Chapter 3

Two hours later.

Qin Xiaoyu, who had been talking nonstop, fell silent and reached for the water cup on the bedside, taking a small sip.

His gaze shifted from the stunned faces of Cai Qiu and Chen Wei to the city outside the window.

Over the past two hours, he had outlined to his two best friends the concept of the game Genshin Impact and some of its core mechanics.

Now, the choice was theirs.

Leave.

Qin Xiaoyu wouldn’t force them to stay.

Stay.

He would welcome them.

At this moment.

Cai Qiu and Chen Wei exchanged a glance, neither speaking first.

They could tell that what Qin Xiaoyu had just described was an excellent game concept.

If it could truly be realized,

they weren’t sure whether it would make them rich and reach the peak of life.

But at least, a comfortable middle-class life should be within reach.

Of course,

this assumed the game could be released and operated—and to achieve that, massive funding was undoubtedly required.

Most crucially, this was a 2D anime-style game.

Within Xia Country, such games couldn’t even attract angel investment.

“Fish Brother, your idea is definitely the best I’ve ever heard, but the investment needed to turn an idea into a live game is probably astronomical—funding is hard to secure.”

Cai Qiu wasn’t trying to discourage Qin Xiaoyu; he was simply stating a fact.

“Forget the maps—just modeling a single character would cost at least a million!”

Beside him, Chen Wei rubbed his chin, then chimed in after a long pause.

“It’s not that extreme. A few hundred thousand is more than enough to get the game up and running.”

Qin Xiaoyu spoke with certainty.

In his past life on Earth, the initial investment for Genshin Impact had indeed been astronomical.

Just the Mondstadt map, its storylines, and characters,

had cost nearly one hundred million U.S. dollars.

Of course,

that included promotional expenses, but the production cost alone had reached at least fifty million.

But that was his past life.

Now, in this parallel world, he had that USB drive—every design cost in the early stage had been eliminated.

The only expense now was renting servers and marketing.

These costs could be tightly controlled.

The rich had rich ways; the poor had poor tricks.

So,

with a few hundred thousand, Qin Xiaoyu was fully confident he could launch and operate the game.

Cai Qiu and Chen Wei’s hesitation and concerns,

Qin Xiaoyu could clearly see. After a moment of silence, he turned his gaze back from the window and fixed it on their faces:

“I know you’re torn. As brothers, I won’t pressure you—whether you leave or stay is entirely up to you.

But the waves of youth should crash harder to feel truly thrilling!”

His words of persuasion ended there.

Deep down, he hoped they would stay.

But he refused to force them—or morally blackmail them.

“To hell with blind dates. Only kids care about girls. Adults know you’ve got to protect your kidneys! I don’t care what you choose, Wei—Fish Brother, I’m staying!”

After listening to Qin Xiaoyu, Cai Qiu fell silent for a few seconds, then made his decision decisively.

“Old Cai, you’re a real badass. If you don’t mind, give me your blind date’s contact info—I’ve got two kidneys, losing one doesn’t matter…”

“Get lost!”

Cai Qiu shot back a scornful retort at Chen Wei, then asked: “Wei, what’s your choice?”

“What choice? You’re willing to ditch your girlfriend—what else can I say? Let’s do it. Worst case, I’ll just pack my bags and go work in a factory screwing bolts!”

Chen Wei’s last words came out with passion; to emphasize his resolve, he suddenly raised his left hand and slammed it hard onto the bed.

“Holy shit…”

His palm landed squarely on Qin Xiaoyu’s injured leg, and a howl of pain erupted through the ward.

Though not broken, the scab had split open again.

It nearly knocked Qin Xiaoyu out from the pain.

“Uh… Fish Brother, sorry! I got carried away by your words and forgot you’re still a patient…”

Chen Wei scratched his head awkwardly, offering an apologetic smile.

“You’re buying lunch today. Bring back a bottle of soda—or this isn’t over!”

Qin Xiaoyu winced and scolded him.

He knew Chen Wei hadn’t meant it, but demanding lunch was unavoidable.

After all,

he’d been unconscious for four days without eating—even an iron man couldn’t take that!

“Alright, alright! I’ll go buy food with Old Cai right now…”

Chen Wei nodded.

Then he pulled Cai Qiu out of the ward.

…

After the two left the ward,

Qin Xiaoyu didn’t rest—he began carefully planning the details of launching the game.

Although the USB drive already contained a complete version of Genshin Impact,

many tasks still needed doing before launch.

First,

applying for the game’s license number.

In this parallel world, applying for a game license wasn’t particularly complicated.

As long as the game’s content didn’t severely distort values, most cases got approved smoothly.

Most importantly, the review wait time wouldn’t be as long as on Earth in his past life.

After submitting the documents,

approval would come within seven working days at most.

He planned to entrust this task to Old Cai.

Qin Xiaoyu planned to hand it over to Cai Qiu to handle.

finding a game distribution platform. Many platforms in Xia Country supported mobile and PC games.

Their revenue-sharing ratios varied widely.

Popular platforms took as much as 70%, leaving only 30% for the developer.

It was brutal, but it was reality.

Qin Xiaoyu couldn’t accept such a ratio, so negotiations were necessary.

He thought for a moment and decided to assign this task to Chen Wei, with a minimum acceptable cut of ten percent of revenue.

Aside from these two tasks,

the remaining issues involved planning the closed beta and marketing.

Due to limited manpower,

Qin Xiaoyu had to handle these tasks himself—anything that didn’t require going out.

Although he hadn’t yet received the game license, this didn’t prevent starting the closed beta.

Many platforms offered beta testing services.

All you needed was ten thousand RMB to rent a cloud server, upload the game data, and begin testing.

Just spend ten thousand RMB to rent a cloud server, then upload the game data and begin internal testing.

this kind of beta was typically chosen only by small studios like Qin Xiaoyu’s.

It had serious limitations.

The number of beta players it could support was extremely low—a major flaw.

But after thinking it over, Qin Xiaoyu had no better option…

However.

After thinking for a while, Qin Xiaoyu realized there was no better option for now…