Chapter 14: Project

"Something came up Friday night; let's chat now."

When work hours began, Shen Siyuan sent a message directly to Ding Youguang via the corporate WeChat.

Ding Youguang replied to the message very quickly.

"I have a path to get rich; I want to chat with you about it."

"A path to get rich? Chat with me? I only have two eighty-percent-new kidneys; do you still want to make a move on them?"

"Who wants your kidneys? They smell so foul. I'm talking serious business with you."

"Is that so? Then let's chat during lunch..."

Shen Siyuan felt very puzzled; what path to get rich did Ding Youguang have that he would come to him?

This kid, he wouldn't be thinking of selling him off to Northern Myanmar, would he?

Operations work is actually quite relaxed; besides communicating with programmers and developing holiday events, they usually handle player feedback forwarded to customer service, and operations is also responsible for communicating with programmers to help players resolve issues.

But while operations work is relaxed, the pressure is no small thing, because operations is responsible for a game's revenue, with monthly revenue targets that affect the team's income.

Basically, everyone in the entire operations department is responsible for one game; Shen Siyuan is the same, responsible for a xianxia-style game, and the members of his group, besides him as operations, include one customer service representative, one programmer, and one artist.

So the monthly revenue concerns not just his own income, but also the income of the other few people.

So Shen Siyuan didn't idle all morning; he played a few newly launched games, calling it "understanding competitors."

He caught up on a few novels, calling it "brain refreshment."

Thus, the "busy" morning passed.

Seeing it was almost lunchtime, Wang Chao shouted first.

"I'm ordering takeout; who wants to join?"

The fat man Tian Yunrui, sitting opposite him, immediately looked up and asked, "Which place are you ordering from?"

"Xiao Wei Chu downstairs; their food tastes good and the portions are generous."

Hearing it was Xiao Wei Chu, several others immediately asked Wang Chao to order for them as well.

Although Wang Chao's mouth was a bit foul, he was very enthusiastic in daily life; if anyone had something to do, he would actively help.

For instance, when ordering lunch, he also showed great patience, asking everyone one by one what they wanted to eat.

"Shen Siyuan, what do you want to eat for lunch?"

"I don't need to; I'm going down to eat," Shen Siyuan said.

Then he heard Li Wenjuan, sitting behind, immediately say, "Shen Siyuan, bring me a portion of cold noodles."

"Sure; I'll probably be a bit late when I get back after eating."

"No problem; I'm not very hungry anyway," Li Wenjuan said.

This girl, every day it was either cold noodles or rice noodles, or some light meal salad; she said she was losing weight, but Shen Siyuan hadn't seen her fat anywhere.

"Sister Juan, I think you might as well order from Xiao Wei Chu with me," Wang Chao immediately said.

This guy clearly had a girlfriend, but he acted very enthusiastic toward all women.

One didn't know whether to say he had gentlemanly manners, or that he had a wicked heart.

"Their place isn't hygienic," Li Wenjuan said.

Hearing this, Shen Siyuan felt he had the most say in the matter, so he immediately said, "That's true; I've found cockroaches twice; every time they just replaced it with a new portion for me, but does replacing it make it clean?"

"You're so much trouble; none of us have ever found any," Tian Yunrui immediately said upon hearing this.

"Hehe, that's hard to say; you didn't eat that fast; are you sure you didn't?" Shen Siyuan laughed.

Upon hearing this, Tian Yunrui's face turned green, then he argued stubbornly that it was high protein and that Cantonese people often eat it, and so on.

Cantonese people even eat Fujianese people; why don't you eat a Fujianese person?

For a moment, the office was filled with a cheerful atmosphere.

As soon as it hit noon at twelve o'clock, Ding Youguang appeared at the operations department entrance.

"Brother Shen, let's go..."

Shen Siyuan picked up his phone and stood up; Chen Hao immediately said, "Brother Shen, bring me back a bottle of cola."

"Isn't there a vending machine in the company?"

"It's been empty for ages; those damn technical department guys; as soon as stock arrived this morning, they took it all..." Chen Hao grumbled.

Cola is the spiritual food of programmers, so it's always consumed very quickly.

"Alright then."

Shen Siyuan had just agreed when he heard others say one after another, "Brother Shen, bring me one too."

"And me."

"Damn, can't you just go down there yourselves?"

"Can't~"

Now it was Shen Siyuan's turn to grumble.

"What exactly is it? So mysterious?"

"We'll talk over lunch."

"Lunch is only an hour and a half; I still want to rest a bit."

"Don't worry; I've already called the restaurant; as soon as we arrive, the dishes will be served; it won't waste your time."

Ding Youguang had indeed handled everything flawlessly, so Shen Siyuan couldn't say much more.

When they arrived at a stir-fry restaurant downstairs named 【Hua Guang Restaurant】, sure enough, as soon as the two sat down, dishes began arriving one after another: two meat dishes and two vegetable dishes.

This Hua Guang Restaurant does not do delivery; it only sells in-store; usually, when they held private gatherings, they liked to come here.

Ding Youguang ordered two meat dishes and two vegetable dishes: stir-fried pork liver, braised pork, potato and eggplant, and dry-fried green beans; all were their signature dishes, with generous portions, enough for two people to eat.

"Speak up; what exactly is it? So mysterious?"

"I found a way to get rich—want in?"

"What kind of get-rich scheme, and you're actually nice enough to bring me along?" Shen Siyuan wasn't joking around this time; he said it seriously.

"Because I can't pull it off alone." Ding Youguang said.

"Tell me specifically—what's the plan?"

"TV games." Ding Youguang said, a hint of excitement in his voice.

"TV games?" Shen Siyuan was startled by the words, then caught on.

Today's smart TVs are basically just oversized phones—apart from not being able to make calls, their functions aren't really any different from a phone's. In theory, any game that runs on a phone can run on a TV; the only thing to consider is the controls, which aren't as convenient as on a phone.

So a gamepad is needed for operation—though for some games with simple functions, the remote control works just fine.

Shen Siyuan figured all this out quickly, so he spoke up: "This thing looks doable, but there's just one problem."

"What problem?"

"Channels. Even though you have all the company's channel info, it's all mobile-game channels."

"No channels means no traffic—everything else is just empty talk."

"Hehe~" Ding Youguang let out a sly, roguish laugh at that.

"You've got a way in?"

"Yeah, I have a buddy at China Mobile—he's in charge of the set-top box side. He also introduced me to a few companies that develop apps specifically for the set-top boxes on the market. Our games can go straight onto their channels…"

"Awesome—if you put it that way, it actually sounds doable." Shen Siyuan was visibly a little worked up too.

Even though fewer and fewer people watch TV these days, there's still a massive user base. If their games really took off, they probably wouldn't make big money, but small money would definitely roll in.

"And I've done my research—there are barely any companies doing TV games on the market right now, and the games they make are garbage. Here's their monthly revenue…" Ding Youguang handed his phone to Shen Siyuan.

Shen Siyuan took it and looked—a few companies were listed, with detailed monthly downloads, registered users, paying users, and revenue figures behind them.

The highest was five or six hundred thousand a month, the lowest still two or three hundred thousand.

"You can even get your hands on this stuff?" Shen Siyuan was a little impressed.

This is the kind of thing that counts as a company's trade secret—it's not the sort of thing that gets leaked easily.

"A friend of mine gave it to me." Ding Youguang said, with a touch of pride.

Clearly, the "friend" in question was that buddy at China Mobile—only someone with a grip on the upstream channels would have detailed revenue data on every company.

"So what do you think—can this work?" Ding Youguang pressed.

"It can." Shen Siyuan gave him a very definite answer.