I was exposed for adding my female boss to my group of female friends.

"Okay, you two come here for a moment. We have something to talk about before we leave work."

Zhao Yuanhai and Xu Zheqing exchanged bewildered glances. Zhao Yuanhai wasn't even in the game design department, and he didn't know why he'd been dragged into this, but the person in front of him was a junior executive, so he felt embarrassed to ask.

Ishikawa Tō led the two to his office, sat them down, and said, "You've written web novels before, right? How were they?"

Xu Zheqing said shyly, "It's just so-so, I just wrote it casually. The first one got a 'good' rating, but the second one wasn't so good..."

"A 'high-quality' book means... three thousand average views, right?" Ishikawa Tō frowned subconsciously. "I don't quite understand. Does that mean more than three thousand people have read your book?"

Xu Zheqing laughed and said, "Theoretically speaking, each chapter has an average of three thousand readers. Many people stop reading after a while, so the first chapters should have more than three thousand readers, while the later chapters have less than three thousand readers."

“I understand what you mean.” Ishikawa Takashi nodded. “Our game design department needs someone like you. Ya-ge said that the team writing the story needs someone with a market sense.”

Xu Zheqing didn't know what to say. He wanted to be modest, but he didn't know how to express it.

“That way, you don’t need to do the trial period exercises like everyone else. You can come here and start writing the plot right away,” Ishikawa Takashi said. “We already have a plot outline, and you’re in charge of refining it.”

A little nervous about being given such a big task right off the bat, Xu Zheqing said weakly, "I can only write those kinds of novels, I've never written a game story before..."

"It's okay. We also have people here who specialize in game storylines. You're not the only one. We all learn from each other and do it as we learn."

Xu Zheqing felt somewhat relieved, but a question from Ishikawa Dong made his heart race again:

"Then let me ask you a question: can you accept working overtime?"

Xu Zheqing hesitated before saying, "That depends on what kind of overtime it is..."

Zhao Yuanhai was also very curious about this question and listened more attentively.

"I have to state upfront that we work crazy overtime," Ishikawa said with a serious face. "For the past few days, I've been sleeping at the company every day. I start working as soon as I get up in the morning, take a nap at noon, and then work until 10 p.m.

Xu Zheqing said, "As long as there's overtime pay..."

"Don't worry, there's plenty of overtime pay," Ishikawa Takashi said. "And if the project is successful, there will be bonuses, distributed according to work, and the bonuses are huge."

Ishikawa Tsutomu pointed his chin to a spot not far away and said, "For example, in the last project, I worked a lot of overtime, so my bonus was huge, while the art team worked less overtime and only received 60."

Upon hearing the number, Zhao Yuanhai's breath hitched, and he asked with wide eyes, "How much?"

"Uh, never mind." Ishikawa realized he had let something slip, revealing that receiving bonuses or salaries from others was one of the things you shouldn't do in the workplace.

However, since everyone already knew about this, there seemed to be no need to hide it.

Xu Zheqing's eyes widened, and he asked in a low voice, "60 is too little? How much of the extra will be awarded?"

Ishikawa Takashi patted his chest and said, "Like me, I got over 200 million. Don't go around telling everyone."

Zhao Yuanhai really stopped breathing.

"Bro, you're awesome." Xu Zheqing gave him a thumbs up.

"Uh, you don't need to call me brother, you should be older than me."

Xu Zheqing stared at him and asked, "What year were you born?"

“I’m a year younger than you, and I haven’t graduated yet this year,” Ishikawa Takashi said.

"So young??" Xu Zheqing found it even more unbelievable.

Zhao Yuanhai interrupted the two of them and asked in a low voice, "Excuse me for asking, how many years have you worked at this company?"

"Well... if we're talking about officially setting up the company, it'll only take about two weeks. But we did a lot of preparatory work before that." Ishikawa Toru was very honest and answered the question immediately.

Zhao Yuanhai was utterly speechless: "I'd like to ask, how did you manage to receive over 200 million yuan in bonuses just two weeks after the company was founded? How much money has this company actually made?"

"I don't know how much we made, but it was definitely very profitable," Ishikawa Tō said, gesturing with his fingers. "We made 'Sheep and the Sheep.' Ha, this game is much more profitable than you can imagine!"

"You guys made 'Sheep'?!" Xu Zheqing exclaimed.

“No, I shouldn’t say ‘you all’,” Ishikawa Takashi shook his finger. “It should be ‘we’.”

