The early morning sunlight woke Artoria up.
She blearily opened her eyes and realized she had spent another night sleeping on the lounge chair on the terrace. Her long golden hair was a mess from the sea breeze, and her white T-shirt was wrinkled. She sat up, yawned, and then froze.
"Wait," she rubbed her eyes, "did I... ask for 2B's technical data yesterday?"
Memories flooded back. The sense of loneliness, the prayer to mother earth, those precise blueprints in her mind...
And that astronomical figure: five million dollars.
"Oh, right." She slumped back onto the lounge chair, staring at the sky. "I was also planning to make a game to earn money."
But what kind of game? With her current situation—being alone and having only six hours of effective working time a day—she couldn't possibly make the masterpieces she had played in her past life.
"It has to be something... simple, addictive, and easy to spread," she muttered, trying hard to remember.
Then, a name jumped into her mind.
Sheep a Sheep.
That kind of love-hate elimination game, with rules so simple a three-year-old could understand, but a difficulty level that could drive an adult crazy. Most importantly—its cost was extremely low. A few art assets, a simple set of logic, and it relied entirely on ads to make money.
"That's the one." Artoria sprang up from the lounge chair.
She rushed into the study, turned on the computer, and opened the system interface.
"System," she whispered, "I need some art assets. Just... pictures of cartoon sheep, in various colors, pixel style is fine. Also a prairie background, clouds, simple UI elements..."
[Request received. Generating asset pack.]
In the translucent interface, a folder icon began to flash. Three seconds later, a folder named "GameAssets" appeared on the computer's D drive.
Artoria clicked it open. Inside, everything was neatly categorized: Sheep (pixel sheep of various colors), Backgrounds (prairie, sky, clouds), UI (buttons, icons, numeric fonts), and Sounds (simple sound effects).
They were all free-for-commercial-use assets, with a unified style and high quality.
"Thanks, system!" Her eyes lit up.
Find the system for small things, and find mother earth for big things—this principle seemed to be correct.
Next was development. She looked at Umaru's memory icon.
[Using Memory: Himouto! Umaru-chan]
In a faint glow, she curled up into a hamster hoodie, a can of cola appearing in her hand. Her thinking became lazy, but all the knowledge about game development surfaced clearly.
"Set up the framework first..." she muttered, her fingers already flying across the keyboard.
Code poured out like a stream. The game logic was actually very simple: three layers of stacked cards, three identical ones for elimination, and the cards below become operable once exposed. But she didn't want simple—she wanted the kind of difficulty that "looks simple but makes you want to smash your phone."
Her game intuition in Umaru form allowed her to precisely adjust the parameters: the complexity of the initial card layout, the difficulty curve of each level, the random generation algorithm...
"It needs to get stuck here," she squinted, modifying a line of code, "making it so players absolutely cannot pass the second level, and then... they watch an ad for items."
The item system was designed: move a card out, undo a step, reshuffle. All required "stamina" obtained by watching ads.
Ad integration? In Umaru form, she familiarly integrated the SDKs of several mainstream advertising platforms in this World. Banner ads, interstitial ads, rewarded videos—all of them were set up.
"A leaderboard for clearing levels... add that." She added a social feature where players could see their friends' rankings. "Competitiveness is the greatest motivator."
Four hours later, the core of the game was complete. It included thirty levels meticulously tuned to a perverted level of difficulty, a complete advertising system, a leaderboard, and daily challenges.
She deactivated the transformation and slumped in her chair.
On the computer screen, the simple but complete game was running. On a pixel-style prairie, colorful little sheep were piled into a mountain. She played a test round—and got stuck on the third level.
"Very good," she smiled, "this is exactly the effect I wanted."
But a problem arose: the game needed a name.
"Sheep a Sheep... copying it directly isn't great." She thought for a moment. "Let's call it... mei le ge mei. It's basically the same anyway."
Next was the publishing process. She needed a developer account. Using the identity information provided by S.H.I.E.L.D., she registered, paid the 100-dollar annual fee, and filled in the bank account—using the card from the system gift pack.
Submitted for review, estimated 1-3 business days.
"Now," she glanced at the time, two in the afternoon, "we wait."
She was hungry. She heated up some instant fried rice and took it to the terrace to eat. The sunlight was nice, and the sea breeze was comfortable.
Halfway through her meal, she suddenly felt a gaze.
It wasn't a prompt from the system, but a real feeling of being watched. She looked up toward the sea.
About a kilometer away on the sea, there was a yacht. It was white, large, and luxurious. Several people were standing on the deck, and among them was a man in a floral shirt looking this way through binoculars.
Even from this distance, Artoria could recognize those iconic sunglasses and mustache.
Tony Stark.
She put down her spoon and calmly looked back. The Artoria form gave her not just beauty, but also vision far beyond that of an ordinary person. She could clearly see the expression on Tony's face—curiosity, inquiry, and a hint of wariness.
The two stared at each other across the sea for ten seconds.
Then Tony Stark put down the binoculars and waved at her.
Artoria thought for a moment and waved back.
The yacht turned around and left.
"He knows about me," Artoria said softly. "S.H.I.E.L.D. must have told him."
But Tony did not come to disturb her; he only observed from afar. This fit his personality—genius, conceited, highly curious, but not one to act rashly.
"Whatever." She continued eating.
After the meal, she decided to go out and buy some things. Once the game was launched, she would have to start thinking about promotion. Although a game like mei le ge mei mainly relied on social spreading, she still needed some seed users in the beginning.
