Chapter 1 The Arrangement

Pei Qian flipped through his notebook, finally getting the company's affairs mostly sorted out.

Things were a tangled mess, but basically, everything had been arranged. The heads of each department would definitely be busy for the next period, but President Pei could relax for a little while.

After leaning back in his office chair to rest for a moment, Pei Qian decided to go online and see if there were any suitable houses.

It was now 2010, and house prices were already showing signs of rising, but in Pei Qian's eyes, these prices really weren't that high.

The average price of houses in both the Imperial Capital and the Magic City was only around 25,000 yuan per square meter, and school district houses in the Imperial Capital were about 38,000.

Most people thought these were already sky-high prices, but Pei Qian knew in his heart that they really weren't high.

Jingzhou City was the provincial capital, and it could be considered a good second-tier city, with an average price of about 13,000 yuan per square meter.

The better areas in the city center cost about 15,000 or 16,000 yuan per square meter, but Pei Qian didn't need to buy a house in the city center.

Currently, high-speed rail stations were under construction throughout the country, and a large number of them would be completed and put into use by the middle of next year.

Pei Qian was planning to buy this house for his parents, and currently, the social connections of the two elders were mainly in a small county town south of Jingzhou. Coincidentally, Jingzhou's high-speed rail station, namely Jingzhou South Station, was also in the south, not far from the small county town.

Pei Qian figured that he would just buy this house near Jingzhou South Station, not far from where his parents worked, and not far from his parents' original colleagues.

Once the high-speed rail station opened, it would also be more convenient to take the high-speed rail to other cities.

Moreover, according to established experience, the economy around Jingzhou South Station would definitely develop sooner or later, and supporting facilities would catch up sooner or later.

Besides, house prices hadn't risen yet.

Pei Qian looked, and the current prices of several properties near South Station were only about 11,000 or 12,000 yuan per square meter.

At this price, 1.8 million yuan was enough to buy a 150-square-meter house in full.

For the two elders, it would definitely be more than enough.

As for the house, Pei Qian mainly valued its residential attributes.

Because the changes in this world were too great, Pei Qian couldn't be 100% sure that the trend of house prices would be the same as in his memory.

It wasn't that Pei Qian hadn't thought about investing this 1.8 million yuan in some areas that might make money, but the changes in this world were too great and completely different from what he remembered.

If something unexpected happened and he lost everything, who could Pei Qian complain to? The system? That would probably be self-inflicted humiliation.

So, after thinking about it, he decided not to do those things and it was better to honestly shear the system's wool.

It was good to improve the basic living conditions for himself and his parents by shearing the wool.

Pei Qian spent half the day online, saved some information about new properties, but didn't make a decision right away.

He didn't bother Assistant Xin or other employees with this matter, after all, this was his private matter and had nothing to do with the company's business.

Asking employees to help with personal matters was quite an inconsiderate behavior.

Besides, Pei Qian wasn't that busy himself, only working three or four hours a day. If he didn't do this, he would just be watching dramas.

It was more reassuring to see the house for himself.

Pei Qian didn't have any plans to buy a house for himself for the time being.

Mainly, he was still looking forward to figuring out how to get some welfare from the system.

As the company grew larger, the system allowed Pei Qian to provide more and more benefits to his employees.

For example, before, he had to raise employees' salaries in waves, and there were also limits to various subsidies and mandatory reimbursements.

As Tenda's efficiency became better and its scale grew larger, the amount of various subsidies slowly increased.

As early as June of this year, Pei Qian had already arranged for each employee to receive a housing subsidy of 1,000 yuan, and with a little extra from the employees themselves, they could rent a very good house in Jingzhou.

But Pei Qian certainly couldn't let it go at that.

As Tenda continued to develop, the benefits could definitely be increased again, and employee dormitories could be built sooner or later.

Because many large companies had employee dormitories, this wasn't an excessive benefit.

Although it was still a little unnecessary to build employee dormitories for the current Tenda, what about in a year or two?

As long as the system loosened its grip, Pei Qian would definitely get it done immediately.

By then, the employees would all be happily arranged to move in.

Then President Pei would keep the largest and most spacious room for himself, how wonderful.

Thinking of this, Pei Qian felt a little melancholy.

It was hard to say whether the employees were taking advantage of his benefits, or whether he was taking advantage of the employees' benefits.

Or were the employees and President Pei taking advantage of each other, forming a perpetual motion machine?

In short, buying a house for himself wasn't urgent.

Pei Qian was quite comfortable living in this two-bedroom apartment now, and it was very convenient for him to go to school, the company, and Moyu Internet Cafe. This place was just for living, and there was no need to get a luxury house.

Just as Pei Qian was considering this, he received a message on his phone from Ye Zhizhou.

"President Pei, we have a general direction for the horror game. When do you have time to finalize it?"

Pei Qian looked at his watch. It was a bit late today, almost five o'clock, time to get off work.

He was about to say tomorrow, but then he saw that tomorrow was Saturday.

Pei Qian thought for a while and replied, "Monday morning."

...

For the two days of the weekend, Pei Qian took a good rest and healed his soul, which had been severely damaged by Old Ma.

He also went to see some houses himself and tentatively selected two or three residential areas near Jingzhou South Station, but he still needed to pick more and study the details such as geographical location, unit type, and whether the developer was reliable.

...

On Monday morning, Pei Qian arrived at Shang Yang Games.

As soon as he walked in, he felt that the atmosphere was a bit strange.

Why were the curtains drawn during the day?

The entire office area was dark, with only the dim light from the monitors, and the heads of people wearing headphones in front of the monitors, not moving at all.

This scene was a bit unspeakably weird.

Pei Qian almost thought he had walked into the wrong place, arriving at the scene of a large-scale mysterious ritual.

