Cannon Fodder Genius Game Producer - Chapter 15

Chapter 15: The 15th Day of a Blockbuster (Part 2)

Lin Cheng…

Lin Cheng had, of course, already seen the game released by Jiang Ziye!

From the moment Jiang Ziye released that game, the system began to flash new notification sounds incessantly.

Ding The Host’s growth path is suffering a trust impact!

Ding The Host’s Life Satisfaction is declining. Based on integrated system trajectory calculations: Satisfaction -0.001, -0.001… -0.001…

Ding Please restrain the downward trend of Satisfaction in a timely manner. A decline in Satisfaction will affect the Host’s path to becoming the King of Games!

Ding Warning! If Satisfaction falls below 90 points, it will trigger Host authority penalties and Protagonist Grade decay penalties!

Ding Mandatory Mission: Please reverse the situation. Success will restrain the downward trend of Satisfaction!

Ding, Ding, Ding!!!

Having just finished the simple tasks of his first day at Jixing Studio, Lin Cheng was feeling relaxed, thinking Jixing Studio wasn’t such a big deal. But in the next second, the system’s notification sounds began to ring frantically, like an alarm, plunging him into utter panic.

What was going on?!

Since he was reborn and bound to the system, a notification like this had never appeared.

Lin Cheng originally thought the random mission about “encountering a crisis” that popped up earlier today was ridiculous enough. How could he have imagined that after thinking the crisis was averted, such a violent backlash would suddenly explode…

Lin Cheng scrambled to open his WG platform homepage—his first reaction was that Jiang Ziye had done something, and his judgment was indeed correct.

After opening his WG homepage, the page—which recently had been filled only with admiration and sympathy for his “plagiarized” content—was now gradually being filled with different voices.

I firmly believed the blogger was the one being plagiarized before, but now I’m starting to doubt. Is the blogger there? If you are, please give us a straight answer.

@Midnight 30 made a mini-game called “The Stolen Life.” @Lin Cheng, care to explain? As long as your explanation makes sense, I’m still willing to believe you. After all, the release date was earlier, and Jiang Ziye indeed only had half-finished content…

I feel like no matter the explanation, I can’t believe it. Why is a game that @Lin Cheng says is a commemoration of his university life filled with the details of @Midnight 30’s university life? It’s too detailed; I can’t convince myself this is Lin Cheng’s game.

But Jiang Ziye really can’t explain why Lin Cheng released these contents before him, right? Otherwise, these few months would have been enough for Jiang Ziye to produce evidence!

I can understand why Jiang Ziye was silent for these few months. The campus forum at Beijing University of Science and Technology just said that Jiang Ziye was heavily hit by this incident, barely left his dorm, and even got a demerit because of it… With this level of blow and impact, most people would have suffered a psychological breakdown, right? Honestly, knowing the details and then seeing the game he put out today, I’m very surprised. That he could actually fight back under these circumstances is incredible…

Seeing that sentence @Midnight 30 wrote when he released the game made me feel really bad. He said it was a bit of a regret, that this was his first game… Originally, his first game should have been “Crazy Graduation Season,” right? Seeing so many easter eggs, he was truly preparing and anticipating with his whole heart. Should my initial amazement and love for “Crazy Graduation Season” have belonged to him? @Lin Cheng, I hope you really aren’t a thief. I hope you can provide strong evidence, otherwise, I’ll be an anti-fan forever and tell everyone I know what you’ve done!!

Lin Cheng never expected that upon logging into the WG homepage, he would see such a series of comments that caught him off guard.

Where were his fans?

Where were the people who were defending him and cursing Jiang Ziye earlier??

Furthermore, under the status share he posted earlier this afternoon, the initial comments were all rebuking Jiang Ziye. But a short while ago, the comments supporting him were deleted one after another, replaced by a string of messages like Disgusting and I’m gonna barf.

It had only been half an hour!

What exactly went wrong in the meantime?!

Lin Cheng looked at the keywords in a panic and quickly identified the crucial information: The Stolen Life.

But what the hell is this?!

Sweating profusely, Lin Cheng searched for key clues, wanting to know why he was suddenly being spat upon. Then, he finally saw that this was a game released by Jiang Ziye himself.

Nervously, Lin Cheng clicked open this crudely made mini-game. As he played, his face grew paler and paler.

He knew what easter eggs were, but he never imagined Jiang Ziye would bury such a long string of them in this game. Or rather, this wasn’t even “easter eggs” anymore—this game called Crazy Graduation Season was fundamentally based on Jiang Ziye’s own university life. The hidden protagonist of the entire game was Jiang Ziye himself!

After realizing this, Lin Cheng panicked completely.

He suddenly remembered—no wonder when he chose to redeem this game, the system asked if he wanted to modify the game content. He didn’t have the patience at the time and was afraid that if he changed anything, the game wouldn’t be a hit, so he simply chose to refuse.

Six months of smooth sailing had made Lin Cheng accustomed to the “coolness” of life since his rebirth. He never imagined that Jiang Ziye, whom he had clearly pinned under his heel, could actually unleash such a move.

Lin Cheng was so stifled that he was covered in sweat. He couldn’t think of any angle to explain why he would make a game using Jiang Ziye as the prototype.

The Satisfaction decline prompts in his ear kept ringing. Even if each drop was only -0.001, if he couldn’t restrain the downward trend, his Life Satisfaction would eventually drop below 90.

Until now, Lin Cheng had never considered the possibility that his Life Satisfaction would decline. He didn’t even understand what would happen if it fell below 90, but his instincts told him it would be terrifying!

He had to stop this!

