Pei Qian flipped through his little notebook. He had more or less done whatever he could for the company for now.
There were a plethora of things to tackle, but most of them had already been settled. For now, the various department heads were probably being kept busy. On the other hand, Pei Qian could afford to relax.
He leaned back on his office chair to get some rest. Then, Pei Qian surfed the web, intending to look for suitable houses.
It was now the year 2010. Property prices were already showing signs of rising. However, in Pei Qian’s eyes, they were still affordable.
On average, houses in Beijing and Shanghai cost about 25 thousand yuan per square meter. Houses in the school districts in Beijing could cost up to 38 thousand yuan per square meter.
To a lot of people, this was a sky-high price. However, Pei Qian knew full well that it wasn’t.
Jingzhou City was a provincial capital and was quite good compared to most other second-tier cities. The average price of houses here was about 13 thousand yuan per square meter.
In better places in the city center, prices could cost around 15 to 16 thousand yuan per square meter. However, Pei Qian was not intending to buy a house in the city center.
At the moment, high-speed rail stations were still being built across the country. Pei Qian guessed that a lot of them would be ready for use starting from the middle of next year.
The house that Pei Qian was looking for was meant for his parents. Most of their social circles were still located in the small county south of Jingzhou. Coincidentally, Jingzhou’s high speed rail station-called Jingzhou South Station-was going to be located in the south as well, not far from the county.
Thus, Pei Qian thought about buying a house near Jingzhou South Station. That would be close to his parents’ workplace and where their colleagues lived.
Once the high-speed rail stations opened, they could also easily take the high-speed rail to other cities.
What’s more, based on Pei Qian’s experience, the area around Jingzhou South Station would become more commercialized in the future. It was only a matter of time before the facilities in the area improved as well.
Also, property prices had not risen yet.
Pei Qian looked around. At the moment, the real estate around the south only cost about 11 to 12 thousand yuan per square meter. That meant he could buy a house measuring about 150 square meters for 1.8 million yuan.
It would probably be good enough for his parents. Pei Qian was mainly looking at the livability of the new house. This world was too different from the original one, and Pei Qian could not be a hundred percent sure that the property prices would move according to his memory.
It was not that Pei Qian did not want to invest 1.8 million yuan into a real estate that would appreciate in value. However, this world was too different; it was not the same as he remembered.
Who could Pei Qian blame if something went wrong down the road and lost everything? The System? No way, he would have no choice but to bear the shame.
Thus, after some thought, he decided not to try and pull any tricks. Instead, he would stick to earning money from the System legitimately. He could earn money from the System and improve his parents’ standard of living at the same time. That was good enough.
Pei Qian surfed the net for a long time and saved information on many potential houses. However, he did not settle on one just yet.
He did not ask Assistant Xin or other employees for help either. After all, this was a personal matter. It had nothing to do with the company’s business.
Pei Qian would have been ridiculous to make his employees help him with his personal matters.
Furthermore, Pei Qian was not that busy. He only worked three or four hours a day. Even if he was not doing this, he would be catching up on his shows.
Since he was going to purchase the house, he felt more comfortable looking for one on his own. For now, Pei Qian had no plans to buy a house for himself. He was still looking for ways to enjoy the System’s benefits.
As the company expanded, the System allowed Pei Qian to distribute more and more benefits to his employees. For example, he had to increase his employees’ salaries wave by wave in the past. Every forced expense or income supplement he wanted to provide had to be limited.
However, as Tengda’s business improved and expanded, the limits slowly increased.
From June this year, Pei Qian could give each employee a thousand yuan worth of housing allowance. Employees only had to top up a small amount in order to rent a good house in Jingzhou.
However, Pei Qian could not stop there.
Tengda would continue to expand, and he would be allowed to give his employees more benefits. Sooner or later, he would be able to build an employees’ dormitory.
That was because many big companies had employees’ dormitories. This was not a ridiculous benefit to provide.
