November 9th, Tuesday.

Last week, Pei Qian had been busy with quite a few things.

At Fei Huang Studio, Zhu Xiaocai and Huang Sibo were still doing preliminary work based on Pei Qian’s script.

Zhu Xiaocai needed to expand the script to the length required for a film, and also urgently recruit some staff. After the script and storyboard were completed, they would still need to discuss the script, select actors, scout locations, and so on—there was still much to do.

At Shangyang Games, everyone was still frantically playing horror games to find materials and inspiration. However, Pei Qian estimated that with Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin’s work efficiency, the preliminary design should be ready in the next few days.

The investment company didn’t have too many preparations to make. With He Desheng’s help, Dream Creation Investment should soon be on track.

The Human Resources Department was also in the process of formulating detailed recruitment rules. The general process had already been established, but specific written and interview questions still needed to be finalized, including reception arrangements during the recruitment process, departmental cooperation, measures to prevent leaks, and so on—all requiring careful preparation.

As for the mobile phone department, Chang You was already contacting his brothers from Hongcheng Technology. Once they found a suitable office building in Jingzhou, they could begin formal development.

After that, it would be time to spend money.

Yesterday, Pei Qian had already given 20 million to Dream Creation Investment.

November 1st and 8th were Mondays, which were also the days when game revenue was deposited.

When the system settled accounts on the 31st of last month, it had replenished the funds to 10 million, but that didn’t mean Pei Qian only had 10 million at his disposal.

“Ghostly General,” “Sea Fortress,” “Game Producer,” “Turn Back Ashore” (including the overseas version), “Hot-Blooded Battle Song” mobile game… this whole bunch of games continued to provide income.

Take the “Hot-Blooded Battle Song” mobile game as an example—its monthly net income was 4-5 million, with two weeks’ income being 2 million.

“Ghostly General” and “Game Producer” had similar subsequent income. “Turn Back Ashore” was currently at its sales peak, and combining the domestic and overseas versions, two weeks’ income was as much as 7-8 million.

“Sea Fortress” had income even more stable than “Turn Back Ashore.”

In addition, there were businesses like Slackin’ Internet Café and ROF, which had been negatively affected by rushed spending but were now profitable this month.

Not to mention the rock-solid Mingyun Private Kitchen and the newly emerging Endpoint Chinese Website.

Adding all these together, even after deducting expenses from money-burning industries like Headwind Logistics, two weeks could earn about 10+ million.

Monthly income would be heading toward 30 million.

This settlement period was five months, and during these five months, the income from these games would fluctuate. The income from several single-player games would decrease, but network games like “Hot-Blooded Battle Song” and “Sea Fortress” were too tenacious—they were the main sources of income.

Therefore, Pei Qian’s goal was not to spend 10 million in five months, but to spend 150 million in five months.

Moreover, this was only the money that would be earned.

What if a project exploded before settlement? He had to plan for that possibility.

Even though the system stipulated that 50% of the initial system funds could be used for charity, that was only 5 million.

So Pei Qian had to spend vigorously.

Pei Qian roughly allocated the funds for the current businesses and decided to first give 20 million to Dream Creation Investment to let Old Ma practice.

The main consideration was that Ma Yang was currently in a state of fearless inexperience—the perfect time for extravagant spending.

If the initial money given was too little, even if Ma Yang lost money, he would only lose 1-2 million.

What if Ma Yang learned from these failures, and later, when given more money, invested in successful projects? Wouldn’t that be disastrous?

So Pei Qian considered giving Old Ma 20 million right from the start, letting him spend freely!

As the saying goes, one learns from one’s mistakes. As long as the initial losses were big enough, he wouldn’t worry about Old Ma’s intelligence growing too quickly.

As for other businesses, the budgets needed to be maximized to help Mr. Pei.

For Shangyang Games, developing a horror game would require at least 20 million.

For Tenda Games, although Pei Qian hadn’t decided exactly what game to make, since it was the company’s leading department, with greater ability comes greater responsibility—spending 50 million wasn’t excessive;

For Fei Huang Studio’s film, although there wasn’t much content to film, making it a small-budget film, spending extra on special effects, 30 million would be reasonable.

As for the mobile phone department, although they didn’t plan to mass-produce many high-end phones, an initial investment of 20 million was necessary. If they found the phones weren’t selling, they would need to urgently invest more money and continue production.

If in the end they still couldn’t spend all the money, they would find a department without results yet and add more investment, dragging it into the next cycle.

Of course, there was also the 5 million charity fund, which could be used as a last resort for rushed spending.

In any case, according to Pei Qian’s calculations, the situation wasn’t optimistic, but it was manageable.

These were all overestimated figures. If everything went smoothly, he would be able to reduce the system funds by 10 million before settlement.

Pei Qian’s goal wasn’t too high. If he could make a small loss of 4-5 million, convert 400,000-500,000 for himself, and get a system reward, that would average out to 100,000 per month over five months, making it worthwhile.

