Ling Cheng had been working all night, and at eight in the morning he groggily crawled out of bed.
“A Chen, you’re up that early?” An Xin, who had also been up until the wee hours, was somehow unaffected. She had already gotten up early and made breakfast.
“Yeah, since I didn’t take a leave of absence, I still have to go to class.” Last night Ling Cheng had resolved to keep his distance from women, but An Xin’s little tricks had made him surrender.
“Then I’ll go with you.” An Xin brought the prepared breakfast to the table and hung her apron on the door as she passed.
“Okay~” After saying this, Ling Cheng sat at the table in his pajamas, completely lacking motivation.
“Come on, A Chen, go wash up first. Only after you obediently wash up can you eat.”
An Xin watched the listless Ling Cheng with growing satisfaction, though she worried that she might have overdosed the medicine.
But—but—but! Seeing Ling Cheng turn away, a hint of madness flickered in An Xin’s eyes. ‘As long as A Chen likes me more and more, as long as he can’t leave me, that’s enough.’
‘I love you the most, A Chen!’
…
“Ling Cheng, did you two really get together? You’re still stuck together like glue.” When Lao Yang saw his buddy return, he wanted to drag him into a game of Golden Shovel.
That’s how it is between buddies. When you’re not around, they don’t message you, but the moment you’re back, they’ll enthusiastically seek you out just like before.
But Ling Cheng, that “lust-over-loyalty” guy, as soon as he entered the classroom, actually lay down again in An Xin’s arms and went back to sleep.
“Mm.” Ling Cheng, too sleepy to function, barely opened his eyes at his good friend’s words. “We’re together. This is my girlfriend—An Xin.”
“Haha, I knew it—” Lao Yang stopped mid-sentence. “What? Girlfriend?”
The other close male friends turned their heads in unison. Even the champion selection in Golden Shovel no longer seemed urgent. You could skip the Guinsoo’s Rageblade, but you had to eat your buddy’s gossip.
“An Xin is really cute, so I confessed to her.” After saying this briefly, Ling Cheng drifted back to sleep in An Xin’s arms.
“A Chen!” When An Xin heard Ling Cheng announce it so openly, her mind went blank. Her whole body turned red, like a freshly steamed shrimp.
Though she was very embarrassed, she only held Ling Cheng tighter.
Ling Cheng felt An Xin’s warmth and even leaned closer into her. He felt like he’d been getting more and more dependent on An Xin lately.
“Damn it!” The group of buddies saw Ling Cheng openly flaunting his relationship in public and gnashed their teeth in fury.
“Brothers, there’s a patch of wasteland behind the Zhiyuan Building…”
“Alright, alright. You bring the shovel, I’ll find a hoe.”
“Great idea. I still have two bondage ropes hidden in my dorm room. They’ll come in handy.”
“Not cool, bro. What were you planning to do with ropes like that?”
The college brotherhood between them rivaled the friendship around Iori, the protagonist of Grand Blue Dreaming.
They joked around, but in the end, seeing the two of them actually together, they could only offer their blessings.
But this atmosphere of happiness was about to melt these brothers who had been single for over twenty years. Rats couldn’t bear to look at such happiness.
Completely oblivious to everything, Ling Cheng slept steadily in An Xin’s arms. Meanwhile, Yun Ziyu was carrying out tasks with urgency back at the company.
After yesterday’s meeting ended, Yun Ziyu had gone home, pulled an all-nighter, and finished the proposal. Though exhausted, she surprisingly felt full of motivation.
“The copy team should finish the text within two days. The operations team can reactivate the video site accounts. We should still have a few hundred thousand followers, right?”
After drinking the coffee and eating the bread provided by the company, Yun Ziyu began organizing everyone’s work.
The bread and coffee had been reinstated after Ling Cheng took over. The company wasn’t that big anyway, and providing these cost only a few thousand yuan a month, but it drastically boosted morale.
Besides, you couldn’t expect the workhorses to plow the fields and also find the whip to whip themselves, could you?
“But we don’t have any material yet…” The employee in charge of account operations scratched his head. Normally they waited until the programs and copy were mostly done before releasing previews and spoiler videos.
Besides, since the company had been starved of resources earlier, the related videos had been paused for a year. Even if they posted now, probably no one would watch.
“Reactivating the account now is to build hype for later. To tell people in advance that we’re still alive.” Though exhausted, Yun Ziyu patiently explained to the subordinates who didn’t understand.
With the game’s operation starved of resources and video updates halted, the original 400,000-plus followers had dropped to just over 200,000.
The last video’s views were a pitiful four digits, with only around 20 comments.
“That won’t work. Even if we build hype in advance, it’d be lucky to get 100,000 views when we announce later. A large-scale cross-platform promotion isn’t realistic either.”
Chief Operator Lao Song chimed in. He had originally been in charge of the account’s operations.
“But there doesn’t seem to be a better plan right now…”
“My idea is to go all out!” Chief Operator Lao Song, though approaching middle age, still had a sharp grasp of internet thinking.
“First, we can start a livestream. Then we drop some hot takes—like how stingy the welfare in current mobile games is, how players have to grind tons of quests…”
“We directly take the player’s side and say: This isn’t game welfare; this is the fruit of my labor! Then we announce our welfare system as a comparison.”
Unconsciously, even Chief Operator Lao Song began to see this shutdown as an opportunity—an opportunity to prove his worth.
The heart that had been suppressed by the corporate world for so long was about to explode today, as if to tell the world: No one understands marketing better than me.
“It might work, but we lack some initial attention. Can it really spread?”
Bian Lian Ge, who wasn’t making Q-version chibis for the new characters properly, also came over to watch the excitement.
“That’s a good point. Marketing has a very important concept: promotion. It’s not enough to just have an interesting product—our welfare system—and a channel to speak through—our accounts and livestream. That’s still not enough!”
As an operations veteran who graduated from Shanghai University of Finance, Lao Song couldn’t help lifting his chin slightly when he got to this part. He combed his hair back with his hand, striking a pose of arrogance.
“Our promotion will be through clips—some people call them marketing accounts. We can invest money to find people who clip well, and through this kind of controversial marketing, we can stir up the topic.”
“Good. That can save a lot of promotional funds, and the effect should be decent.” After hearing Chief Operator Lao Song’s plan, Yun Ziyu nodded in agreement.
Then she rushed off to other workstations to coordinate tasks…
After a long while, when lunch break came, Yun Ziyu finally had a chance to catch her breath and drink some water.
While drinking, she couldn’t help thinking: President Ling should be busy working hard for the company at this moment too, right?
Thinking this, Yun Ziyu couldn’t help but smile. With someone as capable as him who trusted her, walking this path with him, she wouldn’t be alone.
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