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

Mature women should learn to control men's aesthetic preferences, rather than being dominated by them.

Besides... if I acted like that, wouldn't Chen Ya mistakenly think that I dressed up for him?

While she was engrossed in shopping, Gu Yuqing suddenly frowned and made a "tsk" sound.

On her phone screen appeared a name that made her feel like she'd drunk a sip of foot bath water:

“Cai Zhenyi is calling.”

After hesitating for a long time, she finally pressed the answer button, and Cai Zhenyi's cheerful and familiar voice came from the other end of the line.

"Yuqing, you finally answered the phone."

"..."

"What's wrong? Hello? Can you hear me, Yuqing?"

"..."

Gu Yuqing remained silent with a dark expression, and Cai Zhenyi's "temporary amnesia" finally returned on the other end of the phone.

"...Mr. Gu."

Gu Yuqing tossed her hair: "Hello?"

"Finally, someone's speaking," Cai Zhenyi's voice on the other end was extremely obsequious. "We just released a new PV, and the online response has been overwhelming. Would you like to take a look, Mr. Gu?"

Upon hearing this news, alarm bells rang in Gu Yuqing's mind, but she maintained the composure typical of a lady, and asked casually:

"Oh? Releasing a teaser PV now? Does this mean your development plan is being changed?"

Cai Zhenyi said, "Recently, the pearl factory has been in contact with us, not only investing in us but also providing some technical support. Our development plan will indeed be brought forward, but it's hard to say exactly how much. Anyway, take a look at the PV first."

After hanging up the phone, Gu Yuqing opened the link Cai Zhenyi had sent her. It was on the Pineapple Pineapple website, and it was also featured on the homepage.

This is clearly a case of competing directly with their own game; their confrontational stance is written all over their faces.

Upon clicking into the PV, the "Donghuang Qixing" logo first appears on the screen, followed by a black screen. In the darkness, a deep male voice begins to narrate:

"This is a story that has been buried by the yellow sand for a long time..."

In the PV, sandstorms swirl, cloaks flutter, and a traveler dressed in simple clothes walks slowly across the sand dunes, while a city gradually emerges on the horizon.

The scene moves forward, with an invisible mechanical crane guiding the viewer's perspective. As they approach the city and the buildings within are almost visible, the scene suddenly changes.

The protagonist walks through a town with a traditional Chinese style. The streets are bustling with people, carriages and horses, wine shops, and pedestrians carrying knives.

In the lower right corner of the screen, there is also a line of small white text that reads "Game Engine Live Report".

Even this line of text is exactly the same as Beichen's "Original Demon".

By this time, the live chat was already exploding with comments.

"Holy crap! What am I seeing! Donghuang Qixing's new game!"

"Is it a 3D action game? It looks really good!"

"Wow! The light! Wow! The water! The picture quality is amazing!"

"I support domestically produced games! I'll definitely spend a ton of money on them when they're released!"

"Tears welling up, it really took Donghuang Qixing's help. I declare that the era of those manufacturers making paper cutouts to cheat people out of their money is over!"

……

Soon, the PV finished playing, and Gu Yuqing put down her phone, lost in thought.

Although the PV for Seven Stars of the East is an open world game, it feels very different from the ones in Genshin Impact.

Donghuang Qixing started by making Chinese-style martial arts games, and this time they're making an open-world game, with the main promotional slogan being "Open Jianghu".

It must be said that Donghuang Seven Stars is quite skilled at creating a martial arts atmosphere.

But upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that the PV for Donghuang Qixing has many clever elements.

In the PV, the atmosphere is mainly created by the narration, and the entire PV is just the characters walking around in various scenes.

There are no monster designs, no battle scenes, and no game mechanics.

Moreover, apart from the opening scene of looking out at a distant town from the desert, the entire PV did not reveal much more content that reflected the "open world" characteristics.

The so-called open world is not only about seamless connections between various scenes that can be entered without loading, but more importantly, it is about the guiding principles of open world.

If you simply provide a sandbox world without any guidance, a thousand players will have a thousand different experiences, and the chances of it failing are very high.

In conclusion, while the PV for "Seven Stars of the East" looks cool, it conveys almost no effective information.

It gives the impression that, "GenDemon made a PV, so we can't lose. We need to make our presence felt, so we're making one too."

"Didn't do it well? No problem. Just put together whatever materials you have, sew them together, add some cool voiceovers and music, and it'll look high-end."

—From a professional perspective, this PV gives Gu Yuqing this feeling.

However, from the player's perspective, it may not be so.

The comments under the PV were all unanimously positive.

Comments like "You'll definitely spend money if you get this item" and "You'll definitely get a great item if you spend money" often get thousands of likes. Through these comments, you can almost see players waving their money and rushing over to give it to you.

All players are eagerly anticipating Donghuang Qixing's new game.

Just three days ago, the PV for "Original Demon" caused a sensation on Pineapple Pineapple, but now it seems to have been collectively forgotten by the public, and no one is mentioning it.

Simply put, compared to Donghuang Qixing, Beichen is just a startup company, and its past works are trash games like "Sheep and the Sheep".

Compared to Beichen, a little-known company, people are more likely to trust Donghuang Qixing, a long-established brand.

Even though Donghuang Qixing is notorious for its pay-to-win nature.

Gu Yuqing had mixed feelings.

Sure enough, these days gamers have been turned into easy targets by major game companies.

As long as the game quality is decent, no matter how much you try to trick or pressure players into spending money, there will always be people waving their wallets, begging to be ripped off.

However, this also further illustrates how fragile Chen Ya's ideal "paying for love" model seems.

