This weekend, there happened to be a grand comic con in Rongcheng.

The comic cons in the alternate world were very similar to those in Xie Yunfan’s previous life, serving as a carnival feast for ACG subculture enthusiasts.

The comic con would feature a large number of fan-made doujinshi and merchandise booths for games and anime. Cosplayers dressed up as various ACG characters would also appear at the convention, and live signing sessions by authors, artists, and voice actors often took place.

With no work over the weekend, Xie Yunfan decided to visit the comic con. He bought a ticket in advance on the official website for 60 yuan, put on a sweater coat, and left by taxi.

Upon arriving at the comic con venue, he immediately saw many cosplayers wearing custom outfits. There was a girl with pink twin tails playing the female protagonist of a certain anime, and a handsome guy with white hair wearing a purple-patterned robe playing a mage from a certain game.

These cosplayers were very generous, and many passersby around them were circling them to take photos.

Xie Yunfan lined up to enter, intending to inspect the market conditions of the alternate world’s comic cons in detail.

Most of the comic con consisted of anime booths, which enjoyed high popularity, and long lines were even forming in front of some booths.

Xie Yunfan wandered around casually. Suddenly, a girl stuffed an exquisite white hand banner into his hand and said in a low voice: “Hello, handsome guy, here are some freebies for you. Welcome to follow the mobile game Journey to the West.”

Xie Yunfan: “??”

Distributing freebies right into the hands of the game director!

He smiled and accepted the hand banner: “Thank you.”

Looking down, he saw that it was actually a Q-version character avatar of the scripture-seeking small team drawn by the players themselves, made into a simple hand banner and distributed for free at the comic con. This kind of unpaid publicity, where players spent their own money and effort without any profit, was entirely an act of “generating electricity out of love.”

To be able to dig into one’s own pocket to promote a game at a comic con, this was definitely a “true love fan.”

Xie Yunfan was very happy to meet such a player, and he seriously tied the Great Sage’s hand banner around his right wrist.

Xie Yunfan continued to walk forward, and at a corner, he almost collided head-on with a man. The person looked up and was instantly stunned: “Boss… Boss?”

It turned out to be Song Qian, the market manager of Yangfan Studio.

It turned out that Song Qian was also free on the weekend and ran over to browse the comic con to understand the market conditions.

Xie Yunfan said: “Manager Song, what a coincidence.”

Song Qian was extremely surprised—the boss was quite trendy, actually knowing how to visit a comic con? On his right wrist, he was even wearing the Journey to the West hand banner distributed by someone on-site.

The young boss indeed had a high level of acceptance for new things.

Song Qian pushed up the glasses on the bridge of his nose and explained: “I was thinking about whether we should set up an official merchandise display area for Yangfan Studio at comic cons all across the country in the future, so I came to take a look and check things out today.”

This Manager Song was indeed flexible-minded and full of ideas. Xie Yunfan smiled slightly: “What a coincidence, I was thinking the same thing, so I came to wander around since I was free today.”

Song Qian’s emotions were complex. Compared to those bosses who understood nothing but gave blind orders, a boss who actually walked among the players and understood their preferences was the rarest to find.

Fortunately, he had met one.

Song Qian pointed ahead: “Boss, look over there, there are a few people cosplaying the scripture-seeking small team.”

Xie Yunfan followed his gaze and looked forward—

Good heavens!

Four college students: one wearing a kasaya and holding a tin staff to cosplay Tang Sanzang; one with monkey hair glued to his face and holding a Golden Hoop Rod to cosplay Sun Wukong; another who made a round, bulging belly for himself to cosplay Zhu Bajie; and the last one cosplaying Sha Wujing, with a string of black Buddhist beads hanging around his neck, diligently carrying the luggage.

The four lined up in a single file, patrolling the venue, becoming the most distinct attention-grabbers of the entire comic con, drawing the curious gazes of countless passersby.

The players are… just too cute!

They actually made cosplay costumes based on the game’s clothing and props to personally play the Journey to the West small team?

Xie Yunfan chuckled lightly: “Looking at their age, these few should be college students, right? Their cosplays look quite accurate.”

They really threw themselves into it!

Especially the chubby guy cosplaying Zhu Bajie—large face + pig ears, completely fearless of playing ugly, and smilingly pulling passing players over to take photos, he was simply a top-tier social butterfly.

Xie Yunfan looked at Song Qian, lowered his voice, and said: “Get the contact information of these few people. We can utilize the winter vacation period to do a cosplay touring exhibition of the scripture-seeking small team at comic cons across the country. Let’s invite the four of them to attend, and we will cover all expenses. The merchandise booths can also start being prepared.”

