After returning to Jingzhou City, New Year’s Day 2010 soon arrived.

Everything at the company was going well—salaries paid on time, rent paid on time, system funds sufficient to cover all expenses. As long as all the money was spent and the game flopped upon release, Pei Qian would directly receive 500,000 yuan.

At school, the exam weeks had begun, and to avoid failing his courses, Pei Qian rarely went to the company anymore.

Anyway, he didn’t care at all how the game turned out—it would be best if it lost money…

January 7th, Thursday.

Pei Qian finished another exam and returned to his rented apartment near the school. He flopped onto the sofa, feeling indescribably relaxed and comfortable.

As the system’s settlement date approached day by day, and the goal of losing money was gradually being achieved, Pei Qian’s tense nerves relaxed a little.

As usual, he summoned the system to check the financial situation.

【Wealth Conversion System】

【Host: Pei Qian】

【Profit conversion ratio 100:1, Loss conversion ratio 1:1】

【Next settlement time: 25 days later】

【System funds: 138754.5 (↓361245.5)】

【Personal assets: 1255】

Remarkably effective!!

Finally, almost all the money had been spent!

Pei Qian was so moved he almost wanted to cry. Through his hard work, he had finally managed to roughly balance income and expenditure, gradually turning profit into loss!

Currently, Tenda’s monthly expenses include several items: office space rent, employee salaries and overtime pay, utilities and daily expenses, purchases of various company supplies, and occasional team-building dinners to spend money urgently.

With this set of operations, they had finally spent most of the money earned continuously from “Ghost General,” and the system funds were finally showing little surplus!

So far, the system’s funds were in a deficit state compared to the initial 500,000.

Going forward, Pei Qian only needed to do two things.

In the next few days, he would put “Sea Fortress” online to satisfy the system requirement of “having no unreleased products one week before settlement.”

Then, he would rush to spend money and try to use up the remaining hundred thousand or so!

After that, he could just wait to collect money when the system settled!

As for how to promote “Sea Fortress”…

Pei Qian had no intention of promoting it at all; he’d just upload it to the official platform and be done with it. It would be best if no one discovered it!

Since the purpose was to lose money, he had to make every effort to prevent players from discovering this game!

“To be safe, after the game development is complete, I’ll organize a team-building event to spend as much of the remaining hundred thousand as possible. The less money left, the better.”

“Everyone has worked so hard developing the game. Going together for a movie, dinner, and karaoke isn’t too much, right?”

With this in mind, Pei Qian directly called Assistant Yan.

“Assistant Yan, please arrange a team-building activity this Friday evening to celebrate the completion of ‘Sea Fortress’ development. First a movie, then dinner, and finally karaoke. Book private rooms wherever possible!”

“No, the time isn’t wrong—it’s Friday evening.”

Saturday and Sunday are rest days. How can we occupy employees’ rest time for team building? That would be unreasonable.”

“Yes, arrange it for Friday evening.”

“Good. After you’ve set the schedule, send it to me. Same requirements as before—it should be high-end, understand?”

Pei Qian gave a few simple instructions and was about to hang up when Assistant Yan said, “One moment, Mr. Pei, there’s one more thing.”

“Do you remember that girl who asked you questions when we went to Yangcheng, to Tianhuo Studio? Her name is Lin Wan.”

Lin Wan?

Pei Qian had some impression of this name, but not a strong one.

“What about her?”

Assistant Yan said over the phone: “She’s come to Jingzhou City and wants to join our company. She’s very determined, even saying she doesn’t need a salary.”

Pei Qian was surprised: “Huh? Where is she now?”

Assistant Yan: “At the company. She just arrived not long ago. I just received her.”

She was fine at Tianhuo Studio; why had she come to Jingzhou?

Wanting to join their company, and not even asking for a salary?

That wouldn’t do!

Pei Qian thought for a moment, then asked, “Assistant Yan, what do you think of her?”

Xin Hailu was silent for a moment, then answered seriously: “Mr. Pei, I think this girl might come from an important background, probably a rich family. I noticed that her clothes and bag are all from famous foreign brands. Her entire outfit probably costs at least tens of thousands of yuan.”

“She doesn’t put on airs, and her personality is good, but I’m a bit concerned that she’s too naive and innocent, seeing things too idealistically, which might make her unsuitable as an employee. Of course, whether to accept her or not is your decision.”

Too naive and innocent?

Doesn’t that mean she has almost no work ability?

Perfect! This is exactly the kind of employee I like!

Pei Qian felt that Lin Wan seemed to fit his recruitment needs perfectly!

A pampered rich girl with virtually zero work ability—wasn’t that great?

“Good, then hire her! Salary… let’s start her at 4,000 a month, with raises later. Go ahead and sign the contract with her. As for work… well, there’s not much work right now, so don’t assign her anything specific yet. Let her do whatever she wants. Oh, and remember to include her in Friday evening’s activities!”

Pei Qian casually gave these instructions without paying much attention to the matter and went back to fantasizing about his 500,000 yuan.

…

Meanwhile, at the company, the development of “Sea Fortress” was entering its final stages.

Bao Xu hadn’t gone to Yangcheng and had been repeatedly experiencing “Sea Fortress'” story mode these past few days, recording all the parts that felt awkward in the process and giving them to Huang Sibo for modification.

Bao Xu didn’t understand those profound game design theories; he only trusted his intuition.

Any place that intuitively felt problematic, he recorded and passed to Huang Sibo.

And Huang Sibo would rack his brains to analyze exactly what was wrong, and often actually managed to come up with solutions!

Huang Sibo knew well that the story mode was a major highlight of “Sea Fortress” and the key to elevating the game’s prestige. They must strive for perfection!

Of course, other aspects were also important, such as the shooting feel, the models and animations in the game, and modes other than the story mode—all of which affected the player experience.

Bao Xu had also largely taken on the responsibility of testing these elements. After all, Bao Xu was a hardcore gamer, and now he was simply using the time he would have spent playing other games to play their own game.

Bao Xu didn’t find it tiring at all; in fact, he was thoroughly enjoying it!

When playing other games, Bao Xu would feel powerless when encountering things he didn’t like.

Because submitting feedback to customer service was generally a waste of breath—it wouldn’t reach the project team, and even if it did, the team probably wouldn’t make changes.

But “Sea Fortress” was different. If Bao Xu found a problem, he could directly tell Huang Sibo, and it would be fixed at lightning speed!

Most of the major changes from the early stages had already been modified, and what remained were some details to adjust gradually, such as weapon trajectories and character collision boxes. Although these were important for the gaming experience, they could be completed by simply changing some parameters.

As the scheduled development deadline approached day by day, Huang Sibo finally breathed a slight sigh of relief.

Mission accomplished!

The development of “Sea Fortress” was completed on schedule, with quality guaranteed. They had not failed Mr. Pei’s trust!

However, Huang Sibo had no idea how this game would be advertised and promoted.

He wasn’t too concerned about it, as these were all matters for Mr. Pei to decide.

With Mr. Pei responsible for the promotion plan, how could there be any mistakes?

Mr. Pei, who had come up with the idea of using Weibo to promote “Ghost General,” would think of an excellent promotion method!