Meanwhile, in his office, Pei Qian was anxiously pacing, unable to sit still.

“What are these paid commenters doing?”

“They haven’t stirred up any waves at all. If this continues, public opinion will completely lean to one side!”

After arranging for the paid commenters yesterday, Pei Qian had been closely monitoring the forums and Weibo for any shifts in sentiment. However, after watching for half the day, aside from a few forced negative posts, there was no further activity!

These forced negative posts hadn’t caused any ripples either—hardly anyone paid attention to them, and they were quickly downvoted.

Moreover, the “Salvation” meme was spreading like wildfire, almost breaking out of gaming circles!

Especially the various meme images, like “Let me give you some Salvation,” which were flooding Weibo, player groups, and forums. Players were all discussing it enthusiastically.

Once this meme started spreading, many people would ask “What game is this?”, leading even more people to try the game!

Most infuriating were the many players maliciously tricking others into playing.

“This game is called ‘Turn Around to Reach the Shore,’ a super satisfying hack-and-slash game, perfect for stress relief, especially suitable for grinding enthusiasts. You must try it!”

Such comments were everywhere.

For these people, Pei Qian had only one thing to say: “You beasts!”

So many people were doing things that harmed other players and harmed Mr. Pei, while not benefiting themselves at all. Truly, the world was going downhill, and people had no morals!

But Pei Qian could only fret helplessly, having no solution whatsoever.

Pei Qian understood these paid commenters; after all, the tide had already turned. Expecting them to dig up some major criticism that could sink the game was indeed asking too much.

Even Pei Qian himself couldn’t think of any other points to criticize, let alone these paid commenters who weren’t familiar with the game.

His previous trump card had been the game’s difficulty, but now this trump card had completely lost its effectiveness.

“Forget it, I should start making final arrangements.”

Pei Qian silently began calculating how many Slackin’ Internet Cafés and Headwind Logistics branches he would need to open to offset the money earned from this game.

There were still three weeks until the settlement, which meant Pei Qian only had two weeks left to operate.

No matter what, he needed to speed things up.

Pei Qian immediately called Zhang Yuan.

“How’s the situation at the Slackin’ Internet Café in Huanyu Tianjie Mall?”

Zhang Yuan answered: “Uh… Mr. Pei, it’s still operating at a loss for now.”

“What’s the occupancy rate?”

Zhang Yuan replied: “About thirty to forty percent, but don’t worry, Mr. Pei, I believe the situation will improve soon!”

The phrase “will improve soon” made Pei Qian’s mouth twitch involuntarily.

But still…

Thirty to forty percent, not bad! Still within the loss-making range.

Pei Qian hadn’t expected the place to even have a thirty to forty percent occupancy rate.

Perhaps Huanyu Tianjie was busier, so more people were coming to use the internet?

Yes, that was probably it. After all, it was the largest shopping mall in Jingzhou City, with higher foot traffic.

If he opened a few more, they should perform even worse than this one, right?

Time was tight, so Pei Qian made a quick decision: “I’ll invest more money. Open two more, no, three more Slackin’ Internet Cafés! Just like the one in Huanyu Tianjie Mall, find big shopping malls, understand?”

“You have two weeks. They must be up and running within two weeks, officially operating! Not a day’s delay. Can you do it?”

“Hot-Blooded Battle Song Enhanced Edition” was already making money, and quite a lot of it. Pei Qian was under tremendous pressure to spend money now, so he had to hurry.

Zhang Yuan was startled, then firmly said: “Don’t worry, Mr. Pei, I guarantee the task will be completed!”

After hanging up, Zhang Yuan looked at the customers playing “Turn Around to Reach the Shore” in the internet café and couldn’t help but marvel.

Mr. Pei was truly a strategic mastermind. He hadn’t visited the Slackin’ Internet Café recently, so how did he know that business was booming?

Could it be that Mr. Pei had already predicted that after “Turn Around to Reach the Shore” was released, the game’s high system requirements would drive a batch of players to the Slackin’ Internet Café?

Thinking back to when they first opened, business was indeed poor, with occupancy rates as low as just over ten percent, most computers sitting empty.

But gradually, a group of players started coming in, many playing “Turn Around to Reach the Shore” and other resource-intensive games, all requiring high-end hardware.

As a result, the internet café’s customer base grew, and recently the occupancy rate has risen to thirty or forty percent.

It seemed Mr. Pei knew about this positive trend, so he decided to continue investing, to press on with the advantage!

Yes, that must be it!

Zhang Yuan immediately contacted other shopping malls, looking for suitable locations to open more internet cafés.

……

After hanging up, Pei Qian called Lü Mingliang, instructing him to immediately open another hundred Headwind Stations.

Of course, a hundred Headwind Stations was a relatively ideal number. Although the initial investment for each station wasn’t high, renting office space, purchasing shelves, recruiting staff, and so on took time.