Zhao Yuanhai stood there, lost in thought for a long time.

He suddenly felt that coming to this company... seemed like the right decision!

Ishikawa Toru turned to him: "You're also from the scriptwriting team, right?"

"Oh? No, I'm from the human resources department."

"Huh? Then why are you two together?"

"It's just... chatting casually."

"..."

"……(sweat)"

……

While Chen Ya was arranging the work, Gu Yuqing silently followed beside him and listened.

Although she seemed to act recklessly, she was surprisingly very faithful to the agreement they had made before.

When he invested in Chen Ya, his condition was that he could not interfere with the business operations; at most, he could only observe but not comment.

So she really didn't say a word, just watched silently from the side.

After watching the welcome party, she remained silent; when Chen Ya arranged a series of absurd probationary period tasks, she also remained silent.

When Chen Ya sent the head of the art group on a trip to Europe, she finally couldn't hold back any longer.

"Excuse me, I have a question," Gu Yuqing said, "I can understand letting your employees play games, but what's the meaning of giving them paid vacations?"

Chapter 344 You've made such a big fuss

"I can understand letting your employees play games, but what's the meaning of giving them paid vacations?"

Hearing her ask this, Chen Ya laughed at himself.

When Qin Sulan heard that she was to be sent to Europe for a 7-day, 6-night trip, she was completely stunned. After confirming that this was not an April Fool's joke, she was now in a daze.

Calling it a trip isn't quite accurate. Among the people she went with were someone who studied architectural design, someone who studied oil painting, and someone who studied religion—all of them had an art background.

The 7-day, 6-night itinerary was packed full. First, we went to Germany, visiting Neuschwanstein Castle, Cologne Cathedral, Wittenberg, Königssee, the Rhine Valley, and more. In one trip, we almost covered the entire country.

Moreover, Chen Ya not only gave Qin Sulan a whirlwind tour, but also stuffed a whole bunch of documents into her hands, instructing her to fill them out when she got back. She had no idea what they contained.

“And since we’re going to Europe, why not visit France and Italy?” Gu Yuqing said. “Paris and Florence are just as nice.”

Chen Ya smiled at her and said, "Come with me."

He led her to a private office, where Chen Ya drew the curtains, plunging the room into darkness. Then, a projection illuminated the white walls.

A map appeared on the projection.

“I don’t think I’ve given you a detailed introduction to our ‘Original Demon Project’,” Chen Ya said to Gu Yuqing, his fingers interlaced. “Now I should tell you about the first step I want to take.”

Gu Yuqing looked at his face with a questioning gaze, but he pointed meticulously to the huge projection on the wall and said:

"Our game is planned to enter the global market. In the game, we will create 7 countries, each corresponding to one of the 7 civilizations in the world: China, Germany, Japan, France-Italy, the Middle East, India, Egypt, Latin America, and Russia."

Gu Yuqing crossed her arms and spread her hands, saying:

"Your classification is quite interesting, but I have a question for you: since France and Germany are separate, why not the UK and the US? Why is there Japan but not South Korea? Also, you've included far more than seven countries; there are nine!"

She had a look on her face that said, "Are you deliberately trying to make me criticize you?"

Chen Ya paused for a moment, then said, "Let me explain."

"According to a reasonable division, it should be East Asia, the Middle East, Western Europe, North America, South America, Africa, and the last one should be chosen from Roman Greece and Southeast Asia, making a total of 7 regions, right?"

Gu Yuqing nodded, and Chen Ya continued:

"But there will be many real-world problems. You see, our China is unique and must be separated from other East Asian countries. We cannot be confused with them. Don't you agree?"

"That's natural."

“Then East Asia is left with Japan, South Korea and Vietnam,” Chen Ya said. “These three places have too many differences in civilization, and Japan has the largest mobile game market, with an average of people spending a lot of money on in-game purchases. It is a commercial consideration to single them out, so of course one country should be reserved for them.”

Gu Yuqing nodded: "That makes sense."

Chen Ya then said, "Okay, next up is North America, but if we're going to work on North America, should we focus on Native American civilization, or the civilization of the Anglo-Saxons?"

Gu Yuqing was taken aback.

"If we're talking about Native American civilization, the difficulty of research is one thing, but let's not even mention that. The Americans almost wiped out the Native Americans; who would appreciate or buy that kind of work?" Chen Ya said seriously. "And if we're talking about American civilization... what civilization did they have?"

