January 28th, Friday.

Cui Geng nervously arrived at the 17th floor of Shenhua Haojing, which was the office location of Tenda’s gaming department.

Now, his position was “Special Observer.”

The authority granted by Boss Pei was quite extensive:

As a “Special Observer,” Cui Geng could freely come and go in any department of Tenda, and no department head could obstruct him.

He could make his work plans without reporting to anyone.

His salary and benefits were completely tied to those of formal employees;

When he made requests, all departments had to cooperate unconditionally.

This kind of authority reminded Cui Geng of the imperial envoys with the emperor’s golden tablet in the old feudal society—just hearing about it made him want to swagger.

However, while these powers sounded wonderful, how would they work in practice?

Cui Geng himself wasn’t sure.

On one hand, he didn’t know what virtues or abilities he possessed to be valued so highly by Boss Pei and receive such an important position.

On the other hand, he was also worried that as a “Special Observer” in various departments, he would face ostracism.

It was just like when imperial envoys visited different regions—those local officials might be polite on the surface, but they would certainly harbor some thoughts in their hearts.

Take today’s visit to the gaming department, for example.

Tenda’s gaming department was the oldest business division in the Tenda Group. Although the person in charge had changed several times, this department remained powerful within the Tenda Group, no matter who was in charge.

Moreover, there were several veteran-level employees in the department who had been there since the founding of Tenda and were familiar with Boss Pei.

Additionally, Tenda’s gaming department was currently the most profitable and most well-regarded business division, shouldering the important responsibility of supplying talent to other departments.

The people in the gaming department must all have high opinions of themselves, right?

Now suddenly a “Special Observer” appears who isn’t under anyone’s control, can’t help at all, and when he makes requests, others have to cooperate unconditionally.

Would they possibly give him a warm welcome?

So, Cui Geng was very nervous and instinctively wanted to back out.

But thinking about his important mission to complete the novel “The Butterfly Game,” he had no choice but to steel himself and walk in.

The 17th floor had a similar layout to the 16th floor, except that the employees here had noticeably higher work enthusiasm.

The 16th floor mainly housed the human resources, administration, and finance departments. Currently, apart from finance being slightly busier, the human resources and administration departments were quite idle, so the overall atmosphere was more relaxed, with many people watching dramas or napping.

The gaming department on the 17th floor was currently responsible for the development of GOG, which had just started internal testing on Monday this week, with tons of bugs that needed fixing.

As a result, everyone on this floor was incredibly busy, and no one even looked up to glance at Cui Geng.

Li Yada had already stood up to greet him.

“You’re Cui Geng, right? Hello, I’m Li Yada, currently the head of the gaming department.”

Li Yada shook hands with Cui Geng and led him to the workstation next to her own.

After Ruan Guangjian left, this workstation had remained empty, perfect for Cui Geng to use.

The atmosphere of rejection and resistance that Cui Geng had imagined didn’t materialize. It seemed that the people in the gaming department were quite welcoming to this “Special Observer.”

Of course, it could also just be a facade.

After sitting down at the workstation, Cui Geng felt he needed to clarify some things upfront: “Regarding the responsibilities of my position, as previously mentioned, I hope everyone can cooperate with me a bit when I’m gathering material…”

Before Cui Geng could finish speaking, Li Yada had already nodded and smiled: “Of course, all of us will unconditionally cooperate with the ‘Special Observer’s’ work.”

“Rest assured, all departments within Tenda are brother departments. Since the ‘Special Observer’ is a position set up by Boss Pei, it must be of great significance to the entire company, and all departments will do their utmost to cooperate.”

After hearing Li Yada’s statement, Cui Geng felt much more at ease.

It seemed his earlier concerns about departments not cooperating were completely unfounded!

Under the unification of the Tenda spirit, all departments of the Tenda Group had long been united as one, forming a healthy competitive relationship to some extent, without any internal scheming among departments.

Moreover, within the Tenda Group, Boss Pei’s will was the highest standard. Even if an outsider directly parachuted in, as long as they were appointed by Boss Pei, all departments would hold the highest trust in them.

Cui Geng couldn’t help but marvel at how skillfully Boss Pei managed his subordinates!

Putting aside business capabilities, just this kind of management ability was incomparable to ordinary entrepreneurs.

This atmosphere also infected Cui Geng, filling him with fighting spirit.

“You can get back to your work then. I’ll organize my thoughts a bit, and then start gathering material,” said Cui Geng.

Li Yada nodded with a smile: “Alright, I’ve arranged for a veteran employee to specifically answer these questions. He was already here during Tenda’s first recruitment, a veritable ‘living fossil.’ You can ask him anything.”