Although there was no need for Tengda to build one for now, things might change in a year or so.
Once the System’s regulations relaxed, Pei Qian would get to it. Then, he would start moving his employees in. Boss Pei would then keep the biggest one for himself. How great!
At that thought, Pei Qian suddenly felt melancholic.
He had no idea if the employees were riding on his benefits or if he was riding on his employees’ benefits. Or were they perpetually riding on one another’s benefits?
At the end of the day, there was no rush to buy a house for himself.
mo
For now, Pei Qian was quite comfortable living in his two-bedroom apartment. What’s more, it was easy for him to get to school, the office, and Fish-Catching Internet Cafe. This place was purely a shelter for him; there was no need for luxury.
As Pei Qian thought about these things, he received a message on his cell phone. It was from Ye Zhizhou.
“Boss Pei, we have come up with a rough direction for the horror game. Shall we run through it when you have the time?”
Pei Qian glanced at his watch. It was 5 pm. It was already getting late, and his employees were supposed to knock off soon.
He was just about to arrange to meet the next day when he realized that it would be Saturday.
After some thought, Pei Qian replied, “We’ll meet on Monday morning.”
Pei Qian had a good rest over the weekend. He tried to recover from the deep emotional hurt that Old Ma had caused him.
At the same time, he continued looking for houses. He had already narrowed his options down to two or three places, but he still needed to do some research into their geographical locations, their configurations, the reliability of their developers, and other details.
On Monday morning, Pei Qian arrived at Shang Yang Games. The moment he walked in, he noticed something amiss in the atmosphere.
It was bright outside; why were the curtains closed?
The entire office looked pitch-black, and the only light came from the dim monitor screens. Everyone sat in front of their monitors with headphones on, not moving at all.
This scene looked inexplicably strange.
For a moment, Pei Qian thought that he had arrived at the wrong place. He thought he had stumbled into a large-scale, mysterious ceremony.
However, he happened to spot Hao Qiong sitting not far away from the entrance. The naive fellow also looked deeply engrossed in what was happening on his monitor. His shoulders rose and fell slightly as he carefully moved the joysticks on his controller.
Pei Qian lightly tapped his shoulder. “Er, where is Ye—?”
He wanted to ask where Ye Zhizhou was. Yet, before he could finish speaking, Hao Qiong leaped out of his seat.
“Ah!”
“Ah!”
“Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!”
Cries and howls sounded from all around the office. People around Hao Qiong started screaming one by one, causing a ripple effect outwards with Hao Qiong in the center.
Pei Qian felt light-headed. He almost thought something terrible had happened to his employees. Soon, a few people began cursing and swearing “Sh*t, who screamed again?!”
“Didn’t we agree that whoever screams next would be a dog?!”
“Be calm! If you scream again, I won’t be able to keep playing…”
Hao Qiong looked wronged. “Don’t blame me. I was playing my game calmly when someone suddenly tapped me on the shoulder. Of course, I–Huh? Boss Pei? Good morning, Boss Pei!”
The others immediately took their headphones off and looked over.
Pei Qian only had a strange feeling at first, but on seeing this, chills ran down his spine. In the pitch-black office, tens of monitors emitted a faint, blue light.
In front of every monitor was a shadow of a human head. All the heads were focused on their screens at first, but when they heard the words ‘Boss Pei’, they all turned towards him in unison.
It was horrifying!
Pei Qian quickly groped about beside him for the light switch and then flipped it.
As the light shone, the strange and tense atmosphere disappeared. “What are you doing…? Why are the curtains closed in broad daylight…?” Pei Qian did not know what else to say.
Hao Qiong realized that he had scared Boss Pei. Feeling embarrassed, he quickly explained himself. “I’m sorry, Boss Pei. Director Lin instructed us to switch the lights off so that we can immerse ourselves in the horror games.”
Pei Qian, “…you didn’t have to go to this extent, right?”