When Song Qian saw these few cosplayers just now, he had thought the exact same thing.

To be able to think alike with the boss was simply wonderful.

Song Qian immediately went to ask for the contact details of the several students, while Xie Yunfan also proactively stepped forward, revealed his identity, and took a group photo with them.

The chubby boy playing Zhu Bajie was so excited that he didn’t even know where to put his hands: “Heavens, are you Little Sailboat? Ahhhh, we actually encountered the chief director?!”

Other few people also shook hands with Xie Yunfan one after another: “This game is really fun. We are roommates from the same dorm. Every time it updates, we download it to play together, and we’ve been following it for over half a year.”

The player playing Sun Wukong said: “I even bought the Great Sage’s figure!”

Xie Yunfan smiled and shook hands with them: “Thank you for your support.”

Song Qian negotiated the touring comic con cooperation with them and offered them a handsome appearance fee, which made the several students very happy.

Being able to cosplay their favorite characters, earn some pocket money during the winter vacation, and travel all over the country with Yangfan Studio was truly a massive gain!

That same night, a topic named #JourneyToTheWestCosplayTeam# made it onto the hot search list.

The Rongcheng comic con was one of the largest comic cons in the country, attracting a huge crowd of tourists. Many passersby took photos of these four show-stealers and posted them online for discussion.

“The style of these few cosplayers is exceptionally unique?”

“Zhu Bajie cracked me up! I’m curious what his big belly is made of?”

“The Sun Wukong cosplayer wore a whole suit of monkey hair clothes, Hahaha, his walking style also looks a lot like a monkey.”

“Tang Monk is actually quite handsome, I can sort of understand the Queen of the Women’s Kingdom now, blushing~”

Many players of Journey to the West took photos with them as a memento.

There were also players who witnessed the scene of Xie Yunfan taking a photo with them, snapped a picture, and posted it online asking: “This person seems to be the chief director, Little Sailboat? Not entirely sure.”

Someone replied to the post: “I recognize Little Sailboat, he accepted an award last year, it’s him.”

“Envious of Rongcheng. Do we Imperial Capital players not deserve to see the cosplay of the scripture-seeking small team?”

The photos of the comic con cosplays became wildly popular across the whole network, and players in other cities expressed one after another: We want to see it too!

That night, Yangfan Studio released a statement—

“Dear players, Yangfan Studio has confirmed its participation in four comic cons during this winter vacation.

January 30, Magic City BV Comic Con

February 2, Imperial Capital CMC Doujin Festival

February 14, Ningcheng yc Anime Ceremony

February 20, Jiangzhou City ACG Creative Market

At that time, there will be official merchandise booths, and the cosplayers of the Journey to the West small team will also grace the venue in person.

We look forward to all players coming to the event venue to take photos and check-in!”

This news shocked the industry once again.

At comic cons, merchandise booths for various games are very common, but it was rare for an official studio like Yangfan Studio to organize a national touring exhibition.

It could be foreseen that this would be another carnival for the players!

By then, the line of players waiting to take photos with the scripture-seeking squad would probably be very long, right?

If every comic con in the future had an official merchandise booth exhibited by Yangfan Studio, players could view the physical merchandise offline and directly pay to buy it at the con.

This opened up a brand-new channel for merchandise sales, which could attract the attention of a large number of ACG youths and also serve as positive publicity for the game.

Song Qian led his subordinates from the marketing department to prepare the comic con arrangements in a tight and orderly manner. After joining Yangfan Studio, many of his ideas were finally being realized!

On Monday, Xie Yunfan organized an all-hands wrap-up meeting for the studio.

“Our Journey to the West went on the market in June last year, and after half a year of serialization, it has now come to a successful close.”

“As of now, Journey to the West has 3.8 million raters with an average score of 9.6 points, ranking number one on the overall rating leaderboard of Mobile Games Home. The total number of downloads has broken through 55 million, and the paid gross revenue has exceeded 2.5 billion.”

“At the same time, the game has also received a great response in the merchandise market. The stationery collaboration has broken 300 million in sales across nationwide stores; the two batches of official merchandise sold for 400 million; and the sales revenue of the conclusion commemorative edition figures exceeded 1 billion, shattering the global sales record for game figures!”

“The huge success of this game is inseparable from the efforts of everyone sitting here. I have already arranged for the finance department to issue a year-end bonus to everyone within this week.”

“The Chinese New Year is coming soon. Yangfan Studio’s annual holiday will last from February 5 to February 15. Everyone can go back to rest and spend a good Spring Festival with your families.”

