"Brother Pei!"
"Brother Pei!"
Pei Qian slowly regained consciousness to Ma Yang's persistent calls.
"Hey, I know you've put your heart and soul into this game. Now that we're finally seeing success, it's natural you're excited—but don't overdo it, that's bad for your health."
"Just take a deep breath—we've done it!"
Ma Yang's excitement was written all over his face.
Pei Qian felt helpless and nearly rolled his eyes out of frustration.
Was he happy?
Was he excited?
No, he was utterly desperate!!
Pei Qian forced himself to smile weakly, his face pale as ashes, and reluctantly agreed, "Yeah… we succeeded…"
He was deeply perplexed. Exactly where had things gone wrong this time?
Even though it was painful and frustrating to admit defeat, Pei Qian had to understand exactly why he'd failed!
Why did this game suddenly become popular?
Surely, it wasn't another video creator mocking the game again?
Besides, this time around, there wasn't really anything about the game to mock!
Pei Qian quickly searched "Ghost General" using Qiandu, but didn't find any useful information.
In the game's review section, there weren't comments like "XX Tour Group" or similar inside jokes either.
'Then, where exactly did things go wrong?' Pei Qian couldn't understand.
The point was, only a handful of people even knew about this game!
Pei Qian himself hadn't done any promotion.
Ma Yang definitely wouldn't have done it—he didn't have the resources even if he wanted to.
The only other people who knew were those Pei Qian had contacted through the ESRO resource marketplace when buying assets and templates.
'Wait a second, most of the player comments specifically mentioned the illustrations!'
'Clearly, they're here because of the artwork!'
'But the illustrations are inside the game itself—how did they even see them?'
Holding onto a slim hope, Pei Qian opened Weibo and searched for "Ghost General."
This time, he found something.
Several well-known illustrators had reposted artwork from Ghost General, voluntarily promoting the game!
These posts had been further shared by numerous influential figures across the gaming, animation, and even tech communities!
Even regular Weibo users were reposting it in droves!
The hashtag "Ghost General" had even landed on Weibo's trending topics. Although it was ranked near the bottom, even this level of exposure would attract significant attention!
Pei Qian was dumbfounded.
Who was responsible for this?
Who had enough influence to make so many industry veterans repost about Ghost General?
Even professional marketing companies or paid social media influencers couldn't achieve such organic popularity!
Especially considering that many of these artists were proud individuals with established reputations in their fields. Even if companies offered them paid promotional work, they'd rarely accept!
Following repost after repost, Pei Qian finally traced it back to the original poster—Ruan Guangjian!
It was Ruan Guangjian's personal account, which had only two or three hundred followers. Yet, somehow, this particular Weibo post had been shared thousands of times, with an incredibly high engagement rate!
Although Pei Qian couldn't understand how an account with only a few hundred followers had caused such a significant impact, it was clear that this entire wave of popularity was initiated by Ruan Guangjian's spontaneous promotion!
Pei Qian slapped his forehead in frustration. 'Damn, the problem actually came from within!'
But he still couldn't understand—why would Ruan Guangjian put so much effort into promoting his game?
It just didn't make sense!
Our relationship was purely transactional —I paid you, you drew the illustrations. We were square after that. But now you're voluntarily putting all this effort into advertising my game? Do you have nothing better to do?!
I didn't pay you any extra for promotion!
Pei Qian genuinely couldn't understand this. He decided to ask directly via the ESRO resource marketplace.
"Did you promote Ghost General on Weibo???"
After a few minutes, Ruan Guangjian replied:
"Yes, I asked a few artist friends to repost it. Honestly, I didn't expect the response to be this good."
"President Pei, there's no need to feel overly grateful. I simply thought your game was too honorable and sincere to remain unnoticed!"
"With just 300,000 Yuan in development funds, you put everything into improving the game's quality and didn't even set aside a penny for marketing— I must say, passionate developers like you are truly rare these days!"
"My artist friends were also deeply moved by your spirit, which is why they willingly shared it."
"Furthermore, Ghost General is incredibly generous, with excellent quality—and, admittedly, my artwork helped too—which explains why the reception has been so great."
"In short, a high-quality, heartfelt game like Ghost General deserves success. I only played a small part in helping."
Reading Ruan Guangjian's enthusiastic messages, Pei Qian was dumbfounded.
He didn't even know how to respond!
Developers as passionate as me are rare nowadays?
Ghost General is so honorable it deserves success?
What nonsense is this?!
I'm not passionate—I just want this game to lose money!
Ghost General deserves to succeed?
No, absolutely not! If it succeeds, how am I supposed to lose money?!
Pei Qian desperately wanted to scold Ruan Guangjian.
Are you bored? Seriously!
Why are you meddling in things beyond your responsibility? Couldn't you just happily take the money and go relax after finishing the illustrations? Who asked you to handle marketing?!
But Pei Qian couldn't say any of this aloud. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, hesitating for a long moment before finally pressing delete.
He couldn't express any of this, as he couldn't risk revealing the existence of the system or raising suspicions.
Given the situation, the only normal response was to appear pleased and grateful!
Ruan Guangjian waited patiently but didn't receive an immediate reply.
President Pei must've been so touched he didn't know what to say.
Ruan Guangjian typed another message:
"President Pei, you don't have to say anything at all."
"My promotion efforts were completely voluntary. If you hadn't asked me directly, I wasn't even planning to tell you."
"Please don't feel embarrassed. After all, if Ghost General succeeds, more people will see my illustrations, greatly benefiting my career prospects."
"Keep going, President Pei. I truly believe you'll make even better games in the future. I hope we can continue collaborating again sometime!"
Facing Ruan Guangjian's heartfelt messages, Pei Qian fell into a daze.
Continue collaborating again in the future?
No way—never again!
You're a veteran artist disguised as a rookie. If I keep working with you, how am I ever supposed to lose money?!
Unable to express his deep frustration, Pei Qian forced himself to type two words:
"Thank you."
He might've typed "thank you," but internally, he was grinding his teeth in anger.
Seeing the two simple words from Pei Qian, Ruan Guangjian smiled in relief.
Indeed, true friendships between gentlemen are understated and calm.
It was wonderful working with such an outstanding person like President Pei!