It's Clearly the Player's Love! (Seeking Recommendations, Collections, and Monthly Votes)

It had been quite a while, but Jiang Ping still hadn't recovered from the Genocide Ending.

He only half-understood the game's story.

But that didn't matter—what mattered was that right now, he felt truly suffocated.

The Genocide Ending was agonizingly painful.

Yes, he regretted it.

Just like when he played "Magic Mirror"—at first he was full of interest, then he grew bored, and finally he regretted why he had even opened the game again.

Now that he had finished the Genocide Ending of "Undertale," he felt the same way.

No matter what, having played through the Genocide Ending, he truly regretted it.

He missed the scenes in Peaceful Mode, laughing with his friends, watching Undyne burn down the kitchen, listening to Papyrus tell his corny jokes, eating Toriel's pie.

"Let me start a new perfect save file and put a proper end to this game."

Recalling all those memories in his mind, Jiang Ping took a deep breath and reopened the game.

He wanted to replay the perfect Pacifist Ending.

With his previous experience, this time Jiang Ping was very skilled.

He remembered many monsters and directly chose the most correct dialogue.

Finally, after defeating Asriel and watching the sunset, a faint smile appeared on Jiang Ping's face.

No matter what, everything was over now.

Yet the next moment, the game's screen made him freeze completely.

A pitch-black night. The protagonist was sleeping in the room.

Then the door was gently pushed open. Toriel entered, holding a cream-cinnamon cake, gently placed it on the floor, and then closed the door.

It looked very warm and cozy. But the next second, the protagonist, who seemed to be asleep, suddenly sat up in bed.

It was Chara's face—a sinister and evil expression.

The next moment, a vicious and wicked laugh came through the headphones.

Leaving the room, a black-and-white photo appeared—a group photo of the protagonist and his friends from the Underground.

But now, except for the protagonist, everyone's head had a blood-red cross marked on it.

Then the game screen disappeared.

Sitting in front of the computer, Jiang Ping's eyes widened.

He had only read some guides on how to start the Genocide Route before, and now he finally understood why the post's author had suggested not to play the Genocide Ending, or you would regret it.

He also finally understood what those strange, unclear comments in the game reviews he had read before actually meant.

[When did this world become yours to command?]

Chara's words seemed to echo in his ears again.

Jiang Ping stared blankly at the "Undertale" interface on the screen.

He had already felt the game's depth—no, he should say its 'malice'!

Like most games, you hurt the monsters in the game, then delete the save file and start a new one, continuing to love and be loved by the monsters, as if nothing had ever happened?

Haha, are you kidding?

Don't dream!

Just like a mirror—once it's broken, no matter how well you glue it back together, there will still be cracks.

Since you chose to slaughter those monsters, how could you possibly be allowed to love them again?

In the dead of night, the bad save file you deleted before returns like a haunting ghost, tearing apart your self-righteous peace and beauty.

Finally, that sinister laugh, the black-and-white photo.

Though not a single word was spoken, Jiang Ping felt an immense sense of irony.

Irony directed at him sitting in front of the computer.

As if someone was holding a megaphone and shouting right next to his ear.

'Stop pretending, you hypocrite!'

Was there no way to change all this?

Jiang Ping looked at the closed game, pursed his lips.

He logged into the "Undertale" game community.

As he expected, aside from some posts discussing the game's content, characters, and story, there were also many asking about the exact problem he was facing.

'Veterans, does anyone know how to get back to the good ending?'

'Same here, same here! I'm begging with all my might! I was reckless and played the Genocide Ending—I regret it, I want to go back to the past!'

"Even though I know I'm just fooling myself, I still want to go back to the past!"

"Deleting the game, making a new account, buying it with an alt—none of it works at all!"

Looking at the flood of posts, Jiang Ping felt a little better.

After all, he wasn't the only one.

Scrolling through threads, he finally found a precise answer.

"The game's corrupted save directly overwrites both cloud saves and system files, so you need a two-pronged approach: reinstall the system, then make a new account and buy Undertale. That gives you a fresh game. Of course, don't log in on your old account, or it'll detect it and corrupt the save again!"

So that was it!

Jiang Ping had a sudden realization, and quickly made a decision.

Of course, he wasn't about to reinstall his system—he had too many "teacher study materials" saved on it, some of which had already lost their download seeds and speeds online.

Plus, he'd always used a single C drive for everything, with no partitions at all.

So reinstalling the system was out of the question.

Now that he understood the principle, he just needed to buy the game on another computer.

In the Nebula Games office, Yang Xin was brimming with excitement.

"Over 500,000! And it's been less than half a month!"

On the screen in front of Yang Xin was the cumulative sales of Undertale across various game stores.

After its word-of-mouth explosion, most major platforms had put Undertale on their front-page recommendation lists.

As for the official platform, its recommendation system relied on big data and was relatively slow, so even if it got featured, it'd probably be next week.

Of the current 500,000 sales, about 70% came from third-party platforms.

"But it looks like quite a few players contributed a second sale," Chen Xu said, looking at the backend data, equally surprised.

He noticed that many purchase records showed Undertale as the first game bought on those accounts.

"Yeah, a lot of players got curious and played the genocide ending, then bought a second copy to make themselves feel better," Yang Xin said. Clearly, she cared about this game even more than Chen Xu.

"Isn't that just plugging their ears while stealing a bell?" Ruan Ningxue remarked from the side.

"How is that plugging ears? It's clearly the players showing their deep love for our game," Chen Xu thought for a moment, then summarized.

"Let's release the sales numbers first and add more fuel to the game's hype."

As he spoke, Chen Xu logged into his official Weibo.

Thanks to the earlier hype and Undertale's overwhelming praise, his Weibo followers had finally broken 300,000.

He couldn't compare to those famous game developers with millions of followers, but at least he had some recognition now.

More importantly, under the little lightning bolt icon, there was finally a more detailed description.

"Game Developer, Representative Work: Undertale"

Before, it had just been the little lightning bolt and five words: "Game Developer."

After all, while Magic Mirror had explosive sales, its genre was too niche.