Of course, this money wouldn’t all come in at once. There would be weekly income, so he still needed to arrange the order and continuous investment for each project. It was impossible to spend all the money at once.

As Pei Qian was calculating, someone knocked on the door.

Looking up, it was Li Yaida.

“Mr… Mr. Pei.”

“Um, shouldn’t we be preparing to develop a new game?”

“Or, maybe make a DLC for ‘Turn Back Ashore’?”

“Everyone is, is a bit idle.”

Actively asking for tasks, how could this be?

Pei Qian was quite dissatisfied with this proactive work attitude.

But he couldn’t say much, so he pretended to be profound and said: “Don’t rush. Let everyone recuperate and build up energy. In a while, there will be very important tasks for everyone.”

Pei Qian himself hadn’t decided what kind of task to assign to Tenda’s game department.

Regular games had too high a chance of success, and Pei Qian simply couldn’t get interested.

He didn’t want to throw in 50 million and end up creating another money tree, which would be completely contrary to Mr. Pei’s initial goal.

Li Yaida nodded: “Ah, okay. Then call me whenever you have a task, Mr. Pei.”

After Li Yaida left, Pei Qian collapsed weakly in his seat.

Being a boss is so hard!

Every day, he had to rack his brains to arrange work for these employees. If he let them idle for a couple of days, they would come looking for him.

It was truly unbearable!

“Ding ding.”

A message was received on his phone.

Pei Qian picked up his phone and saw it was from Chang You.

“Mr. Pei, the team has been assembled. This week I’ll arrange for someone to finalize the workplace, and next week we can officially start working.”

“Also, our designer received the moving expenses and was very excited. He worked overnight to create logos for Otto Technology. Please take a look.”

Below were the images.

Pei Qian opened them and found they were quite interesting logos.

At first glance, the outer part was a near-rectangular shape, while the inside consisted of two circles stacked in a complex way.

The rectangle and circles overlapped specially. One long edge of the rectangle twisted and curved to become the edge of the circle, and one could vaguely see that this was a transformation of two uppercase “T”s.

In other words, this graphic was the product of transforming and combining the four letters “OTTO.”

At first glance, it looked a bit like a rectangular eye with two pupils inside the eye socket.

Looking carefully, it also resembled a Möbius strip.

In addition, the way the two circles overlapped in the middle somewhat resembled the symbol representing “infinity” in mathematics.

This logo was relatively simple and looked quite sophisticated against a solid background, very postmodern.

Pei Qian couldn’t help but admire it—this designer was talented.

How could they make such a high-end logo for a lowbrow brand name like OTTO?

Once this logo was printed on the back of a phone, it might impress people.

And this wasn’t the only logo.

The second logo was formed by two “十” characters and two “○” shapes, creating a controller-like form. The “十” characters were in the top-left and bottom-right, while the “○” shapes were in the bottom-left and top-right, arranged like a game controller, with the two circles resembling joysticks.

This logo was no longer monochrome; the design became more complex, and the colors were used very boldly, easily evoking gaming elements.

The third logo was the most conventional—simply a row of uppercase OTTO letters, rounded and proper, looking decent and conforming to the typical style of tech companies.

The designer had created three options:

Abstract style;

Gaming style;

Letter style.

They probably wanted Mr. Pei to select one.

Pei Qian looked at them and thought they all seemed good, so he replied: “They’re all good. Let’s keep them all for now. We can decide which one to use after the phone design is completed.”

……

……

November 12th, Friday.

Pei Qian planned to visit Dream Creation Investment to see Ma Yang.

He had initially wanted to go yesterday, but it coincided with Singles’ Day, and Pei Qian bought some random items online, which delayed him.

Today, the deliveries hadn’t arrived yet, so it was a good time to visit Old Ma.

The 20 million for Dream Creation Investment had been transferred on Monday, five days ago. Some of the money should have been spent by now.

However, Pei Qian estimated that, given Ma Yang’s nature, he was probably still indecisive and had spent at most 2-3 million.

Although Pei Qian had repeatedly emphasized to Old Ma that he should act when necessary and never hesitate,

But still… it was 20 million.

Pei Qian was afraid Ma Yang would be reluctant to spend money, so he wanted to check on Dream Creation Investment’s situation and also give Old Ma some ideological guidance.

Dream Creation Investment had already rented an office location, about a fifteen-minute drive from Tenda, also in a high-end office building.

Pei Qian arrived at Dream Creation Investment’s office following the address and quietly walked in.

The floor was covered with thick carpet, so Pei Qian’s steps didn’t make much noise.

The large company was currently empty, but shouting could be heard from inside, filling the entire office with echoes.

“Quick, quick, we can attack now!”

“Kill this squishy first!”

“Save me quickly!”

“Protect! Protect! Protect Manager Ma!”