Our Friendship Is Priceless, but My Bank Card Has a Limit

She took the high-speed rail back to Binjiang!

Shen Miaomiao was in high spirits!

Wonderful!

The game had not even taken shape yet, and she had already sent off an investment of 150,000 yuan!

Actually, she had originally wanted to raise the price even higher—say, hand over a full million.

But the moment that thought arose, the system warned her.

The reason was that a one-million-yuan onboarding fee far exceeded market rates and was suspected of deliberate loss-making.

So, she could only settle for the next best thing and pay Yiyou the highest market rate.

Still, that was already pretty good!

As she walked back to the company, Shen Miaomiao strutted with her head held high, like a triumphant general returning from battle!

She waved a hand at the listless Chu Qingzhou beside her!

"Sister Chuchu! Want a drink? My treat!"

At that moment, Chu Qingzhou practically wanted to die.

150,000 yuan!

Something that could have been fully settled for 70,000 had been forcibly doubled by this young lady!

She truly could not understand why!

With a soft sigh, Chu Qingzhou nodded, looking somewhat dispirited. "Sure. I'll just have a snow mango."

As she spoke, Chu Qingzhou headed toward Chale Specialty Drinks, located to the left of their office building's entrance.

It was a trendy beverage shop that had recently opened downstairs from their company.

Though its prices were generally on the expensive side, its drinks were also exceptionally good. Chu Qingzhou drank there often.

Right now, she desperately needed an iced drink to cool the fire in her heart.

However!

Before she could even turn the corner!

She saw Shen Miaomiao stride proudly toward Snow King on the right side of the company entrance!

Not long after!

Shen Miaomiao emerged carrying two cups of lemonade and handed one to Chu Qingzhou. "Here! Lemonade! It's good!"

Chu Qingzhou: ???

You... were willing to waste an extra 80,000 yuan... but you were treating me to lemonade?

"Miaomiao, is our friendship... only worth four yuan?"

As she spoke, Chu Qingzhou deliberately raised her cup and gave it a shake:

"You couldn't even bear to add a serving of coconut jelly for me?"

Chu Qingzhou looked at Shen Miaomiao with a wounded expression.

Shen Miaomiao, meanwhile, awkwardly pulled out her phone and showed Chu Qingzhou her bank balance.

502 yuan remaining.

"Our friendship is priceless, but my bank card has a limit."

Shen Miaomiao stuck out her tongue:

"I only have 500 yuan left for this month."

That was right.

Ever since Shen Miaomiao had struck out on her own, Old Shen had "cut ties" with her.

Not only did he refuse to invest another cent in Golden Wind beyond the 500,000 yuan in startup capital, but—

Even her formerly carefree lifestyle had come to an abrupt end. She could only live off her monthly salary now.

"But you didn't have to spend it all so cleanly!"

Seeing Shen Miaomiao speak so pitifully, Chu Qingzhou mercilessly exposed her:

"Your annual salary is 500,000 yuan! Your monthly pay is 40,000!"

"I spent 6,000 yuan treating all of you to that celebration dinner before."

Shen Miaomiao pouted:

"And I rented a place myself. It costs 6,500 a month, with one month's deposit and three months' rent upfront. Then there's food, daily expenses, skincare, face masks, water bills, electricity bills, gas, car maintenance..."

Chu Qingzhou was speechless.

Binjiang was close to both the provincial capital and the national capital, so its cost of living was indeed not low.

On top of that, Shen Miaomiao had been raised as a wealthy young lady and had never had much concept of money. She had always been waited on hand and foot.

After becoming an adult and getting her own bank card, she spent money without feeling its value. Her account had long maintained a six-figure balance, plus a credit limit of 500,000 yuan.

Having grown up in that environment, even if Shen Miaomiao was supposedly a lazy person with few desires, she could hardly be expected to understand frugality like an ordinary person.

And so, an awkward situation arose—she had become a penniless rich girl.

Looking at the pitiful Shen Miaomiao, Chu Qingzhou could not help but laugh.

"Alright, look at our poor little thing. I'll treat you!"

However, Shen Miaomiao grabbed Chu Qingzhou and raised the lemonade in her hand. "Let's drink this today first, or it'll go to waste."

Hearing that, Chu Qingzhou raised her brows in surprise, then nodded.

"Old Shen's way of educating his daughter has been remarkably effective..."

Back at the company, Gu Sheng and the others had just finished lunch and were handing out cigarettes.

As the saying went, a cigarette after a meal was better than living like an immortal.

Exhaling a curl of smoke, Lu Bian casually asked, "By the way, Old Gu, what did Little Nezha want with you this morning?"

"The immersive pod."

Gu Sheng lifted his tea and took a sip.

"I told her about my idea for an immersive pod. She seemed very interested, then dragged Secretary Chu off to Zhongjing in a hurry. I guess she went to negotiate with Yiyou."

"Huh?"

Da Jiang was surprised by Gu Sheng's words.

"But didn't you say before, Brother Sheng, that our company's current finances can't support immersive pod development?"

"Yeah."

Gu Sheng shrugged, looking a little helpless.

"But Little Nezha didn't give me a chance to explain. The moment she heard the immersive pod plan, she made the decision on the spot."

In truth, Gu Sheng had a bit of a headache.

Just as Da Jiang had said.

He did indeed intend to enter the immersive pod market, but not yet.

The company's financial limitations were only one aspect.

The bigger problem before him now was that the Emotion Points in his system did not currently support the production of a high-quality horror game.

According to Gu Sheng's plan, if they wanted to gain a foothold in the immersive pod market—

Then their first release had to be a massive hit.

Outlast, Resident Evil, The Evil Within, Dead Space...

Those were the projects on his shortlist.

High quality, large scale, hard-hitting, story-rich, and maximally thrilling.

But the problem was that he only had a little over 40,000 Emotion Points right now.

And in the system, even Outlast—the relatively smaller game among those titles—required over 100,000 Emotion Points.

That was an enormous number for Gu Sheng.

With the three games currently in his hands, it would be difficult to earn that much within ten days or half a month.

After all, as time passed, players' emotions would gradually stabilize.

Although those three games were still continuously providing him with Emotion Points, their growth rate was certainly nowhere near what it had been before.

So according to his original plan, Gu Sheng wanted to release another inexpensive but entertaining small game first, something like Getting Over It or Iwanna.

Those kinds of things earned Emotion Points like crazy.

Getting Over It in particular—back then, countless streamers had completely cracked under pressure. Its entertainment value had been absolutely explosive.

He would make a hefty sum, then enter the immersive pod market and use Outlast to carve out a bloody path.

Perfect.

But who could have expected—

Plans could not keep up with changes.

The moment he mentioned that he was interested in moving toward the immersive pod market, Little Nezha had acted as if she had been injected with adrenaline and approved it on the spot.

That left him no choice but to urgently filter through the system's horror games with a limit of 50,000 Emotion Points.

What should he make?

Gu Sheng leaned back in his executive chair. He looked as though he had closed his eyes to rest, but he was actually browsing the games in the system.

A horror version of Teletubbies?

No. It had too many Jumpscare elements. Players had long grown tired of that.

Poppy Playtime?

No, that would not work either. The Gameplay was too monotonous, and players would easily grow fatigued.

Five Nights at Freddy's?

No. Its scale was too small, and its replayability was low.

Gu Sheng was having a hard time.

It had to be novel, fun, and offer a certain degree of replayability.

Difficult...

Just as he was thinking, someone knocked on the office door.

Knock, knock, knock—

It was Chu Qingzhou.