404 It's a Small Matter, and I'm Done

January 24th, Monday…

Pei Qian's expression was dark as he walked into the office and went into his own room.

Over the weekend, he had visited all 21 shared phone booths in the various shopping malls. By the time he was done, his heart had been completely broken.

Of these 21 phone booths, Zhang Wang had only personally made the one at Huanyu Tianjie. The other twenty had been produced in a factory.

Now, the GOG heroes had been painted on all 21 phone booths. The insides of the phone booths had also been filled with things that had nothing to do with phone booths—in Pei Qian's opinion—such as drinks machines, jukeboxes, capsule machines, and the like.

The phone booth had been well and good at first, but now, it had turned into a mini and multi-functional entertainment room!

What's more, there had been long lines in front of all the phone booths. Many people had even traveled long distances just to take photos with the phone booths and check out the inside!

Pei Qian had approached Zhang Wang after that, feeling speechless. However, before Pei Qian could ask the latter anything, Zhang Wang had proudly reported the shared phone booths' results to him.

Each phone booth cost about ten thousand yuan to make. In addition to the costs of the various facilities and AED inside as well as rent, the initial investment for each phone booth came up to less than forty thousand yuan.

Including the cost of painting the shared phone booths, it would have been seventy thousand yuan.

Yet, the shared phone booths were being occupied for an average of seven or eight hours a day.

At forty yuan per hour—adding the revenue from the drinks machines and capsule machines, each shared phone booth earned about three hundred yuan per day. That meant it would earn about ten thousand yuan per month. Even if they deducted maintenance costs and other expenses, they would make about seven or eight thousand yuan a month.

That meant that the shared phone booths would recover their capital in a year. Then, they would start generating pure profits.

At that stage, the twenty shared phone booths would be making hundreds of thousands of yuan for Pei Qian each month!

Of course, to a war veteran like Boss Pei, hundreds of thousands of yuan was a negligible sum to deal with.

The main reason Pei Qian felt dispirited was that the project made him feel like a serious failure.

"Even an unreliable project like that ended up generating profits?!"

Mentally, this had been a bigger blow to Pei Qian than his previous profit-making projects. Thus, when he walked into the office this morning, Pei Qian was still in a trance.

"Boss Pei, GOG is going to officially run tests."

Pei Qian read the message on his cell phone and then replied with a simple 'alright'.

After some consideration, Pei Qian sent a message to Lin Chang, arranging to meet at the Fish-Catching Internet Cafe branch near Handong University.

Pei Qian had been so busy with the shared phone booths over the weekend that he had postponed his meeting with Lin Chang again and again. Helpless, he had postponed it to this morning.

It was just as well. He could meet Lin Chang and check on GOG's situation at the same time in Fish-Catching Internet Cafe.

'Officially running tests' meant officially releasing the trial version of the game on the games platform, so that gamers could freely download it and try it out.

Of course, to minimize stress on the server, not everyone would be qualified to create an account for the trial version. However, veteran gamers of Tengda's games would have an easier time qualifying.

Having a group of players trying out the game and giving feedback would help the team find bugs and other problems in the game and then fix them.

The trial version was bound to have bugs, but gamers who enjoyed playing trial versions of games tended to be more forgiving. Most of them were only after novelty and tended to be less bothered by bugs.

Pei Qian thought that he would not be able to decipher GOG's true situation by reading online comments alone. Thus, he decided to go to Fish-Catching Internet Cafe and take a look for himself. That was the more reliable way.

…

At Zhongdian Chinese Network's authors' class, or what the writers called the 'lockdown area'…

At noon, everyone took their seats around the conference table and ate as they chatted.

The writers didn't have to work over the weekend. Thus, they had uploaded chapters that they had written in advance over those two days. Some of them had also continued writing in the hotel rooms using their own laptops.

That also meant that it had been three days since everyone last saw Ming Yu and Cui Geng, who had been picked out by Boss Pei.

"Ai, Ming Yu, Cui Geng, what did the two of you do on Friday? Tell us." Some writers were very interested in what both of them did.

Ming Yu cleared his throat and said in a low voice, "I found a relatively well-decorated internet cafe nearby and secretly wrote three chapters in the morning. After that, I saved them and played games for the rest of the afternoon."

Some people were stunned. "Didn't they say you're not allowed to write?"

Ming Yu smiled. "That's right, but no one was there to enforce the rule. I just had to wait until the weekend to upload the chapters. How could they find out?"

Everyone could not help but feel emotional. He was really a hard worker! He had been forced to go on leave, and yet he could still continue to write in secret!

Since Zhu Xingan was not around, the writers could speak to their hearts' content.

Ma Yiqun had sent Zhu Xingan to supervise the writers before. However, when Boss Pei came to visit them the last time, he had transferred Zhu Xingan away and allowed the writers to supervise themselves.

Ming Yu turned to Cui Geng and asked, "How about you, Brother Cui? You didn't really get educated on the Tengda spirit, did you?"

Another writer chipped in. "That's right, Brother Cui. Did you post that 'Completion Forecast' in spite?"

To the writers who had not understood the truth, Cui Geng's behavior had been puzzling, to say the least.

He had gone to Tengda's headquarters on Friday and posted a 'Completion Forecast' that evening. All the readers had been sufficiently frightened.

At first, they had thought that the book would end there. However, Cui Geng had uploaded new chapters on Saturday—four chapters at that!

