Lin Shuwen followed Luo Ming’s instructions, opened New Folder 3, and found the game called Plants vs. Zombies.
“Alright, Luo Ming, I’ll give it a try first and call you back later.”
“Okay.” Luo Ming acknowledged and hung up.
He let out a sigh and collapsed unceremoniously onto the big sofa in Lin Shuwen’s home.
“What kind of mess is this?” Luo Ming grumbled to himself.
Luo Ming had transmigrated here twenty days ago. This world was eerily similar to his previous one, yet noticeably different.
Because history had taken a turn at Emperor Xuande of the Ming Dynasty—Zhu Zhanji had lived to be fifty-five and ruled for nearly thirty years, allowing the Ming Dynasty to survive for over five hundred years. That, in turn, caused significant changes to the history that followed, right up until the dynasty’s collapse in modern times, which led to a period of warlord fragmentation that gradually realigned with the modern history of his previous life.
The current year was 2013, and the level of technology was about the same as in his previous life’s 2013. There were internet giants like Tencent, Alibaba, and Baidu too. Even the phone in his hand was the Rice 2S, which had just been released this April.
At first, Luo Ming even thought he’d worked himself so hard that he’d been reborn back to the year he’d just graduated from college.
But soon enough, he noticed the differences between the two worlds. First and foremost, the games here were completely different—he’d never heard of any of them.
Where did my beloved CrossFire go?
And Baby Ba—wait, it was still called DNF now—that was gone too.
League of Legends was still around, but some champions had different names.
Then Luo Ming did a Baidu search and found that many of the massively popular games from his previous life simply didn’t exist.
As a coder who’d been in the gaming industry for nearly a decade, Luo Ming sensed a huge opportunity.
In his past life, a low-effort game with barely any technical sophistication—something like Sheep, a Sheep—had blown up across the internet overnight. If he ported over a few critically acclaimed games, wouldn’t he be set for life?
So he got straight to work. Luo Ming resigned from his job, took on freelance gigs on computer forums to support himself, and started developing Plants vs. Zombies.
As for why he chose this game—well, it was a little embarrassing to admit, but this was the very game that the company he’d joined right after graduation had “borrowed” from.
In his previous life, Luo Ming had also graduated from college in 2013. After graduation, he joined a small, unknown gaming studio.
His first task after joining was to work with the team on a mobile port of Plants vs. Zombies.
Plants vs. Zombies did have an official mobile version, but it never really took off in China because by then, all sorts of knockoff Plants vs. Zombies mobile games were already flooding the market.
The one Luo Ming worked on was one of those knockoffs.
Since he’d done it before, Luo Ming knew Plants vs. Zombies inside out, and on top of that, the game was undeniably a hit.
There might be debate over which game is the true pioneer of tower defense, but when it comes to the most influential tower defense game of all time, Plants vs. Zombies is undisputedly number one.
Released in 2009, Plants vs. Zombies had generated $1 billion in revenue by 2022.
Its IP value was estimated by Citibank at $1.237 billion.
Luo Ming was confident that this game would shine in any world without any cultural mismatch—and that was another reason he’d chosen Plants vs. Zombies.
“Ring~” The sudden ringing of the phone interrupted Luo Ming’s thoughts.
He quickly picked up, and his own voice came through the receiver: “Luo Ming, I played your game. It’s amazing—really, really fun.”
“Thanks.”
“I mean it. I’m not just being polite.” Lin Shuwen said, her tone serious.
“Thank you for the compliment.” This time, his gratitude carried more weight.
“Luo Ming, can I invest in your game?”
“You?”
“Yeah. I’ve been in the industry for over a year now, so I’ve saved up some money. Since you’re meeting with a venture capital firm tomorrow anyway, why not give the opportunity to me instead? After all, good things should stay in the family, right?”
Having been around the block for years, Luo Ming could tell right away that Lin Shuwen was worried about botching tomorrow’s meeting, which was why she was offering to invest herself.
“Miss Lin, you don’t have to do that. We might switch back tomorrow. And even if we don’t, this investor isn’t the only one out there—I can always look for others.”
“Luo Ming, I’m serious. I’ll admit that when I first said I wanted to try your game, it was because I was afraid of messing up your career plans, so I used that as an excuse to offer you an investment.
But now it’s different. I genuinely think your game is fantastic and has the potential to go viral. I really do want to invest in you.”
Luo Ming fell silent.
After a long pause, he finally said, “Alright. If we don’t switch back tomorrow, and the investor meeting falls through, then Miss Lin, we’ll take your investment.
But Miss Lin, we’re asking for a pretty significant amount—are you sure you have that kind of money?”
“How much do you need?” Lin Shuwen asked.
“My partner and I are planning to set up a proper studio. He can provide a fixed office space, but everything else will cost money.
For example, we need high-performance computers, we need to hire staff for game development and post-launch operations, and there’s also—”
“Stop, stop, stop! Just tell me how much you need, flat out.”
“A preliminary estimate—about two million.”
“I’ll invest five million.”
“Five million!” Luo Ming was taken aback. “Do celebrities make that much money? Haven’t you only been in the industry for a year?”
“That’s all my savings. I’m offering you this much because I want to fully bind our fates together. Luo Ming, do you understand what I mean?”
Luo Ming paused at that, then let out a sigh. He understood what Lin Shuwen was getting at.
Who knew what was going on with this body swap? How long would it last? Would they ever switch back?
With everything uncertain, Luo Ming and Lin Shuwen now had to figure out how to live each other’s lives.
“Alright then. If we don’t switch back tomorrow, and the investor meeting doesn’t work out, we’ll accept your investment. And don’t worry—you won’t regret investing in me, I promise.”
To Lin Shuwen, there was a strong sense of confidence in his words, as if he had no doubt he’d succeed.
And in truth, that was exactly the case. In his previous life, the famous game studio Mihoyo had received only one round of investment—one million yuan, in exchange for fifteen percent of their shares.
But Mihoyo’s future had been uncertain, whereas Luo Ming was standing on the shoulders of giants. Why would he have any reason to doubt himself?
“So, Luo Ming, we need to exchange some ‘intelligence’ about each other. At the very least, we should know a bit about the people around us.” Lin Shuwen suggested.
“Agreed. But before that, there’s something I need to tell you too.”
“What is it?”
“During today’s event, there was an issue with the back-end server, and I…” Luo Ming went on to tell Lin Shuwen about how he’d sung Light Years Away.
