William finished his last breakfast at Aunt Lisa's place. Everyone was at the table, but no one said a word.
His bags were already packed and placed by the door—not much, just a few changes of clothes and some personal items.
Knowing they had all played Earth Games titles, William decided to share a little insider info with them.
"Earth Games is releasing a new game today."
"Oh? What kind?" Uncle Zach perked up.
"A text-based game, where the story changes based on the choices you make."
"Like an interactive novel?"
"Something like that."
"Did they use any of your music?"
Aunt Lisa, as usual, was more concerned about the income.
"No."
William didn't include any piano music—just some simple background tracks he licensed online.
"Then there's no money in it." Aunt Lisa frowned slightly. "You better watch your spending, don't just throw money around."
She really sounded like an old-fashioned mom.
"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing."
After that, the table fell silent again.
Jenny didn't say a single word before he left. She just looked sulky and upset.
"Jenny, goodbye."
Jenny glanced at William, then quietly got into the car.
Her little face pressed against the window, eyes sparkling with tears, lips pouting. The two of them stared at each other until the car was out of sight.
Earth Games Studio.
Just from the logo at the door, William could tell Cynthia had arrived early and finished the tasks he'd given her.
"Took you long enough."
As soon as she saw William, Cynthia stood up from her chair.
"I thought you bailed."
William wasn't in the best mood. "Where do we start?"
"You're the boss, and you're asking me?" Cynthia rolled her eyes at him.
"Oh, right. The company still hasn't set up a bank account. Can you go take care of that?"
Cynthia sighed. "So I'm just your errand girl now?"
Still, she grabbed her bag.
William pulled out the company stamp and documents from his suitcase and handed them to her.
"Alright, I'm heading out."
"Be careful."
He sat down at a random desk—any computer would do since there weren't any other employees yet. The office could stay empty for now.
He hadn't had time to work on game development lately, so Life Restart Simulator had been on hold. But it was only about half a day's work left. He figured he could finish it before lunch.
Four hours later.
Cynthia still hadn't come back from the bank. Her WeChat message said it was crowded, but things were being processed now and would be done soon.
On William's side, he finished typing the last line of code, ran a test to make sure the game worked fine, then downloaded it onto his four phones to start round-the-clock testing.
Testing a game is a hassle and actually takes a lot of work. Many problems can't be found in just one run — they need repeated testing.
But William didn't run into many problems while coding. Maybe it was because of his personal space — his thoughts stayed clear, the core logic was solid, and that naturally meant fewer bugs.
Release.
This time, besides the big brand app stores, William also released the game as a WeChat mini-program.
Mini-programs can bring a huge amount of traffic, but because of Tencent's policy, there's no carrier revenue share.
In other words, it's completely free — no ads, no money.
After handling that, William started calculating his income from the past few days.
From now on, game revenue would go into the company account, but his earlier earnings had to be declared for personal income tax. If not, he could get caught for tax evasion.
He hadn't realized it before, but the numbers were shocking.
William estimated he'd owe nearly ten million in personal income tax — meaning a third of his wealth would vanish instantly. He had never felt this much pain over his wallet.
If there was ever a definition for "a serious blow," this was it.
When Cynthia returned from the bank and saw William looking completely drained, she asked with concern, "What's wrong?"
William replied weakly, "Nothing, just a bit out of energy."
"Then… are we still eating?" Cynthia's stomach was growling with hunger.
"Sure, let's just have fast food downstairs."
"…Alright," Cynthia said, clearly disappointed.
After a quick meal, William returned to the studio and gave Cynthia a new task — hiring.
If they wanted to develop "Honor of Kings," there was no way William could handle it alone. Just modeling dozens of heroes would take a long time, and after the models were done, they'd still need matching animations and skill effects. That was all big work.
"So, we're hiring two modelers and one effects artist?" Cynthia double-checked the positions they needed to fill.
"Yes," William added, "and preferably also a game tester."
"A tester?"
On Blue Star, where the game industry wasn't advanced, people might not imagine that there's a job for playing games full-time. But in reality, this role is very important. Many big games hire hundreds of testers before launch just to find all kinds of bugs and possible issues, so they can be fixed before release. That way, the game's reputation won't be destroyed by problems right after launch.
"Yes, someone hired specifically to play games."
Cynthia stared at William with a blank face, trying to see if he was joking.
William explained, "Don't doubt it. Game development always comes with bugs — meaning errors. These errors can make the game run poorly or make the visuals look strange. Finding the cause isn't easy; some problems only appear after many specific steps. This takes a lot of time, manpower, and resources, so you need people dedicated to doing it."
"So what's required for this position?"
"Be good at playing games, of course. If you can't even clear certain levels, forget about finding bugs."
"Alright, I get it."
William watched as Cynthia filled in the job requirements and gave her a few edits — for testers, they had to have played all Earth Games' titles, fully clear three songs in "Piano Tiles," score 10,000 points in "2048," beat the high school level in "Classical Poetry Crossword," hit the center 100 times in a row in "Jump Jump," and finish "Life Restart Simulator" once.
To let people know they were hiring, William also posted on Weibo. With hundreds of thousands of followers, at least a few would surely meet the requirements. If they already loved games, they'd naturally put more effort into the job.
As for pay, William wasn't stingy — he offered salaries 15% higher than the industry average. Even the tester position, which only required being good at games, paid 8,000 to 10,000 a month, far above ordinary jobs.
"Life Restart Simulator — that's the new game you were working on this morning?" Cynthia asked while waiting for resumes to come in.
"Yeah."
"Is it fun?"
Judging by her tone, she clearly wanted to play to pass the time — otherwise she wouldn't ask.
William sent her the game directly and let her slack off in peace.
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