January 29th, Friday.
Starting from the 18th, the profits from Ocean Fortress had gradually begun to roll in, with weekly earnings stabilizing around 400,000 to 500,000!
The next settlement date was January 31st—just two days away.
In the meantime, Pei Qian was still doing his best to burn through money.
Ghost General and Ocean Fortress both had their servers and bandwidth fully upgraded. Every rented cloud server was bumped up to the highest possible specs.
He outsourced customer service to the most expensive team available—top-notch service attitude, skilled at evading responsibility with high-level corporate lingo. Although the monthly cost still wasn't that high, at least it was something.
But even so, Pei Qian still felt utterly hopeless!
[Wealth Conversion System]
[Host: Pei Qian]
[Profit Conversion Ratio: 100:1 | Loss Conversion Ratio: 1:1]
[Next Settlement Date: 2 days from now]
[System Funds: 1,124,355.3 Yuan (↑624,355.3)]
[Personal Funds: 708.3]
Pei Qian felt like life had lost all meaning.
There were still seventy to eighty thousand in system funds left from before that he hadn't managed to spend.
And over these past two weeks, even though he tried his best to spend like crazy, system funds had still broken through the million mark!
There was a bit of good news, though. As the number of new players joining Ghost General began to dwindle, its earnings finally saw a significant drop after three months, bringing in only a little over 200,000 this week.
The bad news? Ocean Fortress was starting to rake in money now, with a net profit of over 400,000 this week!
And the even worse news? This was likely only the beginning.
Ocean Fortress was fundamentally different from Ghost General—the two games weren't even on the same level!
Ghost General was, at best, a hit within the mobile gaming circle. And because its pricing was so generous, most players only bought the one-time $30 lifetime pass, which meant its long-term profitability was limited.
But Ocean Fortress was another beast entirely.
As a successful FPS game, it appealed to the largest demographic of PC gamers currently active.
Not to mention, it was free and had immense viral potential.
Its monetization ceiling was sky-high—while not many players bought the "Fire Qilin" skin, just one of those purchases was worth more than 88 standard Ghost General players…
Going forward, Ocean Fortress's revenue was only going to get higher.
Pei Qian had thought about pushing out new updates for both Ghost General and Ocean Fortress, buying a whole new batch of expensive art assets to burn more cash.
But the problem was—adding new versions required new monetization points, as per the system rules.
And the system also mandated that no unreleased products could exist in the week prior to a settlement, otherwise the payout would be delayed.
In other words, those kinds of plans could only be rolled out next cycle.
As for other expenditures—like celebration events or handing out bonuses—the system allowed them, but not without limits. They had to remain within a reasonable range.
Which meant… trying to incur a loss within the next two days?
Very difficult!
But Pei Qian hadn't lost all hope just yet!
He reviewed his two current options:
Option one: stop trying to burn system funds and wait for the settlement.
Pros: He'd be able to convert about 6,000 into personal wealth.
Cons: The system would likely consider his current fund level (~1 million) as already having hit the replenishment target, meaning no new funds would be added, just like what happened last time.
Option two: keep spending the system funds, as much as possible without disrupting the settlement.
Pros: No matter how much he spent, the system would definitely top it off again—super satisfying.
Cons: The personal wealth he'd be able to convert might drop—from 5,000 down to 3,000 or even 2,000.
But if he could force a loss of less than 494,000, that would actually outperform the current net gain!
After thinking it through briefly, Pei Qian made up his mind.
He had to keep burning that money!
As for how… well…
He needs to come up with new tricks!
. . . . . . . .
During this time, Pei Qian had also come to understand the system more and more deeply.
According to its rules, system funds could only be used for company-related operational activities, while personal funds could be spent however he wanted, without restriction.
However, the specifics of how system funds could be spent weren't entirely rigid—there was room for creative flexibility within a certain range!
Take meals, for example.
If Pei Qian wanted to eat out privately or treat friends, he couldn't use system funds.
But if he was treating employees? Perfectly allowed.
That said, group meals couldn't be too frequent. You couldn't host a staff dinner every single day, and the cost couldn't exceed certain thresholds either.
For instance, if you just had a staff meal yesterday, wanting to do it again today wouldn't fly—unless you had a reasonable justification.
The reasons Pei Qian had used before, like "team-building," "celebrating a successful game launch," and so on, were all valid.
In this regard, the system was very smart—its judgment on violations and its restrictions on how funds could be used were both dynamic and adaptive.
A lot of things weren't absolutely prohibited—sometimes, rephrasing or framing the purpose differently could let it pass.
Likewise, when Pei Qian previously rented a house, leased a car, bought luxury suits, and high-end gaming laptops—he did all of that by creatively labeling personal needs as company expenses.
Of course, this trick didn't work everywhere.
Like if Pei Qian wanted to buy a pair of luxury sneakers worth tens of thousands? A concert ticket for his favorite singer? Some high-end cosmetics? A supercar? Or tipping a streamer?
Anything that couldn't plausibly be justified under a business context was absolutely off-limits.
Now, with 1.1 million in system funds, Pei Qian thought it over and decided—it was time to go all-in on a spending spree!
During the previous settlement, he was powerless—because he was on his own.
But this time? Things were different.
He had his lovely employees with him!
He had already drawn up a detailed plan.
Once everything was finalized, Pei Qian called Assistant Xin into his office.
"The salary adjustments have been finalized, right?" Pei Qian asked.
Xin Hailu nodded. "Yes, President Pei. Everything has been done exactly as you instructed."
"First, company-wide pay raises: 60% increase for supervisors, 30% raise for everyone else."
"Second, we're implementing a project bonus scheme—15% of the game's net profit will be distributed among all development staff."
"Lastly, to support employee well-being, every staff member will receive a 1,000 yuan shopping card each month."
Pei Qian nodded in satisfaction. "Very good."
All of these expenses—whether it was the salary bump or the project bonus percentage—were currently the maximum limits allowed by the system.
Pei Qian would've loved to be even more generous, but the system wouldn't allow it. So he had to settle for this.
Before Ocean Fortress went online, Pei Qian had considered implementing project bonuses and distributing shopping cards, but it wouldn't have made sense logically.
After all, Ghost General had been his solo project—it would've been hard to justify using its profits to hand out bonuses to Huang Sibo and the rest.
But this time, it was a whole different story. Ocean Fortress had been furiously crunched out by Huang Sibo, Bao Xu, and the rest of the design team. Giving them bonuses? Totally reasonable!
And now that the company was turning a healthy profit, providing shopping cards as employee perks? Also perfectly logical.
Assistant Xin flipped open her little notebook. "Salaries should be deposited later today. Anything else you'd like me to handle?"
Pei Qian finally felt a bit relieved—once salaries were paid out, system funds would be down by another 300,000+ yuan.
Including the bonuses, most staff would be hitting five-figure salaries this month!
Now… was there any other way to burn more money?
<+>
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