“Ah!”
Qiao Liang was startled. His gaze involuntarily turned toward that suddenly appearing black garment edge, but at the same time, the entire mirror surface suddenly shattered with a “crack”!
This time Qiao Liang was truly frightened, involuntarily leaning backward so far that he almost fell onto the bed behind him, chair and all.
Looking at the screen again, the mirror inside had broken, revealing pitch blackness behind the mirror’s surface.
A line of bright red, bloody text appeared in the lower right corner: 10:00.
This line of bloody text quickly changed to 9:59, seemingly indicating that he would have to wait ten minutes before trying this game again.
Qiao Liang was slightly shocked, but quickly regained his composure.
“It seems this step is purely a test of psychological quality. The eyes must stare motionlessly at the center position of the mirror without looking around, otherwise it immediately fails…”
“Alright, I’ll work hard to train myself and aim to succeed in one attempt after ten minutes!”
Qiao Liang was instantly filled with motivation because he realized that once he passed this test, all the puzzles set by Mr. Pei should be successfully solved!
…
One hour later.
Qiao Liang stared fixedly at himself in the mirror, while a blood-covered ghost floating in the air had already reached out its bloody hand, seemingly about to touch his neck…
Qiao Liang felt his heart pounding rapidly, but still gritted his teeth and stared fixedly at his own eyes in the mirror, using his will to force his eyeballs to remain completely still.
The terrifying ghost kept circling the edges of the mirror, constantly trying various actions to attract Qiao Liang’s attention.
Finally, it seemed to completely lose patience, suddenly appearing in the center of the entire screen, opening its bloody mouth wide and letting out a shriek toward Qiao Liang!
Qiao Liang was very clever not to turn on the speakers, so he couldn’t hear the sound, but just the sudden, high-impact image on the screen was enough to make his heart rate dramatically accelerate!
But then, a vortex suddenly appeared in the mirror, sucking in the ghost!
The ghost seemed to struggle continuously, but it was completely futile, and it quickly disappeared into the mirror.
A line of bloody text appeared on the mirror: “Congratulations, the first guest of the Thrilling Lodge!”
After clicking the mouse once, the program exited, and the purchase button on the “BE QUIET” page, which had been dim all along, lit up, meaning Qiao Liang could finally spend money to buy the game!
Qiao Liang was moved to tears.
It was so difficult!
These days, do one have to go through eighty-one hardships just to buy a game?
But it was all worth it, after all, he was the first player of “BE QUIET”!
“I’ll share this news with everyone immediately!”
Qiao Liang opened his fan group and excitedly told his fans about the solution to the final puzzle step.
…
Meanwhile, Pei Qian sat silently in his office for a long time before slowly uttering two words.
“Damn it…”
Looking at the conspicuous number 1 in the “BE QUIET” purchase figures on the backend, Pei Qian felt a chill in his heart.
It had been solved after all…
The puzzle that he originally thought could last for a month had only lasted until the 11th, not even half a month!
“Sigh, my previous estimate was a bit too optimistic. It’s indeed unlikely to keep players stuck for a month with puzzles of this difficulty.”
“But it’s not completely useless, so that’s something.”
Pei Qian knew very well that since the first purchaser had appeared, it meant the puzzle had been completely solved. As long as these people shared their experience, more and more people would receive invitations and gain purchasing opportunities.
But even so, there was still a purchase barrier!
Pei Qian, in the backend, set the prices of “Lonely Desert Highway” and “Game Producer” to “free,” then silently observed the subsequent changes in sales.
His series of operations was already the optimal solution under the system’s strict limitations.
To put it simply, the difficulty of the public puzzle-solving was different from the difficulty barrier for everyone purchasing the game.
Finding clues in various games and solving puzzles involved all players. Once someone solved one step, everyone could continue researching the next step, so this difficulty could naturally be set higher.
And after knowing the puzzle-solving method, the game itself still had a purchase barrier.
Players had to drive a while in “Lonely Desert Highway,” personally reach the “Lost Everything” ending in “Game Producer,” then go to the TPDb website to search for “Thrilling Lodge,” enter their account and password, obtain a dynamic code to input into the game’s bloody handprint, and finally complete the eye-tracking mirror challenge to purchase the game.
This was the highest barrier the system allowed; it couldn’t be higher.
Of course, Pei Qian had nothing to be dissatisfied about. This barrier could already help him filter out a large number of players.
And Pei Qian craftily made “Lonely Desert Highway” and “Game Producer” free, seemingly to create convenient conditions for players, but actually to earn less money.
Pei Qian found that the system now allowed games to be completely free, but the conditions required were quite strict.
It must be a single-player game.
It must have been officially on sale for more than 10 months.
Last month’s income must have dropped to within one-fifth of the income from the second month of release.
The system would only allow a game to be free if all three conditions were met simultaneously.
And “Lonely Desert Highway” and “Game Producer” happened to meet these conditions, so Pei Qian could change them to free.