This is because such "paying the bill" is based on a fragile foundation of mutual trust.

How do I know you won't run off with the money?

How do I know you won't suddenly throw shit at me in the storyline?

How do I know if the character I painstakingly spent money to pull will become less valuable?

Moreover, players will never understand Chen Ya's "good intentions".

No first-time recharge gift pack, no cashback on spending, no membership benefits—for players, that's just stingy.

Does it affect the gaming experience? What constitutes a gaming experience? Is it edible?

I'm going to be better than everyone else! I'm going to climb the leaderboard on the server!

However, despite her worries, Gu Yuqing knew that she could not persuade Chen Ya.

That person is as stubborn as a donkey; not even ten oxen could pull him back. Changing his mind is just wishful thinking.

Moreover... Gu Yuqing vaguely felt that interfering with his thoughts would also hinder the display of his talents.

Talented is the highest praise Gu Yuqing can give to a man.

If she thinks someone is talented, it means she thinks that person is special.

She felt that Chen Ya was talented, although she didn't know exactly what his talents were.

This was just a vague conjecture on her part, a subconscious thought, a little secret she had never shared with anyone.

She thought Chen Ya was talented and that he seemed to radiate light.

If the people around her found out—like her father, or her younger siblings—they would definitely ridicule her mercilessly.

Are you perhaps being deceived/brainwashed/beauty is in the eye of the beholder?

So far, the most impressive talent Chen Ya has shown her is simply that he's incredibly handsome.

His exceptional tennis talent might be due to prior training; his ability to compose music might be thanks to connections in the music industry… What he accomplished, Tsai Chen-yi can also achieve.

Gu Yuqing, however, was unwilling to admit that Cai Zhenyi was talented.

In short, Gu Yuqing herself couldn't find the root cause of her own thoughts.

It was purely an intuition, a kind of inexplicable trust that developed after spending a long time together.

A while later, Cai Zhenyi sent another message:

"How is it, Mr. Gu? Have you seen it yet?"

Gu Yuqing replied, "I've seen it, it's so-so. What are you trying to say?"

The message from Cai Zhenyi came quickly:

"Don't misunderstand, we are responsible to our investors and will provide feedback on any results as soon as possible."

He wasn't particularly sarcastic, but Gu Yuqing still felt a little disgusted.

"I have great confidence in Mr. Cai's abilities. I just hope that Mr. Cai can communicate more with me in the future. He can tell me not only the results, but also any pain points, difficulties, or obstacles in the development process."

Cai Zhenyi immediately replied: "Of course, but so far we haven't encountered any difficulties. Everything is going smoothly, haha!"

Seeing the last two words "haha" sent by the other party, Gu Yuqing's knuckles turned white as she gripped her phone.

……

Today happens to be the day Gu Zongyan brings his daughter home for a family dinner.

The father's long-term efforts to mend the family have successfully deepened Gu Yuqing's dislike for her stepmother's family, with remarkable results.

Stepmother Gu Shujing pretended to be busy in the kitchen, even calling her younger brother Gu Benli to help wash the fruit, while Gu Yuqing sat on the sofa, calmly playing on her phone.

Gu Zongyan coughed and winked at her from the side, and finally couldn't help but remind her if she wanted to go to the kitchen to help out, but Gu Yuqing just pretended not to hear him.

She really had no desire to socialize with her stepmother's family.

Gu Zongyan tried for a while, but gave up. He had plenty of ways to annoy Gu Yuqing, but if a cow doesn't drink water, forcing it won't work; Gu Yuqing could still annoy him just the same way.

Having felt awkward, Gu Zongyan left. Soon after, Gu Chengxi walked over as if nothing had happened and sat down on the sofa next to her.

Gu Chengxi is her stepmother's eldest daughter and is currently in high school.

The two had a good relationship when they were young, but ever since Gu Yuqing went to university and came back, they have become like strangers.

Gu Yuqing continued scrolling through her phone, ignoring her. Gu Chengxi, looking around, hummed a song for a while before finally speaking up:

Are you still planning to pursue further studies abroad?

Gu Yuqing froze, then turned to ask her, "Why are you asking this?"

Seeing that her face didn't look good, Gu Chengxi panicked a little. After hesitating for a while, she said, "I want to ask if you will still be in the country in a while."

"What if we're in the country, and what if we're not?" Gu Yuqing asked.

“If you were in China,” Gu Chengxi said, “I’ll be an adult in a few months, and my dad is planning a coming-of-age ceremony for me. Could you… could you come?”

Gu Yuqing's stiff body relaxed, and a "So that's what you were talking about" expression appeared on her face.

Going abroad for further studies was indeed Gu Yuqing's previous plan, but recently the idea has not popped into her mind for a long time.

When Gu Chengxi mentioned it, she couldn't help but feel a little nervous.

Most "second-generation rich" like her spend two years abroad to gain experience and then return to inherit the family business.

However, Gu Yuqing was different. She went to Gaoshan Capital during her university years and quickly rose to a senior position thanks to her exceptional vision and skills.

But the longer she stayed there, the less interesting it became for her.

First, there was intense infighting within the company; second, the Gu family wasn't limited to Gaoshan Capital alone, and she didn't want to tie herself too closely to it.

So she left herself a way out and applied to many foreign universities.

Once she returns from her studies abroad, she will have more leverage to accept a larger share of the Gu family's assets.

But recently, because of someone's sudden intrusion, she suddenly felt that staying in China was quite interesting.

So she temporarily put aside her plans to go abroad.

"...Can you go?" Gu Chengxi reminded her again from the side.

Gu Yuqing snapped out of her daze and said, "Okay, sure."