“Er Ming, when will our investment come through?”
“Today’s Thursday. Tomorrow’s Friday, so a large bank transfer might not go through in time. Probably by next Monday, I’d say,” Lin Shuwen replied.
“That soon? Then I’ll go order the office furniture tomorrow. I’ll leave the electronics—computers and stuff—to you. I don’t know much about that.”
“Uh, sure!” Lin Shuwen answered, bracing herself.
“I’ve also posted the job ads, by the way.”
“I’m not great at interviews, so I’ll leave that to you.”
“I can handle the other positions, but for the technical roles, we can’t do it without you!” Rong Mu quickly added.
“I’ll be there when we interview for the technical positions.”
“That just leaves one last question. What are we naming our studio?”
“I haven’t thought about it yet.”
“Then give it some thought. We agreed from the start that you’d hold the majority stake—this studio is basically yours. I can’t take over the naming duty for you.”
Lin Shuwen nodded in agreement.
Once she got home, Lin Shuwen couldn’t wait to message Luo Ming: “I’m home. Can we call?”
On Luo Ming’s end, he’d just finished dinner—though calling it “dinner” was generous. It was really just a big bowl of vegetable salad. Might as well have eaten nothing at all.
Luo Ming dialed her directly, and Lin Shuwen picked up instantly.
“Miss Lin, being a celebrity is no joke! You have no idea what I had for lunch and dinner today.”
“If I’m not mistaken, lunch was buckwheat noodles and stir-fried greens, maybe with a piece of chicken breast at most. Dinner would’ve been vegetable salad.”
“You eat like this often?”
“Yep! I’m naturally prone to gaining weight. Food goes straight to my hips. So I spend about half the year dieting and keeping my weight in check. At least Sister Shan has a shred of humanity—she didn’t make me keep it under 100 jin. Otherwise, I’d be eating nothing but veggies all year long.”
Luo Ming sighed at that.
Lin Shuwen felt a little embarrassed. Here she was, feasting away inside someone else’s body, while he couldn’t even get a drop of grease in hers.
A tiny pang of guilt pricked at her, and she quickly changed the subject: “Oh, right, Luo Ming—the investment didn’t pan out this time.”
“It didn’t?”
“Nope. The manager from Feiyu Venture Capital we met today said…” She filled him in on how the negotiations went on both sides.
Luo Ming let out another sigh after hearing her out. He hadn’t expected Feiyu Venture Capital to be the type that just wanted to grab a quick buck and bolt.
“Well then, Miss Lin, I guess we’ll have to count on you to invest in us.”
“Mm-hmm. Tomorrow’s Friday, and I remember I have some promotional material to shoot. I should be free on Monday. Just take my bank card and go handle the transfer.”
“Hey, Luo Ming—how many people are you hiring for the studio’s technical roles?”
“For now, at least five. Three developers like me for the game itself, and two for the art side. That way we can guarantee the game’s finished before New Year’s.”
“What kind of questions should we ask during the interviews? Rong Mu said I’d need to handle the tech interviews with him.”
“First, look at their work experience. Priority goes to anyone with big-company experience or who’s worked on notable game projects.
For fresh graduates, it’s about whether their technical knowledge is solid. I’ll send you a list of questions later. Just ask them in order. If they can answer half correctly, their technical foundation is decent.”
“What about the art positions?”
“Open up the game I made, take a screenshot of a zombie, and have the applicants reproduce it with a drawing tablet. Keep the ones who do a good job.”
“That simple?”
“Yep. What, did you think it’d be more complicated?”
Lin Shuwen scratched her head. She’d never been through this before, so she’d definitely overthought it.
“Oh, one more thing, Luo Ming—Rong Mu said you should name the studio. Got any ideas?”
“Let’s call it Blazing Light.”
“Blazing Light? That does roll off the tongue nicely.”
“Of course! I took it from a famous line in Yao Chong’s ‘Gazing at the Moon on an Autumn Night’: Blazing bright, the cloud-touched branches shine; glistening clear, the dewdrops round the grass entwine.”
“Oh! So it’s from ‘Gazing at the Moon on an Autumn Night’!” Lin Shuwen said, putting on her best “oh, I totally knew that” tone.
Truth be told, she’d never even heard of that poem.
She knew who Yao Chong was—he’d been a chancellor during Empress Wu Zetian’s reign.
But since when did he write poetry?
“Miss Lin, when I was recording the demo today, I had your assistant buy a guitar. It’s the only instrument I can play. Sister Shan already asked me when I learned guitar, and I told her I picked it up while learning piano. Don’t accidentally spill the beans.”
“Hey, that excuse actually works out pretty well! I did learn guitar back when I was taking piano lessons—though I haven’t played in ages.”
“Perfect, then I’m not really lying.”
“Could I listen to the demo you recorded?”
“Of course!” Luo Ming said, opening Lin Shuwen’s email and sending the demo to himself.
“I’ll give it a listen later. I’m curious to hear what kind of song got the stamp of approval from both Sister Shan and Director Liu.”
“Speaking of music, Miss Lin—do you have a vocal coach? I feel like I need some professional guidance, otherwise I’m bound to slip up when it comes to singing eventually.”
“Now that you mention it, I think I should learn some programming basics too, or I’ll slip up on my end.”
At that, both of them fell silent.
“How about this? From now on, every evening, I’ll teach you singing for an hour, and you teach me programming for an hour. What do you think?” Lin Shuwen proposed.
“That could work. It’ll lower our chances of getting caught.”
“It’s settled then.”
“Miss Lin, for teaching purposes, it’d be best if you had a computer. You don’t have one at home—why not buy one tomorrow?”
Luo Ming said this because it was 2013. WeChat was already widely used, but features like WeChat voice and video calls didn’t exist yet.
The easiest way to video chat back then was to log into QQ on a computer and use QQ’s video call function.
“Then I’ll get one. You’ll need a computer for work too, Luo Ming. Send me a spec list when you get a chance.”
“Will do!”
With business wrapped up, they both hung up in silent agreement.
Luo Ming grabbed a piece of paper and started jotting down the computer specs.
Over on Lin Shuwen’s end, she downloaded the demo Luo Ming had sent from her email.
She clicked play. The track opened with some guitar strumming—average at best, from her professional perspective.
Then her own voice came through: “I feel your fingertips at the ends of my hair…”
That first line alone gave her goosebumps.
The vocal technique was so strange. It was unmistakably her voice, yet she was using a completely different vocal placement and style than she ever would.
Gritting her teeth through the discomfort, she kept listening.
Soon, the one-minute demo came to an end.
A glint of something unusual flickered in Lin Shuwen’s eyes. This song was genuinely high-quality—no wonder both Sister Shan and Director Liu had their eyes on it.
