These days, Pei Qian was quite busy.

He had spent the entire summer vacation dealing with company affairs. As the new semester approached, Pei Qian finally managed to squeeze in some time to visit home, resting for two days.

He faced some questioning, such as his mother asking why he hadn’t played any new roles in Fei Huang Studio’s new program “A Day in the Life of a Great Inventor.” Pei Qian responded that he had moved behind the scenes.

This time, Pei Qian didn’t add any new things to the family home. They had already purchased most of the new furniture and appliances they could, so the next goal might be to find a larger living space.

However, Pei Qian’s assets were temporarily insufficient, so he would have to wait until after completing this round of losses.

Therefore, after staying at home for two days, Pei Qian quickly rushed back to his post, continuing to throw himself into work with spirited enthusiasm.

Upon returning to the company, he found that Li Yada’s efficiency was quite high. “No Return Shore” had already been updated, fixing the bug that made the game too easy to complete with certain weapons.

Pei Qian was completely unaffected because the “Salvation” weapon hadn’t been nerfed.

Moreover, Pei Qian’s route could jump directly from the Yellow Springs Road to the Six Realms of Reincarnation. The areas that had increased difficulty this time were primarily the Forgetting River, Three Lives Stone, and others—places Pei Qian would never visit.

After suffering for some time, Pei Qian decided to watch a drama series on a video website to relax a bit.

As soon as he clicked in, he saw a familiar face.

Pei Qian was stunned. Oh? Isn’t this Zhang Zuting?

Looking at the date, Pei Qian suddenly remembered—ah, today was the launch day for “Hot Blood Battle Song Power-Up Version.”

The advertisements would surely be synchronized with the game, appearing on various major websites.

Pei Qian, who had been feeling drowsy, suddenly became energized. He abandoned the drama and quickly checked on the situation with “Hot Blood Battle Song Power-Up Version.”

Mingcloud Private Kitchen had already failed, so now he was counting on this game to give him some peace of mind!

Pei Qian first opened several popular websites, including video sites and gaming portals, all of which displayed advertisements for “Hot Blood Battle Song Power-Up Version.”

On video sites, many game-related videos began by looping Zhang Zuting’s advertising lines: “I am the Fried Pork Knuckle, if you’re my brother, come take a bite!”

Under this overwhelming onslaught, it would be difficult for netizens not to notice.

Pei Qian hurriedly went to AiLiDao, directly searched for the keyword “Zhang Zuting,” and found a compilation of this advertisement among a series of videos, checking the bullet screen comments and reviews.

The title of this video series was: “Ruining His Reputation? Zhang Zuting’s Web Game Ad Compilation: I Am the Fried Pork Knuckle.”

The bullet screen comments and reviews here could reflect the attitudes of some of the casual viewers.

“As a fan of Teacher Zhang, I’m heartbroken. How desperate for money must Teacher Zhang be to shoot this kind of advertisement…”

“Another one of those environment-polluting web game ads, ugh!”

“It’s not that bad. At least this web game ad doesn’t push boundaries, doesn’t use street-walking style solicitation methods, or use heavy-reward-for-sons type of inducement words. It’s kind of a breath of fresh air among web game ads. But still, I want to ask, why ruin Teacher Zhang’s lifelong purity…”

“Pfft, so this is what Zhang Zuting sounds like speaking Mandarin? I’ve only heard his dubbed voice in movies before, didn’t expect his accent to be so bizarre!”

“Could they be using stolen art assets?”

“Zhang Zuting himself said on Weibo that he’s been collaborating with a game company recently, so it must be this ad, no doubt.”

“You should look on the bright side. Other web game ads are pure deception, with ads having absolutely nothing to do with the actual game content. But this ad is much better—they hired a celebrity spokesperson, actually made costumes and props based on the game scenes, and the advertising lines are consistent with the game content. This is practically the most honest web game ad of the year, okay?”

“Hello everyone, I am the Fried Pork Knuckle, if you’re my brother, come take a bite! You definitely can’t miss it!”

The reaction from casual viewers wasn’t too intense.

They were battle-hardened and had seen it all.

