Chapter 32: China

After hanging up the phone, Qin Xiaoyu got out of the car and walked straight toward the cafeteria where he had previously dined with Lin Su.

He looked about the same age as the students, and carried himself with calm composure.

The gatekeeper didn’t stop him.

After all,

many students at Xijuxue Academy choose to rent apartments off-campus, and management is relatively relaxed.

It was the same spot they’d agreed on before.

When Qin Xiaoyu arrived, Lin Su hadn’t come yet; with nothing else to do, he picked up his phone, logged onto Xiaopuzhan, and checked if any game streamers had reviewed Genshin Impact.

Holy shit!

After just a few glances, Qin Xiaoyu was stunned.

Xiaopuzhan had been flooded by Genshin Impact—out of ten videos, at least five or six were related to the game.

Some were professional reviewers, others were gameplay streams by gaming streamers.

It was nothing short of a takeover.

Among the many videos, one titled “China’s Pride of 2D Anime Games—Hundreds of Thousands of Foreigners Cried from Craving!” immediately caught Qin Xiaoyu’s attention.

It wasn’t that the UP had wildly praised Genshin Impact and made him feel proud.

Qin Xiaoyu was simply curious—he really did plan to release Genshin Impact globally soon.

But

he’d only mentioned it casually to Cai Qiu and Chen Wei once; no one else knew.

As for overseas advertising, that hadn’t even been attempted. How could hundreds of thousands of foreigners possibly be interested in this game?

His plan hadn’t even started yet!

Out of curiosity, Qin Xiaoyu clicked on the video and began watching, puzzled.

A few minutes later,

Qin Xiaoyu understood what had happened. Strictly speaking, the video wasn’t some clickbait UP trying to ride the trend—it was genuinely true.

The title was slightly exaggerated; there weren’t a million foreigners, at most maybe a hundred thousand.

The story began with a German automotive engineer working in Xia.

His name was Dael, and he’d lived and worked in Xia for over two years.

Besides being an automotive engineer, he was also a seasoned anime fan and a minor internet celebrity.

On YouTube, he’d amassed over eight hundred thousand followers through gaming content.

Even before Genshin Impact launched, Dael had heard his colleagues mention the game several times.

But back then, he paid it no mind.

The reason was simple.

During his two-plus years living and working in Xia, Dael had tried several Chinese anime-style games.

But they were so bad they didn’t even inspire him to criticize them.

Since then, he’d completely ignored Chinese anime and games.

But starting yesterday morning, the name “Genshin Impact” never stopped ringing in his ears.

Every colleague who knew he liked anime games immediately recommended Genshin Impact to him.

Even several young subordinates in his office had taken a day off to play the game on launch day.

After this string of “abnormal” events, Dael finally couldn’t help but feel curious.

So after work that day, he downloaded the game with a try-it-out mindset and began streaming his Genshin Impact gameplay on YouTube.

To be blunt,

Dael had initially intended to show his followers just how terrible Chinese anime games were, warning them to avoid any Chinese anime titles and save their money.

But…

After streaming Genshin Impact with a critical mindset, Dael was instantly stunned, just like the game streamer Tonghao Mama before him.

He stayed up all night, completely unable to stop playing!

Of course,

the ten thousand viewers in his live stream were equally stunned.

They flooded his chat with comments asking the game’s name and where to play it.

Coincidentally, a Chinese gaming UP who liked browsing YouTube witnessed this scene.

And thus, on Xiaopuzhan appeared the video Qin Xiaoyu had just seen—the one with the exaggerated title.

“That’s a free ad if I’ve ever seen one!”

Qin Xiaoyu’s lips curled into a faint smile as he murmured to himself.

Either way, this was an unexpected bonus for him.

It also proved one other thing:

Genshin Impact would not face the problems Cai Qiu and Chen Wei feared when launched overseas.

Of course,

releasing the game globally based solely on Dael’s livestream was far from enough—Qin Xiaoyu knew that better than anyone.

As he was thinking about this, Lin Su’s figure suddenly appeared in his line of sight.

At the same time,

another figure also entered his view.

It was a young girl with a delicate oval face, her black hair tied into a ponytail hanging at the back, her clear eyes curved into crescent moons, filled with a charming smile as she spoke to Lin Su.

She looked about the same age as Lin Su.

“Morning~!”

Lin Su spotted Qin Xiaoyu sitting by the window, waved, then pulled Tao Xiaodian over and sat down beside him.

“Morning!”

Qin Xiaoyu returned a faint smile, his gaze turning to the girl beside Lin Su: “Who’s this…?”

“Oh, she’s Tao Xiaodian. Don’t pay her any mind—just treat her like air!”

After introducing Tao Xiaodian, Lin Su got straight to the point: “By the way, why did you call me? You’re not asking to borrow the recording studio again, are you?”

Before Qin Xiaoyu could answer, Tao Xiaodian pouted and complained softly to Lin Su:

“Lin Su, that’s kind of harsh! What do you mean treat me like air? Don’t I have any dignity?”

Tao Xiaodian’s voice was quiet.

But Qin Xiaoyu was less than a meter away, and his eyes instantly lit up: “Say that again?”

Tao Xiaodian checked several times and confirmed he was definitely speaking to her.

Her brows immediately furrowed; she felt a flicker of suspicion and tension, glanced at Qin Xiaoyu quickly, then stiffened her face and asked:

“Wait, are you two dating now? Do you even let me speak?”