On the internet, everywhere you went you’d find publicity for Ruifang’s new game. Putting so much effort at this critical time clearly showed that they wanted to steal the limelight from Jiacheng. Yet Jiacheng, who originally was supposed to release an announcement on their new game, only had radio silence. No one knew what kind of crisis had occurred. All sorts of gossip and news milled about, kicking up a buzz that boosted Jiacheng to trend as a hot topic for a few days.
Sitting in the office, Tu Nan was nearly wanted to applaud. “What a wonderful strategy!” Even though the company didn’t lack for money, being able to go viral for a few days straight without spending a cent, and not even having to worry about losing your audience was practically the best thing ever.
Following Cheng Jun’s directions, he made a post on Weibo on the afternoon of the third day, saying he’d see everyone at 9 o’clock.
Saturday night just happened to be the time when online traffic was at its peak. Once the post was published, it was rapidly forwarded by a crazy number of users. Everyone was waiting for the concept art of Jiacheng’s new game. They wanted to see whether the rumors were really true, that Jiacheng had dawdled and didn’t want to publish anything because their concepts were too close to Ruifang’s.
In any case, it was impossible to change anything in only 3 days.
Everyone was waiting expectantly for Jiacheng to make a fool of themselves.
Contrary to expectations, Ruifang fanned the flames by hypocritically saying that good concepts were all unique from one another. Jiacheng had always been widely known for its unique art style, so how could they have any overlaps with them? That was basically a theory that didn’t hold water.
Under these expectations, Jiacheng, who securely occupied the #1 trending spot, finally released the concept art and trailer at 9pm on the dot.
<The Warrior’s Journey>
The moment the trailer video began, viewers were hit with the scene of a thick snowfall that covered the sky. A snowy country was enveloped in ice and snow without a single footprint. As a jackdaw flitted into the air with a rustle of its wings, the sound of a clear and cold flute suddenly rose. It’s light and eerie tone made the listener tremble.
Slowly flying through the blizzard of snow, the black jackdaw suddenly stopped in the air. In the next instant, it fell into the snow like a withered leaf, lifeless.
The lens of the camera rose up from the ground. There were no traces left on the snow, yet at some point in time a figure had passed right by. Now, you could see its silhouette. Amidst the ice and snow, he wore a black robe made from rough flaxen cloth. At his waist hung a rusty sword, and atop the bamboo hat was a layer of snow. It was hard to make out his features, but he looked ordinary, and maybe even a little frail and thin.
In the trail behind his path, there wasn’t a single trace of a footprint.
From this scene, the legendary tales of the jianghu began to unfold.
……
The video was only a little over 2 minutes, so it wasn’t long before it concluded. All the netizens were stunned.
First, they were silent for a bit. Then in the next second, the number of comments and forwards exploded many times over. The enthusiasm even shocked Jiacheng’s team.
“Wtf!!! What a godly style!”
“My god, it looks too good Aahhhhhhh!”
“When will it be released??? I’m going to cry!!!”
“As expected, Jiacheng didn’t disappoint me this time! What a powerful trailer, 10/10!”
The discussion was full of cries and exclamations. It wasn’t long before Jiacheng occupied half of the top ten hottest topics, all of them related to the game.
The top trending topic was #KneelingToBegDaddyJiachengToOpenServers!
On one side, there were those praising Jiacheng’s new game for being even more original than their previous works. The backgrounds were extremely detailed. On the other side, everyone was enthusiastically discussing who the concept artists for this were. Their work was godly!
Tu Nan sent a voice message to Ruan Jiu Jiu. His tone was brisk yet excited. “Sister-in-law you’re trending!”
Ruan Jiu Jiu: “…” Why did this sound so weird.
Ruifang’s upper-level executives were still waiting for Jiacheng to fail. They waited until Lin Li saw the overwhelming supportive discussion online. His expression suddenly changed. Trembling, he called the vice president. “Sir, quickly take a look! Something seems wrong!”
The vice president was still in the middle of cooing and flirting with the lover in his arms, waiting for tonight’s victory party. He coaxed his lover, telling her how many apartments he’d buy her. Now, receiving Lin Li’s call, his heart thumped and he instantly sank deeply into his thoughts.
The vice president pushed away his lover and immediately turned on his phone.
A sea of favorable reviews appeared before his eyes, making him inwardly curse that things weren’t good.
Jiacheng released two posts on Weibo. One had the concept art and designs, and the other was the first teaser trailer. Trembling, he pressed a finger on the post with the concept art. Although it might be possible to say the first image had faint similarities, the following images were totally different. It wasn’t only the character designs, it was also the background art and clothing style. Everything was clearly a notch higher in quality than the ones Ruan Jiu Jiu had given them. They were totally different!
Damn it!
With a pale, drawn face, he gritted his teeth and tapped on the trailer. He didn’t even watch half of it before being so pissed that he couldn’t catch his breath. His face was bright red. From behind him his lover, with her clothes barely covering her body, charmingly scooted over and hugged the vice president. “For our love nest let’s buy…”
“Buy what shit! My damn money is all gone and you’re still going on about houses??!!”
