Chapter 27

April 1st, Tuesday.

The weather wasn’t good—since some unknown hour during the night, a light drizzle had begun falling.

It should have been an ordinary workday, with students heading to school and office workers hurrying along.

The entertainment industry was unusually quiet; no gossip circulated about popular actresses, and no top-streaming singer released a new album.

Yet on this utterly ordinary morning, inside MHY Studio in Lanshan Apartments, Yuncheng.

Cai Qiu and Chen Wei were as frantic as ants on a hot pan.

“Wei, did you call Xiaoyu? It’s almost ten, and he still hasn’t shown up?”

Cai Qiu paced back and forth, finally stopping in front of Chen Wei, but his gaze settled on Qin Xiaoyu’s empty desk.

“I called, but no one answered… why don’t you go check his place?”

Chen Wei sighed and shook his head helplessly.

Normally, if Qin Xiaoyu arrived late, they wouldn’t care at all.

But today, with such a major event, if their core figure didn’t show up, they truly feared they’d lose control of the situation.

They had both participated in large-scale server launches with millions of users.

But.

That was back during the sleep of the early morning…

“Forget it, we don’t have time to go look for him now—if we don’t enable game pre-download soon, those players will blow up our website!”

Thinking of the dense flood of comments on their website, Cai Qiu’s scalp prickled. “Luckily, Xiaoyu prepared everything yesterday—the license was approved smoothly, and our procedures are identical.

Besides, if we can’t even handle this, I’d have no face claiming my five percent equity!”

Although Chen Wei felt it was slightly inappropriate for Qin Xiaoyu to be absent at such a crucial moment,

Cai Qiu’s final words suddenly jolted him—maybe this was Xiaoyu’s test for them.

So.

After a brief discussion, they decided to enable game pre-download first, then announce the official server launch once Qin Xiaoyu arrived.

This decision was partly out of necessity.

But also because they were desperate to know just how many players would actually show up to play this game.

At exactly ten a.m.

Under Cai Qiu and Chen Wei’s supervision, the game titled “Genshin Impact” officially launched on the TAP App Store, offering pre-download services.

There was no heavy advertising—only a single announcement posted on their official website and the official account of Xiaopu Station.

Yet.

This unremarkable announcement sent countless gamers into a frenzy.

“Holy shit, it’s finally started—I’ve been waiting since last night, almost died of exhaustion. The devs actually have some conscience!”

“This is a victory for the night-owls—let those who chose sleep regret it!”

“You two are crazy? I slept last night, but that doesn’t stop me from downloading the game now!”

“Do you even have time to talk? I’m already downloading the game—smart move!”

“To be honest, my girlfriend just tried to snatch my phone—I slapped her right back. Now she’s my ex.”

“My wife divorced me, I gave my kid away—no one can stop me from playing this game now!”

“…”

Half an hour later, the CEO of TAP App Store sat at his computer, watching the real-time data, and lost his composure.

Five hundred thousand downloads?

It had only been half an hour…