After the Nerd Marked the Top Omega - Chapter 30.1

While the hired trolls were posting negative reviews, Fang Xu was not sitting idly by.

When the game was first developed, the submission section had a sensitive word review process to prevent certain comments from causing a poor experience for other players. Now that the trolls had increased, they might post all sorts of garbage in the submission section and ruin the game.

Therefore, after Fang Xu finished her call with Yi Yi, she went to the library for an all-nighter, adding a second layer of review mechanism and a new restriction to the submission section: players must have played the game for over two hours before they could submit content.

After perfecting the relevant code, Fang Xu stretched her stiff back and realized the sky outside the window was already faintly light, presenting a tranquil mix of blue, white, and gray.

It wasn’t exam week, so the library was sparsely populated; only a few people could be seen on the entire floor, and it was very quiet.

Fang Xu temporarily canceled her run for the day. After catching two hours of sleep back at her dorm, she rushed off to Pei Corporation.

“Xiao Xu, good morning,” He Ya greeted her.

Fang Xu replied, “Good morning.”

“Didn’t you sleep well last night?”

“I stayed up for a while,” Fang Xu said, sitting down at her desk. “Is it obvious?”

“Your dark circles are quite bad,” He Ya said, holding a cup of coffee and yawning. “But in our line of work, who doesn’t have dark circles?”

The R&D department often had to rush to meet deadlines according to market and company plans; often, as soon as the third generation product was released, discussions for the fourth were already beginning.

“True,” Fang Xu conceded. She was still in decent spirits and wasn’t very sleepy.

During her first two years of university, she had significant financial pressure. Besides attending classes during the day, she also worked part-time, always rushing. Tang Xingxing used to joke that she was never seen except at night. Of course, sometimes she wasn’t even seen at night because Fang Xu would be pulling all-nighters at the library.

“Do you want some coffee?” He Ya yawned again.

Fang Xu chuckled. “No, thanks. I’ll just have some warm water.”

She still hadn’t acquired a taste for coffee and didn’t drink it much.

“Youth is great. We can’t even make it through the morning without coffee.”

After He Ya finished speaking, another colleague objected, “Speak for yourself! I’m still young.”

Jingjing debunked him from the side: “You’ve got goji berries soaking in your glass cup. Try switching to a stainless steel thermos before you call yourself young.”

“This is for health and wellness,” the colleague said, pushing his cup further onto his desk. “But goji berries are really good. Much healthier than coffee. I recommend them to you all.”

Everyone immediately dropped their previous argument. “Send me the link.”

Fang Xu smiled lightly, seeing Tong Huai emerge from her office.

“Sister Tong.”

“Good morning, Sister Tong.” People in the office greeted her.

Seeing a smile on Tong Huai’s face, a colleague asked, “Sister Tong, did something good happen?”

“The gaming scenario simulation helmet and the third-generation game pod that we developed have passed the inspection,” Tong Huai said. “The R&D department and another department are planning to get together outside for a celebration dinner.”

“Wow!”

“Sister Tong, when is it?”

“I want to ask too! I’ll skip dinner that day and save my stomach for the celebration.”

Tong Huai explained, “The game pod was a key project for the company this year, and its smooth completion couldn’t have happened without the cooperation of other departments. So, quite a few people will be attending this celebration dinner. The time still needs to be finalized. I’ll let everyone know once a decision is made.”

“What is certain, though, is that this celebration, like always, will be hosted by CEO Pei.”

Hearing this, everyone unanimously exclaimed, “CEO Pei is generous!”

Tong Huai: “There’s nothing else for now. Everyone, please get back to work.”

She then walked over to Fang Xu and said, “Xiao Xu, you should come to the celebration dinner with us.”

Although Fang Xu was just an intern, the team treated her as one of their own.

Fang Xu still had her game issues to worry about and couldn’t commit. “If I don’t have anything going on at school, I’ll come.”

“Don’t worry, the timing will definitely work out,” He Ya said from nearby.

Fang Xu was confused by this, as the time for the celebration dinner hadn’t been set yet.

Tong Huai smiled and said, “He Ya, you explain it to Xiao Xu. I have a meeting to attend first.”

“Relax,” He Ya said, making a gesture, then explained, “Pei Corporation has a tradition: company-organized celebrations or other events never encroach upon employees’ personal time. They are usually scheduled during working hours on Friday afternoons. After the meal, you go straight home and don’t have to return to the office for work that day.”

“When Sister Tong says the time hasn’t been set, she means they need to check the progress of various departments and see whether to schedule it for this Friday, next Friday, or the Friday after that.”

Fang Xu listened and said, “I see.”

He Ya nodded. “The company is very humane in this regard.”

Pei Corporation was busy, but they were genuinely good to their employees, and countless people wanted to work there.

Other colleagues were also discussing the celebration dinner, speculating on which restaurant it would be held at.

Fang Xu was busy with her own work, occasionally listening to her colleagues’ discussion, which often included phrases like, “I love CEO Pei,” “CEO Pei is generous,” and “Today, I am willing to work overtime for CEO Pei.”

Her thoughts drifted. Thinking of Pei Yunci’s calm demeanor while playing Operating a Snack Stall, she seemed to understand.

She wasn’t the target of complaints at all.

As she was thinking, a message from Pei Yunci popped up on her screen.

