After leaving Terminal Chinese Web, Pei Qian went to Tenda’s office area.

With the release approaching, everyone looked both excited and expectant.

Some employees, including Li Yada, were still diligently testing the game’s flow.

The game had already gone through testing, and even though bugs still existed, the chances of encountering them were minimal. But everyone was clearly still concerned. The final phase of testing was like checking answers before submitting a test—it served more as psychological comfort than anything else.

As for Bao Xu…

He was still playing other games, seemingly having no intention of participating in the testing with the others.

Pei Qian nodded slightly.

Very good!

This was exactly the scene he wanted to see.

It seemed that Bao Xu had truly figured things out. During his two paid vacations, he had obviously realized something, and now was willingly playing the role of a slacker.

Every time Pei Qian came by, Bao Xu was either playing games or browsing websites, never once seriously working.

This made Pei Qian trust Bao Xu even more.

According to Pei Qian’s original plan, when he recruited Bao Xu, he had hoped Bao Xu would just casually play games and idle away his days at the company.

Although the process had experienced some twists and turns, the outcome still matched expectations.

If Bao Xu continued like this, perhaps Pei Qian could assign him some other tasks?

But before that, Pei Qian felt he should examine him carefully one more time.

With this thought, Pei Qian approached Bao Xu.

Bao Xu hurriedly turned around: “Mr. Pei, is there something you need?”

“Nothing important, I just wanted to ask how the fine-tuning of game feel details for ‘Return to Shore’ is coming along?” Pei Qian asked with a gentle expression.

“That? It should…”

Bao Xu was about to say “it should be fine now,” when he suddenly realized something was wrong.

The consequences would be severe if he said that!

He had been secretly playing “Return to Shore” during this period and privately messaging Li Yada about minor issues, which other people shouldn’t have known about.

But if Bao Xu answered this question, and answered it well, what would that indicate?

It would show that he was very familiar with the game’s status!

If that were the case, wouldn’t all of Bao Xu’s efforts to pretend to be a slacker and avoid being selected as an outstanding employee again be wasted?

Bao Xu instantly broke into a cold sweat. That was close!

He quickly changed his answer: “That? It should… You should probably ask Li Yada? I’m not very clear on the specific situation.”

“Oh, right.” Pei Qian nodded and turned toward Li Yada’s workstation.

Not bad! Since returning from Europe, Bao Xu indeed hadn’t been responsible for this aspect of work!

If it were the previous Bao Xu, he would have played the game many times, carefully adjusting the game feel and details, even if it wasn’t his job.

But now, Bao Xu had completely broken that bad habit.

How gratifying!

Pei Qian felt reassured.

Meanwhile, Bao Xu let out a long breath.

That was dangerous!

He could almost see the serious consequences that might have followed if he had said the wrong thing.

Perhaps six months later, the Sahara Desert, the Nile River, and the Pyramids would be beckoning him with “Welcome!”

But now, he had successfully avoided such a tragic fate.

“I really can’t let my guard down for a moment.”

Bao Xu sighed deeply and opened the game again.

He was considering whether he should get an anti-peeping screen protector or a hood for his monitor.

Just thinking about having to maintain this miserable lifestyle until at least the next outstanding employee selection made Bao Xu feel a vague melancholy.

…

Back in his office, Pei Qian opened his computer.

He was very conflicted about whether to promote “Return to Shore.”

Promote it?

One more player meant one more risk factor.

Don’t promote it?

With Tenda’s current reputation, even without promotion, the game would still attract considerable attention.

Besides, a grand promotional campaign would cost more money.

After struggling with this for a while, Pei Qian decided to forget it.

The previous lessons of Fried Pork Trotters and “Hot-Blooded Battle Song Enhanced Edition” made him feel that not promoting would be safer.

Increasing such a big risk just to spend a little more money seemed counterproductive.

“Let’s keep a low profile; better not to have so many players paying attention.”

“Although Tenda now has quite a few die-hard fans, it’s best not to promote intentionally—the fewer people who know about it, the better.”

“As long as we don’t deliberately promote it, even if the first batch of players start discussing it, it would still take at least two or three days after the release to form a hot topic, right?”

“One day later is still one day gained.”

While Pei Qian was thinking to himself, he opened the official platform to check on “Hot-Blooded Battle Song.”

However, “Hot-Blooded Battle Song” wasn’t in the largest featured position on the homepage.

Pei Qian was stunned, taking a moment to react.

Since “Hot-Blooded Battle Song” had received an official recommendation recently and had remained in the featured spot on the homepage, the recommendation period shouldn’t have ended yet—how could it have been removed?

