March 18th, Friday.

Shangyang Games.

Lin Wan was playing with an OTTO E1 phone in her hands, unable to put it down.

“Once you get used to it, you don’t notice the weight so much.”

“At first, the large screen seemed difficult to control with one hand, but now I find small screens quite constraining.”

“The high refresh rate screen and large battery are great features you can’t go back from once you’ve used them.”

“It seems Mr. Pei was very thorough and forward-thinking when finalizing the phone’s development direction.”

Lin Wan had previously used Shenhua’s flagship phone and initially found it difficult to adapt to the OTTO E1, but had gradually gotten used to it over the past few days.

She had even played GOG for a few days and splurged on an account with all the skins.

Summarizing this phase of work, Lin Wan felt quite emotional.

These past few months have not been easy for her at all. Being responsible for both the Shangyang Games and the OTTO Technology departments simultaneously had stretched her thin.

It was especially challenging at Shangyang Games, where she was responsible for developing a horror game, making things even more difficult.

Fortunately, with repeated visits to famous haunted houses abroad with several core team members, plus the help of Master Ruan Guangjian and Mr. Pei’s final touches, “BE QUIET” had finally succeeded.

Although sales hadn’t exploded, the reputation was excellent, allowing for a steady stream of income. Surely Mr. Pei would be satisfied with this?

As for the phone division, due to being stretched thin, Lin Wan could only choose to trust Chang You.

However, Lin Wan had proposed the strategy of using Tenda’s various benefits to stack premiums on the phone, and had negotiated with various departments, contributing significantly to the phone’s success.

All in all, Lin Wan was quite satisfied with her work during this period!

There were still some minor flaws, such as “BE QUIET” not having explosive sales, and OTTO E1 phone sales still being concentrated in Jingzhou, especially among Tenda Game players, not reaching the level of an iconic device that everyone wanted to own…

But people need to leave some room for improvement.

Lin Wan felt she was just an ordinary person in the business world, and shouldn’t compare herself to Mr. Pei just because she was his subordinate. That would only discourage her and make her lose motivation.

Since no matter how hard she tried, she could never reach Mr. Pei’s level, she might as well stay grounded and take things one step at a time with her current work.

The recent development work had been completed, but there was still some wrap-up work to handle.

For instance, as an online game, “BE QUIET” needed continuous bug fixes and system optimization on one hand, and new content releases on the other to ensure players wouldn’t lose interest.

The OTTO E1 phone also required ongoing updates and maintenance.

Of course, the workload couldn’t compare to the development phase.

Naturally, Lin Wan had become less busy recently, spending her days browsing shopping websites, buying bags and such, or playing games in her spare time, enjoying a very pleasant life.

Of course, she was also waiting for Mr. Pei’s new assignments at any moment.

Thinking back, when Mr. Pei entrusted her with the dual heavy responsibilities of Shangyang Games and the phone business, Lin Wan instinctively felt she wasn’t up to it and would surely mess things up.

But now it seemed everything had gone smoothly!

Lin Wan couldn’t help but marvel—did Mr. Pei truly have a miraculous eye for seeing an employee’s potential limits?

It was so amazing!

Lin Wan was already envisioning how to show off to her family, especially to Lin Yu.

“Can your Shenhua phones sell flagship models at the eight-thousand-yuan price point? Can they?”

“Our Tenda can!”

Just imagining Lin Yu speechless was thrilling!

As Lin Wan was feeling pleased with herself, she received a message on her phone.

“Tomorrow, our studio will officially move to Jingzhou. We’ll be neighbors from now on, please take care of us!”

It was from Ruan Guangjian.

Lin Wan’s eyes lit up. Had the master finally finished handling all the studio matters in Magic City?

Great!

Back in December of last year, when Ruan Guangjian came to Jingzhou to help design the original artwork for GOG heroes, Mr. Pei had already shown a strong intention to recruit him.

Whether it was inviting Master Ruan to ride roller coasters, showcasing Tenda’s various benefits, or specially building a haunted house for him, all subtly expressed the same message.

Come to Jingzhou, Jingzhou is a great place!

And Master Ruan Guangjian had indeed gotten the point. After completing the art requirements for the two game projects, he returned to Magic City and spent some time arranging matters for his studio.

Now, he had finally finished arrangements and could officially relocate!

Lin Wan guessed that Ruan Guangjian must have been back in Jingzhou for some time already, but probably knew Tenda had heavy workloads and didn’t want to add trouble. So he had been quietly handling matters like renting a place and purchasing office supplies.

Now he must have settled these things and was formally notifying her.

Lin Wan quickly asked: “Does Mr. Pei know about this?”

Ruan Guangjian: “I sent him a message, but Mr. Pei is probably very busy and hasn’t replied yet.”

