As Xu Meng counted the development progress of various departments on his fingers, a thunderous cheer suddenly rang out from outside the door.
Further away, waves of applause also erupted.
So Xu Meng stopped overthinking and closed the empty cash box with satisfaction.
He knew his goal had been achieved.
As for the reserve funds being completely exhausted, and the company's book cash becoming tight again...
As long as the major update for the Frost Snow Project became healthy in terms of revenue, this aspect would be easy to resolve.
With the company's current work enthusiasm and output results, Xu Meng was full of confidence in this update! Of course, the money from players' microtransactions next month wouldn't be wired to the company's accounts that quickly.
But this wasn't a huge problem either.
As long as the revenue of the Frost Snow Project skyrocketed, he had the confidence to borrow another sum of money from the bank.
Or cash out some gold coins from a middle-aged adult, shuffling over the pocket money given by Zhang Yang's mother to tide things over.
As long as he was sure he could pay it back, borrowing money for turnover wasn't an unacceptable thing.
All in all, in short, as long as the Frost Snow Project could reverse the downturn, all problems would be readily solved.
Xu Meng didn't run out at that moment to accept the employees' cheers, instead waiting until things quieted down outside before stepping out of the conference room.
Even so, the employees still cast sideways glances at him.
Beyond that, Xu Meng also discovered an unexpected harvest—
The employees' work enthusiasm seemed even higher, with one leaving later than the other.
Until one day, Chen Wanzhong appeared in the office carrying a roll of bedding.
Then, this behavior spread rapidly like a virus, resembling a seasonal flu named "bedding," sweeping through the programming, animation, and modeling departments in the blink of an eye.
It was enough to make Xu Meng a bit scared.
He tallied his own output for a day's work, compared it with the average values of these three departments, and decisively stopped working to start acting as logistics.
The first thing to do was to fill the recreation room with snacks and drinks.
He even posted a survey on the office software, having employees fill in their favorite types of snacks and drinks, which administration quickly purchased and stocked.
Next, he had Sister Chen find a nearby restaurant to negotiate a partnership.
This allowed employees to order meals freely, with the restaurant handling unified delivery.
Although it was still food delivery, with the company sending someone to oversee it, at least there was no need to worry about running into unsanitary small workshops and getting food poisoning.
Finally, he ran to the Kangya Hospital in Ningzhou to consult his doctor.
After making sure that the supplements he was currently drinking could be consumed by ordinary working stiffs, he stocked up heavily and distributed a box to every single employee at Dream Builder.
The programming, animation, and modeling departments received triple the amount.
When they took the supplements from the boss's hands, the employees were completely dumbfounded.
For a moment, they couldn't tell if the boss was concerned about their health or hinting that "there are supplements, so you can crunch harder."
Until one day, someone discovered that the company had three extra AEDs (Automated External Defibrillators), placed respectively in the offices of the programming, animation, and modeling departments.
They finally understood: the boss was worried about them dropping dead from sudden death in the office.
Thus, the "bedding flu" was finally effectively curbed.
Xu Meng also breathed a sigh of relief.
On the other side, the large-scale poaching incident by Konjac Games that had constantly worried him never actually happened.
Instead, he once again heard a wondrous piece of gossip about Konjac Games from his little assistant, Chen Mengling—
Konjac Games had been blacklisted by Long Teng Fashion.
Long Teng Fashion was the modeling agency Dream Builder had contacted previously when inviting models.
Chen Mengling got this news from the model whose stage name was Zi Lin.
This matter had actually happened a week ago, but Zi Lin was a low-tier minor model, so Long Teng Fashion naturally wouldn't specifically notify her. Zi Lin only got the news through casual chats with peer friends, so it inevitably had some lag.
But acquiring news through this channel also had an advantage—
That was getting many hard-to-verify scene details.
According to the scene details relayed to Xu Meng by the little assistant Chen Mengling, who heard it from Zi Lin, who heard it from the model working alongside her at the time—
Konjac Games had invited eight professional models with higher market values and better figures.
Unlike those low-tier minor models who had just entered the modeling industry due to ideals, enthusiasm, or other reasons, these were full-time models who had persevered through the survival of the fittest.
They weren't quite famous yet, but they were well-rounded in ability and didn't really lack work.
Therefore, they weren't as easy to bully as low-tier minor models.
However, Konjac Games still didn't become any more professional, treating them the same way they used to treat low-tier minor models.
During the shoot, a crowd gathered around pointing and whispering, pulling out their phones from time to time to snap pictures of the models with leering smiles.
A model expressed her dissatisfaction.
But the person in charge at Konjac Games just brushed it off with a couple of remarks and didn't take it to heart.
Then, a hot-tempered model dropped her props, walked out of the shooting area, and slapped a leering man across the face.
(Hearing this, Xu Meng raised his eyebrows in surprise.) The leering man refused to take it and tried to slap her back, but other models rushed up as well, knocking him to the ground with one slap each.
The leering man's colleagues came to help, and both sides engaged in a massive brawl, with several people getting their faces scratched up.
(Xu Meng's raised eyebrows dropped back down, his trust in this third-hand news dropping by 80 percentage points.) In the end, both sides parted on bad terms.
Afterwards, following several rounds of clashes between the two companies, Long Teng Fashion blacklisted Konjac Games.
Not only did they refuse all cooperation, but they also passed the situation along to their peers.
The little assistant finished her story.
Xu Meng nodded, evaluating it with one word: Deserved.
It was a pity they didn't actually die.
But soon, Xu Meng acutely realized, "This seems like a very powerful weapon!"
"If it can be used at the right time, its power will be boundless! It might even cripple Konjac's new game in one wave!"
The ACG Game circle was fundamentally about selling characters.
ACG Games focusing on sexiness were even more so.
If players found out that game designers treated real-life models this way, how would they treat virtual characters?
Not to mention that these real-life models were, to a certain extent, the reference subjects for the virtual characters.
If this got out to the players and didn't spark a massive uproar, then they wouldn't be ACG Game players! "Very good, very good!" Xu Meng recalled that string of records in his little notebook of Konjac Games wronging him.
He looked at the little assistant: "Mengling, I have a very important job to hand to you!"
"Go ahead, Boss!"
"I'll allocate a special fund for you. Contact Zi Lin and try your best through her to find the models who were at the scene that day, and figure out what actually happened."
"It's best to find video footage. If you really can't, spend money to record a video interviewing the people involved."
"How about it, can you do it?"
"Yes!" The little assistant was full of confidence.
She had already realized that the boss wanted to trip up Konjac Games.
Anyway, those models had also been wronged by Konjac Games. Now that they knew someone was willing to vent their spleen for them, they definitely wouldn't hold back.
As long as they could find the people, this matter wasn't difficult at all!
The little assistant set off full of confidence, and in less than three days, she got the matter settled.
After watching the interview video and a short, slightly shaky 35-second clip she brought back, Xu Meng couldn't praise the little assistant's executive ability enough.
After encrypting and storing it on the company server, he downloaded another copy to a USB drive and put the USB drive into his drawer.
Watching Xu Meng's actions, the little assistant was slightly puzzled: "Boss, aren't we going to publish it?"
Xu Meng shook his head: "Publishing it now is useless. At most, netizens will curse a bit, which is harmless to Konjac Games."
"Wait a bit longer."
"Alright." The little assistant felt a bit regretful.
Xu Meng closed the drawer, putting this hidden blade back into its scabbard, and quietly awaited the day it would be drawn.
In this quiet waiting, the final days of May quietly slipped away.
In the blink of an eye, it was the last day.
Before you continue