Fang Xu looked at it twice before confirming she wasn’t hallucinating from thinking about the person too much.

[Pei Yunci: Send me a message when you are about to get off work.]

This meant she wanted to meet.

Fang Xu’s eyelashes fluttered slightly. She thought of the date she had marked previously; it hadn’t been long.

However, she didn’t hesitate and replied immediately.

[Fang Xu: Okay.]

In the office.

When Pei Yunci saw the message, her fingertips lightly tapped the desk. Her screen displayed a document that her assistant had just sent.

She had a video conference with an overseas company last night and only saw Yi Yi’s message this morning.

The child was sensible and usually wouldn’t bother her. Coming to her now meant Fang Xu must genuinely be in trouble.

Pei Yunci replied, but since Yi Yi was likely in class and the chat box didn’t move, she asked her assistant to investigate.

In less than an hour, the current situation of Operating a Snack Stall and the people causing trouble behind the scenes were clearly investigated.

…

After work, Fang Xu sent the message.

[Fang Xu: I’m off work.]

[Pei Yunci: I still have some things to deal with at the company. Will you wait for me to go back to the apartment together, or will you go ahead?]

Fang Xu lowered her eyes, guessing the reason. Could it be that her gland was unstable again?

[Fang Xu: I’ll just go myself.]

Right after sending the message, she heard a voice from behind her: “Xiao Xu, you haven’t left yet?”

Tong Huai had come out to discuss a requirement and coincidentally saw her still at her desk.

Fang Xu subconsciously covered her screen before replying, “I’m leaving soon. I was just chatting with a friend.”

“Alright,” Tong Huai said without suspicion. “Get some good rest. See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow.” Fang Xu quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

The first time she went to the apartment, she needed to follow navigation, checking the route every five minutes. But after going there more often, she slowly became familiar with it and had memorized the way.

Entering the apartment password, Fang Xu went inside and first checked the game. The submission section was temporarily stable, with very few new players joining. However, retained players were stable and were urging for content updates in the feedback section.

The negative reviews in the comment section were still displayed on the game’s homepage, but as of noon today, the trolls had stopped posting anything else, and things had calmed down somewhat.

They stopped?

Hiring trolls costs money, so they couldn’t possibly keep targeting the game indefinitely. Fang Xu had anticipated this result, but they stopped sooner than she expected.

To ruin a small game, about two to three weeks is the optimal time. The first week is used to stop new players from joining. The second and third weeks are to make old players quit. After all, most players are ordinary people, and no matter how much they like a game, constantly seeing negative content on other platforms will eventually wear them down.

Fang Xu rested her chin on her hand, mechanically clicking the platform’s delete button while pondering the reasons behind the sudden halt.

There were too many negative comments, and some trolls had copied and pasted ten or twenty messages at a time. Since the game platform didn’t have a bulk deletion feature, she could only delete them slowly.

Just as she was thinking about how to speed things up, the apartment door opened.

Pei Yunci walked in, casually draped her jacket over a nearby coat rack, changed her shoes, and saw the girl who had been stressed these past few days.

Fang Xu placed the warm water beside her and asked, “Is your gland bothering you again?”

“No,” Pei Yunci said, sitting beside her, her gaze falling on the laptop screen.

She had seen the game platform interface earlier today, so she was familiar with it.

“Then…”

Fang Xu wanted to ask if she had something else on her mind, but before she could finish, she followed the other woman’s gaze and saw the admin backend she had open.

She quickly tried to close it, but her wrist was gently blocked by Pei Yunci’s fingers.

[The game is really not fun at all, and they’re even using the submission section as a gimmick for publicity. Can the people who make games please improve the quality? If newcomers all have such twisted ideas, we’ll never see a good game again.]

[Are the people saying the game is fun all being paid? Today, I really got an eye-opener seeing someone praise a garbage game like it’s a masterpiece.]

[They must be getting paid, and they won’t let anyone say anything; they delete my comment the moment I say it. If this one gets deleted, I’ll keep posting. Can you really sit there and delete them all?]

[Boring, boring, boring! Even opening the game was a waste of my time. It’s a shame the platform only allows a minimum of one star; otherwise, I wouldn’t even give it that.]

[I’m not just giving a bad review here; I’m going to other platforms to warn everyone, or else @fx will keep fooling other players into joining.]

[…]

There were many other comments that were even more aggressive than the ones above, which had been automatically filtered by the platform’s review system, or they would have been even more hideous to look at.

Fang Xu bypassed the fingers next to her and still closed the admin backend.

This content was still unsuitable for Pei Yunci to see.

“I’ve already read it,” Pei Yunci said.

She often had to review documents and had a fast reading speed; a single glance was enough to remember the content.

Fang Xu: “…It’s nothing, just some bad reviews.”

Pei Yunci met her gaze. “Still hiding things from me?”

Hearing this, Fang Xu knew she couldn’t hide it any longer, and her voice softened. “You… know about it?”

“I play games too, how could I not know?” Pei Yunci didn’t mention Yi Yi.

She looked at the girl’s gentle expression and asked, “Don’t you get angry seeing all this?”

“It’s alright,” Fang Xu chuckled lightly. “I know these words are fake, so there’s nothing to be angry about.”

Pei Yunci: “And not sad either?”

The words might be fake, but the malice behind them was real.

Fang Xu didn’t want the other woman to worry, so she only said, “I’m fine.”

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