Early in the morning, the car dealer called to say the new car had arrived and could be delivered to the company at any time.
It was still early, so William asked them to deliver it to the gate of his apartment complex instead—he could drive it to work afterwards.
He called Cynthia to get up for breakfast. Aunt Oliver usually wakes up a little after 5 and starts making breakfast based on the time. They got up earlier than usual today, but it didn't catch her off guard.
Pipi had adjusted well. It didn't make a fuss last night and was still sleeping soundly in the cage, completely ignoring the outside noise.
The new car came on a transport truck and was parked by the road near the complex, drawing quite a bit of attention.
"This feels a little embarrassing," Cynthia said, walking beside William. If they were unpacking a sports car, that would be one thing. But they had only bought a car worth a little over a hundred thousand yuan, and the whole delivery felt too over-the-top—especially considering everyone else around here was worth tens of millions.
William was kind of regretting it too. He didn't expect it to make such a scene. He thought they'd just drive the car over, sign for it, and be done. Instead, they brought a delivery truck—people who didn't know better might think it was an imported luxury car.
Thankfully, the car's design was impressive enough to make people stop and stare. Some even guessed its price to be around half a million. When they heard it was just a bit over a hundred thousand, instead of looking down on it, they all started praising it.
"Great eye for cars!"
"Definitely the taste of young people—bold choice!"
"Looks just as good as some imports. Local brands are really stepping up!"
…
High EQ comments.
After leaving the crowd, Cynthia got behind the wheel. It seemed like she hadn't driven in a while—she wasn't going any faster than the e-bikes in the bike lane. Every press on the gas pedal was very cautious.
At this speed, even if she wanted to crash, it'd be hard. William decided to check out and enter his personal dev space, starting work early.
Marcus wasn't in yet today, which was unusual. He probably stayed up all night and couldn't get up.
There was nothing special scheduled for the morning. Merry came by to ask William a few questions—about the company's founding vision and what games meant to him.
The reason for starting the company, of course, was to better develop games. And for William, making games felt like a calling—like fate was pushing him to do it. That's all there was to it.
That might sound pretentious to others, but he meant every word.
By noon, Marcus still hadn't shown up, and William started to worry something might've happened to him.
Turns out, after asking around, today was Saturday—Marcus just assumed it was a day off.
"Oh yeah!" Cynthia suddenly realized, "It is Saturday! You dragged me out of bed so early I completely forgot. You owe me a whole morning off!"
William ignored her and pretended to admire the view.
Cynthia huffed, "I'm going home!"
"Are you going to drive?"
"Can *you* drive?"
Fair point.
William didn't stop Cynthia from leaving. He realized he might have a bit of a workaholic side—once he had something to do, he'd lose track of time.
"Whatever!"
Forget all those pointless thoughts—working is what really makes him happy.
After finishing his lunchbox, a call from Leon made him realize time was moving faster than he thought.
Only three days left before the Spring Festival. Leon wanted to get all his onboarding paperwork done in the next two days—last time they only got halfway through.
Since William had no plans to go home that afternoon, he told Leon to come by and also notified the rest of the team.
Hopefully they could wrap everything up in the next two days, so everyone could start working right after the holidays.
Claire and Tina replied they'd come. Chris wasn't going to bother since the trip was too far.
"Welcome officially."
As expected, Leon was the first one to arrive at the studio. Once his contract was taken care of, William finally got a system notification.
[Milestone task complete. Reputation +5, Bronze Chest ×1]
He thought the system had forgotten about this task, but it seemed it wasn't really completed before.
There was a time when these five reputation points were something William relied on just to download an engine. But now, even the Unity engine that used to cost fifty points was already unlocked—and it had only been around ten days.
If it keeps going like this, those exclusive engines won't be far behind.
Just thinking about it got him excited.
"Do you need me to start working now?" Leon asked eagerly.
"No need. Go home and enjoy your weekend. Don't come in on the day before the New Year either—we'll just see each other next year." William didn't want to pay him double wages.
"Alright, see you next year then."
Leon packed up and left the studio.
Not long after Leon left, Claire arrived at the studio.
"Hello." Claire was as shy as ever, not even daring to look William in the eye when she greeted him.
"Let's go inside and talk."
The two of them sat face to face. William didn't speak, and Claire definitely wasn't the type to start talking first.
"Did you try the demo?"
"Yeah."
"How did it feel?"
"It was amazing. It felt like I walked into a movie."
"That's what games are."
"That producer role you told me about earlier—do you really think I can do it?" Claire's eyes flickered, and she looked super unsure of herself.
"You'll be fine."
William still couldn't figure out how she managed to be like two completely different people onstage and off. Was she one of those people with a split personality?
"But I feel like I don't know anything."
"That's just for now. You'll learn. Just like how you've been doing great with your current job—they're actually not that different."
"Okay then."
At least she gained a little confidence. After signing the contract, he told her to take the rest of the holiday off and come back after the New Year.
As she was leaving, Claire stood by the door for a while, clearly hesitating, but she didn't say anything, so William had no idea what she was thinking.
By the evening, Tina confirmed she wouldn't be coming in today. William didn't stay for overtime and instead took a cab home.
Tonight was about to mark a historic moment.
The first game to hit 100 million downloads was just around the corner.
William even considered releasing the new game mode early as a way to celebrate the milestone. But after thinking it through, he gave up on that idea. Better to save it as a trump card for later, to compete with those "Piano Tiles"-style games.
"Dinner looks a little too fancy tonight."
Looking at the table full of gourmet dishes, it seemed like Aunt Oliver had pulled out all her best recipes.
"Drink a little?" Cynthia pulled out a bottle of red wine—pretty old, too.
"Are we celebrating something?" William was totally lost.
Cynthia remotely turned on the living room TV. Through the open doorway between the living room and dining room, he could see a number on the screen climbing fast.
"Download count?" William blurted out. For a second, he thought someone had cast the Piano Tiles stats onto the TV.
"That's right." Cynthia gave a proud smile. "This is an internal tool. It uses big data and packet sniffing to track anything happening on the internet in real time."
"Anything?" William raised an eyebrow.
"In theory, yes. But the law doesn't allow it."
Sure, the law doesn't allow it—but the law can't control what people think. As long as you don't get caught, there will always be shady things happening in the dark.
"That's a little scary."
"Hey, shouldn't we be focusing on the download numbers right now?! We're about to hit 100 million!" Cynthia quickly changed the topic.
99,116,205!
Just a little more to go.
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