Pei Qian just told Lü Mingliang to work toward the goal of a hundred Headwind Stations, and in the end, however many could be opened would be opened. As long as he tried his best, that would be fine.

As long as it didn’t affect the final settlement, everything would be fine.

After making these arrangements, Pei Qian let out a long breath.

This way, even if “Turn Around to Reach the Shore” became popular and made a lot of money, Pei Qian wouldn’t drop dead on the spot.

Even if he did drop dead, at least his corpse would remain intact.

Pei Qian slumped in his chair, sinking into deep melancholy.

As he wallowed in his melancholy, life still had to go on.

Pei Qian opened the forum and refreshed the page without much hope.

Suddenly, he saw a post, and his eyes regained some life.

“Huh, the paid commenters have finally started working?”

“My money wasn’t wasted!”

……

While Mr. Pei was busy making phone calls, the paid commenters were also busy.

Although the current situation seemed increasingly hopeless for a reversal, they hadn’t given up.

Many paid commenters were still battling in the game, some even missing their refund window to complete their work.

But even after progressing quite far in the game, they still hadn’t found any good points to criticize.

Suddenly, a message in the group caught everyone’s attention.

“Everyone, check out this post! It says that ‘Salvation’ seems to only work against certain monsters, only for the Six Realms of Reincarnation ending. If you fight enemies in the Avici Hell or Yama’s Palace, their power drops significantly! Do you think we could use this?”

Hu Xiao was startled and quickly clicked to view the post.

He paid special attention to any topics related to “Salvation” since he was also counting on it to complete the game!

The game had been on sale for six days now. The “Salvation” weapon had been discovered the night before yesterday and became popular yesterday.

Many talented experts were already close to completing the game, and among those using “Salvation,” a batch of players had already reached later content.

According to official settings, “Salvation” could only be used for the Six Realms of Reincarnation ending. Once players tried to tackle Yama’s Palace or the Avici Hell, this weapon’s damage became no different from ordinary weapons.

So, players using “Salvation” who passed the Yellow Springs Road and the Three Lives Stone would discover this weapon’s limitation when facing the ending route choices.

But… what was there to criticize about this?

Hu Xiao didn’t understand.

Many people in the group also raised questions.

“How can we use this?”

“Isn’t this just a normal game design?”

“No, I think this is a sugar-coated cannonball from the officials! Specifically designed to frustrate people!”

“They give you a weapon, but it only works against some monsters, tricking you into thinking the game is easy. But after five hours, when you can no longer get a refund, you’ll find out you’re still going to suffer later on!”

“So, this is a scam to prevent players from getting refunds! The essence of the game hasn’t changed; it’s still using high difficulty to torment players!”

“…This works?”

“The reasoning isn’t very solid, but it seems much better than those forced criticisms before.”

“I think this analysis makes sense! If the officials weren’t deliberately trying to frustrate players, why design this hidden weapon to only work against certain monsters? Why not design it to work throughout the entire game?”

“Makes sense! Never mind, let’s start driving the narrative. We can’t let the boss’s money go to waste!”

Soon, a popular post appeared on the forum.

“‘Salvation’ is a scam! The design team has ill intentions, don’t be fooled!”

“Everyone should know by now that the ‘Salvation’ weapon works extremely well in the early stages, easily destroying small monsters, but later on, it completely loses its effectiveness against certain monsters, becoming no different from ordinary weapons!”

“And many people have discovered that this weapon can’t be upgraded.”

“This is where the officials are being insidious. They first use this weapon to lure us all in, and once the refund period passes, it’s too late to regret!”

“I think these designers are psychologically disturbed, creating such a game just to torture players. Everyone must not be deceived!”

“Players who don’t want to be tortured shouldn’t get into this game, and those who are already in should get refunds quickly. Don’t be fooled by ‘Salvation’!”

As soon as this post was published, the paid commenters immediately went into action!

Those who needed to reply replied, those who needed to share shared, and quickly the post’s popularity began to soar.

Of course, this post was somewhat forced in its criticism, so it didn’t resonate with too many players.

But with the paid commenters fanning the flames, the post still had some effect.

At least, many players who had decided to try the game because of “Salvation” began to have second thoughts.

If “Salvation” could only be used in the early stages, and most of the game’s content still required suffering to get through, wouldn’t that be even worse?

Enjoying the early stages only to have to pay double later, many players immediately wanted to back out when faced with this prospect.

……

Pei Qian finally showed a smile that had been missing for a long time.

The paid commenters had done well! His money wasn’t wasted!

They had come up with such a point of criticism, not bad!

Pei Qian even felt an impulse to give the paid commenters some extra money.

Although this forced criticism might not be very effective, pointing out that the “Salvation” weapon only worked against certain monsters would certainly affect many hesitant players with poor gaming skills.

Even if it could dissuade just one such player, that would be meritorious!

Pei Qian couldn’t help but feel that hiring these paid commenters was truly worth it!