The vice president flew into a rage. He ruthlessly pointed at his lover and started to hurl abuses at her. “Make your good friend come over, what’s she called? Xu Bi Ying?! I want you two to pay me back! Pay me back!”
Before he could exhaust his fury, the vice president remembered something. It was as if a bucket of ice water poured over his head, soaking through him until even his heart chilled.
Now, he completely understood.
That woman called Ruan Jiu Jiu wasn’t a turncoat, she was Jiacheng’s dog!
Before he had time to think of finding Ruan Jiu Jiu for revenge, he thought of another thing was even more important.
Wait, there were still the influencer accounts they had bought. They hadn’t canceled them yet!
The influencer accounts didn’t receive instructions to cancel the plan, so they assumed that Ruifang was still holding back some explosive news. One by one, using the prior agreed-upon format, they uploaded screenshots of Jiacheng’s concept art with Ruifang’s concept art and made posts on Weibo saying they were similar.
The idea at the heart of the posts all had the same meaning. Were Jiacheng’s designs copying Ruifang’s? Why did they feel like Ruifang’s were a bit better?
Originally, no one had thought about Ruifang. Everyone was still partying over at Jiacheng’s base. Seeing the hot topic being pushed by the influencer accounts, the netizens all started to gather around to roast them.
“Are you guys insane? You still want to put on a show of being victimized? In your hearts, you guys don’t have an iota of awareness of who’s better and who’s worse?”
“Victim-scamming dogs, even trying to scam Jiacheng. Disgusting, I won’t play a single one of your trash games!”
“Are these influencers blind?”
“Wow the hot search Ruifang bought really was worthless.”
“They’re crazy enough to put pictures of the two company’s concept art together. Like, please. Are you sure you’re not looking for public condemnation?
“Which of Ruifang’s dumbass team members was rich enough to buy this trending topic? I’m placing an order of 10 for Jiacheng!”
The strength of the netizens’ ridicule quickly pushed this search topic onto trending. In the top ten hot searches, besides those related to Jiacheng’s game, there were also “Ruifang’s is playing the victim again”, “It’s everyone’s duty to boycott Ruifang’s game”, etc…
Hearing the news, the vice president’s face turned green. He immediately instructed his secretary to order the marketing accounts to cancel the hot search. One after the other, the marketing accounts were also deleting their related posts. The moment they deleted them, their movements were even more obvious and the netizens mocked them even more vigorously. They even made a variety of sticker pack memes for Ruifang, and ran over to the comment section under Ruifang’s official announcement to assemble energetically.
Ruifang immediately called all their senior level executives for an emergency meeting.
Originally, he had already made preparations for the banquet to celebrate his accomplishments. Vice president Nangong showed up wearing his specially made suit. He was seen by the chairman, who was so infuriated that he almost beat this bastard to death right then and there.
“Are you here for a wedding? Who let you dress so well?”
Faced with everyone else’s either derisive or cold stares, he felt so awkward he was at loss for words. The authority he usually had in front of his subordinates and mistress was nowhere to be seen. Embarrassed, he sat down in his usual spot.
Thanks to his actions, there was a possibility that the company would face serious damage.
Originally, he planned to use the money won by a lawsuit against Jiacheng to make up his debts. Now things were even worse. He didn’t get a single cent, and that money-grubbing bitch didn’t even return the money!
The vice president was so mad he almost dropped dead.
After enduring a round of abuse, he trooped back beaten down to order his secretary to contact Tu Nan. Instead, he was told that the other was busy and didn’t have the time to take his call.
Wasn’t he being looked down on?!
Vice president Nangong directly yanked over the phone. Putting it to his ear, he furiously raged, “That woman called Ruan Jiu Jiu embezzled ten million out of me! Since your company has the guts to sabotage me, I’ll sue her, I’ll sue your company!”
On the other side of the call, the young secretary responded extremely warmly, “Excellent. Sir, your complaint has been recorded, we’ll definitely resolve it when we have the time. Have a great day!”
Clatter! She hung up.
“…”
On their side, Jiacheng’s public relations department was practically about to laugh themselves to death. They stared blankly as the topic of Jiacheng continued to soar without stopping. In the end, they became the first topic to be suppressed by Weibo that wasn’t related to celebrity gossip.
Ruan Jiu Jiu sat in the office, scrolling through messages one by one. Quite a lot of popular verified users were praising the design of the animation this time for being more exquisite than before. Seeing that their compliments were on the verge of sending the artist up to the heavens, Ruan Jiu Jiu excitedly ran over to Cheng Jun’s room and shook her phone in front of him.
“Look, look, it’s getting a lot of praise!”
Cheng Jun had just sent a reply to Tu Nan. He lifted his head and immediately saw that Ruan Jiu Jiu’s cheeks were a bit flushed because of her excitement. Her eyes shone with a rarely-seen light. Holding her phone, she came close and put a hand on his shoulder. The distance between them immediately shortened.
Reflected in the screen were two people’s faces squeezed close together.
He subconsciously straightened his posture, feeling that he felt a bit stiff.
It was only on the outside that he still looked as calm and serene as ever.
Author’s Note:
Ruan Jiu Jiu: I’m so happy!
Cheng Jun: Me too.
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