Cannon Fodder Genius Game Producer - Chapter 16

Chapter 16: The 16th Day of a Blockbuster (Part 1)

“To hell with this Lin Cheng, what a disgusting piece of trash!!!”

In Dorm 716 of the male dormitory building at Beijing University of Science and Technology, the roommates who had returned to apologize to Jiang Ziye were now looking at the information Lin Cheng had posted on the WG platform—someone had forwarded that crap to the campus forum, along with the two screenshots commented by Pei Shu’s account.

If the previous game incident was due to them being blinded by confusion, then Lin Cheng’s excuse this time was truly too blatant.

Lin Cheng said he had a secret crush on their Third Brother?

What utter bullshit!

The guys in Jiang Ziye’s dorm were certain that before their senior year, Lin Cheng didn’t even know their Third Brother! The reason they were so sure was purely because when Third Brother went to confront Lin Cheng, they had secretly followed. At that time, Third Brother blocked Lin Cheng, but when Lin Cheng looked up and saw him, his first question was, “Who are you?”

On the forum of Beijing University of Science and Technology, students who witnessed the confrontation between Jiang Ziye and Lin Cheng also stood up to testify. There was no shortage of people filming that day, but strangely, those recordings only captured Lin Cheng questioning Jiang Ziye on whether he had evidence that the game was his own, followed by Jiang Ziye turning pale. The initial footage of Lin Cheng asking who Jiang Ziye was had somehow not been saved by any of the spectating students.

Despite this, the situation now was worlds apart from the state of affairs a few months ago.

The post The Stolen Life released by Jiang Ziye not long ago remained on the front page, and had even been pinned as a “featured” post by the campus forum administrators. Even if a few people occasionally felt Jiang Ziye lacked definitive evidence, there was no longer that previous iron-clad certainty against him.

In the girls’ dormitory, Lin Xiaotong and Jiang Feifei both saw Lin Cheng’s defense, but feminine intuition made them feel an instinctive disgust and nausea toward his rhetoric.

“It’s too fake. If Lin Cheng really liked Jiang Ziye, he would absolutely not have had that attitude when facing Jiang Ziye’s questioning before!”

The two girls, who were once staunch supporters of Lin Cheng, finally turned against him completely when faced with his behavior of using fake emotions as a cover for his crimes.

It could be said that however much they were moved and guilt-ridden by Jiang Ziye’s The Stolen Life just now, they felt a multi-fold increase in anger toward Lin Cheng.

In the entire forum, probably only Lin Cheng’s former “bros” still stood by his side, constantly harping on “evidence,” but by now, no one was willing to believe them.

More people simply took screenshots of Lin Cheng’s status updates on WG and his various flirtatious comments on the campus forum to create a massive compilation, leaving image replies in every thread attempting to whitewash Lin Cheng—this is his so-called “admiration”?

In Dorm 716, Jiang Ziye’s roommates finally breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing this result.

Although Lin Cheng was disgusting, everyone ultimately had eyes. They had seen through to his repulsive true colors and were no longer being deceived by him.

After leaving those two screenshot replies on Lin Cheng’s WG status, Pei Shu temporarily put down his phone. After all, he was having dinner with Li Chuyue; it wasn’t good to stare at his phone constantly.

Before putting the phone down, there was a thoughtful look in Pei Shu’s eyes—Lin Cheng’s state was not quite right. The desperate manner in which he sought excuses to salvage his reputation was too frantic, as if…

As if he would die if he didn’t salvage his reputation immediately.

Of course, Pei Shu didn’t think the “Protagonist” designated by the Plot Will would fall into a death crisis just because of today’s events, but Lin Cheng’s reaction was enough to tell him many other things.

Pei Shu instinctively felt that this might be Lin Cheng’s weakness, and also the Plot Will’s weakness.

Thinking of this, Pei Shu lightly rubbed his fingers together, etched this matter into his heart, and began once again to savor the delicacies before him.

Opposite Pei Shu, Li Chuyue sat with boundless patience.

He didn’t tell Pei Shu that he actually didn’t mind whether Pei Shu looked at his phone or not; as long as Pei Shu didn’t disappear from before his eyes, it was fine.

He could just sit like this and watch Pei Shu for a long, long time.

However, he also took care to restrain his gaze, not staring at Pei Shu too overtly—at most, staring for about 50 seconds out of every minute.

Li Chuyue could no longer remember when he had fallen in love with Pei Shu. He only remembered that one day his parents told him a big brother would come over as a guest the next day. At that time, his parents’ adjectives for Pei Shu were well-behaved, a top student, excellent, and obedient. In his heart, he was very dismissive of this guest who was about to appear, thinking it would likely be a boring playmate.

But the Pei Shu who appeared before him the next day indeed looked like a quiet, obedient top student. Who knew that when it came to playing games, Pei Shu could pin him to the ground and crush him? And even though he only won against a kid eight years younger than himself, Pei Shu could smile like the warm sun.

He stubbornly insisted he only lost because he was too young, but he was smilingly pinched on the cheek by the seemingly well-behaved and quiet Pei Shu.

Back then, what did Pei Shu say?

With a face full of happy smiles, Pei Shu said to him, “Then come and beat me when you grow up!”

Later, he and Pei Shu became more and more familiar, and they played games more and more often.

But before he could grow up to beat Pei Shu, Pei Shu “vanished.”

Thinking of this, the terrible memory of Pei Shu “disappearing” climbed back into Li Chuyue’s mind. He shook his head with some irritation, saw Pei Shu put down his phone, and then moved a dish Pei Shu liked in front of him.

“The fermented rice fish soup at this place is very good, Peipei, give it a try!”

