Cannon Fodder Genius Game Producer - Chapter 22

Chapter 22: The 22nd Day of a Blockbuster

On the WG forum, from the moment the post was published, Lin Cheng sent the link to the water army studio he frequently collaborated with and began building momentum for the thread.

If Lin Cheng had been a bit nervous a couple of days ago, feeling that the system missions were too difficult, he was now brimming with confidence again. This followed a series of events: easily passing the questioning by the big shots of Jixing Studio, and secretly altering Wang Fei’s trajectory to force his resignation.

He felt that he was indeed the Child of Destiny. No matter how difficult a mission appeared before him, there were no obstacles.

At this moment, he was in a very pleasant mood as he watched the discussion thread on the WG forum gradually gain momentum.

Subject: Deep Dive: 8 Years, Nothing to Show for It—This is the Real Teacher Bu Shu!

Content: I saw someone leak info about Teacher Bu Shu yesterday, saying he actually stayed at Jixing Studio for 8 years!! I was shocked because a close friend of mine is a Universal insider. Although they aren’t in Jixing Studio, Universal uses a unified internal network. My friend searched the internal data and holy crap, it’s legit. There really was an employee at Jixing whose resume perfectly matches the timeline.

However, that Jixing member was a famous figure within Universal for all the wrong reasons: zero growth in 8 years, job level exactly the same as when he started, and everyone who worked with him thought he was useless. My friend was also shocked and found it hard to believe that person was Teacher Bu Shu. Unfortunately, besides the entry/exit dates and performance reviews, the rest of the file is confidential, otherwise we could hammer this even harder.

The only certainty is that the date that employee resigned was the exact same day Teacher Bu Shu restarted his livestreams—this makes it very hard not to be suspicious!!

1L: …Can people just post gossip nowadays without any self-verification or evidence?

3L: Even so, wasn’t everyone saying Jixing Studio suppresses capable members? Now it’s turned into Teacher Bu Shu being a failure for 8 years?

In this thread, many people initially spoke up for Teacher Bu Shu, but as the conversation continued, “insiders” began to appear.

10L: Does anyone still remember the store data BUG in the Super God series from yesterday? There’s a solid leak saying the person who provided that ridiculous set of values was Teacher Bu Shu. While organizing the price list, he labeled the units for a whole series of values incorrectly…

13L: Zero growth and zero promotions over 8 years at Jixing Studio is absurd in itself. If this person really is Teacher Bu Shu, then one can only say he is truly a talentless waste!

18L: Online, Teacher Bu Shu feels like a brilliant gaming elite, but in reality, he’s a failure for 8 years? So his online image is just a persona? Is there a script?

21L: Heh, maybe the previous livestreams were all scripted. Someone probably cracked the content and easter eggs long ago and just waited for Teacher Bu Shu to perform the act!

29L: Looking at it now, a scripted online persona suits Teacher Bu Shu better. I used to have a good impression of him, but who knew the real Teacher Bu Shu was like this? Can’t achieve anything in reality without a script, right?

33L: Exactly. I was thinking it was impossible for Teacher Bu Shu to achieve nothing in 8 years at Jixing, but if he successfully entered Jixing based on his online reputation and then his actual abilities were exposed… it all makes sense now!

37L: Utterly speechless. You guys are acting like this before it’s even proven to be him. Besides, even if it is a persona, so what? Could any of you create such an awesome persona?

Online, following Lin Cheng’s requirements, these water army accounts were clearly divided. Some disguised themselves as Teacher Bu Shu’s haters, others as righteous bystanders, or even “brain-dead fans.” They fought relentlessly within the thread.

The haters spoke for themselves, while the “brain-dead fans” appeared to be die-hard supporters but expressed things like, “That’s right, Teacher Bu Shu is just maintaining a persona,” further damaging his credibility.

At the Cafe

Jiang Ziye was furious: “Teacher, this is Lin Cheng’s usual tactic. After I released my self-verification game under your reminder, I looked back at the series of events on the campus network. Lin Cheng hires a water army to spread ambiguous smears. Regardless of whether they are supporting you or attacking you, these people eventually make anyone following the case feel disgusted with you. He doesn’t even need solid evidence; he can blacken your name just through these online behaviors.”