“Thank you all for your hard work and persistence over the past half year. Let’s keep working hard for our next game!”

As soon as Xie Yunfan finished speaking, enthusiastic applause immediately rang out below the stage—everyone’s applause clearly came from the bottom of their hearts without the slightest perfunctoriness. The clapping lasted for a very long time, and some young people’s palms were almost beaten raw.

Employees new to the workplace, like fresh graduates Shi Xiaoyu and Zhang Zizheng, felt highly honored to participate in such a massive project; meanwhile, the old workplace veterans who had resigned, jumped jobs, or changed jobs due to company bankruptcies were all very glad that they chose Yangfan Studio back then.

—The luckiest thing in this lifetime was joining Xie Yunfan’s planning team.

Yangfan Studio was by no means an ordinary small sailboat.

This was simply a luxury cruise ship in the gaming industry!

Anyone who could get on board was collectively carried to success by Xie Yunfan.

Even Liang Anwei, the boss of the anime company that was acquired not long ago, had complex feelings at this moment—he hadn’t made much money doing animation himself and could barely afford to pay salaries. Now that he had joined Yangfan Studio, not only could his salary be received on time, but the entire staff also received year-end bonuses.

Is this the feeling of so-called “clinging to a golden thigh”?

Xie Yunfan said: “In the next few days, everyone finish up the wrap-up work well. Go home on holiday on February 5th. I wish everyone a happy Spring Festival in advance!”

Other companies had a 7-day annual holiday, but Yangfan Studio had a 10-day annual holiday.

This was simply too awesome, wasn’t it?

After the meeting ended, the employees returned to their workstations very excitedly, discussing how much year-end bonus they would be able to receive.

Xie Yunfan returned to his office, opened the game forum, and looked at the players’ evaluations of Journey to the West after the game’s conclusion.

Many big shots wrote very serious long analytical essays.

Someone believed: “Journey to the West is actually a game of chess played by Tathagata Buddha, right? Most of the monsters on the road were released from the celestial realm, especially Taishang Laojun, who released so many. It’s hard to believe he was completely unaware! In order to recruit the wild Brother Monkey into the strongest combat power of the celestial realm, they really took great pains.”

Someone said: “The Great Sage didn’t exert his full strength at all on the journey to fetch scriptures. It looked like he couldn’t beat this one or that one, but in fact, during the True and False Monkey King level, we all personally felt the Great Sage’s strength! He didn’t use his full strength normally because he saw that the backgrounds of the monsters were not simple, and killing them outright wasn’t as good as inviting the backers of those monsters to take them away. In fact, the Great Sage is the smartest person on the scripture-seeking journey.”

Still others said: “I like the Havoc in Heaven part. The Great Sage back then feared neither heaven nor earth, fighting whoever came along. My fate is determined by me, not by heaven! Changing the Register of Life and Death was truly too handsome! No one can achieve this in reality, which is why he is the ACG idol for children, right?”

These viewpoints made many players feel refreshed, and the replying threads often built up to thousands of stories high. It would also cause debates between different viewpoints, with arguments and evidence being exchanged back and forth deep into the night.

Xie Yunfan read the players’ discussions with keen interest.

To promote culture in an alternate world, he didn’t need to force his own understanding onto the players. That kind of “preachy” popularization would trigger aversion in players.

As a game director, he only needed to present the story of Journey to the West completely, and then—leave it to the players themselves to interpret.

After the conclusion, it was very normal for various kinds of concepts to appear.

He couldn’t say who was right and who was definitely wrong.

Everyone who finished reading Journey to the West would have their own understanding; similarly, every player who had played Journey to the West could express their own views.

As long as this story continued to be passed down in the alternate world, there would be a steady stream of people who would know the wonderful legend of “Journey to the West.”

On this morning, Xie Yunfan received a special invitation letter.

A red gold-stamped cover, with a very exquisite design.

Opening it to look, he saw it wrote inside: “Respected Mr. Xie Yunfan, you are cordially invited to attend the 11th Huaxia Game Ceremony Awards Ceremony. This ceremony will be held on February 2nd at 8 PM at the Imperial Capital E-sports Center. We look forward to your arrival.”

Below it also wrote a line of small words: If confirmed to attend, please contact the organizing committee at 189XXXX.

Xie Yunfan made a phone call right then, stating that he would go attend.

The annual game ceremony was the “Oscars” of the gaming industry. At the previous ceremony, he won two major awards: Independent Mobile Game of the Year for Underworld Maze and Holographic Game of the Year for Ghost Realm.

