Who Did I Offend?

"This is the worst time a clown has ever been slandered!"

"To be fair, clowns can bring joy to people. What about Teacher Zhong?"

"Upstairs, hasn't Teacher Zhong brought us plenty of joy?"

"233333, thanks to Chen Xu for introducing me to Teacher Zhong. When I'm feeling down, reading through Teacher Zhong's old quotes cheers me right up."

"But honestly, I'm still curious what Chen Xu's new game actually is. Something feels off about it!"

"Could he really be getting overconfident?"

"Hard to say, but given 'Magic Mirror' and 'Undertale,' I'll wait and see for myself."

"Ten-some days feels pretty sketchy."

With Chen Xu's official blog post, many players who had followed him since "Magic Mirror" and "Undertale" started discussing it.

But the general consensus was the same—they weren't optimistic.

After all, the timeframe was way too short.

Compared to the players, the industry and media were buzzing even more.

Inside NetDragon's Sword Fire Thunder Studio, a game designer was trembling as he stared at the online news.

Meng Zuo, the lead designer at Sword Fire Thunder Studio, was developing a sci-fi game called "Galaxy Heroes."

His target was this very Sci-Fi Conquest Game event.

NetDragon's banner sounded imposing.

But in reality, there were too many internal project teams. The Sword Fire Thunder Studio he led was just one of them.

And not every project team could secure tens of millions or hundreds of millions in development funding.

A few million was already considered a mid-sized project inside NetDragon.

As for Meng Zuo, he had aimed at the Sci-Fi Conquest Game event, hoping to take first place.

That would help him elevate his standing in the gaming circle and within NetDragon, securing better resources and project development funds.

Everything was going smoothly—until Chen Xu suddenly announced he was making a sci-fi game and joining the same competition, completely throwing Meng Zuo's plans into chaos.

It wasn't that he was overly afraid of Chen Xu.

In fact, he shared the same view as many others—that in such a short time, Chen Xu couldn't possibly make anything worthwhile.

But the key issue was that the explosive success of "Magic Mirror" and "Undertale" had given Chen Xu insane traffic.

For many gaming media outlets, Chen Xu was traffic incarnate!

And for players, the hype around "Undertale" hadn't fully died down yet. Every move Chen Xu made had them glued to the news.

As for Zhong Mei's sarcastic remarks, in a way, they only added to Chen Xu's traffic.

So this was incredibly awkward!

The "Galaxy Heroes" he was leading had set aside some budget specifically for promotion.

And they had already started rolling it out.

But now?

All the buzz had been stolen away!

There was no helping it. NetDragon was the top channel distributor in the country, and they were a studio under NetDragon.

But the channel side was handled by the Macro Play department, while they were a separate R&D team.

The Macro Play department wasn't kind enough to use their own performance metrics to prop them up.

Want to use NetDragon's channels for promotion?

No problem. Since they were colleagues, all from the same family, they'd give them a 9.9% internal discount.

What? No money?

If you don't have money, why are you coming to us?

Get lost!

Coming without money—did they think their performance metrics weren't real metrics?

Staring at the trending news online—"Chen Xu's New Work to Join Sci-Fi Conquest Game," "Game Development Is No Joke—Has Chen Xu, Creator of 'Undertale,' Gotten Overconfident?"—Meng Zuo felt his heart trembling.

They barely had any promotion budget to begin with, and now it was all wasted!

"Who did I piss off?!" Meng Zuo clutched his chest, his face twisted in pain.

Looking at Chen Xu's earlier hype post with Zhong Mei, for a split second Meng Zuo wanted to tag Chen Xu and express his disdain for his new work, hoping to spark a confrontation and boost his own game's presence.

But he stopped himself. Not because he thought he'd lose, but because he was different from Zhong Mei.

After all, Zhong Mei's Hepatitis Culture and Sports might not be big—just an indie game workshop—but at least he was his own boss.

And what about him? He was a producer under NetDragon—if he dared to jump out and fight back, he'd be screwed.

After all, there was no righteous cause. In ancient times, rebels had to shout that the court was corrupt and incompetent, asking if kings and nobles were born superior.

If he directly jumped out to confront things, it would feel good in the moment, but the trouble afterward would be huge.

Apologizing and such were minor issues. The real fear was that players' hatred for NetDragon would shift onto him, and he'd end up taking the fall for other departments inside the company too.

Then others would rake in cash while he got all kinds of disciplinary actions—truly a sight that would make the listener grieve and the viewer weep.

Having his buzz stolen was already a miserable thing. If he then had to shoulder a huge black pot, it would be utterly unbearable.

But now?

His mood was awful!

Especially when Meng Zuo thought about how Chen Xu, the instigator, had no clue about any of this. The guy hadn't even targeted him on purpose—that made him even more bitter and furious.

How unjust was this for him!

As the saying went, a gentleman's revenge is never too late. Though he couldn't blame Chen Xu entirely, there was still a connection.

So in that instant, his mind had already started imagining exactly what he would do.

"You stole the promotional buzz, so let the Conquest Game Competition settle it with the games themselves!"

"Even though I feel like you might not even pass the review, I still hope you get a last-place award. That way, you'll be invited to the Game Department's offline award ceremony."

"Then I'll make sure to shake your hand mercilessly in front of countless players, Game Department leaders, and game media. And I'll smile while saying I've long admired your reputation, praising how great your new game really is!"

Staring enviously at the trending headlines about Chen Xu, Meng Zuo took a deep breath, closed the webpage, and dove deep into his mental fantasy.

Red carpet, media, handshake, speech—one month later, that would be his perfect day of revenge!

In the Nebula Games office, Chen Xu had no idea someone was already plotting revenge against him.

These days, he was incredibly busy. On one hand, he had to keep up with the development progress of To the Moon; on the other, he had to handle recruitment interviews.

Chen Xu had posted the relevant recruitment info on some game industry forums and communities.

With the reputation of Undertale backing it, it had indeed attracted quite a few game industry professionals.

But the problem was that too few of them satisfied Chen Xu.

After checking all the resumes, Chen Xu sighed. "Ah! Hiring is tough!"

His plan was to bring in another art assistant for the development department to share the workload with him and Ruan Ningxue.

At the same time, he wanted to hire a numerical designer and a level designer.

But for these three positions, he still hadn't found any good prospects.

Just then, the office door knocked twice. Chen Xu responded, and the door pushed open as a man in his thirties walked in.

Zhang Yida, the manager of Nebula Games' marketing division. He was in charge of game promotion and related business matters.

"CEO Chen, have you confirmed the contact info for the relevant people?" Zhang Yida's face showed a mix of admiration and hesitation.

"Yeah, go ahead and reach out directly." Chen Xu nodded with a smile.

After a brief chat with Zhang Yida, the man left the office.

Chen Xu turned his attention back to the computer, resuming development on To the Moon.