“How can this person be so disgusting!” Whenever Jiang Ziye thought of his life over the past six months, and then realized Lin Cheng was trying to smear Teacher Bu Shu after smearing him, he wanted to go back to his computer right now and fight Lin Cheng’s water army for a hundred and eighty rounds!

Ever since he spoke up for Jiang Ziye on the WG forum, Pei Shu knew Lin Cheng would inevitably target him.

Furthermore, with the system and the Plot Will guiding Lin Cheng, the flames of war were bound to reach him sooner or later as long as he remained in Lin Cheng’s sights.

Through his understanding and observation of Lin Cheng during this time, Pei Shu had seen through the essence of the man: incompetent, arrogant, conceited, and opinionated.

Pei Shu truly couldn’t fathom why the system and the Plot Will would choose such a person. In Pei Shu’s eyes, while Lin Cheng was disgusting, the commotion he could actually cause wasn’t that significant.

Online water armies, infamy, and smears—this was probably the extent of Lin Cheng’s greatest ability.

Pei Shu gave Jiang Ziye a small smile: “Ignore Lin Cheng for now. The invitation to Old Wang is the more important matter.”

Seeing Pei Shu’s calm and unmoved state, Jiang Ziye took a deep breath and nodded in understanding.

When Wang Fei arrived at the designated cafe, he saw Pei Shu and Jiang Ziye sitting there with calm expressions.

Wang Fei had come out during his lunch break. Although he had resigned, his resignation process wasn’t as simple as Pei Shu’s. Currently, he was still at Jixing Studio continuing the handover of his work. The lunch hour was his only free time.

Before heading to the cafe, Wang Fei had heard members of Jixing Studio discussing the latest news.

“Holy shit, is Pei Shu really Teacher Bu Shu?!”

“I don’t know. The gossip wasn’t fully verified yesterday; hasn’t anyone dug it up yet?”

“But Pei Shu really is… his ability isn’t great. Could Teacher Bu Shu really be scripted?”

“Surely not? I feel Teacher Bu Shu’s streams are very natural. With so much random triggered content, honestly, if it were a memorized script, you’d need a hell of a memory to pull it off.”

“Exactly. Look at Pei Shu’s usual performance… does he look like someone with a good memory?”

“Right, he started streaming less than an hour or two after he resigned. Is that enough time to write a script? To memorize it? He couldn’t have written it beforehand just waiting to resign, could he? In short, there’s definitely a logical problem here. Besides, if it were just Teacher Bu Shu’s experience as an uploader, he wouldn’t have joined Jixing back then, right? With that effort, wouldn’t it be better to go to Universal’s uploader development studio?”

In the entire Jixing Studio, the only ones who explicitly knew Pei Shu = Teacher Bu Shu were the few leads headed by Wang Fei. However, years ago, the other leads had already forgotten about a person like Pei Shu. Only when the topics related to Teacher Bu Shu surged recently did they suddenly remember.

As the discussion in the studio grew more intense today, Li Sheng finally remembered something.

Li Sheng: Holy crap, Old Wang! I kept asking you which planner was so sensitive to numerical values those few days, and you refused to tell me. It couldn’t have been Pei Shu, could it?!

Li Sheng: It must be him. I remember you told me the person who made those tables was a resigned planner! He’s the only planner who resigned from Jixing in the last month!

Li Sheng: Crap, crap, crap, what’s with this kid? Didn’t he fail at everything before? Those numerical documents he organized that day were genuinely good; I was going to say he could at least be trained into a reliable lead numerical planner, and it turns out it was him!

On his way to the cafe, Wang Fei saw his WeChat notifications popping up incessantly—it was all Li Sheng outputting frantically.

Seeing Li Sheng answer all the questions himself, Wang Fei ignored him.

Finally, Li Sheng couldn’t help himself: Old Wang, were those numerical documents from that day given by Pei Shu? Say something!

Just before stepping into the cafe, Wang Fei replied: Yes.

Li Sheng: Damn, it really was him!!!