She changed her clothes—a simple white dress and canvas shoes. Her long golden hair hung down, shimmering with a soft luster in the sunlight. She looked in the mirror and sighed.
This face of Artoria was beautiful, yes, but too eye-catching. She found a baseball cap to wear and pulled the brim low.
Riding the small electric scooter that was delivered from her online order yesterday (it cost her three hundred dollars), she headed south along the coastal road. This time, she wasn't going to the fishing village, but to a town a bit further away.
Twenty minutes later, she stopped in front of a convenience store. Just as she took off her helmet, she felt several gazes from inside and outside the store.
The middle-aged female owner behind the counter widened her eyes: "Oh my god, girl, are you... are you a star?"
"No." Artoria lowered her cap, "I'm just buying some things."
"Oh, oh, okay..." The owner was still dazed.
Artoria quickly grabbed what she needed: a notebook, pens, sticky notes, and some snacks. While checking out, the owner couldn't help but ask: "Do you live nearby? I haven't seen you before."
"Just moved here."
"By yourself?"
"Yes."
The owner hesitated, then lowered her voice: "Girl, this coast... don't go out at night. Especially someone as beautiful as you, it's not safe."
That warning again. Artoria nodded: "I know, thank you."
She walked out of the store with her bags and found a motorcycle parked at the entrance. Two young men who looked to be in their early twenties were leaning against the bike smoking. When they saw her come out, their eyes went wide.
"Hey, beautiful," one of them whistled, "new here? All alone?"
Artoria ignored them and walked toward her electric scooter.
"Don't go, let's be friends—" the man reached out to block her.
Artoria stopped and turned her head.
She did not release any aura, or even frown. She just looked at the man calmly, her emerald eyes under the cap like two deep pools.
It was the gaze of the King of Knights—calm, but carrying a certain inviolable majesty.
The young man's hand froze in mid-air. He opened his mouth but couldn't say a word. His companion was also stunned.
Artoria turned, got on her electric scooter, and left.
Only after driving a long way did she sigh.
"Beauty is also a trouble," she muttered.
Back at the cottage, she put her things away and sat back at the computer. The game's review status was still "Pending."
"Let's do some preparation." She opened social media and registered several accounts. Twitter, Facebook, and a few game forums in this World. The account name was unified as "MieStudio," and the profile picture was a pixel sheep.
She posted her first tweet: "New game mei le ge mei is coming soon. Casual elimination, simple and addictive (maybe too addictive)."
Accompanied by a few game screenshots.
She closed it after posting. The seed had been planted; she would water it after the game was launched.
In the evening, Coulson called.
"Miss Artoria, your game... has been submitted for review?"
"You guys monitor things very closely," Artoria said.
"It's just a routine scan. Do you need help with promotion?"
"No thanks. I want to try on my own."
"Understood. Also..." Coulson paused. "Mr. Stark asked about you today. As agreed, we only told him you're a'special individual' on vacation. But he seems very interested."
"I noticed." Artoria thought of that yacht. "Let him be, as long as he doesn't bother me."
"He probably won't. At least not for now."
After the call ended, Artoria walked out onto the terrace. The sun was setting, and the sea was a golden red.
She suddenly remembered something and asked in her mind: "System, if the game makes money, will it go directly to my bank card?"
[Yes. The system has bound the Host's identity information, and all legal income will be automatically deposited.]
"That's good."
Night fell. She had a simple dinner, washed up, and prepared for bed.
Before going to sleep, she took one last look at the computer—the review status had changed to "In Review."
"There should be a result tomorrow."
She lay in bed and closed her eyes. The sound of the waves was a natural lullaby.
In her dream, there were no robots and no five million dollars, only countless colorful little sheep jumping around on the prairie, while players cursed and watched ads at the same time.
The next morning, Artoria was woken up by her phone's notification sound.
It was an email from the app store.
[Congratulations! Your app mei le ge mei has passed the review and is now live!]
She sat up and clicked the store link. The game page was simple, the download was free, there were no ratings yet, and the download count was: 0.
"It's starting," she said softly.
She logged into her social media accounts and posted the launch announcement. Then... she didn't know what else to do.
"Wait," she said to herself.
The morning passed, download count: 27.
In the afternoon, she transformed into Umaru and added a "Daily Challenge" feature to the game. Download count: 103.
In the evening, she deactivated the Umaru form and looked at the data: download count: 189.
"A bit slow," she frowned.
But when she clicked on the player reviews, she was stunned.
"This game is the devil! The second level stuck me for an hour!"
"I watched ads ten times to pass, but I can't stop..."
"Shared it with all my colleagues. If we go down, we go down together."
"Developer, you have no heart!"
Rating: 3.2 stars (mostly angry one-star reviews, but the comments were very long).
And the ad revenue backend showed: Estimated revenue for today—87 dollars.
Artoria blinked.
87 dollars a day meant 2,600 dollars a month. Although it was far from five million, it was... a start.
And this was only the first day, with only a hundred or so downloads.
"What if there are ten thousand downloads?" she calculated. "A hundred thousand?"
The lamp in her heart that was about to go out lit up a little more.
It was late at night. She sat on the terrace, watching the data jumping on her phone screen.
Downloads broke 200. Estimated revenue reached 92 dollars.
The sea breeze blew, carrying the scent of salt and hope.
"Take it slow," she said to herself, and also to the sea.
"One day, I will be able to build you."
The silver-white figure in her mind seemed to smile under the moonlight.
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