Gu Yuqing gestured with her hands: "Cola? Fried chicken? Jeans?"

“And then there’s racial discrimination and gender politics, haha,” Chen Ya chuckled dryly, “Let’s just not do it.”

“Yes, it’s better not to do it,” Gu Yuqing nodded sincerely, “It can save a lot of trouble.”

"Then what's left is Western Europe, where there are many options: ancient Rome, ancient Greece, the Germanic peoples, the Gallic roosters... all of which have rich cultural resources."

"By taking the essence of the ancient Greek city-state and the geography of Germany, we have created our game's starting village, Mondstadt."

"The successors of ancient Rome were Venice and Italy, and the game's later map, Fontaine, combines French culture and art with the Mediterranean civilization characteristics of ancient Rome."

After speaking, Chen Ya pointed to the map on the wall:

"This is the map of Mondstadt, the starting area. Look, the snow-capped mountains to the south correspond to the Alps; the central area consists of continuous mountain ranges and plateaus—just like Germany; the main city is situated in a body of water, corresponding to the ancient Greek city-states... Isn't it clear now?"

Gu Yuqing examined the map on the wall, nodded while resting her chin on her hand, and said, "Indeed. So, you're saying that you sent them on a trip to Germany to gather material?"

“Actually, we also planned to send them to the Balkans, but there wasn’t enough time,” Chen Ya said with a wry smile. “They didn’t have enough time for sightseeing, and we didn’t have enough time for playing games.”

Gu Yuqing looked at the map for a while, then turned her head and asked with great interest, "So we have China, Japan, Germany, and France. What about the other three?"

Chen Ya said with interest, "Of the remaining three, we need to reserve one spot for Russia."

"Hmm." Gu Yuqing had no objection to this allocation.

After all, Russia is a representative of Orthodox civilization, having created brilliant and magnificent literature and art, and its unique geography and vast territory are also very distinctive.

"There are still two left, but India, Egypt, Arab countries, and South America are in the queue. So we'll have to make do with Central Asia, South Asia, and Egypt and bring them together to form one country."

Gu Yuqing said, "The style is a bit off, but it's still somewhat plausible. After all, Egypt was once the leader of the Arab world, and India's culture is a hodgepodge now."

"The only thing left is South America, which we were completely unprepared for. We had to do the research and design while making the game," Chen Ya said. "The time was just too short."

After listening, Gu Yuqing fell into a long silence.

For some reason, she felt that Chen Ya's idea was both grand and very attractive.

This game is a game of global unity; if it were made in a proper way, it might exceed everyone's expectations.

However, she suddenly sensed something was wrong, frowned, and said, "Wait, you mean you didn't do all of this at once?"

"Yes, to be precise, there are only two maps currently under development," Chen Ya said. "The remaining five countries can only be added gradually after the game's public beta."

Gu Yuqing took a deep breath: "Just how big are you planning to make this game?"

Chen Ya honestly said, "I can only say that it's very big."

He pointed to the huge map on the wall and said, "This map is 1:500 scale and only includes the Mondstadt map we are working on."

"Huh? What's 1 to 500?"

"You can think of it this way: the content on this one map is enough to support the content of a single-player game that costs $39."

Gu Yuqing said incredulously, "You...you're so big, can the phone's performance handle it?!"

"This is the problem we need to solve," Chen Ya said. "In terms of optimization, we may need to put in a little more hard work."

"A little bit? A little bit?" Gu Yuqing was furious. "If your game is actually made and can run normally on most mobile phones on the market, then your game will have revolutionized the entire mobile game industry!"

The more you understand performance, the more you realize how outrageous Chen Ya's idea is.

Most of the mobile anime-style games currently on the market are still just "paper dolls fighting".

A single character illustration, a chibi-style character model, and a few linear levels—that's all it takes to showcase the entire game.

The truly exceptional ones even include cutscenes; that's the epitome of quality.

Even so, a single game can be over ten gigabytes in size.

According to Chen Ya's demonstration, the game must be 3D, all characters are 3D, and they can run around in all directions, as well as fly in the sky and swim in the water.

What's even more infuriating is that it has a huge map, so big that seven countries appear later on—that's the size of seven single-player games!

What kind of phone do players need to play this game on?

Chen Ya said, "Therefore, my plan is not just for mobile platforms, but for all platforms."

"All platforms?" Gu Yuqing repeated.