Pei Qian silently arrived at the second floor of Slackin’ Internet Café, wanting to check on Qiao Laoshi’s current state.

After all, watching Qiao Laoshi suffer had become an important amusement in Pei Qian’s monotonous life, and his motivation to continue suffering in the game “Turn Back to Shore.”

However, Pei Qian was disappointed.

Qiao Laoshi wasn’t staring blankly at the screen like last time. Instead, he was leisurely sipping a cocktail, leaning back in his chair, appearing quite relaxed.

The computer screen displayed a hazy yellow landscape, suffused with pale cyan mist. Pei Qian recognized it immediately—this was the scene at the end of the Yellow Springs Road, approaching the Wangchuan River and Bridge of Helplessness.

“What the hell is going on…”

“He’s only this little bit behind me?”

“No… he’s ahead of me!”

Pei Qian was dumbfounded.

Currently, Pei Qian has reached the entrance to the Six Realms of Reincarnation. According to the game’s scene arrangement, after crossing the Wangchuan River and the Bridge of Helplessness came the Homesick Tower and the Three-Life Stone. Only after passing the Three-Life Stone would one reach either King Yama’s Main Hall or the Six Realms of Reincarnation.

But after obtaining Pudu, Pei Qian had taken a shortcut, skipping directly from the end of Yellow Springs Road past the Bridge of Helplessness and Three-Life Stone to arrive at the Six Realms of Reincarnation.

From this perspective, Qiao Laoshi had completed more game content than Pei Qian had.

“No, this situation isn’t right…”

Pei Qian felt dizzy, suddenly realizing he had severely underestimated Qiao Laoshi’s capacity for suffering and his gaming intelligence!

As a gaming content creator, Qiao Laoshi’s gaming skills weren’t top-tier. His previous video programs had focused mainly on rankings and explanations, so Pei Qian naturally assumed that Qiao Laoshi would suffer tremendously in “Turn Back to Shore.”

But now Pei Qian realized that he might have underestimated Qiao Laoshi’s level…

Come to think of it, as a player who could endure driving for eight hours, no matter how miserably he died in “Turn Back to Shore,” it would still be more interesting than driving, right?

And judging from Qiao Laoshi’s expression, he had learned to find joy in suffering and even started to enjoy it…

Pei Qian felt a bit anxious.

If Qiao Laoshi wasn’t suffering anymore, his daily source of joy was gone!

How would he persevere from now on?

Of course, this wasn’t the main reason.

The more important reason was that if Qiao Laoshi could reach his current progress through his effort and persistence, wasn’t the game’s difficulty threshold set too low?

If the game’s difficulty threshold wasn’t high enough, it wouldn’t deter enough players, and consequently, the game’s sales wouldn’t be low—it might even make money…

That would be a disaster!

Seeing Qiao Laoshi’s comfortable expression, Pei Qian immediately imagined very serious consequences.

No, this couldn’t be allowed to continue!

Mr. Pei was someone who excelled at fixing problems before they got worse. Having already spotted the crisis, how could he just sit back and wait for failure?

After thinking for a moment, Pei Qian had an idea.

Qiao Liang was sipping his cocktail while pondering the approach for the next section of the game when he suddenly noticed Mr. Pei’s arrival.

“Mr. Pei!”

Qiao Liang’s face lit up with a smile.

After the “misunderstanding was cleared up,” seeing Mr. Pei was like seeing a close relative, particularly warm and familiar.

Pei Qian smiled and pulled over a chair from nearby. Although he couldn’t feel any warmth toward Qiao Laoshi in his heart, he still tried his best to maintain a smile.

After all, he still needed to extract more surplus value from Qiao Laoshi.

From Qiao Laoshi’s arrival in Jingzhou until now, a week has already passed. Excluding the weekend, his cumulative gaming time had reached roughly forty hours.

The content of “Turn Back to Shore” wasn’t as rich as the Souls series. According to the initial estimate, if players were relatively skilled, they could complete the main storyline in about thirty hours.

For perfectionists who wanted to experience all the game’s details or even grind for achievements, this time might extend to fifty or sixty hours.

If the player had poor skills… that time might be infinity.

Since Qiao Laoshi was quite unfamiliar with the game when he first started, he kept dying repeatedly and getting lost in the early stages. Plus, being a perfectionist, he had played for forty hours and only just reached his current progress, which was about 60% of the entire game.

However, his understanding of the game should be quite thorough by now.

“How do you feel?” Pei Qian asked with a smile.

Qiao Liang perked up.

Hmm? Mr. Pei asked the same question as last time!

He clearly remembered that when Mr. Pei came to the internet café to see him last time, he asked this same question, and at that time his feeling was that the game’s difficulty was wrong.

But now Qiao Liang understood that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the game’s difficulty—Mr. Pei had deliberately made the game this difficult!

During this time, Qiao Liang had gradually come to appreciate the unique charm of such a high-difficulty game, so his answer would naturally be different.

“I feel great! It’s been a long time since I’ve experienced this level of challenge while playing a game.” Qiao Liang was full of enthusiasm.

Indeed, the situation wasn’t good…

Pei Qian’s concerns were confirmed. He made an effort to keep his expression calm and continued asking, “So, how do you feel about the difficulty? If you were to rate the difficulty of each scene, what score would you give? And what about the ratings for the minor enemies and weapons?”

