437 A Series of Codes
Two hours later, Qiao Liang exited Ocean Stronghold, feeling confused.
He had wasted his time!
He had first looked through the famous locations in Repent and be Saved. After that, he had created an alternate account to look around the newbie village. Finally, he had entered Ocean Stronghold and finished several stages in story mode.
Still, he had achieved nothing.
Qiao Liang was not one to give up easily. He had only exited because he thought that he was deviating from the right path.
What if the clue was not in either of those games?
Qiao Liang looked at his fan group once again. Many people had already thought about what he had thought about. They had all gone into games they were familiar with, but two hours had already passed. Nobody had found any useful clues.
Qiao Liang looked through the chat records and then started to analyze the games that his fans had looked through.
Ghost General, Game Designer, Ocean Stronghold…
All of a sudden, Qiao Liang's eyes lit up.
The Lonely Desert Road!
The letter was 'left on the previous journey'. That game matched the description perfectly! What's more, most people had neglected to look through this game.
The messed-up game had been popular in the beginning but that quickly faded away. Compared to Tengda's other games, The Lonely Desert Road was much less known!
What's more, the game was especially boring. Most people who bought it probably did not finish it. Even if they did, they had probably chucked the game in the back of their games library to collect dust. They could not still be playing it.
Wouldn't that be the perfect game if Boss Pei had intended to play hide-and-seek?
Qiao Liang became excited at once. He opened The Lonely Desert Road and prepared to drive.
He had once played this game for eight whole hours. He knew that it would be a long and slow journey. Thus, before he started, he ate his snacks, placed his water in a position that was easy to reach, and made a trip to the toilet.
An hour later, Qiao Liang began to feel sleepy. However, at that moment, he saw a letter float across the screen.
The car was driving too quickly. The letter only appeared in front of Qiao Liang for half of a second before it disappeared again.
"Sh*t!"
Qiao Liang did not see it clearly. He faintly saw a round alphabet, but he did not know if it was a C or a G.
However, he was very sure that no such letter had appeared in the game before. Thus, he re-started the game and opened the screen-recording software.
Three hours later, Qiao Liang exited the game and made another trip to the toilet.
When he got back to his seat, Qiao Liang opened the screen-recording software and moved to an hour after the recording started, to check the alphabet that appeared first.
Indeed, it was a G!
After that, an alphabet floated across the screen every five minutes. Sometimes, it appeared on the left. Sometimes, it appeared on the right. There were twenty alphabets in total, and it was a whole hour before they disappeared completely.
After that, no more alphabets appeared. However, just in case, Qiao Liang continued driving for half an hour more and then exited the game.
He checked the video and carefully wrote down all the alphabets.
GAICCCCCCACBIADBHCEA.
It was a series of codes.
In other words, other players did not even need to play The Lonely Desert Road to find out the code.
However, knowing the code was only the start of the solution.
…
At Shang Yang Games…
Lin Family, Ye Zhizhou, and Wang Xiaobin read various forums and Weibo in order to track the gamers' reactions. There were many more gamers who were unhappy than they had imagined.
There were many comments like 'are they sick in the head to not allow people to purchase the game with money' or 'you're acting like a big-shot, and I won't have it'.
Still, there were even more gamers who had become intrigued.
A few hours had passed since they released the game. Until now, gamers had already found the code that Boss Pei had placed in The Lonely Desert Road. However, work obviously still had to be done on the string of letters before they would be able to find the real message.
Ye Zhizhou was working on the clue as well. He had written many symbols in his notebook, and his monitor displayed a search engine. Still, he could not find any useful information.
"I don't know how Boss Pei came up with an advertising method like that. He's really a genius! However… it might have been a better idea to release the question a month before we released the game.
"The game's already on the shelf now, but nobody can buy it. Of course, gamers would get angry.
"I wonder if there's a deeper meaning behind this move."
After some thought, Wang Xiaobin said, "Hasn't Boss Pei always been this willful? He already tried to turn gamers away repeatedly when we were working on Repent and be Saved. This may be a unique method of doing business.
"He's intentionally using reverse psychology on gamers, so that they would try to solve the riddle more enthusiastically."
Lin Wan nodded. "Yes, I think that's highly likely!
"Many gamers have already started playing Tengda's older games to solve this riddle. I think Repent and be Saved and Game Designer have seen an increase in sales volume during this period.
"It's a pity that it would only be a short-term boost. People like Teacher Qiao, who understand Boss Pei extremely well, could locate the clue in just a few hours.
"If we had hidden the clue more deeply, perhaps the other games would have seen a boost in sales volume, too."
Ye Zhizhou rubbed his temples. "I don't think Boss Pei wanted to hide the clue that deep.
