When the boss was furious, his subordinates naturally had to offer explanations.
They were no strangers to the corporate world, and their skill at deflecting blame was already maxed out.
Though they did not know the true reason, what could be easier than casually coming up with a few plausible excuses? One reason that seemed quite reliable was:
There is a gap even among artists.
"Dream Builder must have found a god-tier artist. Their decision to shift game styles was probably just to accommodate this artist's style."
Another rather tricky reason was:
The gap in models.
"Even though we prepared longer, our artists always struggled to grasp the core points. It was only after we invited models for a live demonstration last month that we got some clues."
"However, only a few project team members watched the demonstration, and the quality of the models wasn't very high."
"It's possible Dream Builder invited more expensive, more professional models."
Fei Zhiyuan, the boss of Konjac Games, could not tell whether the reasons his subordinates mentioned were correct.
But that did not matter.
Anyway, in situations like this, a leader had a standard set of coping procedures—
First, fly into a rage and chew them out to let them know he was not easily fooled.
Then, offer support to show that he still trusted them.
Finally, issue a warning that he wanted to see results—do a good job and be rewarded, do a poor job and face severe punishment.
This strategy could handle over ninety percent of problems.
"I'll approve another batch of project funds for you."
"Go poach top-tier artists."
"Go invite higher-end models."
"I'll give you the money, and I'll give you the authority, but you must give me results! If there are no results, someone else will take your seats!"
The subordinates left full of solemn oaths.
Fei Zhiyuan sat in his boss's chair, looked at those two illustrations, and still felt somewhat uneasy.
He pulled up the revenue comparison chart between Konjac Games and Dream Builder from last month, and looking at that gap of over twenty times, he finally let out a sigh of relief.
The next day, Konjac Games updated its recruitment information with considerable efficiency.
Multiple headhunting firms also received commissions from Konjac Games one after another, turning their attention to well-known lead artists in the industry.
Especially for the commission regarding "the new concept art creator at Zhumeng Game Company," the bounty was directly three times that of anyone else.
Driven by money, these headhunting firms, which already had ridiculously vast networks, managed to get Ding Nian's information before long.
Text message after text message, along with friend requests, were sent to Ding Nian one after another.
"Buzz—buzz—"
Xu Meng watched Ding Nian's phone vibrate yet again, and could not help speaking up, "Did some emergency come up? So many people suddenly contacting you?"
"If it really is an emergency, go handle it first. There's no rush here."
"No, my phone number probably got leaked somewhere, a bunch of spam calls came in."
Ding Nian unhappily hung up the phone, and directly turned it off for some peace and quiet.
She was currently accompanying Xu Meng in conducting an interview.
The reason Xu Meng wanted to personally conduct the interview was that the newcomer was named Tang Ya, with the stage name [Ya Ya Did Not Wear Today].
As one could probably guess from her pen name, she was a moderately famous doujinshi artist who had returned from abroad.
That's right, previously Xu Meng had said in the announcement, "Warmly welcome h-artists to go straight," and now an h-artist had really come straight ashore.
Though her fame hadn't reached deafening proportions, she had graduated two years ago and worked in the industry for six. She could be considered an industry veteran, while at the same time her artwork was of extremely high quality and widely praised by readers.
To show his sincerity, Xu Meng naturally had to attend in person.
The interview process was actually quite brief.
When Xu Meng expressed that he wanted to see her works, this artist named [Ya Ya Did Not Wear Today] not only handed over a thick printed portfolio, but also handed over a mobile phone displaying a pink manga app. In Xu Meng's mind, she had already passed the interview.
The rest was just going through the motions and listening to the peer-to-peer exchange between her and Ding Nian.
One of these two was a mainstream artist and the other an h-artist, yet their conversation was unexpectedly congenial. Xu Meng sat there until his butt went numb before they finally finished chatting.
Xu Meng didn't pull any disgusting stunts like telling them to go back and wait for notification; he stood up directly and shook hands, "Welcome to Dream Builder! Let's work hard together and create a better game!"
"Definitely!" Feeling that both the boss and colleagues were easy to get along with, Tang Ya was also very happy.
Thus, the Dream Builder art department gained another seasoned member.
That afternoon, Xu Meng conducted another interview.