What kind of person would make a game with someone else’s image as the protagonist?

Lin Cheng gritted his teeth and posted a new status update on his WG platform.

Lin Cheng: I heard @Midnight 30 released a game called “The Stolen Life.” It’s a regret that we have to confront each other like this. Student Jiang did indeed find the hidden menus in “Crazy Graduation Season,” and they were all created with him as the prototype. This is all because I once secretly admired Student Jiang, so I hid my feelings within the easter eggs. Unfortunately, I never expected that the Student Jiang I once admired would turn around and bite me as a plagiarist. It breaks my heart; I loved the wrong person.

If, and I mean if—Student Jiang has any real evidence of me plagiarizing his game, rather than these ambiguous imaginings, he is welcome to confront me. If not, please do not continue to slander me. This is my only explanation regarding the plagiarism incident; I, Lin Cheng, will not respond to any further discussions related to this. Thank you for your support. I hope everyone has a bright future after the crazy graduation season.

After posting this long status, Lin Cheng bit his lip.

This was the explanation he suddenly thought of, and probably the only one that would confuse people—but to hell with it! His sexual orientation was towards women. Publicly stating on such a platform that he had a crush on a man made Lin Cheng feel sick to his stomach. But he had no choice; aside from this reason, he couldn’t think of any plausible excuse.

And just as he thought, after this reason was posted, the momentum that was originally one-sidedly condemning him suddenly slowed down.

Some people were indeed shocked, feeling that Lin Cheng’s reason was actually somewhat “reasonable.”

At the same time, inside a private room at Songjian Hall

Pei Shu was having dinner with Li Chuyue while casually scrolling through his phone. He saw the “Thank you” sent by Jiang Ziye. After a simple reply to the kid, Pei Shu clicked on the “Protagonist” Lin Cheng’s WG personal homepage to check for updates. As a result, he saw Lin Cheng’s long post—one that made him feel so nauseous his stomach turned, knowing the truth as he did.

With cold, stern eyes, Pei Shu browsed the comments under the post and saw that some people were gradually starting to believe the reason due to Lin Cheng’s self-righteousness and counter-accusations.

Seeing this, Pei Shu gave a cold sneer. He clicked open the game Jiang Ziye had sent him, jumped to the evidence page to screenshot the final image, then opened the Beijing University of Science and Technology page to search for Lin Cheng’s ID with a certain keyword and took another screenshot.

From the moment Li Chuyue saw Pei Shu pick up his phone and his expression turn cold, he temporarily stopped eating and watched Pei Shu intently.

Pei Shu didn’t delay for long. He picked up his phone and sent two image-replies to Lin Cheng’s post.

Teacher Bu Shu: (Screenshot 1.JPG), (Screenshot 2.JPG). Heh, so you claim to admire Jiang Ziye—is this how you “love” him? Lin Cheng, right? Your actions are disgusting.

The players who were starting to believe Lin Cheng because of his sophistry also fell into silence after seeing the two screenshots thrown out by Teacher Bu Shu.

The first screenshot was the search result from the final level of Jiang Ziye’s Life game—Lin Cheng replying to his friend that he was only interested in games where he could “carry girls.”

The second screenshot was a search result from the Beijing University of Science and Technology campus network using Lin Cheng’s ID and the keyword “girls” (mei), yielding a total of 1,316 results.

If one looked closer at the content of these posts, it was enough to make one feel uncomfortable at first glance.

To say such a person would piously love someone else—and be so pious as to collect so much information about them just to make them the protagonist of a game?

The players who were partially persuaded by Lin Cheng finally discarded the idea completely.

However, just as Lin Cheng said, why did Jiang Ziye have no evidence to prove his original work came first? This question still lingered in many people’s minds, making them disgusted by Lin Cheng yet hesitant to completely crush him.

Ding Mandatory Mission: Stop Life Stisfaction Decline. Mission Completed.

System Statistics in Progress—Mandatory Mission Completion Grade: D (Abysmal).

Mission Reward: Life Satisfaction +1, Points +10.

Damn it, why is the grade only D?!

Having finally completed the mission only to find the grade was D, Lin Cheng had just cursed in his heart when he realized that in the next second after receiving the completion notification, the Satisfaction decline alerts began to ring frantically again.

Lin Cheng’s face changed completely.

He had just endured his own nausea to post that information! He clearly saw many people believed him, so why was it falling again?!

He reopened his WG platform and saw the comment and two screenshots from the “Big V” named Teacher Bu Shu under his status.

DAMN IT!!!

In the afternoon, he was thinking this Teacher Bu Shu seemed smart and could be recruited as his underling. Now, in the evening, he was being slapped in the face by this Teacher Bu Shu.

The feeling of being slapped by a “future underling” he had already reserved, combined with the series of events tonight, made Lin Cheng extremely pissed off.

Teacher Bu Shu, right?

And that Jiang Ziye…!

Just you wait. I, Lin Cheng, will make you pay sooner or later!!

As these thoughts echoed frantically in Lin Cheng’s mind, a “ding” sounded, and he suddenly received four new mission prompts.

Mandatory Mission: Slap Teacher Bu Shu in the face, increase Life Satisfaction.

Mandatory Mission: Slap Jiang Ziye in the face, increase Life Satisfaction.

Mandatory Mission: Slap the people of Jixing Studio in the face, increase Life Satisfaction.

Mandatory Mission: Slap the doubters who think Lin Cheng has a problem in the face, increase Life Satisfaction.

Mission Rewards: Life Satisfaction +5, Protagonist Halo Upgrade, Super S-Class Gift Pack 1.

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