Pei Qian judged from He An’s expression that he was genuinely angry.

This was quite normal—anyone would be angry after being deceived.

Ruan Guangjian’s call of “Mr. Pei” had already explained everything. He An must now understand that Pei Qian had pretended to be “Ma Yang” to trick him into giving lessons.

As for how He An himself specifically understood this matter…

That was hard to say.

Pei Qian thought for a while and realized that in the current situation, the more he said, the worse it would get. Better to say less and respond accordingly when Teacher He asked questions.

With this in mind, Pei Qian quickly broke the awkward silence: “Teacher He, would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?”

He An’s gloomy expression improved slightly, but he still didn’t respond.

The two walked into Slackin’ Internet Café one after another, found a place to sit, and a server immediately came over to inquire, later bringing two cups of coffee.

He An drank his coffee. Mr. Pei’s addressing him as “Teacher He” had appeased him somewhat.

By rights, he should be angry now, but beyond his anger, his feelings were complicated.

If it had been someone else, He An might have stormed off, but with Mr. Pei… this matter needed further consideration.

There seemed to be many questionable points, and it didn’t seem appropriate to lash out before thinking everything through clearly.

The “Mr. Ma” who attended his lectures and the actor in “Mr. Pei’s Daily Life” were the real Mr. Pei. So the question was, why did Mr. Pei put on Mr. Ma’s mask to have him give lessons?

Was he worried that if he said he was Mr. Pei, I wouldn’t teach him?

Hmm… that’s possible. If I had known I was teaching Mr. Pei, I definitely wouldn’t have accepted. At most, I would have met him and had a simple discussion, but I wouldn’t have accepted tuition fees or seriously prepared those courses.

So, Mr. Pei wanted to learn these courses from scratch?

That didn’t seem very likely either.

Even if Mr. Pei hadn’t systematically studied these courses, he had already self-taught with his genius-like mind, so why learn them again?

Making one successful game might be luck, but making so many successful games—how could that still be luck?

Or was it that Mr. Pei originally wanted to subvert these game design concepts? So he deliberately went against my theories when making “Struggle”?

Or perhaps, as a genius in game design, Mr. Pei had gone too far beyond ordinary people’s ideas, and to complete a textbook-like work such as “Struggle,” he needed to revisit some traditional designers’ design concepts?

With these traditional concepts as a foundation, he could then make breakthroughs and innovations.

The two silently drank coffee, each with their calculations in mind.

Pei Qian thought for a long time but couldn’t come up with a suitable reason.

Why learn this? Because it was a requirement of the system.

That reason couldn’t possibly be stated out loud!

Then, could he tell He An that he didn’t understand game design at all? That he just want to learn these basic concepts? That he had succeeded too many times and wanted to gain some experience from failure?

Probably before he could finish speaking, He An would throw coffee in his face.

From He An’s standpoint, hearing such words would make him furious.

This was too difficult.

Pei Qian didn’t want to keep the awkward silence going, so he tentatively said, “Teacher He there are some special reasons for my actions, but they’re not convenient to explain.”

He An was silent for a moment, then said, “Mr. Pei, I think, did you feel that by learning this knowledge as an ordinary person, you could better see the problems you had previously overlooked?”

“Just like some genius painters or musicians, after achieving great success, don’t know how to progress further, and instead seek out ordinary artists to find inspiration from them?”

Pei Qian: “?”

He An took a sip of coffee and continued, “Although I’m very angry about you concealing your identity, thinking about it carefully, if you had revealed your identity from the start, I definitely wouldn’t have taught so earnestly.”

“Moreover, you called me ‘Teacher He,’ and you always listened attentively when I talked about Tenda Games, clearly hoping to re-examine your games from another perspective.”

“I mentioned ‘Landlord Game’ in my course and expressed expectations for Chinese single-player games, and you responded well with the game ‘Struggle.’ To be honest, I’m quite gratified by this.”

“So, I’m not a petty person. Let bygones be bygones!”

Pei Qian had never expected that without saying anything, He An would have worked it out on his own.

This…

Had the brain-filling that previously only happened with employees now started to occur on a large scale with people around him?

Pei Qian was silent for a moment: “Uh… Teacher He, what you said has some truth, but it’s not entirely because of that.”

He An was taken aback: “Oh?”

Pei Qian carefully chose his words: “Actually, for the game ‘Struggle,’ I deliberately incorporated some failure elements. Mainly to experiment and see what impact these failure elements would have on a game…”

“But by some twist of fate, these failed elements also became successful…”

Pei Qian didn’t want to take all the credit for “Struggle’s” success. To be honest, he had always been troubled by the external praise.

Because most of this content was not his intention at all!

If the praise continued like this, Mr. Pei’s persona would float higher and higher, and when it eventually fell, the fall would be severe.

