Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

March 11th, Friday…

Despite having two dark eye circles, Qiao Liang persisted through Game Designer's storyline. He had only one expression: indignance!

An entire week had passed since Be Quiet was officially released. Yet, until now, not a single copy of the game had been sold.

It was not because the game was rubbish, and no one wanted to play it. In fact, many people had no idea what the game even looked like.

Nobody had managed to solve the riddle and obtain the so-called 'invitation letter'!

Many people had already given up, cursing and swearing as they did so. Obviously, the developing team's willful behavior had severe reverse-psychological effects on gamers, turning many of them away.

Those with bad tempers dissed the developing team for being 'insane'. After that, they stopped updating themselves about the game altogether.

Those with more patience continued to check on forums every day after giving up. They wanted to see how far the bosses had gone with solving the riddle. Their intention was to copy the answers once it was solved.

A minority of gamers were truly hardcore. They, like Qiao Liang, were still trying to find the answer to the next step in the riddle, not being able to rest or sleep until they did so.

During this period, they've all exhausted different methods.

They had filled all sorts of content into the two input fields. However, the webpage still showed no response.

Thus, everyone guessed that the next message was hidden in another game.

As Tengda Games' classic piece of work, countless people had completed Repent and be Saved many times. However, nobody managed to find a single clue.

A few bosses even found out that Tengda was constructing a haunted house named 'Thriller Hostel' and went down to the construction site to search for clues.

In the end, the person-in-charge—whose surname was Chen—chased them out in frustration. He also told them that the project was not even done, and it could not have been a part of the riddle.

After playing all the other games and ensuring that he could not find anything from them, Qiao Liang turned to The Lonely Desert Road and Game Designer once again.

All of a sudden, Qiao Liang realized something. Given what he knew about Boss Pei, it seemed that it was possible for him to hide even more clues in those two games!

Who said that each game could only contain one clue?

Wouldn't players be missing things right under their noses if they stopped playing a game just because they found one clue inside?

What's more, both of Boss Pei's codes were to be solved in similar manners. Thus, whether time was tight or Boss Pei was trying to make gamers' lives easier, the riddle was probably not as difficult as they thought.

That meant that Boss Pei probably asked his programmer to only edit two games in the interest of time. What's more, only the simplest parts had been edited!

With that, Qiao Liang entered The Lonely Desert Road once again.

This time, he did not find any new clues. However, he noticed one thing: instead of taking three hours to collect all the alphabets, much less time was needed now!

Qiao Liang's head began to hurt immediately.

Isn't this unfair to the f*cking forerunner?! I suffered and drove for three hours, and yet other people can now find all the alphabets in just one hour?

His heart hurt so bad that he could not help but hug himself. However, on further thought, he realized something more important.

Less time was needed to collect all the clues now. That meant that once he found the clue, Boss Pei had asked his programmer to edit the game again.

Why?

The clue had already been found. Others would not have to enter The Lonely Desert Road to drive again. Why did Boss Pei ask the programmers to edit the game?

"Could it be…

"Is Boss Pei hinting that one has to find the clues on his own for it to count?"

A realization dawned on Qiao Liang, and he quickly opened Game Designer.

He had once reached the ending where he lost all his hard-earned money. However, the game had only been released a while ago, April last year.

Strictly speaking, Qiao Liang had reached the ending before, but he had not found the clue on his own!

Qiao Liang was already very familiar with every choice and ending in Game Designer. He ran through it quickly, without having to think. In ten minutes, he reached the first choice for the ending where he would lose all his hard-earned money.

After that, he found the string of clues made up of the numbers '0', '1', and '2'. The code had already been cracked—it was the double pinyin for 'Search 'Thriller Hostel' '.

"What's next?"

Nothing surprising happened.

Qiao Liang steered his character in the game until he reached the last stage of the 'losing everything' ending. He started searching for something without knowing what it was that he was looking for.

All of a sudden, he noticed a report on the wall.

In the original ending, the report criticized the failed game designer. Its title had been 'You can only truly master knowledge if you personally put it to practice'.

The report had been there from the beginning, criticizing the failed designer (or the player) for having high hopes but low capabilities. He could give a lot of guidance while playing others' games and yet failed when he had tried to design his own.

The title was still the same now, but Qiao Liang had sharply noticed that the font in the title was different from the fonts of all the other titles. Obviously, it had been changed!

However, most players would stop playing the game once they obtained the earlier clue. Even if they got to this stage by chance, they would not have been searching for another clue. Naturally, they would not have noticed this title.

Qiao Liang quickly exited the game and entered the title into the input fields on TPDb's website.

Indeed, there was no response.

After pondering for a moment, Qiao Liang typed his Tengda account username and password into the input fields and then hit 'enter'.

This time, the webpage changed!