Or perhaps it couldn't really be called an interview, because Dream Builder had invited the other person.
The matter Xu Meng had previously assigned people to do—approaching a few harem novel authors—had not gone smoothly.
Successful authors were their own bosses, writing and churning out spicy content every day, looking at lewd pictures in chat groups, and teasing readers. Their lives were comfortable, and they simply refused to be underlings working beneath someone else.
As for the less successful ones, they often lacked the necessary capability and couldn't quite handle the job.
Finding an author with sufficient ability who also had the willingness to work a regular job was quite difficult.
The relatively lucky part was: the person invited to visit Dream Builder today, who was chatting with Xu Meng over coffee in the company's recreation area after the tour, was no small fry, but an author who had written several hit titles.
However, he felt that he was getting older and his health was getting worse by the day, making it somewhat difficult to keep up with the increasingly cutthroat word-count grind of today's online webnovel circle, and his sales had dropped continuously as a result.
So under his wife's suggestion, he wanted to find a job with normal hours and consider it early retirement. That was how he had accepted the invitation.
After sitting down, before bringing up anything else, Xu Meng couldn't help asking first, "May I ask why your pen name is Wheel Turner?"
He had been confused for half a day.
"Uh..." This elder approaching forty awkwardly adjusted his glasses, "This..."
"Do you know Lao Ai?"
"Lao Ai?" Xu Meng blinked, and after searching his brain for information on this figure, he suddenly reacted, "Oh~~~ So that's what it means!"
Lao Ai was the Marquis of Changxin of the Qin State in the late Warring States period. In his early years, he disguised himself as a eunuch to enter the palace, had an illicit affair with the Empress Dowager Zhao Ji, and fathered two sons with her. He once held immense power, but ultimately launched a failed rebellion and was executed by King Ying Zheng of Qin with the punishment of being torn apart by chariots.
Of course, none of this had anything to do with his pen name.
What had to do with it was: Lao Ai had an extremely famous specialty—
"Using his lower parts to turn a paulownia wheel and walk."
To translate, it meant Lao Ai could use his lower anatomy as an axle, threading it into paulownia cartwheels to make them spin and walk.
This was also the reason he was recruited into the palace by Empress Dowager Zhao.
For this dude to take the pen name "Wheel Turner" meant he also possessed the technique of the revolving wheel.
Xu Meng was filled with admiration for a moment.
As expected of someone who wrote harem novels, he truly had the goods!
—And he was cultured, unlike those uncultured pretty boys who only knew how to say, "Mine is huge, bear with it for a bit."
He just didn't know if he was willing to demonstrate.
Xu Meng was quite eager to watch...
"Awesome." Xu Meng gave him a thumbs up, "Big Brother..."
"No, no, no!!" Big Brother panicked, "Please don't call me that, just call me Zheng Yi, I'm begging you!"
He added, "I was young and ignorant back then, and later fans got used to calling me that so it was hard to change... For these years I've just let it be... Calling me that in real life is just too awkward..."
"Haha, alright. Shall we talk about the 'Frost Snow Project' next?"
"Alright." Zheng Yi nodded; he indeed had a belly full of complaints he was dying to vent.
Before coming over, he had play-tested "Frost Snow Project," going through both the character designs and the plot.
From his perspective, the game's plot and character designs had a ton of toxic flaws, and if written as a webnovel, the author would definitely be cursed by readers until even their own mother wouldn't recognize them.
At this moment, chatting with Xu Meng about it, he was not intimidated in the slightest, speaking logically and insightfully.
Xu Meng nodded repeatedly as he listened—the two of them held a high degree of consistency in their views on many things, so the more they talked, the more congenial they became, and the deeper the conversation went.
Many changes to character designs and plot turning points were quickly finalized during this dialogue.
By the time the two finished chatting, it was already time to get off work, and their bellies were full of coffee, drinks, and small snacks.
Finally, the two shook hands firmly, declaring Zheng Yi's official joining of Dream Builder.
Dream Builder's last leaderless, low-efficiency department—the copywriting department—had finally ushered in reinforcement.
Recruiting two capable generals in a single day, Xu Meng felt that all the talented heroes had entered his net.
The situation was looking brilliant!
Before you continue