines and cypresses, surrounded by white clouds, giving a strong sense of traditional Chinese painting’s blank space technique.

In the main position of the image was Guan Yu holding his crescent blade.

This was a very revolutionary image. He was a traditional Chinese dragon, with a green face, arms, and most of the exposed skin, two horns growing from his head, with extremely obvious dragon features.

But from his attire, one could still recognize him as Guan Yu.

He wore a green robe with a golden shoulder plate on the left side, along with some red ornaments. These were all very common elements in traditional Guan Yu artwork, naturally integrated into this piece.

This artwork allowed people to recognize Guan Yu’s typical features at a glance, while revolutionizing his image.

Most importantly, its artistic style was unique, completely different from the vast majority of original artwork on the market. It combined ink-wash and oil painting styles, eye-catching enough to grab attention.

Looking at the other artwork, both the quality and style were very close to this piece.

Of course, the specific images followed Ma Yang’s requirements document, and they weren’t all this type of mythical beast.

The entire set of artwork included mythical beasts and freaks. Even characters that maintained human form often had their images revolutionized, such as Lu Meng becoming a dragon-slaying loli.

Based on Ma Yang’s requirement descriptions, Ruan Guangjian adjusted these characters in detail, redesigned the entire style and image, and ultimately maximized the characteristics of each character while ensuring uniformity in style across all the artwork.

Pei Qian was stunned.

3,000 yuan for 4 pieces of artwork like this?

Was this a joke?

The artist was losing badly!

Was this drawn by Ruan Guangjian?

But if you have such impressive work, why are all the representative works on the resource site Q-version?

Pei Qian was on the verge of tears. He had gotten a bargain, but now he couldn’t be happy at all!

Because he had deliberately sought someone in the 700-800 yuan per artwork price range to purchase low-quality artwork, and had deliberately looked for someone who seemingly only specialized in Q-version characters.

But how did he still accidentally encounter a future master?

Others might not know, but Pei Qian knew very well.

This artistic style was really impressive!

Because in his previous life, a well-known concept art designer named Yang Qi liked this style, and his influence was considerable.

Don’t know who Yang Qi is?

Surely you’ve heard of “Battle of the Gods”? Yang Qi was the lead artist.

That’s right, the set of original artwork that Ruan Guangjian had given Pei Qian now had a similar spirit to the style of “Battle of the Gods”!

Of course, it was considerably less detailed, since this was rushed work by Ruan Guangjian.

But this style, this atmosphere, gave a very similar feeling!

If Pei Qian had known earlier that Ruan Guangjian could produce work of this caliber, he absolutely would not have hired him!

But… what could he do now?

The money had already been paid.

The artwork had already been received.

Refund and breach of contract? That was impossible!

Moreover, Pei Qian needed to release the game in a day or two, otherwise the system would postpone the settlement.

Delay breeds change!

Pei Qian couldn’t resist the temptation of these 300,000 yuan; even a day’s delay would make him uneasy!

“Calm down, calm down.”

“Things aren’t as bad as I thought; let’s look on the bright side.”

“First, ‘Battle of the Gods’ wasn’t exactly a successful project.”

“Second, the taste of players in this world remains to be seen.”

“The style of this artwork can be described as distinctive, but being distinctive doesn’t necessarily mean players will like it.”

“The popular style now is Q-version, this set of artwork might have the opposite effect…”

“Hmm… yes, that’s right.”

Pei Qian calmed down and thought that things might not be so bad.

This set of artwork was highly detailed and had very distinctive features, making a strong first impression.

But did it meet market demands?

Not necessarily!

Pei Qian had seen too many high-quality games fail miserably, showing that the market often didn’t make sense.

What was popular in the mobile game field in this world?

Q-version!

“Q Cute Three Kingdoms” became popular because of this, and could largely represent players’ aesthetic preferences.

This set of artwork from Ruan Guangjian had a touch of epic feeling, a bit of a dark style, and mixed ink-wash and oil painting techniques.

Players might not necessarily like it!

Moreover, Pei Qian wasn’t pinning all his hopes on the artwork.

His game itself used a template, with a single gameplay.

Other art resources, music resources, etc., hadn’t received much attention either, and weren’t particularly outstanding.

Also, he didn’t plan to spend money on promotion, just intending to casually put the game on the platform and be done with it.

If it didn’t make money after a week, it would naturally count as a successful loss.

So, after thinking it through, this set of artwork had to be used.

Pei Qian opened the editor, configured all these art resources as cards in the game, and then had Ma Yang check for any bugs.

Upon seeing this set of artwork, Ma Yang was silent for a long time before finally squeezing out a sentence: “Awesome!”

He was shocked, never expecting that the characters he had designed on a whim would be drawn so well!

Pei Qian casually said, “It’s mainly because your art requirements were good, giving the artist excellent inspiration.”

Ma Yang beamed with joy: “Really? That’s great! I never knew I had such talent in this area!”

Pei Qian’s casual flattery made Ma Yang forget who he was.

Pei Qian was very satisfied with this; Ma Yang continuing to maintain this work state would be very helpful for his plans!