Qiao Liang was delighted—it seemed Mr. Pei valued his opinion, asking such detailed questions!

When it came to matters within the game, Qiao Liang instantly became energized and immediately opened up.

Regarding difficulty, I think the small village and town are the hardest, while the difficulty decreases later on. Of course, it might also be because after leaving the town, I had already adapted to the game’s patterns, so the difficulty seemed to drop…”

“As for weapons, the cleaver is the best in the early game—flexible, fast attack speed, and the damage is still very considerable. It can be used from early to mid-game. The broadsword’s vertical slash is especially effective; using just the vertical slash, you can take down ninety percent of the monsters…”

Qiao Liang, unsuspecting of any ulterior motive, freely shared his understanding of the game from this period.

Pei Qian silently took notes.

He only had a vague understanding of these weapons himself, but if Qiao Laoshi found these weapons useful, then they must truly be effective.

Qiao Liang wasn’t an operations-focused player. His perseverance exceeded 99% of players, his gaming intelligence exceeded 70% of players, and in terms of operation, he might only be at an upper-middle level.

That being the case, wouldn’t targeting Qiao Laoshi be equivalent to targeting the average ordinary player?

Qiao Liang spoke freely, commenting on the state of affairs, and had never felt so good.

Because previously, he could only complain online or share his thoughts within his fan group, game developers wouldn’t pay any attention to him at all.

But now, the game developer was right in front of him, earnestly listening to his suggestions. He had to make a good impression!

“Hmm… that’s about it. All in all, although there are many difficulties, as long as you make good use of these powerful weapons, they can be overcome!”

Qiao Liang still felt like he had more to say.

Pei Qian nodded: “Hmm, all good suggestions. I’ll have them make modifications when I get back!”

Seeing Mr. Pei’s serious expression, Qiao Liang felt somewhat flattered.

Of course, he couldn’t guess how much of what Mr. Pei said was just courtesy. After all, when players give feedback to customer service about game issues, the most common response is, “We’ve received your suggestion and will forward it to the design team,” but in reality, who knows if the design team will make any changes?

So Qiao Liang didn’t take it too seriously, but he still felt touched by Mr. Pei’s attitude.

After all, such a successful game producer was still humbly seeking his opinion—it could truly be called learning without shame.

Indeed, Mr. Pei’s success wasn’t without reason!

…

…

Back at the company, Pei Qian’s fingers flew across the keyboard, quickly noting down what Qiao Laoshi had said earlier.

In Qiao Laoshi’s experience, the small village and town were the most difficult.

Actually, according to the design, the difficulty of later scenes should continuously increase, but Lü Mingliang and his team had overlooked one issue: the player’s threshold for suffering also continuously increased.

The monsters in the small village and town were all first encounters, so they were difficult, but after gradually adapting to the game’s rhythm, the increase in difficulty wasn’t enough.

If that were the case, then they would continue to increase the difficulty of the next few scenes!

And the weapons—didn’t Qiao Laoshi like the cleaver the most? Cut it!

Didn’t he say the broadsword’s vertical slash was particularly effective? Cut it!

In short, whatever Qiao Laoshi found especially useful must be weapons that beginners could use to “skip class”—cut them all.

It was ruthless, highlighting pure insanity.

After all, it didn’t affect Mr. Pei, who used an exclusive weapon.

After making a simple list, he handed it directly to Li Yada.

“Adjust the balance according to this,” Pei Qian said simply.

Li Yada took the form and saw that the changes were indeed detailed.

For weapons like the broadsword, it was specifically stated to only weaken the vertical slash attack, which was very targeted.

“Yes, Mr. Pei, I’ll take care of it right away!”

Li Yada couldn’t help but admire how Mr. Pei pursued excellence.

Recently, when reporting to Mr. Pei, he was always playing with “Pudu,” and she had no idea when Mr. Pei had found time to experience all the other weapons.

Indeed, it was precisely because he worked hard silently in places where others couldn’t see that Mr. Pei had achieved his current success.

Li Yada took the form and went to earnestly contemplate Mr. Pei’s design intentions.

Pei Qian sat in his chair, suddenly feeling a twinge of conscience, thinking he was a bit unfair to Qiao Laoshi.

Although it was to increase difficulty, cutting all the weapons Qiao Laoshi found handy seemed a bit excessive.

If that was the case, then he would treat him to another meal as compensation!

Qiao Laoshi had made outstanding contributions to the balance adjustments of “Turn Back to Shore.” To express gratitude, treating him to a good meal at Mingyun Private Kitchen wasn’t too much, right?

Thinking of this, Pei Qian took out his phone and dialed Chef Lin’s number.

“Help me book dinner for tomorrow.”

On the other end of the phone, Lin Canrong was taken aback: “Uh, Mr. Pei, someone has already made a reservation.”

“Hmm?”

Pei Qian was a bit surprised.

Was it the returning customer from last time?

“Then I won’t book the largest private room; just switch to a smaller one.”

Lin Canrong coughed twice: “Mr. Pei, all the spots have been reserved.”

“???”

Pei Qian felt dizzy, a sense of foreboding looming over him: “What about the day after tomorrow?”

Lin Canrong answered truthfully: “Mr. Pei, not just the day after tomorrow, our current bookings are scheduled until the week after next…”

Pei Qian fell into a daze.

What the hell???

I haven’t gone there for just one week, and what has happened to Mingyun Private Kitchen?