Qiao Liang stared blankly at the screen.
That's it?
The game's finished just like that?
The only reward for completing the game is one line of text?
Couldn't they at least have given him a trophy? A podium? Some simple celebration animation?
If nothing else, they could've at least put in a cheering sound effect! How expensive could a simple sound effect be? Was the developer really that stingy?!
After eight miserable hours, the game just coldly faded to black and mocked him with one insulting line of text!
Qiao Liang felt utterly defeated—physically and mentally.
He was genuinely immersed in the situation, truly pushed to the verge of tears by this infuriating game.
Yet, despite feeling utterly devastated and enraged, Qiao Liang found some small comfort, a tiny sense of relief.
Not because he was secretly a masochist, but because he knew deep down that all of this would become priceless footage!
Seeing a creator endure such genuine suffering—wouldn't viewers eagerly smash the like button and share the video?
Qiao Liang double-checked his recording: the entire eight-hour gameplay had been captured perfectly.
"You just wait. As soon as I wake up, I'll take care of you," Qiao Liang muttered fiercely at the game, saving the footage before collapsing onto his bed and falling into a deep sleep.
. . .
Three days later.
Pei Qian woke up naturally in his dorm bed, feeling truly content with his life.
Over the past few days, he'd fully readjusted to his university routine.
Waking up whenever he pleases, free from work anxieties, no demanding KPIs to stress over, and best of all—no more having to look at the boss's grumpy face.
In short, life was extremely pleasant!
Of course, having a bit more money would've been even better.
The first thing he did after waking up: he called up the system!
[Wealth Conversion System]
[Host: Pei Qian]
[Profit Conversion Ratio: 100:1 | Loss Conversion Ratio: 1:1]
[Next Settlement: 11 days remaining]
[System Funds: 0 (↓50000)]
[Personal Assets: 367]
Seeing that "0" next to system funds filled Pei Qian with intense satisfaction.
Perfect!
As for the pathetic figure behind his personal assets, there wasn't much he could do about that for now.
He'd already spent as frugally as possible, but saving money was nearly impossible.
His monthly allowance was just 1,000 yuan. Even eating at the campus cafeteria every meal, it still wasn't quite enough.
After all, he couldn't just spend all his money on food—daily life naturally had other small expenses.
Pei Qian couldn't wait for the settlement in eleven days. Once the lost system funds were converted into his personal account, he'd finally be living the dream.
The system funds currently showed zero because the earnings from the game hadn't yet arrived in the company's account.
The official ESRO game platform paid out weekly, automatically splitting revenues 50-50 between developers and the platform—a fully automated and streamlined process.
If developers wanted to check their earnings or game downloads before the weekly payout, they could access these numbers through the editor's backend.
For the first two days after launching his game, Pei Qian frequently checked the backend. As expected, a handful of unlucky souls had bought and downloaded his game.
After all, it was a newly released title that briefly appeared on some obscure recommendation lists. It wasn't unusual for a few curious players to stumble upon it.
A dozen or so downloads would amount to just a few yuan after the platform took its cut—not even worth mentioning.
Moreover, as anticipated, these players all left scathing one-star reviews, causing the rating of Lonely Desert Road to plummet into oblivion. This reassured Pei Qian that no sane player would consider downloading the game afterward.
After confirming his game was destined to flop, Pei Qian happily spent yesterday enjoying himself, not bothering to check the backend at all.
Today, however, despite expecting no significant changes, he subconsciously opened the backend once again.
Pei Qian's mentality was quite unique.
Other designers opened their backend dashboards hoping for skyrocketing download numbers—dreaming of thousands or even tens of thousands of new players each refresh.
But Pei Qian was the opposite. He wished desperately for the downloads to remain low, ideally at zero.
"If I'm guessing correctly, it should still be around double digits—"
"WHAT THE HELL?!"
"What's going on?!"
Pei Qian was dumbfounded.
He stared at the screen, utterly stunned by the download count—it had reached four digits and was rapidly approaching five!
