“Brother Qian!”

“Brother Qian!”

Pei Qian gradually woke up to Ma Yang’s calls.

“Hey, I know you’ve put a lot of heart and soul into this game, and now that it’s finally paying off, you must be extremely excited. But don’t get too excited, it’s not good for your health.”

“Quickly calm down, we’ve succeeded!”

Ma Yang’s excitement was written all over his face.

Pei Qian felt helpless, rolling his eyes in frustration.

Am I happy?

Am I excited?

This is despair!!

Pei Qian’s face turned ashen, forcibly pulling at the corners of his mouth to reveal a smile. “Mm, we’ve succeeded…”

He was very confused. Which part had gone wrong?

Although it was painful and despairing to admit his failure, Pei Qian still needed to figure out exactly where he had failed!

Why had this game become popular again?

This time, it couldn’t be another video blogger criticizing the game, right?

The key was that there wasn’t anything to criticize about this game!

He first searched for the keyword “Ghost General” on Thousand Degrees Search, but didn’t find any useful information.

In the game’s comment section, he also didn’t see any messages like “XX tour group” or similar comments.

“So where exactly did the problem occur?” Pei Qian couldn’t figure it out no matter how hard he thought.

The key was that only a few people knew about this game!

Pei Qian himself hadn’t done any promotion.

Ma Yang was even less likely; even if he wanted to promote it, he didn’t have the connections.

Besides them, the only others were the people on the ESRO resource sites that Pei Qian had contacted when buying resources and templates.

“Wait a minute, the players who left comments mostly mentioned the original artwork!”

“They were attracted by the original artwork!”

“But these original drawings are in the game, how did they see them?”

With a glimmer of hope, Pei Qian opened Weibo and searched for “Ghost General.”

This time, there were results.

Many well-known artists had all reposted the original artwork of “Ghost General,” eagerly spreading the word!

These Weibo posts had been reposted by many people, including big Vs from the gaming circle, anime circle, and even the tech circle!

Regular Weibo users were also reposting at a high rate!

Even the topic “Ghost General” had made it to Weibo’s trending list, although it was only at the very bottom. Still, the traffic it could bring was substantial!

Pei Qian was dumbfounded.

Who did this?

Who had such great influence to get so many industry leaders to repost and promote “Ghost General”?

Even ordinary publicity companies and paid promoters probably couldn’t achieve this!

The key was that many of these artists were prominent figures in their respective fields, with high self-regard. Even if certain companies approached them for paid promotions, they might not necessarily accept!

Following the reposts one by one, Pei Qian finally found the original poster: Ruan Guangjian!

This was Ruan Guangjian’s account with only two to three hundred followers, yet somehow this Weibo post had been reposted thousands of times, maintaining high popularity!

Although Pei Qian couldn’t understand how an account with only two to three hundred followers could cause such a big impact with one post, it was clear that all this stemmed from Ruan Guangjian’s voluntary promotion!

Pei Qian slapped his forehead: “Oh no, this time the problem came from one of our people!”

But he couldn’t understand why Ruan Guangjian would go to such lengths to help promote his game.

It didn’t make sense!

Our relationship is purely financial—I give you money, you draw the original artwork. The transaction is complete, so why are you putting in so much effort to advertise and promote for me? Isn’t this just a waste of your energy?!

I didn’t pay you any extra promotional fees!

Pei Qian didn’t understand, truly didn’t understand.

He decided to ask what was going on through the ESRO resource site.

“You promoted ‘Ghost General’ on Weibo???”

After a few minutes, Ruan Guangjian replied.

“Yes, I asked a few artist friends to help repost it. I didn’t expect it would have such a good effect.”

“Boss Pei, you don’t need to feel too grateful. I just thought it would be a shame for such a conscientious game you made to be buried in obscurity!”

“A total development fund of 300,000, all put into game development, without even setting aside any funds for promotion… I have to say, passionate game developers like you are rare!”

“My artist friends were all moved by your spirit, which is why they were willing to help repost.”

“Besides, ‘Ghost General’ is such a conscientious game with good quality. Of course, my original artwork is also good, which is why it could get such a good response.”

“At the end of the day, high-quality, sincere games like ‘Ghost General’ deserve to be popular! I only did a tiny bit of work.”

Reading these paragraphs from Ruan Guangjian, Pei Qian was stunned.

He didn’t even know how to respond!

Passionate developers like me are rare?

“Ghost General” is too conscientious and deserves to be popular?

What nonsense is this!

I’m not passionate! I just want the game to lose money!

“Ghost General” deserves to be popular?

Please, no! If it becomes popular, how am I supposed to lose money? Damn it!

Pei Qian wanted to give Ruan Guangjian a good scolding.

Are you bored or something?!

Why are you meddling in this? Wouldn’t it be better to take the money for the artwork and go enjoy yourself? You don’t need to worry about game promotion!

But Pei Qian couldn’t say anything. His hands hovered over the keyboard for a long time before finally hitting the delete key.

He couldn’t say anything because he couldn’t hint at the system or the challenge’s existence, nor could he make others suspicious!

According to normal human reactions, Pei Qian could only appear very happy now!

Ruan Guangjian waited for a long time without receiving a reply from Pei Qian.

Boss Pei must be too moved to know what to say.

Ruan Guangjian typed: “Boss Pei, you don’t need to say anything.”

“Helping you promote was completely voluntary on my part. If you hadn’t actively asked about it, I wouldn’t have told you about this matter.”

“You don’t need to feel embarrassed either. After all, now that ‘Ghost General’ has become popular, more people will see and know about my set of original artwork, which greatly helps my future career planning.”

“Boss Pei, keep up the good work! I believe you’ll launch more and better game works in the future. I hope we have the opportunity to cooperate again!”

Faced with Ruan Guangjian’s enthusiastic messages, Pei Qian fell into a state of stupor.

Hope for further cooperation opportunities?

No, there definitely won’t be any more!

You’re a master disguised as a novice. If I cooperate with you, how am I supposed to lose money in the future?

Pei Qian’s heart was filled with grief that he couldn’t express. In the end, he could only squeeze out two words.

“Thank you.”

His mouth said thank you, but his heart was seething with anger.

Seeing the “thank you” that Pei Qian had typed, Ruan Guangjian’s face revealed a gratified smile.

Indeed, the saying that a gentleman’s friendship is as plain as water probably meant exactly this.

It’s truly wonderful to be able to cooperate with someone as excellent as Boss Pei!