That night, Xie Yunfan took a taxi back to the suburban villa.

As soon as he walked in the door, he heard Xie Xinghe cursing, “How are you supposed to cross such a narrow single-plank bridge? The game designer definitely did this on purpose! I died again, f*ck!”

Xie Yunfan: “??”

Could he have been playing all day?

The single-plank bridge appeared in the Hell of Boiling Oil. After running into Meng Po and being forced to restart the game this morning, he had actually made it all the way back to the ninth level, the Hell of Boiling Oil. It seemed he was playing on Easy Mode; otherwise, his progress wouldn’t be this fast.

If he was already cursing this much on Easy Mode, he’d probably smash his phone to pieces on Nightmare Mode, right?

Xie Yunfan changed into slippers at the door and greeted, “Brother, I’m back.”

“Mhm.” Xie Xinghe didn’t even look up, keeping his head down as he stared intently at his phone.

“Have you eaten dinner yet?”

“Not yet.” Xie Xinghe was deep-fried in the boiling oil once again. Furious, he immediately deleted the game, tossed his phone onto the sofa, and said, “What a waste of time. I uninstalled it.”

Xie Yunfan walked into the living room and asked, “Let’s eat first. Should we order takeout or eat out?”

Xie Xinghe replied, “I’ll cook. My stomach hasn’t been great lately; eating out makes me prone to diarrhea.”

The older brother turned and went to the kitchen, and Xie Yunfan followed.

Over the past two years, in order to develop the holographic gaming cabin and its accompanying game, Fighting Master, Xie Xinghe had practically slept at the company. His meals were irregular, he constantly pulled all-nighters, and his digestive health had deteriorated more and more.

The housekeeper had some matters to attend to and had returned to her hometown for a few days. Xie Xinghe had been bored out of his mind staying at home recently, so he bought groceries and cooked himself. His cooking skills were actually decent; he just rarely had the chance to use them. Today was a good opportunity to show off his skills in front of his younger brother.

Xie Xinghe efficiently prepared the ingredients. Xie Yunfan walked into the kitchen to help wash the vegetables, asking, “Brother, who was the person from Wings of Dream that talked to you about the copyright buyout?”

Xie Xinghe said, “It was their Vice President, Ye Teng, the head of the copyright department. He specializes in holographic game copyright development and IP acquisitions.”

Ye Teng? What a coincidence. The person who contacted him today was also VP Ye.

Xie Yunfan asked, “Since returning to the country, has VP Ye contacted you again?”

Xie Xinghe lowered his head, his voice tinged with disappointment. “He happens to be in Rongcheng on a business trip recently. He scheduled a face-to-face meeting with me for Thursday morning. The offer is still a 30 million buyout, and he refuses to raise it by a single cent…”

Looking at his brother’s slightly pale expression, Xie Yunfan felt a bit distressed.

Some large companies always loved to put on a condescending posture, acting as if the people seeking to cooperate with them were beneath them.

Since Ye Teng could propose the ridiculous condition of buying out Fighting Master for 30 million, he probably wouldn’t offer any good terms for Underworld Maze either, right?

He would go with his brother on Thursday and negotiate both games at once. If he couldn’t secure better rights and benefits, he’d rather not cooperate at all.

Having made up his mind, Xie Yunfan quickly washed and chopped the vegetables.

Half an hour later, the two brothers had made a simple meal of three dishes and one soup. They brought the food to the table and chatted as they ate.

His older brother’s cooking skills were pretty good, and the food was quite tasty. As Xie Yunfan kept his head down and ate heartily, Xie Xinghe casually asked, “Are your final exam results out yet? How many classes did you fail?”

Xie Yunfan: “I didn’t fail any classes this semester.”

Xie Xinghe raised an eyebrow at him. “Really?”

Xie Yunfan opened the grade-checking app on his phone and showed it to his brother. All his courses had scores above 70.

He really didn’t fail any?

Xie Xinghe breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s more like it. Just focus on your studies from now on. I’ll figure out a way to deal with the money we owe the bank myself. Once you graduate, with my connections, helping you find a job won’t be a problem.”

