“The online store sold nearly 5,000 copies today too.”
Lin Shuwen was a bit surprised to hear that. “That many!”
“Wood is grinning so wide he can’t even close his mouth.”
“You’re the same, aren’t you?”
“I’m doing okay.”
“Really?”
“I’ve always been a calm person. I wouldn’t even flinch if Mount Tai collapsed in front of me.”
“Is that so? Well then, I have some good news to tell you.”
Alarm bells went off in Luo Ming’s head. His intuition told him that Lin Shuwen’s “good news” might not be good news for him at all.
Seeing that Luo Ming didn’t say anything for a while, Lin Shuwen went on talking to herself: “Luo Ming, my aunt usually comes at the end of every month. If I count the days, this month it should arrive right on Sunday or Monday!”
Luo Ming’s expression changed dramatically. To his ears, this news wasn’t Mount Tai collapsing—it was Mount Everest crumbling.
“Holy crap! Are you serious?”
“Guess!” With that, Lin Shuwen hung up the phone.
After putting down the phone, Lin Shuwen wore a mischievous smirk. Home alone, she was dressed quite lightly, lying on the sofa in a cream-yellow nightgown that wrapped around her delicate figure. Her soft, glossy black hair was draped on either side of her collarbone, her slender, fair legs swayed slightly, and her dainty white feet bobbed rhythmically. Anyone could tell the girl was in a pretty good mood.
That night, Luo Ming had insomnia. He felt as if his lower abdomen was aching the whole time.
Seriously, does anyone else get this? Just hearing the word “aunt” already gave him PTSD.
The next day, Luo Ming showed up at the office with dark circles under his eyes and unsteady steps.
The moment he walked through the door, he heard waves of cheering coming from inside the company.
“Er Ming, why are you so late—” Rong Mu was only halfway through his sentence when he caught sight of Luo Ming’s dark circles.
Rong Mu understood instantly. “You little rascal, you acted all calm and cool yesterday, but you were so excited you couldn’t sleep last night, weren’t you!”
“You might not believe me, but I did have insomnia—just not from excitement.”
“Smack~” Rong Mu slapped Luo Ming on the back. “Er Ming, can’t you stop putting on an act! Our Plants vs. Zombies sold 120,668 copies in 24 hours! There’s no way I believe you’re not moved by that.”
“President Rong is right, President Luo, stop pretending!” said Zhao Ningyuan, grinning from ear to ear.
The success of Plants vs. Zombies had undoubtedly given him a beautiful comeback—he felt like a whole new person.
But Zhao Ningyuan had no intention of quitting now. He felt that Zhuoguang was his future.
Zhuoguang had produced two hit games in a row, which greatly boosted Zhao Ningyuan’s confidence in the company. He believed staying at Zhuoguang had far more potential than jumping ship to some big corporation.
Luo Ming glanced at Zhao Ningyuan and thought to himself: “Senior Zhao, you don’t understand my pain!”
But despite the thought, Luo Ming still joined in their celebration.
After all the commotion, Luo Ming took the opportunity to announce: “This month, everyone in the company—every single one of you—gets triple pay. New Year’s Day, we’re taking one extra day off, and that day is paid too.”
“Long live President Luo!” Xu Jiale was the first to jump up and shout.
Everyone else joined in.
“Alright, alright, everyone keep up the good work. Plants vs. Zombies is just the beginning—we’ll have more and better games coming, and the rewards will keep getting bigger. In the new year, let’s keep going together!”
Zhao Ningyuan led the applause. Luo Ming’s words had voiced exactly what was in his heart.
After handing out the employee benefits, Luo Ming and Rong Mu went back to his office together.
“Wood, when are the YouTube streamers going live?”
“Sister Shan found two streamers, both from the US, and both in the Eastern Time Zone. That’s a 12-hour time difference. Sister Shan arranged with them to go live at 8 PM on Christmas Eve,” Rong Mu answered.
“It’s 9 AM now, which means it’s 9 AM December 24th on their side. They’re streaming right now?”
“Should be.”
“I’ll go take a look.”
“Let’s go together!”
Luo Ming nodded, opened his computer, and used a VPN to get onto YouTube’s live streaming section.
The moment they entered the live section, Luo Ming and Rong Mu spotted the two streamers playing Plants vs. Zombies prominently featured on the homepage.
Luo Ming first clicked into the live room of a female streamer named Gladys.
“Aah~” A zombie mercilessly ate your brains.
The moment he entered, Luo Ming heard Dave’s wailing.
By now, the chat on the right side of the screen had already exploded. Looking at it, Luo Ming saw nothing but “LOL,” “xD,” “:D,” and people posting “Yay!” and “Woohoo!”
“Is she a comedy streamer?” Luo Ming asked.
“I think so?” Rong Mu said uncertainly, looking at the blonde, blue-eyed beauty on camera wearing a Santa hat.
“Oh! Guys, it’s really not my fault this time, they—” The beauty took off her Santa hat and ruffled her hair, saying something in an extremely exaggerated tone. With body language like that, no one could doubt she was a comedy streamer.
“Er Ming, what’s she saying with all that?”
“Roughly: ‘Brothers, this really isn’t my fault this time. They’re not following the pattern. Last time I played this level, the zombie with the bucket came out from the top-right path. This time it changed positions on its own.'”
Rong Mu was speechless. He glanced at the laughing chat and answered with absolute certainty: “Er Ming, this is definitely a comedy streamer.”
Luo Ming nodded and watched her stream for about half an hour.
Her entertainment value was genuinely good. She deliberately pulled all kinds of silly, cute moves—like when a zombie was about to arrive, she’d fumble around in a panic and place a Wall-nut behind a Peashooter.
Or when she didn’t have enough sun for a Peashooter and a zombie was about to eat her Sunflower, she’d just dig up the Sunflower herself, explaining that since she was going to lose anyway, she might as well dig it up rather than let the zombie eat it—at least the zombie wouldn’t get the benefit.
There were plenty of other moves that looked dumb, but she acted them out convincingly enough to create the impression that she really was just that bad.
Of course, maybe she wasn’t acting. Watching some of her moves, Luo Ming genuinely wondered if this person’s cerebellum was fully developed.
Amid the audience’s laughter, she restarted again and again, clearing only one level in half an hour.
Many viewers commented that they wanted to buy the game and see if it was really as hard as the streamer made it look.
Luo Ming’s eyes lit up when he saw the comments. Whether or not this streamer was playing dumb, she was definitely driving game sales this way. The money spent on her was well worth it.
Then Luo Ming clicked into the other streamer’s channel, a guy named Ben John. This streamer was much more serious—it was a pure game review of Plants vs. Zombies.
Luo Ming watched for half an hour as well and found that this guy showed no sign of having been paid off. He praised what deserved praise and criticized what deserved criticism, completely unbiased. He even rated various aspects of the game.
Luo Ming glanced at the scores: he gave Plants vs. Zombies a 6 for music, 7 for art design, 8 for gameplay, 9 for fun factor, 3 for controls, and 0 for action.
And he had already made it to level 3-7.
The comments here were much more serious by comparison—all discussions about the game’s content.
Perhaps because this streamer rated Plants vs. Zombies fairly highly, quite a few users in his chat also said they were going to buy it.
After that, Luo Ming closed the stream and checked the sales data for Plants vs. Zombies on the Steam backend.
“Holy crap! That many!” Rong Mu leaned over to take a look and couldn’t help but exclaim.
