Chapter 143: Chapter 142: The Rebellious Phase Came a Bit Late

Hedong City Airport.

Le You Company sent a team of six to Hedong City to negotiate.

"Was it really made by high schoolers? For some reason, I don’t think so," someone muttered.

"There are plenty of talented people in this world. What’s so strange about it?" Qingfeng said with a smile.

He had been just as shocked when he first heard the news. Not only did the other party have a deep understanding of the product, but as the Spring Festival event demonstrated, Xue Rui also possessed a profound grasp of the market.

Moreover, their awareness of copyright was almost too strong; they had actually registered a whole heap of trademarks for a single game.

He had originally assumed a sizable game company was behind Happy Elimination, but despite a lengthy background check, he couldn’t find a single clue.

Whether it was the legal representative or the registration information, everything had clearly been set up for this one game.

Not only was the legal representative a woman in her seventies, but she was also, for fuck’s sake, registered as living in poverty...

No wonder they couldn’t dig anything up. Who would have ever guessed it was the work of two kids?

At this point, he wasn’t curious about the outcome of the negotiations, but about those two high schoolers.

"Headquarters gave us a budget of fifteen million. Our counterparts are just two high school students. This negotiation shouldn’t be difficult," said a woman from the legal department with a smile.

Qingfeng had a feeling it wouldn’t be that simple. The fifteen-million-yuan budget was a rough estimate they had calculated based on the game’s current revenue growth, plus the combined value of the trademarks.

This was their company’s largest domestic acquisition case.

The group chatted as they walked. Their counterparts were in a completely different league in terms of scale, and especially in terms of age, their understanding of the world was on a whole other level.

Many had come along with the mindset of being on a company-paid vacation.

"I’m afraid you’re overthinking it," Qingfeng said, spotting someone there to pick them up, holding a sign with "Le You" written on it.

A Mercedes-Benz S300, a BMW 730, and a commercial SUV for the luggage following behind them.

"Hello, are you from Le You Company? I was sent by Mr. Xue to pick you up..." Ren Jun said, his face expressionless.

He’d been sleeping soundly this morning when Xue Rui had suddenly demanded he go to the airport to pick them up.

The infuriating part was that he had been woken up at six in the morning, reminded again at nine, and only now, at three in the afternoon, had this group finally arrived!

He had already eaten two meals at the airport.

In reality, Xue Rui had borrowed the cars and drivers from Gu Muxue. The only person he could freely order around was his uncle, and fearing Ren Jun would forget, he had reminded him twice in one day.

"Didn’t they say it was a small studio that couldn’t even afford to rent an office?" someone asked, bewildered.

A small company couldn’t afford to maintain these kinds of vehicles.

Soon, another driver got out and began loading their luggage into the vehicles.

"Oh, thank you," Qingfeng murmured.

This situation was a bit different from what they had anticipated. They had assumed their hosts would, at most, have booked a few taxis.

Besides, they had never enjoyed such luxurious treatment on a business trip before.

After getting into the car, Qingfeng asked, "Where is Mr. Xue?"

"He said he’s doing his homework."

"..." Qingfeng was speechless.

...

At that moment, Xue Rui and Lin Ruoxi were in a private room at a restaurant, playing Gold Miner. He planned to talk things over slowly with the people from Le You at the dinner table later.

He had briefly chatted with Qingfeng and hinted at the idea of selling. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

In fact, that was genuinely what he was thinking. Developing a game from memory wasn’t difficult; the hard part was operating it.

Just designing the levels consumed a lot of time each day, and the difficulty of creating them increased the further into the game they got.

The levels couldn’t be too similar to previous ones, but they also couldn’t be too easy, and certainly not too hard. It was all about striking the right balance...

Furthermore, he had to run special events during holidays, yet the revenue was still lower than he had expected.

When he was working on his graduation project, he had padded his thesis’s word count by including a lot of market research on elimination-style games, so he was very familiar with the revenue these types of games could generate.

It seemed like a simple game with a low barrier to entry, but this single category had a market worth tens of billions, with a stronger earning potential than many AAA titles.

But in Xue Rui’s hands, it had only made eight or nine hundred thousand in the past six months...

Part of it was due to operational issues, and part of it was timing. The number of smartphone users hadn’t peaked yet. As he recalled, the year with the highest smartphone shipments was around 2016.

"Aren’t you curious about how much we can sell it for?" Xue Rui asked curiously.

Ever since getting his definitive answer, Lin Ruoxi had stopped asking about the game. She just spent her days eating and drinking, and had even found creative ways to use up the whole row of QQ Diamonds he had bought for her...

Lin Ruoxi shook her head. Her biggest dilemma right now was that today was Xue Rui’s lunar birthday, and she didn’t know how they should celebrate it.

She had bought a small cake, but she couldn’t find any fireworks...

After a long hesitation, Lin Ruoxi asked, "What do you want for your birthday today?"

Xue Rui was speechless for a moment. Lin Ruoxi had been asking this for days.

This girl was too earnest; she didn’t understand the first thing about surprises or romance.

But that was fine, too. It saved him a lot of trouble.

In previous years, his birthday just meant having a meal with his family and getting together.

With classmates like Qiu Mengze, it meant pulling an all-nighter at an internet cafe and grabbing some barbecue.

The friendships of one’s school days were just that simple and pure.

What surprised Xue Rui was that on his solar birthday this year, a jar of little stars had mysteriously appeared on his desk, a gift from Gu Muxue.