Xie Yunfan smiled slightly. “Don’t worry, I’ll take the make-up exams for my past courses and get my diploma.”

Xie Xinghe also smiled, reaching out to rub his younger brother’s head. “It’s good that you’ve thought things through.”

It had been years since the brothers shared such a rare, warm, and harmonious moment.

……

After eating, Xie Xinghe tossed the bowls and chopsticks into the dishwasher, sat in the corner of the sofa, took out his phone, opened Mobile Game Hub, and silently downloaded Underworld Maze.

“Didn’t you just uninstall it? Why are you downloading it again?” Xie Yunfan walked over and sat down next to him.

“I don’t believe I can’t beat it,” Xie Xinghe muttered. “I’m definitely going to clear it tonight. I want to see just how many traps this broken game actually has.”

Deleting it in a fit of rage, only to download it again out of a refusal to admit defeat—this game had plenty of players who ended up coming crawling back.

Mobile Game Hub required real-name registration. Since Xie Xinghe’s account had previously purchased Underworld Maze, downloading it again didn’t require him to be charged a second time.

As he waited for the download progress bar, he sighed in admiration, “The downloads have already hit 2 million. This game is truly badass.”

Xie Yunfan asked curiously, “Brother, how did you find out about this game?”

Xie Xinghe said, “Homepage recommendation. I saw that it had climbed onto the Weekly Best-Sellers list, so I got curious and downloaded it to try.”

The traffic on Mobile Game Hub’s homepage was indeed terrifying. Most players who didn’t follow livestreams or gaming sites would look for games on the “Mobile Game Hub” leaderboards. After Underworld Maze charged up to seventh place, it gained another 500,000 downloads in just a single day. No wonder his brother got curious and started playing.

Recently, Xie Yunfan’s memories had slowly been recovering, and he recalled many things from their childhood.

Xie Xinghe had loved playing games since he was a kid and could be considered a veteran “gaming fanatic.” This was also the key reason why, after taking over the Xingyun Group, he ran off to develop a holographic gaming cabin.

He loved playing games, so he wanted to create a classic game.

But “playing games” and “making games” were two entirely different matters.

He wanted so badly to create a “holographic masterpiece” to make a name for himself that he didn’t consider issues like the development cycle, operational methods, return on investment, and so on.

The initial investment was too high; driven by pure passion, he burned through money like crazy. In the later stages, bugs emerged endlessly, and he lacked the experience to solve them. The capital chain broke, and the game was hurriedly launched on the market… The game’s reputation completely collapsed, and the holographic cabin’s failure rate was too high. Unable to recoup the costs, it dragged down the entire company.

His older brother simply wasn’t cut out for business. Sometimes, this brother of his truly possessed a sort of “pure stupidity” and “naive stubbornness.”

From now on, it’s better to leave the game making to me.

Seeing his brother open Underworld Maze once again, Xie Yunfan said, “Brother, the head designer for Underworld Maze is me. I just told you, but you were too engrossed in playing to hear me, right?”

Xie Xinghe abruptly raised his head. “Huh???”

The eerie background music of Underworld Maze just happened to ring in his ears. Xie Xinghe thought he was hallucinating, so he rubbed his ears, looked at him, and said, “What did you say? Say it again.”

Xie Yunfan repeated, “Underworld Maze is the game I made. I’m the chief designer.”

He hadn’t misheard?

Xie Xinghe burst out laughing and casually smacked the back of his brother’s head. “Keep bragging! With your level of failing classes every year, you could make a game like this? Making a fruit-matching puzzle game is more like it, hahaha.”

Xie Yunfan: “…”

Since his brother didn’t believe him, he had no choice but to turn around, pull a document folder out of his backpack, and hand it to Xie Xinghe. “Take a look at these first. I can’t fake these, can I?”

Xie Xinghe dubiously opened the document bag.

The business license for Yangfan Studio. In the column for the legal representative, it clearly read: Xie Yunfan.

