In the eyes of the company employees, Shen Qinghan, the second largest shareholder, represented a mysterious existence.
This was because everything she wore and drove were things that ordinary people couldn’t afford even after struggling for several lifetimes.
Thirty million Federal Coins as an investment—she invested it without hesitation.
After investing, she didn’t participate in the project’s production at all, leaving everything entirely to Zhao Ming’s management.
This was the kind of investor that countless people dreamed of.
But now that such a big incident had occurred…
The receptionist sighed inwardly. Even General Manager Shen probably had no solution, after all, the time was too short.
The “Anti-War Competition” would begin in just nine days.
What could they possibly create in nine days?
A match-three puzzle game?
Upon hearing the receptionist’s words, Shen Qinghan furrowed her brows:
“I understand.”
She then looked toward Zhao Ming’s office. This incident had indeed come too suddenly, and Shen Qinghan knew that this investment was likely going down the drain.
For her, thirty million Federal Coins wasn’t much, but she was afraid Zhao Ming couldn’t handle it.
In this current era, there was no such thing as a technology gap.
As long as you had enough money to throw into photon supercomputing clusters to purchase computational power, any kind of game, effects, and details could be created.
“Cyber Blue Star: 2077,” including her investment, had only fifty million Federal Coins for game production after excluding server rental costs.
Meanwhile, the Penguin Group’s copy, “Wasteland Future: 2100,” had a basic investment of five hundred million Federal Coins alone. Comparing the various leaked details and visuals, Shen Qinghan found it incomparably better than their “Cyber Blue Star: 2077.”
Under these circumstances, going online would just be waiting to get criticized. A cross-federal conglomerate like Penguin could easily drag them to death.
However…
If he couldn’t even withstand this setback… Never mind, let’s see how things go first.
Shen Qinghan lifted her legs and walked toward Zhao Ming’s office.
She knocked on Zhao Ming’s office door, and his voice came from within:
“Come in.”
It didn’t sound like there was any sign of collapse; rather, it sounded quite normal.
This made many employees in the office breathe a sigh of relief.
As long as the boss was still alive, that was good enough.
Only Hao Wen, the employee responsible for designing the game’s core storyline, had flickering eyes.
Listening to Zhao Ming’s voice with surprise and uncertainty.
How could he sound like nothing had happened?
Could this game have some hidden core element, or something that could turn the tables, that Zhao Ming hadn’t mentioned?
Shen Qinghan outside the door was also somewhat surprised.
This…
It sounded like nothing was wrong?
Shen Qinghan pushed open the door and walked in. The other employees in the office all looked toward the office, especially the guilty Hao Wen, who caught a glimpse of Zhao Ming operating something on his computer.
Then the office door closed, cutting off all sight and sound.
This made Hao Wen inexplicably panic.
—
Inside the office.
Zhao Ming, sitting in the boss chair, shifted his gaze from the screen and looked up at the visitor.
What met his eyes was Shen Qinghan’s perpetually cold expression.
Memories related to Shen Qinghan immediately surfaced.
Shen Qinghan.
The student council president when Zhao Ming was in university.
Two years ahead of Zhao Ming.
Rumors said her family background was mysterious—nobody knew exactly what it was like, but she definitely wasn’t short of money.
There had been rumors about Shen Qinghan investing in students while she was at school.
The amounts varied, some large, some small.
If the original hadn’t calculated that he was falling far too short, he wouldn’t have thought to seek investment from Shen Qinghan.
But what the original hadn’t expected was how smooth the process would be.
After the original listed the design concepts and attractive points of “Cyber Blue Star: 2077” and explained them to Shen Qinghan, he easily secured thirty million in investment.
Everything had gone smoothly up until yesterday…
Seeing Shen Qinghan walk in, Zhao Ming stood up and gestured for her to sit on the sofa:
“Senior.”
This was his financial backer—he couldn’t afford to be negligent.
Moreover…
Half of the money he’d lost belonged to Shen Qinghan.
Thinking about this made Zhao Ming’s teeth ache.
Zhao Ming walked over and sat down, pressing a lit button on the coffee table. The coffee table had internal equipment that could provide hot and cold beverages at any time.
Soon, two cups of coffee rose from inside the coffee table.
Shen Qinghan nodded, her gaze sweeping around the room before looking at Zhao Ming:
“I was originally worried you couldn’t handle the blow.”
“It seems I was overthinking.”
Being copied by big conglomerates and ultimately going bankrupt was commonplace in this era, but there wasn’t much anyone could do about it. They simply did better than you and threw more money at it.