He had thought Gu Muxue would give him a more expensive gift, like a watch, but he never expected something she had made herself.

If you didn’t receive a jar of stars during your school days, you basically had no chance of getting one after graduation.

Stars were typically a gift that lovers would pour their hearts into making, or something you’d only give if you were completely confident the other person would accept it. Otherwise, if you were rejected, all the feelings folded into those stars would go to waste.

It felt pretty nice to receive them for the first time. Xue Rui wanted to open the jar and take a look, but he found the opening was sealed shut. If he wanted to open it, he would have to break the glass.

Xue Rui had a rough idea of what had happened. That girl Gu Muxue probably didn’t want to give it to him directly, which would have made it seem like a confession.

She even sent him a threatening text message telling him not to break the jar.

’Did she write something scandalous on the paper strips used for the stars?’

...

"I have two thousand yuan left. What do you want?" Lin Ruoxi asked in a small voice.

Xue Rui’s eye twitched. ’What does she mean, two thousand yuan?’ he thought. ’She must mean she only has two thousand yuan in cash, right?’

The game had earned so much money. Half was invested in cryptocurrency, and the rest was sitting in her grandmother’s bank account. It was just that Lin Ruoxi reported every expenditure to him.

He had told Lin Ruoxi that she didn’t need to tell him when she spent money, as it was hers to begin with.

But on this particular matter, Lin Ruoxi refused to listen.

Over the past six months, Lin Ruoxi had grown up a lot. Xue Rui felt that her puberty and rebellious phase had come a bit late.

In truth, Lin Ruoxi felt that all the money belonged to Xue Rui. Only the funds he explicitly gave her were hers to use.

That was why she asked him every time.

"Don’t worry about it. I don’t need anything," Xue Rui said truthfully.

He really didn’t care much for these holidays. His mind was completely preoccupied with the upcoming negotiation.

Today was just the initial contact, not the actual negotiation, since the other party had just gotten off the plane.

Soon, evening arrived.

Xue Rui went ahead to pick up a lawyer, someone he had asked Gu Qingshan to find for him.

Some things had to be handled by professionals, and Gu Qingshan could help him screen for the right person.

After all, two high schoolers would seem far too unprofessional and make the other party think they were easy to manipulate.

In fact, Le You wasn’t the only company that had contacted him these past few days, but Xue Rui had chosen them.

He had spent several sleepless nights digging into the company’s various businesses and discovered it was the best choice.

They had overseas gaming operations, were well-funded, had a partnership with Tencent, and most importantly, they respected developers.

Lin Ruoxi had blocked their email address so many times, and he himself had even cursed them out, yet they still condescended to come to this small city to negotiate. That was enough to show their sincerity.

They were miles better than those arrogant major corporations. And the tactics of smaller companies, like attacking competitors’ servers, were just disgusting. Xue Rui wouldn’t consider them for a second.

Xue Rui saw the people from Le You being led in from the window. They would be entering in a few minutes.

"Why did you call them idiots?" Xue Rui asked curiously. It was the only insult Lin Ruoxi ever used.

Usually, she would only lash out if someone insulted the game he made, but Le You had never done that.

"You said it on New Year’s Eve—that anyone still working at that hour must have something wrong with their head. And isn’t having something wrong with your head the same as being an idiot?" Lin Ruoxi said matter-of-factly.

Looking into Lin Ruoxi’s clear, pure eyes, Xue Rui chuckled, speechless for a moment, then nodded. "You’re right."

"No, *you* were right," Lin Ruoxi corrected him earnestly.

Soon, the group of six arrived at the private room.

"President Xue, hello." Qingfeng shook hands with Xue Rui.

Although he had been prepared for it, seeing Xue Rui in person was still a bit of a shock. He really was a high schooler.

"Hello. This is my partner," Xue Rui said, introducing Lin Ruoxi to the group.

He leaned close to Lin Ruoxi’s ear and whispered, "That’s the guy you called an idiot."

"Uh, h-h-hello." Lin Ruoxi’s face paled. She felt incredibly guilty.

’She was so tough when arguing online, so why is she panicking now that she’s met him in person?’

’All timid and submissive in real life, but a heavy hitter online?’

Xue Rui suppressed a laugh. ’Weren’t you so self-righteous when you were calling him an idiot just now?’ he thought.

"Apologies, apologies. I was held up and ran a bit late," Lawyer Zhang said, arriving belatedly.

Xue Rui waved his hand dismissively. Just as he was about to say it was no problem, he noticed Gu Qingshan behind the lawyer. "Uncle Gu?" he exclaimed in surprise.

"Oh, I just hitched a ride with Director Gu," Lawyer Zhang said with a smile.

"And this is...?" Qingfeng drew out the last word, his gaze shifting to Xue Rui.

He could tell from the title that this man held an official position and was a local leader.

Lawyer Zhang, beaming, explained, "This is the Director of our Hedong City Administration for Market Regulation. Director Gu said it wasn’t proper for two children to negotiate on their own and that they needed an elder to accompany them."

"A pleasure to meet you, Director." The group from Le You Company hurriedly shook hands with Gu Qingshan, their posture becoming very deferential.

Gu Qingshan politely shook their hands. "Once I’m off duty, I’m just an ordinary citizen. No need to be so nervous."

Xue Rui was only surprised for a moment before his expression returned to normal. He pulled out the chair at the head of the table, indicating for Gu Qingshan to sit.

"Please, have a seat, Uncle Gu. Would you like something to drink?" Xue Rui asked with a broad smile.