What do you mean the games you make are all real?!

"Finally beat the game! I died twenty times following Kai Ge's guide and gave Mi Teng three hundred yuan! I wonder what gifts I'll get from Mi Teng after twenty pain simulations! Will it be enough to break even!"

"Don't get your hopes up too high. I simulated the game using 10% pain and received a bar of soap from Miteng Company. I must say, this soap cleans pretty well, and my back doesn't break out like it used to."

"I completed the game using the 1% pain simulation mode, and all I got was a box of chewing gum... but it was actually quite delicious..."

"Only by completing the high-pain simulation level can you get a really awesome mystery gift. You guys know that bald streamer Li Pao? He completed the level with 50% pain simulation and got a bottle of hair growth serum. He grew a full head of hair in just two days!"

"Really? Then my bald patch is saved!"

"That's nothing. The real reward is the 100% pain simulation. Yesterday, another tough guy completed the 100% pain simulation. However, the reward wasn't an emergency spray, but a small blue pill. One pill can be taken seven times a night, and you'll wake up feeling refreshed the next day."

"Holy crap! Does this kind of miracle drug still exist?"

"You don't even need to ask about this now. A rich man bought it for 10,000 each a long time ago, making 70,000 yuan profit from seven of them."

"No way, I'm going to increase the pain simulation and beat the game again! I want the blue pill too!"

"Someone tried it the day before yesterday. Only the first 10,000 people who complete Resident Evil can get the reward. Now all the gifts have been claimed, and we can only wait for the new level."

"Miten! No! Miten! When are the new levels coming out?! Without the next level of Resident Evil to play, I feel like ants are crawling all over me!"

"When will Miteng put these medicines out for sale? I want hair growth tonic, and I want the little blue pills!"

Inside the Miteng Company building, Fang Qingzhou was sitting in the boss's chair, looking at the comments on the game forum.

It has now been seven days since the release of Resident Evil: Raccoon City, and four days since Liao Yunkai posted that message on the game forum.

That post completely propelled the popularity of "Resident Evil: Raccoon City" to its peak. The billion-dollar marketing reward from the system was mainly used for marketing in Yan Country, but that post helped "Resident Evil" break out of its niche and start to gain considerable popularity in other countries as well.

In just seven days, the number of downloads has exceeded 200 million, an achievement that many companies would never dare to dream of.

"Boss, your tea." Just then, the slender female secretary brought tea to Fang Qingzhou.

"I understand. You can go now. Don't bother me again for the time being," Fang Qingzhou said, waving his hand.

"Understood." The female secretary quickly turned and left, but Fang Qingzhou watched her back as she walked out of the office before turning his gaze away.

He kept staring at the female secretary, not because he was attracted to her, but because he felt that she was very strange, and that the company itself was also very strange.

Just a week ago, this was a game company on the verge of bankruptcy, but suddenly a new boss appeared and released a game that became a viral sensation online. No one from the employees said anything about this bizarre thing, as if it were all perfectly normal.

When the game's downloads exceeded 100 million, the employees even organized their own celebration party.

"System, are you sure there won't be any problems?" Fang Qingzhou asked in a low voice.

[Please rest assured, host. You have already paid two billion in justification fees. The game's development process, experience, and even related technologies have been instilled into the minds of all employees of Miteng Corporation. They will believe that "Resident Evil: Raccoon City" was developed by them, and they will never leak any game-related technologies or information to the outside world.]

Upon hearing about the 2 billion yuan reasonable fee, Fang Qingzhou's lips twitched. Just a day ago, the system had asked him to repay a debt of 2 billion yuan. He was completely bewildered at the time, not knowing how he had ended up owing the system 2 billion yuan.

The system later explained that this was the game's production and optimization costs.

Although the system can turn his experiences into a game in this world, all of this must be made reasonable in this world.

Otherwise, it would be too strange for such a large-scale game to suddenly appear without any production process, and it would definitely cause a lot of trouble.

So in order to prevent everything from being too abnormal, the system had to fake the game development process. The two billion was the cost of faking the process. For this purpose, the system even built a shell of the Raccoon City Police Department in the suburbs, which is equivalent to getting on the bus first and buying the ticket later.

They'll sell the game first, and then use the money they make to cover the game's production costs.

You can forge all of this without paying, but then you'll have to wait for the IRS and a whole host of other departments to investigate.

The company produced a large-scale game without spending a single penny on its books. Who else would they investigate if not you? But as long as you give the money to the system, it will handle all the formalities.

Fortunately, they had made a lot of money during the release of Resident Evil, so they could still come up with 2 billion yuan. In the end, Fang Qingzhou gritted his teeth and paid the money.

Fang Qingzhou realized that this system charged money for everything it did; it was practically obsessed with money.

If it's not asking you for money now, it must have voluntarily taken out a loan for you, and will collect the principal and interest when you have the money.

The system paid for the previous 10,000 gifts out of its own pocket, but Fang Qingzhou would have to pay for the gifts given out in the subsequent levels.

However, he strongly suspected that the money for those 10,000 gifts was included in the 2 billion that had just been taken. Even making a game wouldn't cost that much; the system must have taken a kickback, and the 1 billion in marketing expenses was also deducted from that 2 billion.

"System, what do you need so much money for?" Fang Qingzhou couldn't imagine why a system would need so much money.

Money is essentially a personification of resources. Different resources can be obtained with money. This system cannot create items out of thin air; there must be an equivalent exchange of resources. Money is used as a general term to help the host understand this better.

After listening to the system's explanation, Fang Qingzhou remained silent for a long while.

Resource exchange.

These four words gave him a completely new understanding of the essence of the system.

It's not some omnipotent god system that can conjure things out of thin air. The money it needs is essentially used to purchase resources in this world to support game generation and item manifestation.

The two billion in rationalization costs are essentially buying the rationality of this world—building a police station shell, implanting memories into employees, falsifying development records—all of which cost money.

The rewards for completing the game are the same; first aid spray, hair growth serum, and blue pills are all items that the system obtained by exchanging resources from the Resident Evil world using resources from this world.

"So, every penny I earn now is essentially buying resources for you? And then you use those resources to exchange for things or technology in other worlds?" Fang Qingzhou asked.

[This can be understood as follows: the more money the host earns, the more resources this system can mobilize, and the more items it can exchange for.]