Even if you tried to rally players to criticize them, the players might not be willing…
Who knew how many entrepreneurs had jumped off buildings.
Seeing Zhao Ming’s relaxed expression now, Shen Qinghan felt relieved, but she was somewhat curious:
“Looking at you, you don’t seem affected by this blow at all.”
“Does ‘Cyber Blue Star: 2077’ have some hidden gameplay that the Penguin Group didn’t copy?”
Aside from having some gameplay that could turn the tables, Shen Qinghan really couldn’t think of how Zhao Ming could be so calm.
However.
Zhao Ming shook his head and shrugged nonchalantly:
“No.”
“‘Cyber Blue Star: 2077’ is definitely finished. Even if we released it, we couldn’t compete with Penguin’s version.”
“At least we still own the copyright.”
“They also got their start by participating in the ‘Anti-War Competition,’ but after all these years, they haven’t developed anything new, relying entirely on copying others for profit.”
“We can’t deal with them now, but when we get the chance, we must destroy them.”
The corner of Shen Qinghan’s mouth twitched slightly, and her beautiful eyes rolled.
She gave Zhao Ming a big eye roll.
There were plenty of people who wanted to deal with Penguin, but in all these years, which one had succeeded?
“Why don’t you tell me what you plan to do now.”
“I invested thirty million.”
“What’s your plan?”
Zhao Ming’s expression stiffened, and he coughed lightly twice:
“Senior.”
“You’re not short of that thirty million, right?”
Shen Qinghan remained expressionless, saying nothing, just staring at Zhao Ming.
Under such a gaze, Zhao Ming quickly surrendered:
“Alright, alright, I’ve already thought of a solution.”
He had originally wanted to joke around a bit, but this woman was too cold.
Who could stand marrying her?
Tsk…
Zhao Ming then explained to Shen Qinghan:
“I thought carefully about ‘Cyber Blue Star: 2077,’ and it could indeed attract many people’s attention, maybe even achieve a good ranking.”
“But this kind of innovative game—two of them pop up every year.”
“Players get tired of them after playing for a while.”
“In the end, it’s still aesthetic fatigue. If we want to break through, we can only bring this world a different kind of game.”
“The ‘Anti-War Competition’ has been organized for so many years that they’ve long forgotten their original purpose.”
“The purpose of the ‘Anti-War Competition’ is obviously to oppose war.”
“So how do we oppose war?”
“We definitely need to let players participate and experience the cruelty of war.”
“So I’ve decided to approach it from this angle.”
“Develop a multiplayer online competitive shooting game.”
Zhao Ming finished speaking solemnly.
This was met only with prolonged silence as Shen Qinghan stared at Zhao Ming with an expression of speechlessness.
After a long while:
“That’s it?”
Zhao Ming was somewhat confused and nodded:
“That’s it.”
“Isn’t this enough?”
Turning World War II movies into games, letting players experience being cannon fodder, watching comrades beside them get headshots, blood splattering all over them, guts spilling from gaping holes in stomachs as they crawled around in chaos.
Under such circumstances, who would still look forward to war?
Veins popped on Shen Qinghan’s forehead as she couldn’t help but clench her fists:
“With this broken idea of yours, people stopped doing this two hundred years ago.”
“Now everyone uses computational power to create virtual worlds—mechs, interstellar warships, even virtual mythological worlds with investments of tens of billions of Federal Coins.”
“Who would play such old-fashioned shooting games?”
Hearing this, Zhao Ming understood and began to explain:
“It’s different. Mechs, warships, mythology—in reality, aside from interstellar warships having some possibility, everything else is fictional. Even the mech model isn’t suitable for combat.”
“No one would be stupid enough to make those things.”
“In today’s society, technology develops rapidly, but maintaining public order still relies on military forces and firearms.”
“The game I’m making is designed to give players the most realistic experience.”
“And something they’ve never experienced before.”
Hearing this, Shen Qinghan was so angry she laughed:
“A shooting game, and you think you can make it special?”
“The ‘Anti-War Competition’ has been held for three hundred years.”
“Shooting games were played to death in the first hundred-plus years.”
“What can you give players that they haven’t experienced before?”
“Nostalgia?”
Zhao Ming shook his head:
“No.”
His gaze met Shen Qinghan’s eyes directly. Inexplicably, Shen Qinghan’s heart trembled, and the corner of Zhao Ming’s mouth curved upward:
“War.”
War?!
These two words struck Shen Qinghan’s mind like a heavy hammer.
Promoting war in the “Anti-War Competition”?
How dare he?!
(End of Chapter)