During dinner, Pei Shu didn’t notice it at first, but as he ate, he realized that this little friend he hadn’t seen for eight years was looking out for his tastes and dining pace throughout the whole meal, providing care so meticulous he might as well have been treating him as a disabled person.

Midway through the meal, Pei Shu personally ladled a bowl of soup and handed it to Li Chuyue: “Alright, you should eat well too.”

Li Chuyue took the offering from Pei Shu with a face full of happiness and joy. Where was there any trace of the guarded expression from when they first reunited the day before?

Even Pei Shu hadn’t expected that in just one day, Li Chuyue would seem to have returned to the “little tail” days of the past, showing no more strangeness or defensiveness toward him.

It was as if the eight-year gap between them didn’t exist at all.

After finishing dinner, Pei Shu took Li Chuyue’s car again, and the two returned to the Daonan Road apartment together.

When they got out of the car and took the elevator up to the 18th floor, Li Chuyue finally asked Pei Shu with an expectant look, “Peipei, your place or mine?”

Pei Shu didn’t really care; he just intended to talk to Li Chuyue about his game studio plan to see if Li Chuyue was interested in investing. If not, he would find a way to mortgage the apartment for a loan or find other investors.

Li Chuyue saw that Pei Shu didn’t mind, so he swung open his door. Like a big dog anticipating its owner’s return, he stood by the doorway, practically wagging his tail to welcome Pei Shu in.

Pei Shu smiled and followed Li Chuyue’s lead into his home—it was different from what he expected. Back then, Li Chuyue had bought this apartment across from him on a whim, but he rarely lived there. The apartment had been kept in its original refined decoration state from the handover, with only some extra blankets, pillows, and spare clothes.

Back then, Li Chuyue often hung around his house, the two of them squeezing onto one bed or huddling in the living room to play games. Even though there was a six or seven-year age gap, they could actually play together.

But the house before his eyes was clearly furnished with all sorts of soft decorations: a plush long-pile carpet, the latest models of various game consoles and equipment in the living room, a massive TV, comfortable bean bag chairs and assorted cushions…

Pei Shu was stunned for a moment: “You live here regularly?”

Li Chuyue felt a bit guilty. In truth, these were all things he had hastily had Lu You find people to set up today. For the past eight years, he hadn’t stepped into this apartment again, and he had even nearly sold it two days ago.

“Cough, let’s not talk about that.” Li Chuyue changed the subject: “Weren’t you going to introduce the game studio you’re preparing to build? How much capital is needed? When does the funding need to be in place?”

Hearing this question, Pei Shu immediately chuckled: “Li Chuyue, you’ve already started working at your family’s company, right? Is this how you talk to people about investment?”

Li Chuyue was dismissive.

Talking to other entrepreneurs about investment is a different price—besides, he isn’t in charge of the investment department; he handles group operations.

However, he knew that if he wasn’t serious, Pei Shu would likely think he was just playing around and would flatly refuse his investment. So, he corrected his posture.

“Then… Mr. Pei, please tell me about your studio establishment plan, core philosophy, expected projects, and your profit model.”

Seeing Li Chuyue turn serious in a second, Pei Shu also smiled and straightened his face.

In this cozy and comfortable living room, Pei Shu and his “future investor” very seriously began discussing the plans for the future studio.

In Jixing Studio, Lin Cheng—who was prepared to leave at clock-out time—was forced to sit in the company until 9 PM under the barrage of the system’s mandatory missions.

Regarding the four mandatory missions refreshed all at once by the system, Lin Cheng was both panicked and annoyed. These mandatory missions were not only compulsory but also had a time limit, requiring him to complete them within one month, otherwise he would suffer an “unknown punishment.”

This was another time within a single day that Lin Cheng saw the explicit word “punishment” in the system. The previous crisis of declining Life Satisfaction had only just been barely averted, and now a new punishment was right before his eyes.

Lin Cheng cursed at the system in extreme anger. Aren’t you some “King of Games” system! What’s this Life Satisfaction thing all about? Why are there so many mandatory “slap in the face” missions?!

But the system only gave him a rigid, mechanical voice in response.

Ding—The “King of Games” system will match and adjust based on the bound Host’s true inner desires and moral intensity. The system determines that the current path being advanced is the “King of Games” path most faithful to the Host’s inner expectations.

Lin Cheng’s expression was very ugly. “Faithful to the Host’s inner desires?”

The words spoken by the system, which lacked independent consciousness, were too blunt. If it weren’t for the fact that only he could hear the system’s reply, he would have taken his shame and anger out on the system.

But he quickly suppressed this fire and asked again. Forget about slapping the others, what’s with the one about slapping the people at Jixing Studio?!

A suspicion bubbled up in Lin Cheng’s mind, but he was somewhat unwilling to accept the possibility.

Unfortunately, the blunt system left him no chance to escape.

Ding—The mandatory targets for slapping currently hold suspicion and mistrust toward the Host, which will affect the Host’s growth path toward becoming the King of Games. Please take this seriously, Host!

Finally seeing this result, Lin Cheng’s face turned completely black.

Wasn’t that trash game only spreading within the campus network of the University of Science and Technology?!

As he looked at the various comments under his personal WG homepage on the computer screen and the almost one-sided news on the campus network, his expression became more and more distorted.

Just then, Wang Fei, who was still at the company, messaged him on Jixing Studio’s internal communication software.

Wang Fei: Lin Cheng, come to my workstation for a moment. I have something I need to confirm with you.

Looking at this sentence, Lin Cheng’s nails almost dug into the flesh of his palms. He thought almost instinctively—You guys who look down on me, just you wait!

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