He looked closely at the title in the featured position.

“Light of Domestic Games: Tenda’s New Creation Coming Soon!”

Pei Qian: “???”

What was the official platform thinking?

Did I ask for a featured position for you to force on me?

Pei Qian was speechless. Now there was no need to worry about whether to promote early on, because the early promotion work had already been maxed out by the official platform!

There was also no question of the game generating hot topics two or three days after release—the hype was already brewing!

All because of the featured position arranged by the officials in advance!

Pei Qian was very frustrated. What did this mean? The official platform’s featured position was important—directly giving it to a game that hadn’t even been released yet, weren’t they just playing around?

But thinking again, he understood.

“Return to Shore” had to be submitted for review before its release, and could only be published after passing the review.

After the review, the staff at the official platform would already understand some details about the game.

Of course, the reviewers wouldn’t play through the entire game. When submitting for review, official modifiers and game documentation would be prepared to ensure that each reviewer could quickly complete every ending.

The reviewers had seen the Chinese cultural content embedded in this game, so they had unconsciously added many bonus points!

As the developer of a series of games like “Sea Fortress,” “Game Producer,” and others, Tenda had always been a key focus of the official platform, consistently receiving official recommendations generously.

So, with excellent previous works and now a quality Chinese-style game, the officials directly gave it a warm-up feature spot!

Pei Qian was speechless.

Officials, you’re something.

I’m already in this situation, so why do you still keep giving me special treatment?

I just want to be an obscure game developer, okay??

Pei Qian clicked on the featured position with melancholy.

After clicking, it jumped directly to the game details page for “Return to Shore” after its listing, but so far, there wasn’t much substantial content on this page—just the game name, a simple game introduction, and a few concept art pieces.

The official release date was October 1st.

In the comments section, many players were already staking their claim.

“So impressive! A new unreleased game gets a homepage feature spot dropped on it? Tenda is amazing!”

“After all, it’s the official favorite child treatment.”

“I bet Tenda’s operations team must be quite savvy, knowing how to maintain good relations with officials.”

“Need to maintain good relations? This is about capability, understand? ‘Game Producer’ directly became legendary with just one game. This kind of treatment is what Tenda deserves. Other game companies aren’t satisfied? If you have the ability, make a similar game yourselves!”

“Ah, I’m envious.”

Pei Qian read this with twitching eyelids and a slight headache.

Impressive my ass!

Envious my ass!

He continued reading.

“What kind of game is it this time?”

“Looking at these few images, it seems to be a Chinese-style RPG game?”

“Has Tenda finally started moving toward large 3A productions? I’m looking forward to it.”

“Indeed. The officials have already reviewed the game content and put it in the feature spot, which should mean the game is well-made. We can look forward to it!”

After browsing through some of the top comments in the comment section, Pei Qian felt depressed but also couldn’t help smiling slightly.

Everyone is so optimistic?

Hehe, I might not be able to control the officials, but I can certainly manage you all!

Pei Qian felt like a butcher holding a cleaver, and these players were like bamboo rats completely unaware of the objective situation, still gnawing on bamboo, totally oblivious that their death was approaching.

“Well, let everyone be happy for a couple more days.”

“The greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment.”

“When they see the game, they’ll surely hate it because of their love, and curse this game loudly, right?”

Pei Qian imagined this scene and felt extremely content.

“So I’ll just wait for the official release of the game?”

“Hmm… I still feel a bit uneasy.”

“Although last-minute sharpening doesn’t mean much, it’s still good to sharpen a bit.”

“And spend some more money while I’m at it.”

Since the officials had already helped with promotion, there wasn’t much point in hiding anymore.

Pei Qian decided to find another place to spend a little money.

He opened the AiLiDao website and found Xiaohupingce (Little Fox Reviews).

Pei Qian decided to spend money on some water army (paid commenters)!

Although the water army from Xiaohupingce had disappointed Pei Qian last time, the blame couldn’t be entirely placed on those paid commenters—after all, they were just doing what they were paid to do.

If we were to get into specifics, Mr. Pei himself bore more responsibility.

Moreover, they had refunded the 1,000 yuan for hiring the water army, an attitude that Pei Qian found very satisfactory.

Since they were so forthright, giving them a second chance wasn’t unreasonable, was it?

Considering that the previous water army result was quite unsuccessful, this time Pei Qian decided to slightly change how he used the water army.

Whether it would change the outcome remained to be seen, but the main point was that he couldn’t pay out of his own pocket again this time.

Strictly speaking, this couldn’t even be considered hiring a water army.

With a good excuse, the System would surely accept the expense!