Qiao Liang realized that he had guessed correctly!

They only had to type two simple things into the input field: their username and password. There was nothing extraordinary!

However, they had to personally find the first clue in The Lonely Desert Road and the second clue in the 'losing everything' ending of Game Designer before typing their username and password into the input fields!

What's more, they could only do this after Be Quiet was released.

Pei Qian had especially hidden a subtle hint in the final stage of the 'losing everything' ending. He had changed the font of the words 'You can only truly master knowledge if you personally put it to practice' to hint to gamers that they had to find the two clues on their own to solve the riddle.

Many people could not guess it because they had misunderstood the rules of the game. They didn't think they had to look for the clues themselves since everyone else had already found them. Thus, no one had fulfilled both criteria.

The webpage didn't react after they entered their Tengda account username and password.

That formed a vicious cycle. Everyone began to think that their usernames and passwords could not have been the answers to the input fields. As time went by, people stopped trying!

Qiao Liang could not help but feel proud.

It was a good thing that he had played The Lonely Desert Road again and realized the change. That was how he had guessed Boss Pei's intentions!

Otherwise, he would not have reached the 'losing everything' ending of Game Designer again, much less tried entering his Tengda account username and password in TPDb's website once more.

Boss Pei had indeed managed to stump so many gamers by only editing the two simplest games and TPDb's website.

Still… his close friend, Teacher Qiao, had cracked the code!

Qiao Liang became arrogant.

At that moment, the input fields on the black web page disappeared. Instead, a pale invitation letter appeared. There were lines of words written in blood that seemed to be dripping from the paper.

"Congratulations. You are the first lucky one to obtain this invitation letter.

"You've already proven your intelligence and perseverance. You are now good enough to become food for the hostel.

"If you, the smart and delicious human, are prepared to sacrifice yourself to Thriller Hostel now, just do as I say:

"First, find a random camera.

"Second, use your account and password to enter the game. Enter this series of codes where the bloody handprint is.

"We've prepared a very interesting game for you…"

There was a code made up of a string of random English alphabets and numbers at the bottom of the letter.

Qiao Liang already had a camera, but he did not use it often. At once, he dusted it off and clipped it onto his computer's monitor, making sure that it was pointing at him.

Then, he opened Be Quiet and clicked on the bloody handprint.

There had been no response when he had clicked it before, but an input field appeared now. Qiao Liang quickly typed the code.

He had not thought about sharing the news with other gamers yet because he wanted to become Be Quiet's first player.

His screen went black as if he had just entered a small program. There was a mirror on the screen, which reflected Qiao Liang's own face.

The game had programmed the camera image to look as if it were a reflection in the mirror. That made Qiao Liang feel like the screen was a window, through which he was looking in the mirror.

However, the mirror looked dusty and blurry. It was frightening.

On one hand, it was because Qiao Liang's camera was blurred to begin with. On the other hand, the game's programmer had also increased the blurriness of the camera's image.

There was a line of words written in blood beside the mirror: 'Stare at the blood print on the mirror'.

There was a dotted frame on the mirror, outlining the silhouette of a face. The game seemed to be directing Qiao Liang to adjust his camera so that his face fitted within the outline.

Qiao Liang had placed his camera on top of his monitor before. He adjusted it downwards and brought himself closer to the monitor, and then the dotted frame on the mirror disappeared.

At that moment, a blood print on the mirror began to spread. Qiao Liang stared at it as it spread continuously, covering most of the mirror before it finally stopped.

After that, the blood print disappeared. The line of words written in blood changed. "Keep facing yourself in the mirror. No matter what happens, do not look away."

"Does it mean to 'keep staring' at myself?"

Qiao Liang stared at his own face in the mirror and realized a subtle glow appeared around the place at which he was staring. The glow followed wherever his eyes looked.

"Eye-tracking?"

This was surprising and unexpected to Qiao Liang.

Eye-tracking was not considered high-end technology. In fact, it had been in the market two years ago. The camera could detect the muscles around the eyes and the pupils, to roughly estimate the spot on the screen that the eyes were focused on.

Many applications on the internet were also making use of eye-tracking.

Of course, the technology was not as ideal as one would hope. First, the user had to be front-facing the camera. Second, the system had to collect a bunch of data points. Obviously, that was what the game had been doing while Qiao Liang's eyes followed the blood print around the mirror.

The entire process was quite complicated, but Boss Pei's simple packaging made everything feel more strange and immersive.

Third, eye tracking had poor precision. It could only roughly detect the general direction in which one's eyes were looking. There was no way to make it more precise. Still, using it to conduct this test seemed sufficient.

Qiao Liang focused on his own face in the mirror. A few seconds later, he realized something was wrong.

The corner of a black shirt suddenly appeared in the bottom-right corner of the mirror. There was also a dark red blood print on top!