Pei Qian himself didn’t mind, but he was afraid that the people praising him wouldn’t be able to accept such a disparity.

So, he needed to be more low-key and give everyone a warning not to have too high expectations of him.

Pei Qian might as well have written “I’m just an ordinary person” on his face.

It was the same with He An. Pei Qian wanted to dispel He An’s mistaken impression that “everything in ‘Struggle’ was Mr. Pei’s masterful planning.”

Of course, he couldn’t explicitly say he wanted to lose money, but by changing the wording, saying he was experimenting to see the true impact of various failure factors on a game’s failure, this was much more acceptable and wouldn’t arouse too much suspicion.

He An was taken aback: “Deliberately adding some failure factors to the game? To see the impact of these failure factors on the game?”

“Mr. Pei, have you already reached such a state of ‘doing whatever you want’? Randomly adding some failure factors, and yet still achieving success?”

“Are you… Challenging yourself?”

“Mr. Pei, although you have the right to say this, I still want to say, young man, don’t be too arrogant! Pride comes before a fall. How can you talk as if you’ve already ‘achieved unparalleled mastery’?”

“Making a successful game isn’t easy, but making a failed game isn’t that easy?”

“Think carefully. Once you’ve failed, it won’t be so easy to succeed again.”

Pei Qian found that the more he explained, the more He An’s understanding deviated.

But what He An said at the end made Pei Qian’s eyes light up.

Making failed games is easy?

“How about this, Teacher He, you suggest a game that will fail, and let me challenge myself, how about that?”

Not saying he deliberately made failing games to lose money, but saying he was challenging himself—that should be acceptable, right?

After all, some truths couldn’t be spoken, and some truths, even if spoken, He An wouldn’t believe.

Only with this approach would He An accept.

Having He An suggest a path that would fail—that would surely be foolproof!

He An’s lips twitched slightly: “Huh? Challenging me now?”

“I casually think of a failing game, and you dare to follow what I say?”

Pei Qian nodded vigorously: “Of course!”

He An chuckled: “Well, that’s easy! Make an RTS game, and you don’t need much, just invest two hundred million yuan. Now that engines are readily available, you’ve already saved a large part of development time and cost. Doing this, you’ll lose money!”

Pei Qian nodded. Indeed, Teacher He also thought making an RTS game would lose money! This was consistent with what he had taught in class.

However, simply deciding on a game type seemed somewhat inadequate.

“What else?” Pei Qian asked.

He An was shocked: “So confident?! Then this: invest another 300 million yuan in making a CG. You’ll lose your shirt!”

“As for themes and such, I don’t even need to restrict you anymore. Just pour five hundred million yuan into this game plus CG. If you can’t lose money with that…”

“Then you’re amazing.”

He An gasped for breath for a long time, still not daring to set any too self-destructive flags.

Pei Qian thought for a moment. Five hundred million yuan investment?

Well, squeezing out this much money would be a bit troublesome, but for the sake of losing money, a little trouble was acceptable.

Moreover, it wasn’t like all five hundred million would be taken out at once; it would be in installments. Such a game would span two settlement cycles in development, possibly taking almost a year to develop. Over such a long time, squeezing out five hundred million yuan shouldn’t be a big problem.

With this in mind, Pei Qian nodded: “Good, Teacher He, then Tenda Games will make this for the next game!”

He An, who was drinking coffee, almost spat it out.

“You’re going to make an RTS game?”

He An had originally thought Mr. Pei was just talking casually, but now, seeing Mr. Pei’s expression, it seemed he wanted to challenge himself.

“Mr. Pei, that’s five hundred million yuan! Are you sure you don’t want to think about it more?”

Pei Qian smiled slightly: “No need to think!”

Judging by He An’s expression, it would lose money!

Since it would lose money, what was there to think about?

He An was momentarily stunned, not knowing what to say.

Looking at Mr. Pei’s expression, five hundred million yuan seemed to be nothing!

Could it be that as soon as he heard “RTS game,” Mr. Pei already had a plan? Already had some approach I don’t know about?

He An was convinced. What was this called? This was called having great skill and great courage!

At first, he had felt the young man shouldn’t be too arrogant, shouldn’t be too proud.

But now seeing Mr. Pei’s bold and confident demeanor, he seemed to have found the youthful passion of his younger days.

If not spirited, could one even be called young?

He An couldn’t help but feel admiration, giving a thumbs up: “Good, Mr. Pei. If you make this, then the matter of deceiving me is settled. Not only that, I’ll even cheer for you on Weibo!”

Pei Qian quickly said, “There’s no need for cheering! If this game loses a fortune, then I hope Teacher He will continue to guide me in the future.”

He An: “?”

Mr. Pei was truly an unconventional game producer, saying things so ambiguously, making people unable to figure him out.