Chapter 27: Chapter 27

“Congratulations! Your game, Ghost General, has reached the most popular new game of the month recommendation spot. Please do not update the game’s version in the near future or any unknown bugs may affect the game experience…”

Pei Qian felt his heart die at the sight of the message.

Again! Yet again!

Trouble always came in pairs – it was a chain reaction!

In reality, be it for The Lonely Desert Road or Ghost General, their popularity all stemmed from unassumingly small actions.

The Lonely Desert Road got popular because Teacher Qiao made a dissing video while Ghost General was because Ruan Guangjian had posted his original arts within the circle of artists.

If it was just that, the consequences would not have been so dire.

After all, the people affected by those actions were only a minority.

The games would have continued disappearing into oblivion if their popularities had not continued on.

However, the main reason why Pei Qian suffered so badly was due to ESRO’s automatic recommendation system!

ESRO’s official platform would compare the figures between games that were uploaded at the same time period and those with better results would obtain better recommendation spots.

It was the same case for both games – the small unassuming actions had caused the figures to blow up such that the platform recognized them as concrete figures before pushing the games up the recommendation spots.

From there on, due to the games’ intrinsic qualities, they climbed even further after being pushed up the recommendation spots…

That way, the entire status quo blew out of proportion!

Right now, Ghost General was at a crazy spot in the games section – most popular new game of the month. With that title claimed, the download figures were immense!

Coupled with the high ratings of Ghost General and the acclaimed comments in the reviews section…

It was an unimaginable outcome!

Pei Qian did not even dare to check out the figures on the back end out of fear that he might be further despaired.

In fact, he wished that he could beg the platform to stop pushing his game up the recommendation spot!

However, he could not do that.

The platform’s recommendations worked automatically based on figures and besides, if he did that, it would be considered a violation and he would be warned by the system.

It was then that Pei Qian truly understood the meaning of the statement…

At times, a man may have no choice at all!

…

Standing alone at the rooftop of the dormitory, Pei Qian was filled with emotions.

He did not want to daze around the dormitory because it was almost time for settlement and he was afraid Ma Yang may end up hearing his sobs.

The screen of the system appeared in front of Pei Qian and once again, it was time for the Wealth Conversion System’s settlement.

<Wealth Conversion System>

<Owner: Pei Qian>

<Profit Conversion Ratio 100:1. Loss Conversion Ratio 1:1>

<Settlement starting…>

<System Funds: 514,723.5 (↑214,723.5)>

<Personal Wealth: 224.6>

<Settlement in progress…>

<Conversion in progress…>

<System Funds: 514,723.5>

<Personal Wealth: 2,371.8 (↑2,147.2)>

Looking at those figures, Pei Qian felt a little suicidal.

He had not imagined that card games would be so profitable!

Amongst the 500,000 a portion of it was the ongoing income from The Lonely Desert Road. After all, that game was still operating and the accumulated income from its 1 yuan price was rather impressive still.

However, it was still only a small portion.

Most of the income came from Ghost General!

Pei Qian made a rough calculation using his rudimentary mathematical skills.

Within a week, Ghost General’s net profit was around 500,000 – that meant that the gross was around 1,000,000.

Come the following week, the income would only surge higher as gamers continued gushing in while the game’s popularity climbed even further.

Even if the game would not earn much in the future since there wasn’t any paywalls within it, it was a huge market that they were dealing with and it would take around three months at least for the game’s popularity to die off!

Based on the figures, it was extremely likely for the game’s month gross to hit above 5,000,000!

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Even though that was a normal figure for a mobile game, it would still be a rather handsome profit for a small company with less than 30 employees.

However, it was different for Pei Qian – he was the only one working on the game from the very beginning!

Ma Yang was only drawing a 3,000 monthly salary and had only helped with the requirement form. Pei Qian was the one who had purchased all the templates and art resources which merely added up to 300,000.

Not only would the game recoup all its cost in its first week, it would even net in a profit of 200,000!

The figures weren’t extremely exaggerated but they still had Pei Qian feeling despondent!

And the worst thing was that Ghost General would continue to generate income for Pei Qian in the future!

After all, Qute Three Kingdoms was still popular after running for an entire year…

‘What would that imply?’

It meant that even if Pei Qian were to try with his might to lose money in the future, he might not be able to lose everything completely!

In the months to come, the System Funds would receive a stable monthly deposit. However, the system determined losses based on the initial System Funds!

Take the settlement this time round for example, the system had an extremely simple way of calculating profit loss – it would just make a comparison between the final System Funds and the initial 300,000 where anything above it would be considered a profit and vice versa.

If Pei Qian were to obtain an additional deposit monthly which was higher than the starting sum of the System Funds, the system would determine that he was making a profit forever!

Tragic! It was extremely tragic news!

Pei Qian truly wanted to die.

“How is it so pitiful?”

“I earned 200,000 but it was converted to 2,000!”

“And what’s worse, I’m going to be earning money without doing anything from now on and I’ll have no way of losing it away?”

“No, something must be wrong! Calm down, calm down!”

“Let me think about it. Things should not be so terrible…”

Pei Qian composed himself as new messages appeared on the system’s screen.

<Next Settlement: 90 days later.>

<System Funds will be topped up. Target amount: 500,000>

<Detected System Funds to be over 500,000. No top-ups will be made.>

<System Funds: 515,792.5>

<Personal Wealth: 2,371.8 (↑2,147.2)>

“Indeed…!”

“I’m honestly dying!”

Pei Qian had confirmed his suspicions!

The system would conduct a topping up of the System Funds with each settlement.

That top-up amount and the settlement date would always vary.

Because the top-up limit was 500,000 and Pei Qian’s current System Funds had already exceeded 500,000, no additional top-ups would be made.

Whereas if Pei Qian had managed to lose the 300,000 entirely, he would be injected with a fresh 500,000…

He was completely suicidal at the moment.

That 300,000 that was almost confirmed to be his had turned into 2,000!

Who could accept that?

At the same time, the System Funds had increased by over a thousand yuan within the span of a few minutes.

That was because Ghost General was still generating income.

Pei Qian was despaired and was even having doubts about himself.

“Could it be that I should change my mindset? Should I start thinking about how to make money in the future?”

“No, it’s too late for that…”

“Besides, I can’t possibly have such good luck in the future.”

In that instant, Pei Qian’s thought of whether he should change to the path of profits disappeared from his mind entirely.

The reason was simple – the payoff was way too low and it wasn’t really possible as well!

Be it The Lonely Desert Road or Ghost General, a large part of their success was based on luck!

Would Pei Qian continue to have such amazing luck? That’s not for sure!

What if he tried to earn money legitimately and ended up earning nothing much while failing to make a loss either. Wouldn’t that be an awkward situation?

The key was in sticking to his original plans!

The Profit Conversion Ratio was a mere 100:1. Even if he earned 1,000,000, he would only earn 10,000! That would be a lousy trade!