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

Chen Ya decided to keep this question to himself and never ask it aloud.

Given Gu Yuqing's personality, if she guessed wrong, she would definitely mock him mercilessly; if she guessed right... then she would probably make a huge scene and torment him by exposing his pitiful side.

……

As the saying goes, three women make a drama.

Ultimately, this drama, which began with Chen Ya's illness and then inexplicably veered towards the allocation of housing, ended in a relatively peaceful manner.

Under the arrangement of Gu Yuqing, who was not very generous, Lu Keke and Lu Aiai stayed at her villa for half a month, while Yang Changshuo asked someone to help clean Lu Aiai's original dormitory.

Later, Chen Ya heard the cleaning staff say that it was a scene he "would never see in his life, and he couldn't imagine what kind of creatures had lived in the house."

Hearing this description, Chen Ya felt a chill run down his spine.

A small incident occurred during Lu Keke's life in the Gu family's grand house:

She filmed a short video with Gu Yuqing's villa as the backdrop, which led to rumors that she was a hidden rich woman, making her identity on the internet even more mysterious.

However, Gu Yuqing also gained leverage over her because of this, and later used it to her advantage. But that's another story.

To Chen Ya's surprise, Gu Yuqing did not begin a short but wonderful cohabitation with him as he had imagined.

During Chen Ya's recovery, she would take time to visit him every day, bringing him handmade gifts such as aromatherapy or love-filled bento boxes.

But she won't stay overnight.

Perhaps she is more conservative than one might imagine.

Chen Ya recovered from her illness in just a few days and was able to work remotely.

He sat on the bed and remotely directed operations via his laptop for a while. At first, the feedback from the company made his headache worse, but the more he did it, the easier it became.

This company is growing at a rapid pace, like a newborn animal that, after Chen Ya's initial guidance, is maturing quickly and beginning to learn to run on its own.

As the weather gradually warmed up, and the heat reached its peak, Beichen Company's Yuanmo completed its final test.

In the last few days of summer vacation, the game that Chen Ya had staked everything on was finally about to begin its public beta test.

……

Chapter 378: The server is now open!

On the day Genshin Impact was launched, the weather was calm and the sun shone as brightly as ever, just like countless other ordinary days.

Qin Sulan got up on time in the morning, but listlessly washed up, clipped her hair, changed out of her pajamas, and put on her clothes.

Then, I took the subway line 8, swaying in the crowded throngs, arrived at the company on time, and clocked in for work.

Along the way, she didn't even remember that today was the public beta launch day.

The development schedule for Genshin Impact is well-organized, and she is currently working on the maps for the last two versions. The upcoming public beta will not affect her current work schedule at all.

On her way to work, her mind was wandering, preoccupied with the TV series she watched yesterday and the character she was drawing, and she had no awareness of the public beta test.

Perhaps it wasn't that she hadn't remembered, but rather that her subconscious was avoiding the topic.

If she had a chance to speak freely with Chen Ya, she might tell him with great concern that, frankly, she was very worried the public beta would fail.

This is not an unfounded concern.

Actually, a month ago, many comments criticizing Yuanmo had already appeared online.

And after a month of fermentation, these negative comments not only did not fade away over time, but instead intensified.

There's a group of people online who are relentlessly trying to find angles to smear the game, some saying it's plagiarized, some saying it's unpatriotic, and others saying it's cheesy, erotic, and has no bottom line.

What was originally a completely fabricated story was exaggerated and made to sound very convincing by these people, leading many uninformed people to believe it.

Even before Genshin Impact was released, the internet was already flooded with negative comments, which suggests that the game was already doomed to fail.

After sighing, Qin Sulan composed herself, stepped into the office, and headed to her workstation.

"Hey, watch out!"

"A little to the left, one, two..."

At the far end of the office, in front of the boss's personal office, two male employees were struggling to move a television set there. The television was widescreen, estimated to be over a hundred inches, and quite large.

Qin Sulan stared blankly for a while, then asked Xu Zheqing, who was eating snacks next to her, "What are you doing?"

"Today is the open beta launch day, didn't you forget?" Xu Zheqing said. "Boss Luan said that we should put the game data on the public chat to create a sense of urgency for everyone."

Upon hearing this, Qin Sulan couldn't help but shudder.

"Ugh, I hate it..."

Xu Zheqing was a little surprised: "Huh? Weren't you really looking forward to the game's release? You seemed quite proud of your map."

A shadow immediately fell over Qin Sulan's face.

"I was really looking forward to it before, but now..."

"What's going on now?"

Qin Sulan nodded with her chin, gesturing to his computer screen: "Take a look at that?"

Xu Zheqing's computer screen happened to have Zhihu, a question-and-answer website, open. The question on his webpage was:

How would you evaluate the analysis by Beichen employees that *Genshin Impact* surpasses *Otherworld: Dragon Heart* in terms of production technology and difficulty?

"Otherworld: Dragon Heart" is an open-world competitor game of Donghuang Qixing. Because of the PV it released, it has a high reputation and popularity among players.

Xu Zheqing's page features three highly-rated answers:

"Oh right, right, your team must have made some amazing games, right? Like, 'Sheep and the Sheep'?"

2655 upvotes, 576 comments.

"Many excellent games are not technically complicated. We players like 'Yi Jianghu' not because of its amazing technology, but because it has sentiment and depth, rather than the kind of product made to make money quickly."

6752 upvotes, 237 comments.