Coincidentally, Hao Qiong's workstation was not far from the door. Pei Qian noticed that this somewhat simple and honest young man was also concentrating on the screen, his shoulders slightly shrugged, carefully moving the joystick of the gamepad.

Pei Qian gently patted him on the shoulder: "Hey, Ye..."

He wanted to ask where Ye Zhizhou was.

However, before he could finish his question, Hao Qiong had already jumped up from his seat with a "whoosh."

"Ah!!!"

"Ah!!"

"Ahhhhhhhhh!"

The office area instantly became a scene of wailing and screaming, with screams rising and falling, spreading out from Hao Qiong as the center.

Pei Qian was stunned.

He almost thought his employees had encountered some misfortune.

Soon, a few curses came from nearby.

"Damn, who's screaming again!"

"Didn't we agree that whoever screams again is a dog?"

"You guys calm down, if you keep shouting, I won't be able to play..."

Hao Qiong was also very aggrieved: "It's not my fault, I was playing when someone suddenly patted me on the shoulder, I... ah? President Pei, hello President Pei!"

The others also took off their headphones and looked over.

Pei Qian originally just thought it was a bit strange, but now seeing this scene, his spine went cold.

In the pitch-black room, dozens of monitors were lit, emitting a faint blue light.

In front of each monitor was a dark head, and these heads were originally looking at the screen, but as soon as they heard the words "President Pei," they all turned around at the same time...

It was too scary!

Pei Qian quickly fumbled to turn on the lights next to him.

Once the lights came on, this eerie atmosphere finally disappeared.

"What are you guys doing... drawing the curtains in the middle of the day..." Pei Qian was very speechless.

Hao Qiong realized that he had scared President Pei, and was a little embarrassed. He quickly explained, "Sorry, President Pei, Director Lin asked us to turn off the lights and play horror games to find the feeling."

Pei Qian: "...There's no need to be so dedicated, right."

Hao Qiong scratched his head and smiled a bit simple and honest: "No way, none of us have experience making horror games. Director Lin said that this mission cannot be lost, and we must do our best."

Pei Qian felt inexplicably sorry for these people.

What if they scared themselves half to death before they could even make a horror game?

Hao Qiong continued, "Director Lin also said that we must learn from President Pei's spirit of 'to abuse others, first abuse yourself.' President Pei insisted on completing *Turning Back is the Shore*, setting a very good example for us!"

Pei Qian: "..."

Please don't mention *Turning Back is the Shore* again, I don't want to recall the experience of completing that thing at all!

Director Lin's words are a complete misinterpretation of me! All misinterpretations!

But speaking of this, Pei Qian felt even more sympathy for everyone.

"Everyone has worked hard. Everyone will receive an extra thousand yuan this month as compensation for mental distress..."

Amidst the cheers of "Thank you, President Pei," Pei Qian arrived at the conference room.

There was no projector, only a printed copy of the design draft.

From the time Pei Qian decided to have Shang Yang Games make a horror game until now, two weeks had passed. As far as writing a draft was concerned, the time was already more than sufficient.

However, considering that none of the people at Shang Yang Games had experience in making horror games, they must have spent most of these two weeks playing horror games and looking for ideas. The actual time spent writing gameplay and game stories should not be much.

This draft was written very briefly, but Pei Qian glanced at it and saw that the overall direction was correct.

If they were to proceed in this general direction, he wouldn't dare say it would explode, but making a small profit would be no problem.

President Pei came to change this situation.

Ye Zhizhou was obviously quite confident in this draft: "President Pei, let me briefly explain the ideas we've settled on so far!"

"First of all, we plan to make a single-player game with a certain amount of story."

"And the main theme of the game is taken from Eastern ghosts and monsters, because similar themes give people the best sense of horror."

"Finally, we considered not giving players any weapons. Only in this situation of having no ability to resist can we maximize the player's sense of fear."

Pei Qian fell into a brief silence.

These ideas sounded a little too reliable.

Pei Qian even had several successful horror games appear in his mind.

Although horror games were relatively niche, if they became too popular and went viral, they would definitely make a lot of money.

In addition, he had invested 30 million yuan in Shang Yang Games this time, and with this money thrown in, the horror effects would definitely be top-notch.

It would definitely make money.

This won't do!

Pei Qian thought for a while and shook his head slightly: "Too mediocre."

Lin Wan, who had been listening quietly on the side, revealed an "I knew it" expression.

How could President Pei, who was so innovative, accept such a mediocre idea!

Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin quickly took out paper and pens to prepare to record.

Pei Qian looked at these general directions on the draft and directly twisted them.

"Why does a horror game need a story? No story."

"There are too many single-player horror games, let's make an online one."

"Why do we need ghosts and monsters? We must believe in science. There should be no ghosts or monsters in this game. At most, there will be madmen."

"Even more so, there shouldn't be settings such as mutated creatures or vengeful spirits."

"As for the weapon system..."

Speaking of this, Pei Qian hesitated for a moment.

This was really not easy to handle.

If there was no weapon system, it might become like *Outlast*.

If there was a weapon system, it might be like *Resident Evil*.

The former had a strong sense of horror and immersion; the latter, although it was easy to be played as a speedrun or monster-killing game, also had a large number of fans.

Neither of these two approaches could be said to be wrong, and if done well, they could both make money.

Then he could only choose the third way.

"Make a weapon system, but the types should be few and the power should be weak."

"The most powerful weapon can only be a small pistol."

"Okay, let's go according to this general direction."

Pei Qian directly made a compromise, creating something a bit uncoordinated, with a weapon system, but a very trashy one.

After Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin finished recording, they looked at each other.

Well, nothing that had been finalized before was left, it had all been overturned...