This month, Pei Qian had already been spending money liberally.

The funds for purchasing art resources were divided into two parts: one part was spent last week, and the other part was spent this week.

The rent for the office space had been paid.

The employees’ salaries and overtime pay had all been distributed.

Plus various miscellaneous expenses.

After a series of frantic operations, Pei Qian had finally managed to spend most of the system funds.

But it wasn’t over yet.

There were still two months until the next settlement!

During these two months, the money earned from “Ghost General” would continue to flow into the system funds. Apart from fixed expenses like office rent and employee salaries, Pei Qian needed to find other ways to spend all this money!

Pei Qian felt a bit melancholic.

“Frantically spending money is truly a science.”

“Are there any good methods for spending money urgently?”

“Hmm… team-building activities?”

“That’s it, team-building activities!”

Pei Qian suddenly thought of a great idea.

Using system funds for team-building—nothing wrong with that, right?

With over thirty people, they could go to an upscale restaurant for a meal. At a standard of over 100 yuan per person, that would instantly spend several thousand yuan.

But that wasn’t right.

Several thousand was still too little.

Pei Qian thought about it and felt he was being too conservative. It would be best to leave this matter to Assistant Xin.

He called Xin Hailu to his office.

“Arrange a team-building activity at the end of this month. Please plan the itinerary,” Pei Qian said.

“Certainly, please go ahead.”

Assistant Xin was a smart person who never asked unnecessary questions about Pei Qian’s instructions, only working to achieve the effect Pei Qian wanted in the best way possible.

Pei Qian thought for a moment: “I plan to take the company employees to… um, Yangcheng! To have a good visit, exchange ideas, and learn. The trip doesn’t need to be too long; about five days should be enough.”

Pei Qian hadn’t thought about where to go initially.

Going abroad was out of the question—they would need visas, and being in unfamiliar surroundings would be too troublesome.

Domestically, game companies were mainly concentrated in the Imperial Capital, the Magic City, and Yangcheng. After some thought, Pei Qian realized Yangcheng was the farthest, with the most expensive plane tickets, so he chose Yangcheng.

The system didn’t issue a warning.

Pei Qian was secretly pleased; he was getting better at understanding the system’s temperament!

Pei Qian’s pretext was a team-building activity for observation, exchange, and learning, which was reasonable from all perspectives.

As for what they could observe, exchange, and learn from a bunch of game companies… don’t ask; if asked, the answer was to learn the advanced experiences of successful game companies in Yangcheng!

Five days, visiting one company each day. Assistant Xin, remember to contact them in advance. We can also invite the designers or bosses from those companies for meals and such—that’s not a problem.”

“It’s best to find companies that make large-scale games, preferably FPS game companies, which would be helpful for us.”

“For the rest of the time, let everyone have free time to experience the local customs, local cuisine, and so on—to relax, which would help them work better.”

“The costs of flights, accommodation, and group dinners will all be covered by the company!”

“Make an itinerary and estimate the approximate budget.”

Pei Qian quickly gave his instructions.

“Yes, Boss Pei, I’ll take care of it promptly.” Assistant Xin was as reliable as ever.

Pei Qian didn’t dare to play for too long, partly out of fear that excessive play would trigger a system warning, since this time the reason was “exchange and learning”; and partly out of concern that it might affect the game’s progress—if the game couldn’t be released in time for settlement, causing a settlement delay, that would be very awkward.

The development schedule for next month wasn’t so tight, so taking five days to go out and play, spending more system funds, seemed very good to Pei Qian.

With all this effort, wouldn’t it cost at least a hundred or two hundred thousand yuan?

Although it still felt like a drop in the bucket, being able to spend so much on a team-building trip, Pei Qian thought it was pretty good!

…

Assistant Xin was very efficient and had the itinerary ready by the afternoon.

Pei Qian was pleased and took the itinerary, glancing at the total price.

“Less than 150,000?!” Pei Qian was a bit stunned.

This was quite different from what he had anticipated.

Assistant Xin smiled: “It’s all according to standard business rates.”

Pei Qian looked carefully.

Assistant Xin had arranged an itinerary for 30 people, since some employees might not want to travel to Yangcheng.

Pei Qian wouldn’t force them; after all, they were just going to play—no, to exchange and learn—entirely voluntarily.

Round-trip airline tickets were about 2,000 yuan per person.

Accommodation was set at a standard of 300 yuan per person, with two people sharing a room at 600 yuan per night.

Adding in the costs of group meals, transportation, and various other miscellaneous expenses, plus some extra budget (if there were more than 30 people), the total price was still less than 150,000.

Pei Qian calculated, and it was that amount!

“Can we fly first class?”

As soon as this thought appeared, the system issued a warning.

Obviously not!

This was just an ordinary exchange team-building activity; having every employee fly first class would be excessive, and the system wouldn’t allow it.

Similarly, accommodation at 300 yuan per person was already more than enough and couldn’t be increased further. Fancy moves like having everyone stay in individual presidential suites were out of the question.

Pei Qian went through the entire itinerary and couldn’t find a place to add more expenses…

This made him a bit sad.

Less than 150,000 yuan to take over 30 employees on a trip to Yangcheng?

Hmm… it was much cheaper than Pei Qian had imagined…

Of course, Pei Qian thought it was cheap by the standards of the system funds.

If divided among each person, the budget was about 5,000 yuan per person.

If Pei Qian had to spend 5,000 yuan out of his pocket to play in Yangcheng for a few days, he would not think it was cheap—on the contrary, he would find it painfully expensive!

“Well, 150,000 is 150,000, just go with this standard and prepare in advance,” Pei Qian said, handing the itinerary back to Assistant Xin.

He didn’t dare to be too excessive. Although 150,000 seemed a bit too little, the system hadn’t rejected it, and that was already something to be thankful for.

…

Pei Qian scheduled the trip for the end of December.

On one hand, as the weather turned cold, they could go to Yangcheng to warm up.

On the other hand, Yangcheng had many large game companies, with a good atmosphere and environment, so saying they were going for exchange and learning was reasonable.

Of course, preparations needed to be made early: booking flights, contacting game companies there, and so on.

Although Pei Qian hadn’t intended to announce it, since they needed everyone’s ID information to book flights, the news inevitably spread throughout the company.

In the design team’s internal group chat, many couldn’t contain their excitement and were discussing it.

“Are we going to Yangcheng for observation and learning?”

“It should be true; I heard Assistant Xin is already preparing to book tickets!”

“Our company’s benefits are too good! I’ve never heard of any game company taking its employees to other companies for exchange and learning…”

“Indeed, I haven’t heard of it either…”

“Going on such a trip feels quite expensive; I certainly wouldn’t spend that much if I were going by myself!”

“Which companies will we be visiting? Will it include Tianhua Studio?”

“It should, right? Tianhua Studio is so famous, and they’re good at FPS games—it would be perfect for us to learn from them.”

“Sigh, when I first entered the industry, I dreamed of working at Tianhua Studio.”

“Aren’t we going now? We can see how a first-class game studio works!”

The design team was very excited.

As for others, like the art team and administrative staff, their interests lay elsewhere.

They were considering what to eat and play in Yangcheng, treating it like a company-funded tour.

This was normal, as most of the design team were gaming enthusiasts who still had expectations for some well-known domestic game companies and studios.

As for the others, they weren’t as interested in Tianhua Studio and similar companies.

But regardless, everyone was full of anticipation for this company-funded tour!