"No, I really want to ask this Beichen employee, what level is your company that dares to try and take advantage of Donghuang Qixing? Who gave you the confidence? With your plagiarized game that's just trying to make money? And you still dare to buy trending topics for marketing? Just this kind of disrespectful attitude towards your seniors deserves to be criticized!"

547 upvotes, 78 comments.

Xu Zheqing broke out in a sweat, quickly closed the page, and said to Qin Sulan with an embarrassed smile:

"I was nervous, so I browsed Zhihu."

Qin Sulan sat down in her seat and asked, "Where is this topic ranked on the trending list right now?"

“7th, I just saw it was 7th, wait a minute, let me check again…” After a while, Xu Zheqing looked up and whispered, “4th.”

"Ugh……"

Qin Sulan pressed her forehead and sighed deeply.

The reason for this question on Zhihu is actually as follows:

Previously, an employee of the company was discussing Donghuang Qixing's new game on an internal forum, saying that their game was actually less difficult to develop than Genshin Impact.

For employees of Beichen Company, this statement is common knowledge.

Judging from the PV alone, the game developed by Donghuang Qixing doesn't seem very difficult, and it's clearly a scam.

The development of Genshin Impact can be described as a miracle. In an era where real-time combat can be a major selling point for mobile games, this game was able to achieve a seamless open world with a full map on mainstream mobile phones.

The generational gap between the two is as obvious as that between a crossbow and a machine gun, so it's not surprising that employees at Beichen Company have this idea.

As a result, these words somehow got leaked and were screenshotted and spread to various forums.

As a result, the incident went viral overnight and was criticized by the entire internet.

All of this is because the common knowledge that "Original Demon is stronger than Otherworld" is common knowledge within Beichen Company, but players do not think so.

From the player's perspective, Beichen is an unknown company with no games and no loyal fans.

Donghuang Qixing, on the other hand, is a "senior" in the industry, a big brother, with countless fans.

Therefore, the remarks made by Beichen employees are malicious attempts to piggyback on Donghuang Qixing's popularity, showing a lack of awareness of their own limitations.

Some players also discovered that Beichen's previous game was "Sheep and the Sheep," a notorious game that many players still remember, which quickly tarnished their impression of Beichen.

Genshin Impact previously underwent three closed beta tests, which received excellent data and positive player feedback. However, the problem was that the number of participants was too small, with only tens of thousands of players participating.

Even if some of these tens of thousands of people speak up for Beichen, they will soon be drowned out by a sea of ​​insults.

As a result, a bizarre situation arose across the entire internet: not a single person spoke up for Beichen; everyone was criticizing him.

After this incident, the employee who caused the trouble almost became depressed.

At this critical juncture, with the public beta just around the corner, causing such a mess would put immense pressure on anyone.

If this pace ruins "Genshin Impact" and affects the game's revenue, then he will have to take a huge blame.

However, the boss, Chen Ya, seemed to take this matter completely unimportant.

His exact words were, "If people are having a bad day in life, let them rant and rave. We'll see what happens when the boomerang comes back to haunt us."

Although she didn't understand what he meant, Qin Sulan felt a little better.

Although Chen Ya seems carefree and irresponsible every day, he can always inspire others to be confident in things he is confident in as well.

However, because of this incident, Chen Ya revised the company's confidentiality agreement again, making the standards even stricter.

In short: employees are not allowed to go online, cannot express their opinions online, and cannot use personal accounts to express their opinions.

If someone knows you in real life, your account can no longer post any comments, including on your Moments or WeChat Moments; even these private spaces are no exception.

Because of the example set by the guy before, everyone complied with the rules, even though they were unbearably strict.

Because now everyone understands that Beichen Company has become the target of public criticism. Anyone who reveals their identity online will be met with insults and abuse.

Preventing people from expressing their opinions online is also a way of protecting them.

Everyone in the company must strictly adhere to confidentiality requirements.

Except for one person...

"Good morning!"

A familiar voice suddenly came from behind, and Xu Zheqing, who had just been frowning, suddenly started grinning.

"Good morning, Ayane, my goddess!"

Qin Sulan turned around and saw Lu Keke.

Seeing the energetic and lively Lu Keke, Qin Sulan's mood improved slightly.

She had a stereotype about internet celebrities and thought that Lu Keke would be a pretentious person who would act like a diva.

Surprisingly, she got along well with everyone.

By the way, the only person who doesn't have to abide by the confidentiality rules is Lu Keke.

Her contract was different from everyone else's. Strictly speaking, she wasn't a true Beichen native; she was just there to participate in a project as a voice-over director.

Her main job is still running her own voice acting studio.

"What are you all discussing? Why do you all look so angry?" Lu Keke asked curiously.

Xu Zheqing quickly replied, "We were just saying that our game keeps getting hacked online, and we're really worried about it."

Lu Keke frowned slightly and said, "Indeed, I've seen it too. Those people are really bored. Where does all this hatred come from for a game that hasn't even been released yet? They want to kill us."

“Yeah,” Xu Zheqing chimed in with a complaint.

"They probably took money," Lu Keke said, her eyes darting around.

“Yes!” Xu Zheqing echoed.

"What's that?" Lu Keke asked, pointing to the direction of the newly erected television set.

"It's used to display our game's public beta data. It was arranged by President Luan to put more pressure on us," Xu Zheqing gave the same answer.

The television has been set up and is ready to be turned on.

On the television screen, a rather rudimentary-looking table appeared.

The table has only two columns and three rows, from top to bottom:

Number of registered players.

Number of active players.