"The word 'journey' already hinted at The Lonely Desert Road. People only had to drive for three hours to find the first letter.
"I don't think Boss Pei wanted to torture gamers for too long…
"Was he afraid that gamers would fly into a craze and buy Tengda's old games if he hid the clue too well?
"Hahaha, how can that be? I'm overthinking things."
Ye Zhizhou laughed inwardly at himself.
Lin Wan looked at the string of English alphabets on the screen. "No one has solved this code yet. Maybe this 'game' only officially began when people found this code.
"Maybe there aren't enough people participating."
While they had been researching and developing Be Quiet, Shang Yang Games had indeed kept news about the game under wraps.
That was mainly because the game had not been complete, and the staff had been afraid that gamers would develop high hopes for it. At the same time, Boss Pei had never mentioned publicity.
Thus, not many gamers were trying to solve the riddle for now. Even fewer gamers were racking their brains, trying to crack the code.
The lack of numbers meant that the riddle could not be solved any quicker.
Many gamers who were only interested in playing horror games were being blocked. Not one person had purchased the game—this was a real problem.
Wang Xiaobin was slightly worried. "What if nobody can solve the riddle? What would we do? We've worked so hard to release this game. If nobody gets to play it, wouldn't it be—?"
"You're thinking too much," scoffed Lin Wan. "There are many talented gamers out there. It's only a matter of time that someone cracks the code.
"What's more, the more difficult the riddle, the more participants there would be. Wouldn't the advertising prove more effective, then?"
…
At Otto Technologies…
Chang You was still worrying about the slideshow. Although he had already gotten clear instructions from Boss Pei, he still had no idea how to execute the instructions.
The thing was that Boss Pei's instructions had completely overturned the way he used to think about news conferences…
All things aside, it was ridiculous to try and explain all the cell phone's merits in five minutes, using a single picture.
Chang You had already asked his subordinates to list out the cell phone's merits. Of course, he could squeeze them all into a single picture, but it would be impossible for him to cover them all in five minutes!
At the moment, Otto E1 had the following merits: a screen with a high refresh rate, a 5800 mAh battery, the latest microchip, a custom-made cooling system, a horizontal linear motor, a high-megapixel dual camera, fast charging functions, a custom-made system, special benefits from Tengda's other businesses, and the like.
If Chang You wanted to go into the specifics of the special benefits, he would have to go through the 'gaming', 'entertainment', 'lifestyle', and 'others' categories, and a total of sixteen individual items.
On top of that, other cell phone manufacturers would normally talk about NFC, infrared, headphone plugs, hi-fi, dual stereo speakers, and the like when they released new models. Yet, Chang You could not afford to mention these things during the news conference for Otto E1.
Chang You looked at the picture, feeling a migraine coming on.
"There's so much content. How can I go through everything in five minutes? I'm not a host who depends on his mouth for a living…
"Yet, Boss Pei has already given orders. I have to get it done. If I can't, wouldn't I be embarrassing myself during the news conference?
"Eh, wait… a host?
"Is Boss Pei hinting to me to turn all the cell phone's merits into a performed dialogue and then explain them all in five minutes?
"Why else would he give me a limit of five minutes?"
All of a sudden, a realization dawned on Chang You. He quickly opened a new document and strung all the cell phone's merits together into a short performed dialogue.
He counted the words… about a thousand.
If a human, like an announcer, talked at average speed and pronounced every word perfectly and clearly, he would be able to read 80 to 120 words per minute.
Humans could process things at a maximum of 2.5 times as quickly. That was about 300 words per minute.
Some hosts could read even faster, such as 350 words in 47 seconds. However, there would be a lot of people at the news conference. Talking at that speed would cause most people to miss out on some information.
Moreover, Chang You did not only have to read three hundred words but close to a thousand. He had to breathe in the middle, or he could cramp up.
Thus, he did some rough calculations. He had to read a thousand words in five minutes. On average, he would have to read two hundred words per minute. That would already be two times faster than man's normal talking speed!
What's more, he would be able to explain all of Otto E1's merits with those one thousand words…
Chang You was shocked. "Was that what Boss Pei meant? He wanted me to use this method to entertain and engage the live audience and those watching the live-stream?
"He had even figured out that I would need just five minutes to do that? Yes, that must be it! That's the only possible explanation.
"It looks like I, the old bag of bones, have work to do…"
Chang You still felt immensely stressed, but at least he had found a direction to work toward.
He had to memorize the script and ensure that he could recite it all in five minutes before the news conference. To him, that was no easy feat.
Still, to market the cell phone well and not let Boss Pei down, Chang You decided to accept the challenge!
He had to ensure Boss Pei recognized his hard work at the news conference!