Hao Qiong scratched his head and smiled awkwardly. “We didn’t have any other choice. None of us have experience working on horror games. Director Lin said that we cannot afford to fail this next task and that we have to work as hard as we can.”
For some reason, Pei Qian felt sorry for these people.
They had to scare themselves half to death before working on a horror game?
Hao Qiong spoke again. “Director Lin also said that we have to learn from Boss Pei’s attitude and torture ourselves before we try to torture others. Boss Pei, you worked so hard to complete Repent and be Saved. You’ve been an excellent role model for us!”
Pei Qian was speechless. “…”
Don’t talk about Repent and be Saved anymore. I don’t want to recall my experience with that game!
Director Lin has gravely misunderstood me! This is all a huge misunderstanding!
However, talking about this made Pei Qian pity them all the more.
“You’ve worked hard, everyone. I’ll distribute a thousand yuan more to each of you to compensate you for the emotional suffering…”
While everyone cheered and thanked him, Pei Qian walked into the conference room.
The projector was not in use. Instead, there was only one printed design manuscript. Two weeks had passed since Pei Qian instructed Shang Yang Games to work on a horror game. That was more than enough time for them to write a manuscript for the game.
However, one had to remember that Shang Yang Games’ employees had never worked on horror games before. Everyone spent most of these two weeks playing horror games and looking for inspiration. That meant they did not actually have much time to come up with the gameplay and storyline.
The manuscript was very brief. However, after a cursory scan, Pei Qian discovered that it was generally going in the right direction.
Pei Qian did not dare to guarantee that the game would turn out a success, but if they continued in this direction, he was sure that it would generate at least some profit.
Boss Pei had come just to change this.
Ye Zhizhou was obviously confident in his manuscript. “Boss Pei, let me briefly explain our current thought process to you.
“First, we plan to create a standalone game with a fixed storyline. The game would mainly use Eastern monsters and ghosts because we have found them to be the scariest.
“Lastly, we’re considering not giving players any weapons. The helplessness would induce maximum fear in them.”
Pei Qian fell silent for a short while.
This idea sounded too good.
A few successful horror games surfaced in Pei Qian’s mind.
Although horror games targeted a small audience, they could still generate a huge profit if they became extremely popular.
What’s more, Shang Yang Games was going to be given a budget of thirty million yuan this time. If they used all thirty million yuan in the production of this game, the effects would be extremely terrifying.
The game would surely be profitable.
That wouldn’t do!
After some thought, Pei Qian subtly shook his head. “That’s too common.”
Lin Wan, who had been listening quietly by the side the entire time, looked like she had expected this response. Boss Pei always had novel ideas. Of course, he would not accept such commonplace ones!
Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin quickly took out paper and pen, prepared to take down notes.
Pei Qian looked at the few general ideas on the manuscript in front of him and then made some adjustments to them.
“What storyline does a horror game need? Don’t work on a storyline. There are too many standalone horror games. Create a web-based one.
“Why are we including ghosts and monsters? We need to believe in Science. Don’t include ghosts and monsters in the game. At most, we can include insane people. Avoid things like mutated beings and grievous spirits at all costs.
“As for weapons…”
At that point, Pei Qian hesitated.
That was not easy to work around.
Without a weapon system, the game could turn out like Outlast. Yet, with a weapon system, the game could turn out like Resident Evil.
The former was very frightening and immersive. The latter was easy for gamers to speed run through, but it also generated a large following.
Neither of these methods was wrong, but if either turned out well, they could generate lots of profits.
That meant Pei Qian had to choose the third option.
“Create a weapon system but have minimal variety and strength. The best weapon should be a pistol.
“Alright, go along this general direction.”
Pei Qian struck a compromise to make the game feel incongruent. There would be a weapon system, but the weapon system would be rubbish.
Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin finished recording these instructions down and exchanged a meaningful look.
Cr*p, not one of the things they had decided on was right. Every one of them was rejected…