Currently, web games are at a critical turning point, considered the final glory days of the web game industry, and simultaneously the most profitable period for major web game companies.

Web game advertisements were also beginning to transform with the trend.

During the wild growth period of web games, companies simply stole assets, completely disregarding copyright infringement. Their advertising methods were equally crude, with forced pop-ups and annoying, intrusive ads everywhere.

But as the web game industry continued to consolidate and industry standards became more regulated, larger companies began to find various celebrities for endorsements.

So, from the perspective of casual viewers, the advertisement for “Hot Blood Battle Song Power-Up Version” was still a bit higher class compared to those bottomless web game ads.

If anyone was most dissatisfied, it would be Zhang Zuting’s fans, who felt that this web game ad lowered Zhang Zuting’s standards, giving them a sense that their idol had been insulted.

Pei Qian then opened Zhang Zuting’s Weibo.

Zhang Zuting’s previous Weibo post was still from a few days ago, reposting something about environmental protection. The content was simple: “#ProtectTheEnvironment# Environmental protection is our common challenge, let’s start with ourselves, let’s work together!”

The original comments below this post were still relatively normal, mostly likes or comments like “Idol is awesome.”

But the new comments suddenly took a different tone.

“Brother Zuting, how could you shoot a web game ad? My God, my worldview is completely shattered!”

“Go take a look, a lot of people are mocking you, calling you ‘Fried Pork Knuckle’!”

“I’m so heartbroken. Brother Zuting, who has always been careful about his reputation, has stooped to collaborating with money-grabbing web game companies. Unfollowing!”

“So the game company collaboration you mentioned earlier was with a web game… I’m truly disturbed.”

The situation on Zhang Zuting’s Weibo was quite dire.

Among his followers, many people had prejudices against web games and web game advertisements, believing that endorsing web games meant taking easy money and degrading oneself. So they wouldn’t even try the game’s content; the first thing they did was rush to Zhang Zuting’s Weibo to protest.

So far, Zhang Zuting hadn’t replied to anyone or dared to post a new Weibo.

Pei Qian knew that Zhang Zuting was quite keen on interacting with fans and often browsed Weibo. It was impossible that he hadn’t seen these comments yet.

He must have seen them, but didn’t know how to respond.

On one side were his fans, on the other was a paying client—he couldn’t afford to offend either side.

Besides, Mr. Pei had even treated him to dinner.

As the saying goes, “When you eat someone’s food, you’re soft-spoken; when you take someone’s money, you’re handicapped.” Losing some fans was trivial; he couldn’t blame Mr. Pei for that.

Zhang Zuting had grievances he couldn’t express, so he could only hide like a tortoise.

Pei Qian looked at the feedback on this advertisement, which was mostly in line with expectations.

Pei Qian was a bit disappointed because people’s resistance didn’t seem as strong as he had imagined.

But this might also be because the advertisement had just been released and hadn’t generated enough hostility yet.

At present, the meme-makers hadn’t really appeared yet, and the advertisement hadn’t produced a brainwashing effect, so people’s resistance was low, which was reasonable.

The key was to see the game’s data.

Pei Qian opened the data backend from Shangyang Games and took a look at the data for “Hot Blood Battle Song Power-Up Version,” including registration numbers, retention, average user spending, and so on.

It had to be said, the effect of this advertisement was quite good, attracting many web game players.

Although this advertisement seemed extremely stupid to ordinary people and completely lacked any desire to click through, for web game players, this advertisement was quite attractive.

Web game advertisements leading to player conversion were a very complete process, with data statistics at every step:

After the ad pops up, how many people click on it?

After clicking the ad, how many people download the game’s micro-client?

After downloading the micro-client, how many people register accounts and enter the game?

After entering the game, how many people persist for more than an hour?

Of those who played yesterday, how many players remain the next day?

How much money players charge on average, what’s the highest recharge…

These data were very accurate and could reflect many issues.

There’s a saying: “Data doesn’t lie.” When human perception contradicts actual data, if the data collection is correct, then it must be the human perception that has the problem.

Pei Qian scanned the data at a glance, and the corners of his mouth involuntarily turned upward.

The situation was consistent with his predictions!