As for online games like “Sea Fortress,” don’t even think about it.
And even after “Turn Back to Shore” had been on sale for 10 months, it would be quite difficult for its income to drop to one-fifth of the income from the second month of release, because this game was quite durable, with seemingly endless new players interested in the “masochistic” experience.
In short, although the puzzle had been solved, the purchase barrier remained, which could still help Pei Qian earn much less money, at least in this settlement cycle.
Pei Qian closed the backend, thinking he would check the sales growth situation after some time and consider what countermeasures to take.
And the most important thing now was…
First, check the OTTO E1 phone reservation situation, then send money to Lü Mingliang and Chang You!
From Thursday, when reservations opened, until now, two days have passed, and the number of OTTO E1 phone reservations has grown to 4,728. Although still growing, it was extremely slow.
Pei Qian was very pleased. It was roughly in line with his previous estimate. By Sunday’s release, this reservation number would top out at 5,000 at most, definitely not higher.
Pei Qian decided that of the 25 million, 5 million would go to Lü Mingliang for him to continue opening more Headwind Stations in Lin City, and the remaining 20 million would all go to Chang You, for him to stock an additional 5,000 units on top of the originally planned 4,000 units!
If all these 5,000+ reserved phones could be sold, then the remaining money would be used for more inventory, resulting in around 13,000 to 14,000 phones accumulated in the warehouse.
Let that money stay obediently in the warehouse, remaining there until the next settlement cycle, and it would be perfect!
…
After having Assistant Xin arrange everything, Pei Qian leaned back in his chair, finally able to take a short rest.
He opened his computer and casually looked at the comments from netizens about the “BE QUIET” game and the OTTO E1 phone.
Now, the puzzle content of “BE QUIET” had been completely revealed, and posts about how to purchase the game were spreading everywhere.
However, players’ evaluations showed a clear polarization, even leading to arguments online.
“Psycho, even after the puzzle is solved, you still can’t simply buy the game, you still have to go through such complicated prerequisites? Is something wrong with them?”
“Exactly, having to look at the creator’s face just to spend money buying a game, Tenda is truly arrogant, refusing to accept good intentions!”
“I still don’t understand what the point of this so-called ARG game is. I simply want to play the game, I’m not interested in solving puzzles at all!”
“Right, absolutely not buying it, waiting for this game to flop!”
“…Who do you think you are? Do you think Tenda cares about this? They made this ARG game and set up purchase barriers specifically to filter out casual players like you who don’t like to use their brains.”
“Exactly, if you want to play mindless games, go shoot in ‘Sea Fortress.’ Tenda has games suitable for you, too.”
“This ARG game is so interesting. Although I couldn’t solve it myself, I’ve been excited every day watching experts solve it online!”
“This ARG game, plus the eye-tracking game in the last step, amazed me. I think it’s worth it! It’s like a large-scale, multiplayer free brain-burning game, equivalent to ‘BE QUIET’ buy-one-get-one-free. What’s there to be dissatisfied about?”
“And Tenda even made ‘Lonely Desert Highway’ and ‘Game Producer’ free, how conscientious!”
The two sides argued endlessly.
Pei Qian wasn’t interested in the content of their arguments; he only cared that many people were dissatisfied with the “BE QUIET” game, which could reduce the game’s income for this month considerably.
He also looked at netizens’ evaluations of the OTTO E1 phone, which were basically also in a state of polarization, but those supporting this phone were clearly in a weaker position.
The reason was simple: too few were sold!
This phone had only sold three thousand units so far. Even if all these people were very satisfied with the phone, it was still only three thousand people, and many of them might not even discuss it online.
More people were questioning the brand, quality control, stock, and so on of this phone, believing it was hyped up, and whether it was worth buying still needed further observation.
Pei Qian was very satisfied with this. Keep observing, he thought, stick to your judgment, and don’t buy!
Finally, Pei Qian took out his phone and looked at the Dog’s Eye app again.
“Beautiful Tomorrow” had been showing for 18 days, with a daily box office of 4.184 million, and an estimated total box office of 225 million!
Even now, “Beautiful Tomorrow” was still ranked second in daily box office, with the first place being a domestic film that had just been released a couple of days ago.
Pei Qian held his head in his hands, his face written all over with pain.
The estimated box office had increased compared to before!
This indicated that the film had strong staying power, probably because some people had come back for a second or third viewing.
For Pei Qian, this was very bad news, because if the film’s box office made a bit more effort, Pei Qian would have to share several more million…
What a calamity!
Pei Qian instinctively swiped right to see tomorrow’s screening schedule.
However, in the pre-sale column, “Beautiful Tomorrow,” which had originally occupied second place, was directly pushed to third place, with the first place being an American blockbuster about to be released!
Pei Qian’s eyes lit up.
The savior had arrived!
Great, the film’s box office definitely wouldn’t reach 225 million!
Brother, why didn’t you release half a month earlier???