Wang Fei ignored Li Sheng’s subsequent messages. He knew the water army’s momentum online today was significant, and he thought Pei Shu would at least be a bit nervous. Instead, the kid was acting as if nothing was wrong, basking in the afternoon sun and drinking coffee like he was on vacation.

The kid had secured investment to make his own game; maybe “vacation mindset” wasn’t entirely wrong.

Pei Shu spotted Wang Fei as he entered and stood up with a smile to welcome him. Jiang Ziye also stood up beside Pei Shu, greeting Wang Fei with a bit of restraint.

Wang Fei was 36 years old. While that sounded older, being the project manager of a Super S-rank project like Super God at Universal’s Jixing Studio meant he was definitely considered young and successful.

He wore a plain light-brown knit sweater and smoke-grey trousers. There were habitual frown lines between his brows, and his hair was in a simple crew cut. Though his appearance wasn’t striking, it was clear he had occupied a high position for a long time; his aura was very commanding.

Jiang Ziye had always known of Wang Fei as the project manager of Super God, but this was his first time seeing him in person. Wang Fei’s somewhat unapproachable air made Jiang Ziye a little nervous.

Pei Shu, however, was long used to this aura—usually, when Old Wang put on this air, it was because he wanted to be poisonous-tongued.

Sure enough.

In the next second, Wang Fei sneered: “What? You resigned from Jixing and suddenly you’re not stupid anymore? You can even start a studio? Where did you swindle the investment from?”

Seeing Pei Shu made Wang Fei remember the feeling of wanting to personally crush “Bu Shu’s head” after watching his livestream.

Pei Shu wore a humble smile: “The past was just a bit of an accident.”

“An accident?” Wang Fei felt Pei Shu’s words lacked sincerity. He thought that by bringing him here, Pei Shu would at least be honest about why he had been so mediocre for the past 8 years.

He was confident that his judgment 8 years ago hadn’t been wrong, yet Pei Shu had truly given his worst performance over those 8 years.

Aside from doing it on purpose, Wang Fei couldn’t understand why Pei Shu would waste 8 years like that. But then again, he couldn’t fathom why someone would waste 8 precious years of their life; the behavior was completely illogical.

Pei Shu knew that if he wanted to invite Wang Fei, this was an unavoidable question.

Before this, he had considered whether to lay out his guesses regarding the “Plot Will” and the “System.” However, over the past two weeks, he had tried to convey this information to Li Chuyue, and the result was a total failure.

Whenever he mentioned content related to the Plot Will or the System, the information he spoke seemed to be directly blocked.

He had been worrying about how to explain those 8 years of chaotic state until he recently sorted out a diagnostic report from his home—this was the “capital” he dared to use to invite Wang Fei today.

“An injury appraisal report?” A flash of confusion crossed Wang Fei’s eyes as he took the report from Pei Shu.

He quickly opened the appraisal and saw that the date of the injury was the exact day Pei Shu joined the company 8 years ago. He vaguely remembered that on his first day 8 years ago, Pei Shu had indeed taken a temporary leave. That act of taking leave on the first day seemed to have set the stage for his subsequent poor performance.

When Wang Fei finished reading the appraisal, even he had a face full of disbelief. Patient Pei Shu, brief loss of consciousness due to an electric scooter collision. Upon waking, exhibited symptoms of short-term memory loss. Examination showed no other external injuries; Brain CT and MR results were all normal.

Under Wang Fei’s incredulous gaze, Pei Shu said calmly: “Though it’s bizarre, I truly suffered from amnesia for 8 years.”

To Pei Shu, those 8 years controlled by the Plot Will were indeed no different from amnesia.

And Pei Shu vaguely remembered that on the day he “woke up,” he had indeed accidentally bumped his head.

Of course, based on this injury appraisal—for which he had no memory—Pei Shu was certain: the Plot Will and the System could not control him while he was conscious. Only during a brief, accidental loss of consciousness did the Plot Will take the opportunity to seize control of him.

Before Pei Shu, Wang Fei looked at the injury appraisal in his hand and then at the Pei Shu before him. Even with all his worldly experience, for a moment, he didn’t know how to react to such a melodramatic excuse.

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