A license from the Industrial and Commercial Bureau obviously couldn’t be faked!

In addition, there was the financial seal, the official company seal, the registered trademark approval documents, and so on.

Xie Xinghe’s eyes gradually widened.

Xie Yunfan logged into the “Mobile Game Producer” software and opened the backend. In the column for “Games You’ve Produced,” there were four distinct red characters: Underworld Maze.

He showed the opened backend to his brother. “Look at this too.”

“…” It was actually true?!

Xie Xinghe opened his mouth wide, and the document folder in his hand fell to the ground with a smack.

He stared at Xie Yunfan with wide, round eyes, as if looking at a monster.

Xie Yunfan picked up the folder, placed it back on the table, and asked, “Do you believe me now?”

Xie Xinghe looked utterly bewildered.

He had long thrown the thought of “beating the dog designer to death” to the back of his mind. What shocked him even more was how his good-for-nothing younger brother could possibly create such a popular game?

Top ten on the Mobile Game Hub’s best-seller list!

In the fiercely competitive winter break release window, the only game produced by a rookie studio to break through the siege? When he saw it, he had even commented, “This is the biggest dark horse of the winter break.”

And as it turned out, the dark horse was his own brother?

The “dog designer” he had been cursing out all day was actually his own brother?!

Xie Xinghe rubbed his eyes vigorously and looked at the backend of his brother’s phone over and over again. After confirming there was no mistake, he scratched his head hard, seemingly pondering what he should say.

As a player, he had grinded this game for over seven hours, and the moment he was forced to reset his progress, he truly wanted to beat up the designer… But this dog designer was his brother!

As the designer’s brother, if he thought about it from the designer’s perspective…

This game was undoubtedly a success.

Although it wasn’t currently a massive smash hit, breaking into the top ten of Mobile Game Hub was already a minor hit.

Xie Xinghe’s face was full of shock. After a long while, he suddenly reacted, staring at Xie Yunfan and asking, “Did you really make this game? How much money did you spend? You didn’t copy me and get a loan from the bank, did you?! Did you mortgage the house?”

Xie Yunfan: “…”

His brother’s barrage of questions truly left him not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

Sure enough, Xie Xinghe didn’t know how to make detailed investment budgets at all. The fact that high investments led to massive losses for his game had already become a psychological trauma for Xie Xinghe, and he was worried his brother would go down the same old path.

Xie Yunfan reached out and gently patted the back of his brother’s hand. “Don’t worry, I didn’t take out a loan. The development and promotion costs for this game combined were only around a million. I used the savings Mom and Dad left me.”

He paused, then said, “Currently, after deducting the platform’s cut, the game’s net profit has reached about 20 million. In other words, the return on investment exceeds 1:20. It’s a massive profit.”

Xie Xinghe: “…………”

This time, even his eyeballs practically fell out.

An ROI of 1:20?

This was a result sufficient to stun industry investors!

It was hard to believe that such a “cheap yet profitable” game actually came from his younger brother’s hands?

How could a useless older brother like him, who lost the shirt off his back in business and ended up owing the bank two hundred million, have such a money-making younger brother?

So, did their parents’ business genes actually get inherited by his younger brother?

Xie Xinghe stared unblinkingly at his brother, practically burning a hole through Xie Yunfan’s face with his gaze.

After a long while, he seemed to have made some kind of resolution. He forcefully pressed down on Xie Yunfan’s shoulders and said with profound earnestness, “Yunfan, in the past, I failed to see your potential. From now on, in our Xie family, you call the shots.”

Xie Yunfan: “…”

He was almost amused to laughter by Xie Xinghe’s leaping train of thought.

Shocked by his money-making ability, his older brother had very cleanly handed over the “right to speak for the Xie family.”

Although this authority wasn’t of much use—the Xie family didn’t have much capital left now and was instead burdened with massive debts.

However, his brother’s trust still warmed Xie Yunfan’s heart.

I call the shots from now on?

Alright, then I’ll lead you to stage a comeback.