After returning from Mr. Pei’s office, Ma Yiqun felt less confused than before.

Going back upstairs, he passed by the editorial department and saw the young editors earnestly reviewing and editing manuscripts.

These young people truly cherished this job opportunity.

As a second-tier city, Jingzhou’s high-tech industry was not well-developed, with few internet companies. Most job opportunities came from traditional industries.

For most fresh graduates, jobs in traditional industries were full of suffering.

Office politics, strict hierarchies, tedious work… traditional industries were very unsuitable for most young people.

Originally, these people were confused about their future.

They couldn’t secure postgraduate recommendations, failed entrance exams, and couldn’t find jobs that suited them.

Traditional industries looked down on them, and they looked down on traditional industries—mutual disdain.

Seeing their classmates finding their places—some successfully entering postgraduate programs, living carefree lives; others receiving high-salary offers, becoming the envy of everyone.

Yet they didn’t have a single offer, failed every interview, and their resumes sank like stones. The psychological pressure was immense.

Originally, some planned to retake the postgraduate entrance exams, while others prepared to return to their hometowns. However, unexpectedly, things took a turn for the better!

A newly established website hired them all, offering editorial work somewhat related to their liberal arts majors—such incredible luck!

Although some weren’t particularly satisfied with this job at first and were somewhat averse to web novels, after talking with classmates who were already working, they realized their job was excellent!

The salary was high for Jingzhou.

The work content, although manuscript review could be monotonous, was far more interesting than many office clerical positions.

Combined with young, approachable leadership and a relaxed, harmonious company atmosphere, everyone quickly accepted this job and began transitioning diligently from students to office workers.

Seeing Ma Yiqun arrive, a small, thin young man stood up: “Brother Ma, I’ve finished reviewing today’s manuscripts.”

Ma Yiqun nodded: “Good, just keep yourself busy for now. I’ll call you all for a meeting shortly.”

This young man was called Zhu Anxing, the most active among this group, not as introverted as the others. He was quick-witted and one of the few editors Ma Yiqun was relatively satisfied with.

Zhu Anxing’s academic performance was bottom-tier, still failing three courses until graduation, resulting in his glorious delayed graduation.

Considering the difficulty of liberal arts exams, managing to casually fail three courses before graduation showed just how much he disliked studying.

Delayed graduation meant he would only receive his diploma at the end of the year, but Ma Yiqun didn’t care about this. In his view, academic performance had little to do with being a good editor.

This Zhu Anxing spent his university days reading web novels and playing games, with very broad interests, so he picked up editorial work relatively quickly.

Ma Yiqun was considering promoting him to chief editor of a popular channel once his abilities reached an appropriate level, which would help share some of his workload.

After returning to his desk and making some brief preparations, Ma Yiqun called together several promising candidates for chief editor positions and held a meeting, briefly explaining Mr. Pei’s intentions.

Future manuscript acceptance standards would be further lowered, using full attendance to attract authors and first enriching their book library.

Then there was the issue of insufficient workload.

People like Zhu Anxing, who understood web novels relatively quickly, were already barely competent as editors. Because few authors were currently submitting manuscripts, they could quickly complete the reviews.

Afterward, with no other work, they could only study popular web novels on Infinity Chinese Web.

Ma Yiqun looked around at everyone and said, “If you feel your workload isn’t sufficient, besides finding popular web novels to read, you can also try writing your own.”

“Although we’re all editors, what if you write a web novel that becomes legendary? We should still have dreams.”

“Besides, our website doesn’t have many manuscripts now, and their quality isn’t high. Your books will get good recommendation spots. You can take this opportunity to try.”

These words made sense, but in reality, they were meaningless.

With no one visiting the website, what use was a recommendation spot…

Ma Yiqun paused, then continued: “If you have nothing to do, I’ll give you all a task—think about the worldbuilding and plot for ‘Return to Shore.'”

The worldbuilding for the game “Return to Shore” was originally supposed to be the responsibility of Ma Yiqun as the plot strategist.

But unexpected events led to Ma Yiqun’s sudden promotion.

Logically, Ma Yiqun should have handed over this work.

Lü Mingliang was stupefied, telling Ma Yiqun: If you don’t do this job, who can take over?

The only person with the necessary skill level was Mr. Pei, but he was too busy—how could he have time to personally work on the plot?

Ma Yiqun realized this was true; it seemed creating the worldbuilding was something only he could do.

So Ma Yiqun had no choice but to hold dual roles.

On one hand, he was developing the worldbuilding for “Return to Shore,” and on the other, he was handling Terminal Chinese Web’s affairs—this was why he had been so busy lately.

Now, the initial preparation work for the website was complete, and with Mr. Pei’s strong support, Ma Yiqun’s psychological pressure was greatly reduced.

Ma Yiqun suddenly realized something: he now had brothers and didn’t need to fight alone—they could work on “Return to Shore’s” plot together!

These twenty-plus people could help think about the plot for “Return to Shore” during their free time. In particular, several were Chinese literature majors, like Zhu Xing’an, who had excellent classical Chinese foundations.

According to Mr. Pei’s requirements, “Return to Shore” needed a large amount of classical Chinese puzzle content. Having Ma Yiqun write all this content alone wasn’t impossible, but one person writing so much would certainly decrease quality.

But now with so many people helping, each responsible for a small part, wasn’t this equivalent to having a plot team?

Ma Yiqun briefly explained the worldbuilding setting for “Return to Shore” to everyone.

The initial worldbuilding had been completed, with a traditional Chinese setting including Buddhist, Taoist, and traditional mythological elements, but not overly emphasizing any particular element, just using them as accents.

Although this game could be made with a completely Buddhist background, even using Sanskrit in the art assets, Ma Yiqun and Lü Mingliang discussed and felt this wasn’t appropriate.

A pure Buddhist background would make the game’s worldbuilding more unified with a more distinctive style, but it might fail to highlight Chinese cultural characteristics.

In other words, it might overshadow the main theme.

Buddhism was ultimately a foreign religion, not indigenous enough, not sufficiently Chinese.

So, Ma Yiqun and Lü Mingliang discussed and decided to integrate Buddhist, Taoist, and traditional mythological elements to create a unique Chinese style.

As for whether combining so many elements would cause stylistic confusion…

No need to worry, the style design was the responsibility of master Ruan Guangjian.

The epic ink and oil painting style used to depict this theme would have a perfect effect.