Over Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning; Cui Geng had continued to write diligently. What's more, his word count had not fallen. He had not shown any signs of wanting to cut the book short.

His behavior had been very confusing.

What had happened on Friday? Was Cui Geng going to continue writing the book or not?

One had to understand that, among all the writers who were taking part in the class, Cui Geng was showing some best results.

Many of the newer writers would have made a book with five to six thousand subscriptions last forever.

Faced with everyone's questions, Cui Geng smiled. "I was indeed educated on the Tengda spirit on Friday, but not in the ancient way of education that you're probably thinking about. I was educated through an original approach.

"You'll know once you get there. That approach was very interesting indeed!

"As for this book… I am planning to finish it as soon as possible, but that's only because…

"I've achieved speedy enlightenment. I want to finish this book as quickly as possible so that I can start on a better one!"

Cui Geng's eyes lit up.

During this period, he had been thinking non-stop about The Butterfly Game's framework. He was waiting to visit Tengda's various departments to gather material. Then, he would be able to start writing!

Ming Yu felt curious. For some reason, Cui Geng's mental state seemed different from before. Before, Cui Geng had a serious procrastination problem and a minor slacking one. What's more, he had been a bit arrogant.

Honestly, Ming Yu had thought that Cui Geng had been wasting his own talent away.

He could easily get five to six thousand subscriptions. Yet, instead of updating his books seriously, he had always cut them off halfway, as and when he had felt like it.

Ming Yu believed that as long as Cui Geng could take writing seriously and upload six thousand to eight thousand words per day, his subscriptions would be through the roof.

However, looking at Cui Geng's expression now, he felt like the latter had turned over a new leaf.

Could education on the Tengda spirit really be that effective?

Cui Geng continued speaking. "After learning about the Tengda spirit, I understood one thing: I shouldn't fight or despise rest and entertainment. Instead, I should use them wisely to maintain a good working state.

"I shouldn't just focus on my word count but also focus on maintaining my novels' quality.

"Big Boss Ming Yu, haven't you always asked me how I got five thousand subscriptions? I think you should reduce your daily word count and improve your writing quality. That should be your priority for now."

At that point, Ming Yu fell into deep thought.

"Hm… that makes sense. Should I write less today and focus on learning the Tengda spirit?"

Although he had gotten a day off, Ming Yu was not interested in that at all. As the most diligent writer in the class, he was more concerned about writing more and writing better.

Seeing how Cui Geng had completely changed after just one lesson on the Tengda spirit, Ming Yu suddenly felt interested in learning about it as well.

Another writer said, "Eh, I want to go, too!"

"Me, too!"

More than half of the people at the table wanted to attend the lesson that had helped the legendary 'no-show' deal with his mental demons and see how it had made it happen.

Yet, how should they arrange for a lesson given that so many of them were interested?

After some thought, Ming Yu said, "How about this? We'll just write as much as we can based on our own abilities. The one who writes the least would go for the lesson. Those who have attended the lesson before should take some initiative to write more, so that they won't go again.

"If multiple people happen to hit the same word count, the one with the least subscriptions should go."

Everyone thought about it and agreed that this was a good idea. Thus, they nodded, one by one.

On the other hand, Cui Geng no longer had to participate in this. That was because… after tidying up over the next two days, he would leave the class and begin his new job (of gathering material) at Tengda's various companies.

…

At Fish-Catching Internet Cafe…

Pei Qian had arrived earlier than Lin Chang. However, instead of sitting down and drinking coffee, he walked around the internet area.

The situation was not as good as he had imagined, but it was still acceptable and not completely horrible.

At first, he had thought that GOG would fail miserably.

That was because GOG would not only be competing with traditional online games like Ocean Stronghold but also games in the same genre like IOI and Gods Rising.

Gods Rising had a huge group of loyal gamers, and IOI was fast becoming popular overseas. Its popularity was even spreading to China.

Like other internet cafes, Fish-Catching Internet Cafe had also installed IOI's international server and Chinese Localization Package. Although it was laggier, the internet cafe's customers could still enjoy the game.

Thus, Pei Qian had thought that few people would play GOG.

However, when he arrived at Fish-Catching Internet Cafe, he realized that many people were playing GOG. In fact, the number of people playing GOG was almost on par with the number of people playing Gods Rising and IOI!

Of course, IOI was the clear winner in terms of image quality and extent of completion.

After completing his round around the internet area, Pei Qian fell into deep thought. "Hmm… it looks like IOI is in stable condition now.

"The internet cafes are still running IOI's foreign server. That's why it's so laggy, and players are finding it difficult to speak with their teammates in a match. Naturally, the game is at a disadvantage.

"Even then, IOI is more popular than GOG in the internet cafes. More people are playing the former.

"Once IOI releases a local server, the lag and communication problems would be dealt with. It'll definitely be even more popular than GOG then, right?

"That means GOG is likely to fail. My judgment should be right."

Pei Qian thought hard about it and concluded that the current situation was not that bad. He could still be cautiously optimistic.

Just as he was thinking, Lin Chang arrived.

"Boss Pei, it's been a long time," said Lin Chang, smiling.

Pei Qian detected a deeper meaning in Lin Chang's smile. It was almost as if he had news for him. "Boss Lin, have you been very busy lately, too?"

Lin Chang sniggered. "It's a small matter; I'm done with my job as the go-between."