Cui Geng turned on the computer, planning to use the morning to finish updating his old book, sort out the framework for the new book a bit, and then in the afternoon chat with this ‘living fossil’ named Bao Xu about the past and present of Tenda’s games.

“The task is heavy, must seize the time.”

“According to the previous plan, to launch the book during the Spring Festival, I need to wrap up the old book in these few days. At the same time, the framework for the new book also needs to be built up quickly. At least the basic settings and the outline for the first 100,000 words need to be very comprehensive, otherwise, it will definitely leave hidden dangers and greatly increase the possibility of the story collapsing midway.”

“After turning on the computer, create a new document and get started right away.”

Cui Geng had already decided not to look at the computer’s configuration, because once he saw it, he would definitely be tempted to play games.

The computer booted up quickly.

Cui Geng was just about to right-click on the desktop to create a new document, but before he could click, he froze.

On the desktop were game icons covering almost the entire screen.

All kinds of games on the market, whether single-player or online, were all there!

With just a glance, Cui Geng saw several large games that he had always wanted to play but had given up because his computer couldn’t handle them.

Cui Geng: “…Damn!”

Isn’t this creating obstacles for my work?

With so many temptations blatantly displayed on the desktop, who wouldn’t be moved?

Cui Geng was instantly alert: “Could it be that this is a trap deliberately set by Li Yada and the others? Specifically targeting me?”

He suspiciously turned his head to look at Li Yada’s desktop.

Then he was surprised to find that Li Yada’s desktop also had a bunch of game icons!

But Li Yada could completely ignore these game icons, open documents and make revisions seriously, extremely focused and not affected in any way.

“I misunderstood!”

Cui Geng felt somewhat ashamed. It seemed that all Tenda employees were practitioners of the Tenda spirit.

They had achieved a perfect combination of entertainment, rest, and work. When it was time to work, even with so many games right in front of them, they weren’t moved at all!

“It seems my spiritual realm still isn’t up to par.”

Cui Geng, as if infected by the Tenda spirit, no longer dwelled on the many games on the desktop, but opened a new document and began his work.

Cui Geng tapped on the keyboard, making crisp sounds that soon blended with the keyboard sounds throughout the office area, perfectly integrating.

In the afternoon, Cui Geng came to Bao Xu’s workstation and asked him about the anecdotes from the early days of Tenda Games.

Bao Xu revealed a reminiscent expression: “This story is a long one. Back then, I was just an internet-addicted teenager in an internet café…”

…

…

January 29th, Saturday.

Today was a day off in lieu, and also the last working day before the Spring Festival.

In 2011, the Spring Festival fell on February 3rd, with the statutory holiday starting from February 2nd.

But considering the issue of buying tickets, Pei Qian decided to give an extra day off on February 1st, while adjusting the working day of the 31st to the 29th.

This way, they could start the holiday three days earlier than other companies.

Such adjustments were not without limits. For instance, Pei Qian couldn’t change the regular working hours to two days of work and five days of rest, but making adjustments of two or three days within the framework of statutory holidays wasn’t a problem.

Although it was the last day, there were many tasks today.

The first selection of the Zero Overtime Competition and the Best Employee selection on February 1st were both to be held today.

After completing these two selections in the morning, everyone could leave work and go home for the New Year.

During this period, the few tasks of the administration and human resources departments were preparing for these two selections.

The heads and key staff of various departments had all rushed to the hotel venue near Shenhua Haojing, filling the seats to capacity.

Although it couldn’t be compared to the scale of the annual meeting, it was already very lively.

The tables were filled with fruit platters of fresh and dried fruits, as well as various candies and chocolates, similar to how tables are set for the New Year at home, except that both the dried fruits and candies were much more expensive.

Everyone was cracking melon seeds, eating candy, drinking tea, and waiting for the selections on the big screen.

Li Yada looked at the big screen at the front of the venue with interest and said softly: “The Best Employee selection has become more and more formal. In the past, we just voted online, and Boss Pei gave out the awards, but this time they’ve even specially arranged a venue.”

Sitting next to her, Bao Xu remained silent, just cracking melon seeds with his head down, his expression not looking very good.

It was about time, and everyone had arrived.

Xin Hailu came to the front of the big screen, said a few brief words, and then directly entered the selection of the first Zero Overtime Competition.

The big screen began to flash data such as overtime hours and the number of overtime instances for each department.

Li Yada peeled an orange, completely uninterested in the content on the big screen: “It definitely won’t involve our department. The tasks were a bit tight this year, so we worked overtime several times. Let’s try harder next time.”

Bao Xu continued to crack melon seeds with his head down, not wanting to express any opinion.