Lin Wan nodded silently, figuring Mr. Pei must truly be busy, otherwise, he would immediately express a warm welcome to Master Ruan and arrange a series of reception activities.

She wondered what Mr. Pei was busy with.

Since that was the case, better not to disturb Mr. Pei for now.

Previously, Ruan Guangjian had provided a lot of help during the development of “BE QUIET.” As the person in charge of Shangyang Games, Lin Wan should also express her welcome and gratitude to him.

“Master, where is your studio located? I’ll bring Ye Zhizhou and the others to visit you right away,” Lin Wan said.

Soon, Ruan Guangjian sent over a location.

Lin Wan opened the map to look and was momentarily stunned.

“Huh? Isn’t this… right across from the Slackin’ Internet Café Handong University branch?”

…

Just one street away from the Slackin’ Internet Café, Handong University branch stood a two-story commercial building.

It had originally been a bookstore, profiting from selling bestsellers, educational supplements, and other books by leveraging its advantageous location near Handong University. But with the rise of online shopping in recent years, the bookstore’s business situation has been deteriorating.

This bookstore had persisted longer than many others, but still couldn’t resist the tide of online shopping and quietly closed down.

Now, the books and furniture in the bookstore had been completely moved out. After simple renovations, sets of high-end office desks and chairs were being moved in.

Some pedestrians stopped to watch, but seeing that this probably wasn’t a shop, they quickly lost interest and dispersed.

Across the street at the Slackin’ Internet Café, Pei Qian was drinking coffee while contemplating life.

Yesterday’s conversation with Manager Li had been quite a blow, to the extent that he had again unconsciously played “disappearing” for a day.

He didn’t even feel like settling accounts with He Desheng and Yu Ping’an anymore.

Thinking carefully, with so many successful projects, targeting just those two seemed somewhat unreasonable.

As the saying goes, “Too many lice don’t cause itching, too many debts don’t cause worry.” With so many backstabbing employees, the grudging mentality gradually gets diluted.

Pei Qian discovered a serious problem in company management.

The first-place elimination system seemed no longer sufficient…

Faced with vast numbers of profitable projects, merely eliminating the person in charge of the most profitable project could hardly affect the big picture.

He needed to think of another approach.

Pei Qian sipped his coffee with some melancholy, pondering countermeasures.

While playing “disappearing,” some people had tried to contact him, but Pei Qian neither checked nor replied to any messages.

Mainly because he was afraid bad news would break his mental state and affect his thinking about strategies to turn wins into losses.

His subordinates had apparently become accustomed to Mr. Pei’s dragon-like appearance—seen but elusive. Even without Mr. Pei’s reply, they would complete tasks independently.

Pei Qian noticed activity at the two-story commercial building across the street. The bookstore had closed down two weeks ago, but renovation had started again a couple of days ago. He wondered who was brave enough to take it over.

This location wasn’t particularly good to begin with, otherwise Pei Qian wouldn’t have chosen it when selecting the site for this Slackin’ Internet Café.

It was just that recently, due to the Slackin’ Internet Café driving up the heat in the surrounding area, some people thought opening a shop here might be profitable.

But Pei Qian still wasn’t optimistic.

“They probably won’t last three months before failing, not going to be neighbors for long.”

“Ah, I envy them.”

Pei Qian had previously thought about taking over this bookstore, but after attempts spanning several cycles, he had preliminarily grasped a basic fact: it seemed most loss-making projects would eventually become profitable once he took them over.

It was like this with Shangyang Games, and with Scholar Quickcome as well…

It seemed that as long as Mr. Pei just observed, the project would continue to lose money, but once Mr. Pei started to get involved, the project would begin to turn losses into profits.

Considering that a broken-down bookstore wouldn’t lose much money no matter what, Pei Qian hadn’t made up his mind to take it over, so someone else had gotten there first.

“Nevermind, whoever opens a shop here has nothing to do with me.”

“The amount of losses I need to achieve now can’t be accomplished by simply taking over a bookstore.”

“I’d better focus on how to lose money this cycle…”

Pei Qian took a sip of coffee and turned his head.

However, at that moment, from the corner of his eye, he spotted several familiar figures arriving at the entrance of the two-story commercial building.

Lin Wan, Ye Zhizhou, Hu Xianbin, Chen Kangtuo…

“Hmm?”

Pei Qian almost thought he was seeing things. He turned his head to look carefully, and yes, the one leading was Lin Wan!

What were they doing here?

As Pei Qian was puzzled, he saw Ruan Guangjian walk out, warmly welcoming the group and ushering them all inside.

Pei Qian: “???”

The scene before him seemed somewhat surreal.

He rubbed his eyes and clearly saw a newly hung sign on the second floor with an artistic logo and several stylized characters.

Halo Studio!

Pei Qian’s hand holding the coffee cup trembled slightly.

Holy crap… they’ve moved here already???