Come Experience It!

I had committed such a terrible sin.

Shen Miaomiao sat at the head of the conference table, looking utterly drained, still clutching a bare flower stem in her hand.

That was right.

Before this, she had been so anxious that she resorted to plucking petals, that ancient and ridiculous form of divination, to predict whether this investment would break even.

And the result only made her more anxious—

She had picked a five-petaled flower and started with, "It'll break even."

It'll break even, it won't break even, it'll break even, it won't break even, it'll break even... Damn it!

Why did a five-petaled flower have five petals?! What terrible luck!

Feudal superstition was unacceptable!

Shen Miaomiao comforted herself, fully embracing the practical superstitious mindset of "A twitching left eye means good fortune, while a twitching right eye is merely eyelid spasms caused by visual fatigue."

Shen Miaomiao was panicking.

After all, she had seen Vampire Survivors' popularity firsthand over this period.

Its explosive popularity and reputation among players were even greater than those of their previous two games combined.

Even though!

Thanks to the Time Reduction Card, the profit-and-loss calculation this time would be determined within the single hour after the game officially went on sale.

As long as Vampire Survivors' total sales did not exceed 200,000 yuan during that hour—

Her investment would be judged a loss, and she would receive a tenfold rebate.

But!

Judging by its popularity, breaking even at lightning speed within an hour did not seem impossible.

At that thought, Shen Miaomiao could not help praying inwardly—

Heavens above, earth below, please let the Yiyou Platform servers suddenly explode.

As long as they were down for one hour, I could safely collect a two-million-yuan rebate.

As for how much the game sold for afterward, that would have nothing to do with me.

My profit share is only a tiny amount anyway.

Jesus Christ, Virgin Mary, Great Father Wang Lama of the Wudang Mountain Liaison Office at Shaolin Temple, please do Shen Miaomiao this small favor...

Over here, Shen Miaomiao was praying to every god she could think of, hoping the Yiyou servers would explode.

Little did she know that at the very same time!

At the Yiyou Platform's Programming Department, people packed the room, keyboards clattered nonstop, and the atmosphere was blazing hot!

Ma Shan, the newly appointed Lead Programmer, walked to the front of the office and clapped his hands.

"Come on! Listen up, everyone! Keep working!"

"This is the most critical moment of our Development Festival!"

"Server stability is crucial to wrapping up the event!"

"CEO Yan has given special instructions on this matter."

"Today, anyone can make mistakes, but our Programming Department absolutely cannot!"

"Let me make this clear up front."

"If, when the final rankings are announced and all the games go on sale, our servers lag—"

"If the lag lasts more than ten seconds, everyone's bonus for this month is gone!"

Then!

Ma Shan abruptly changed his tone.

"But if we do a good job! If we keep the servers running smoothly even under heavy pressure—"

"The company will cover the overtime pay."

"And I'll pay out of pocket to treat you all to foot massages!"

"Got it?!"

No man could refuse a foot massage.

The moment he said that, the men of the Programming Department erupted!

Every one of them looked like they had been injected with adrenaline!

"Damn! Brother Shan, you're awesome!"

"Don't worry, Brother Shan. Even if my heart and brain vessels burst today, these servers won't!"

"Hahahahaha, damn it, don't say stuff like that, man..."

"For the foot massage!"

"If it crashes today, brothers, we'll come see you with our heads in our hands!"

"It's almost eight! Let's do this, brothers—!"

"Yeah—!!!"

In the blink of an eye, it was nearly eight o'clock.

Seeing that the time was about right, Shen Miaomiao pulled herself together and gave herself a pep talk.

Pull yourself together, Shen Miaomiao!

It was only one hour!

Once she got through that hour, she would receive the first rebate from the system!

Although Vampire Survivors was incredibly popular now—

Everyone knew that sales took time to build.

People might like the game and be willing to pay for it.

But surely not that many people would be sitting in front of their computers, waiting specifically for its release time with payment ready, right?

After all!

Everyone had already played the game for two weeks, and they had more or less figured out all the strategies.

Their enthusiasm for buying it and adding it to their libraries certainly would not be especially high.

Thinking of that, Shen Miaomiao felt much more at ease.

Ring-ring-ring—!!!

As the clock hand precisely pointed to eight, the alarm Shen Miaomiao had set long ago rang right on time.

The game was on sale!!!

Shen Miaomiao perked up and hurriedly turned to look.

The others also turned their gazes toward the massive projection screen at the front of the conference room!

On the screen, the real-time updating graph flickered once.

Then it began climbing upward at a steady pace.

Vampire Survivors was priced at 15 yuan per copy.

Based on the total investment of 200,000 yuan, it needed to sell at least 13,334 copies in its first hour just to break even.

But theoretically, that was basically impossible.

Ever since Yiyou was founded, even small games of Vampire Survivors' scale had only achieved peak daily sales of around 8,900 copies.

And that was daily sales.

What Gu Sheng and the others needed to challenge was hourly sales.

More than ten thousand copies in one hour was simply an impossible mission.

Watching the steadily rising graph—

Shen Miaomiao temporarily steadied herself and let out a breath.

Good, good.

Although that bastard Yan Sheng's betrayal had indeed worked, it was just as she had predicted before.

Two whole weeks of repeated play had indeed caused players some fatigue, and the game's sales growth was not particularly outrageous yet.

At present, the game was selling at roughly 100 copies per minute.

At that rate, it would sell at most around 6,000 copies in its first hour.

That was already astonishing enough, but for Shen Miaomiao, it remained within an acceptable range.

200,000 yuan minus 6,000 copies times 15 yuan.

A net loss of 110,000 yuan.

Then multiplied by ten.

That meant a full 1.1 million yuan going into her private stash!

Completely acceptable!

Shen Miaomiao was very quick with numbers. Almost instantly, she estimated the amount of this rebate.

She could not help beaming with delight!

However!

Before the corners of her lips could even rise—

Ding-dong!

Shen Miaomiao heard her phone chime.

She picked it up and saw a Weibo notification—

"Gu ShengSam," whom you specially follow, has posted new content! Come take a look!

Hm?

Shen Miaomiao glanced up at Gu Sheng, somewhat surprised.

You little punk! Slacking off right in front of me?!

No wonder every time she had secretly glanced at him earlier, Gu Sheng had kept his head down and ignored her.

So he had been scrolling through Weibo!

Good! Very promising!

Shen Miaomiao nodded in satisfaction.

She hoped Gu Sheng would slack off more, so the game's quality would be worse.

With that thought, Shen Miaomiao curiously opened Weibo, wanting to see what Gu Sheng had posted during his slacking.

Once she entered Weibo, Gu Sheng's personal page popped up.

The pinned post was the one he had just published—

Gu ShengSam: I am delighted to announce that "Vampire Survivors v1.1" will be updated simultaneously at eight o'clock tonight. This update adds two new maps, including Easter eggs; four unlockable characters; five brand-new weapons; five brand-new items; three Super Weapons; and the first upgradeable Super Weapon! Come experience it!