Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

"Brother Qian!"

"Brother Qian!"

Pei Qian stirred awake through Ma Yang's repeated calls.

"Sigh, I know that you're naturally excited now that things are getting better since you've put in so much effort for this game. But, don't get overly emotional. It's not good for your body."

"Hurry and calm down! We've succeeded!"

Ma Yang's excitement was displayed entirely through his words.

Pei Qian was exasperated and rolled his eyes in a fit.

Do I look happy?

Do I look excited?

I'm despairing!!

Pei Qian's face was ashen as he forced a smile. "Yeaps, we did it…"

He was perplexed - just where had things gone wrong?

Even though he was in pain, despaired and had no choice but to acknowledge his defeat, Pei Qian had to know why he failed!

How did this game get popular?

Was it because some UP Master had dissed this game again?

But the main point was that the game he created this time round had nothing to diss at!

First, he searched up keywords of Ghost General on Qiandu to check if there were any hints he could rely on.

The review section of the game did not have 'XX's sightseeing group' or any other similar messages.

"Just what was the problem?" Pei Qian was thoroughly stumped.

There were just that many people who knew about this game!

Pei Qian had not done any advertising of it himself.

It was even less possible that Ma Yang was the one who did it. Even if he had wanted to, he would lack the connections to do so.

That left Pei Qian with the people he had interacted with on ESRO's website when he was purchasing the resources and templates.

"Wait a minute. Most of the players who left reviews seemed to have commented on the original arts!"

"Clearly, they were drawn in by the original arts!"

"But, how could they have seen the original arts without seeing the game?"

With a testing attitude, Pei Qian turned on Weibo and searched for Ghost General.

This time round, he got results.

Many famous artists have shared Ghost General's original arts freely!

All of those posts were even shared further within the gaming and animation communities; even some Big V of the tech scene had shared it too!

The number of shares by the average Weibo was equally high as well.

Because of that, Ghost General had popped up on Weibo's hot searches. While it wasn't at the top of the list, the amount of traffic it generated was rather significant too!

Pei Qian was dumbfounded.

Who did it?

Who could have had such an influence to cause this many industry veterans to help promote Ghost General?

Even any average advertising firm or provider would not have been able to do it!

The main point was that most of these artists were famous characters in their circles respectively - these were people with such egos that they may not even accept paid sponsorship deals to advertise!

Following the shares to the root, Pei Qian found the original poster - Ruan Guangjian!

This was Ruan Guangjian's personal account and he only had a couple hundreds of followers. Yet, that post had been shared for thousands of times and the popularity of it was not going down at all!

Even though Pei Qian could not understand how a post by an account that merely had a couple of hundreds of followers could have such an impact, it was evident that everything had stemmed from Ruan Guangjian's promotional post!

He slapped himself on the head. "I'm dead! The problem this time round came from one of us!"

However, he could not figure out why Ruan Guangjian would go through the effort to help him advertise the game.

It didn't make sense at all.

'Isn't ours just an ordinary monetary relationship? I paid you for the original arts and I received the product, that should be that. Why are you going through such effort to help me advertise and promote the game? Do you have nothing else to do?'

'I'm not even giving you any additional money for advertising!'

Pei Qian was thoroughly confounded.

He decided to ask through ESRO's website to find out what exactly was going on.

"You promoted Ghost General on Weibo???"

After a couple of minutes, Ruan Guangjian replied.

"That's right, I got a couple of artist friends to help share it a little. I hadn't expected such an amazing outcome too."

"Boss Pei, you don't have to feel grateful to me. I just felt that it's a waste for a game with this much heart to be buried in the dust!"

"A total investment of 300,000 chucked into the game entirely such that you didn't leave any money for publicity… I really have to say that it's hard to find a creator like you with this much passion!"

"All of my artist friends were moved by your spirit and that was why they were willing to help share."

"Besides, Ghost General truly has way too much conscience and is of good quality. But of course, the great response is also due to my art being decent."

"It all boils down to the fact that a high quality and sincere game such as Ghost General is fated to be popular! I didn't do much for it!"

Pei Qian was completely stunned as he read Ruan Guangjian's reply.

In fact, he did not even know what he should reply!

'It's rare to have creators with as much passion as me?'

'Ghost General is a game with conscience so it's fated to be popular?'

'What in the world is going on?'

'Passion? All I wanted was for the game to lose money!'

'Ghost General is fated to be popular?'

'No! F*ck! How am I supposed to lose money if it gets popular?!'

Pei Qian truly wanted to lambaste Ruan Guangjian.

'Are you too bloody free?!'

'What in the world are you doing this much for? Shouldn't you be enjoying life after taking my money? The game's publicity is none of your business!'

However, Pei Qian could say none of that as he ended up deleting everything he had typed on the keyboard.

The reason for that was because he must not hint or challenge the existence of the system and neither must he cause others to have doubts towards the system.

Like any normal person, Pei Qian's reaction should be an exuberant one!

Ruan Guangjian waited for a long time without any reply from Pei Qian.

He was certain that Boss Pei must have been overjoyed to a point of speechlessness.

Ruan Guangjian then typed. "Boss Pei, you don't have to say anything."

"I advertised the game on my own accord. I wasn't intending on letting you know about this if you had not asked."

"You don't have to feel embarrassed either. After all, if Ghost General gets popular, more people would get to see and know of my art and that would be helpful for my career in the future as well."

"Good luck, Boss Pei! I believe that you'll definitely be able to produce even better games in the future and I hope that we'll be able to work together more!"

Towards Ruan Guangjian's warm words, Pei Qian was completely stumped.

'Work together in the future?'

'No! Never again!'

'You're a bloody veteran acting as a newbie! How am I supposed to lose money if I were to work with you!'

Unable to express any bit of his despair, Pei Qian could only reply with two words.

"Thank you."

While that was his reply, his heart was in fact at odds.

A gratified smile spread across Ruan Guangjian's face as he saw Pei Qian's 'thank you'.

Indeed, this should be the meaning of how the friendship between gentlemen appears indifferent but is pure like water.

It was truly an amazing thing to be able to work with someone as exceptional as Boss Pei!