He slapped his forehead in disbelief, thinking he'd misread the numbers.
"How could over 8,000 people have downloaded my game?"
"And it's quickly approaching 10,000!"
"There's still ten days left before the system's next settlement!"
Pei Qian panicked.
Completely panicked.
This development exceeded all expectations.
It was simple elementary-school math: over eight thousand downloads equaled more than eight thousand yuan in revenue. After the platform's cut, he'd have netted over four thousand yuan.
ESRO's tax policy was incredibly favorable for indie games on its official platform, with most games paying around 5%, and some even enjoying exemptions—practically negligible.
This meant that once the platform distributed these earnings at the end of the week, Pei Qian's system funds would jump back up by over 4,000 yuan!
What did that mean?
That Pei Qian had earned over 4,000 yuan?
No—quite the opposite.
It meant he had lost over 4,000 yuan!
Initially, Pei Qian had planned to lose the entire 50,000 yuan in system funds, converting it all into personal assets. But now, his perfect plan was falling apart in front of his eyes!
Now, with over 4,000 yuan earned back, his net losses had shrunk from 50,000 to around 46,000 yuan. That meant the amount converted into Pei Qian's personal assets would also drop—from a comfortable 50,000 yuan down to just 46,000!
Even worse, the download numbers were still climbing steadily!
Each time Pei Qian refreshed the backend page, the number would jump—sometimes by dozens, sometimes by hundreds.
Each increment felt like salt being sprinkled into an open wound. Every yuan he "earned" here translated directly into fewer yuan in his personal funds!
And there were still ten days left before settlement. If downloads increased tenfold in that time…
Pei Qian shivered at the thought.
This was a disaster!
Unable to sit still, Pei Qian began to panic.
"What the hell? Is there a bug in the official backend?"
"How could such a trash game possibly have thousands of downloads? Are you messing with me?"
He still couldn't believe what he was seeing, so he quickly opened the game's official comment section to investigate.
To his astonishment, while the game's rating hadn't changed much (still abysmal), the comment section had exploded, gaining hundreds of new messages.
"Here from Teacher Qiao's video tour group!"
"+1 from Teacher Qiao's group!"
"Lmao! There really is such an inhumanly bad game! It's quite an eye-opening experience!"
"I downloaded and attempted the challenge, I only lasted five minutes."
"It costs just one yuan—hardly worth the effort of refunding. I'll just spit here before leaving—Pfft!"
"I recommended this game to my friend and told him there's an incredible reward at the end. Now he's threatening to end our friendship. What do I do?"
"You're evil! I told my friend honestly there's nothing at the end except a black screen and one mocking sentence—even recited the sentence word-for-word—but he didn't believe me. Now he insists on finishing it himself and has already destroyed three gamepads. I think we're headed towards friendship-ending territory too."
"Anyone have the developer's address? I have no malicious intent—I just want to send him some 'special gifts.'"
"Better not play it yourselves, just watch Teacher Qiao's full gameplay video instead. He seriously recorded the whole eight hours..."
"You won't understand unless you experience it yourself. This game truly makes you rethink your life, something fast-forwarding videos can't replicate."
"Keep exaggerating..."
"I'm serious! Tang Sanzang had to endure eighty-one trials for enlightenment. Do you really think watching Journey to the West is enough to become enlightened like him?"
Pei Qian stared at the screen, dumbfounded.
What was all this?!
Where did all these commenters come from?
Teacher Qiao's tour group???
Was this some big influencer's fanbase?
Completely confused, Pei Qian quickly opened his browser and searched "Teacher Qiao."
Soon, he landed on Teacher Qiao's personal page on Fanshu.com. There, prominently displayed, was a newly uploaded video posted just one day earlier:
"Trash Game Roast Episode 64: I spent 8 hours straight playing a terrible game, and yet…"
It had already surpassed 200,000 views.
Pei Qian was speechless.
He seemed to have found the culprit.