At this ceremony, there were no overly formidable opponents in the same period; the entire gaming industry in the second half of the year was almost dominated by Journey to the West. There should be awards to take at this ceremony as well, so of course, he had to go.

He hoped to fill up an entire display wall opposite his office desk with various trophies and game figures in the future.

Xie Yunfan booked his flight tickets that very day and came to the long-unvisited Imperial Capital together with his brother. Hearing that the brothers were coming over, Luo Hang proactively arranged a hotel for them and even treated them to dinner.

Luo Hang asked: “I heard you are going to make an official merchandise display area at comic cons?”

Xie Yunfan: “Yes, our Manager Song has already brought people over. Currently, the displayed merchandise is still relatively small, but there will be more and more in the future.”

Luo Hang proactively proposed: “In fact, Ghost Realm is also a game developed by you, and the game’s merchandise sells very well. Your Yangfan Studio’s booths can also sell the merchandise of Ghost Realm.”

Xie Yunfan said: “When we signed the contract initially, the merchandise sales rights for Ghost Realm were signed to your Qihang. Do you really not mind me taking it to sell?”

Luo Hang smiled and said: “I don’t mind, we can cooperate for a win-win situation. I will have the lawyer modify the contract later; you can also freely design and sell the merchandise of Ghost Realm. The profit split will be the same as before: for what you design, it’s 60% for you and 40% for me; for what my side designs, it’s 60% for me and 40% for you. How about it?”

Xie Yunfan readily said: “No problem!”

In this way, his studio booths would be complete, and all merchandise of games developed by Yangfan Studio could be displayed on the booths.

Luo Hang asked: “What are you doing for the new game, do you have any ideas yet?”

Xie Yunfan asked back: “Is the technical level of Qihang’s holographic game pods feasible for online multiplayer games?”

Luo Hang shook his head: “Large-scale multiplayer networking is temporarily not feasible, the servers easily crash. We are seizing the time to conquer this difficult problem; it might take until next year to introduce quantum computers to handle the data processing issues. Currently, it can only match 1V1 competitions, or local networking that supports around 10 people online simultaneously.”

Xie Yunfan pondered for a moment and said: “Then let’s start with a local networked game. Aren’t you coming to Rongcheng in a while? If it’s convenient, bring Shen Xingye along as well.”

Luo Hang was startled: “You mean, our copywriting team leader?”

This copywriting team leader of Qihang was headhunted by the HR department back when making Ghost Realm. The several side branch plots she wrote, like Nie Xiaoqian, and Qiao Sheng and Liancheng, were all quite good.

Yunfan suddenly called her name, was it to write a plot?

Xie Yunfan explained: “The next game is a holographic role-playing type, with quite a lot of plot. Shen Xingye’s copywriting is written quite well, let her come over to help.”

Luo Hang understood: “Understood. A role-playing game, what specific form is it?”

Xie Yunfan introduced: “Palace intrigue and political struggle, to personally experience the hardships of ancient survival in a holographic world. Since local matchmaking is possible, I plan to open both the harem line and the imperial court line together.”

“For example, for couple players, one can play the imperial court line to ascend the throne and become emperor, while the other plays the harem line to become the empress. In the end, the two get married, and the emperor and empress join forces to govern the country.”

“They can also play the imperial court line together, with one assisting the other to become the emperor; or perhaps go to the harem line together, cooperating with each other to let a partner become the empress or empress dowager. The ways to play are numerous.”

“Back when we were at the Six-Eared Macaque stage, we tried intelligent AI-type bosses that copied the player’s operations. For this game, we can also make some intelligent algorithm NPCs to add difficulty for the players.”

Luo Hang didn’t quite understand. After listening for a long time, he summarized: “An online matchmaking survival game?”

“……” Xie Yunfan rubbed his temples: “I can’t explain it clearly to you right now. When the game is made, you will know once you experience it. At that time, let’s play it together and see.”

Luo Hang smiled and raised his wine glass: “Alright, then let’s wish our cooperation a smooth success in advance.”

The next day, the Imperial Capital comic con was held.

Long lines quickly formed in front of the official booth of Journey to the West.

That scene of a mountain of people and a sea of crowds simply shocked other game players and anime enthusiasts.

The few cosplayers of the scripture-seeking small team were truly quite cute!

The chubby boy playing Zhu Bajie was super popular at the comic con. Many players wanted to take photos with him, and the line was almost squeezing to the point of breaking heads.

Not to mention Sun Wukong’s side, many players surrounded the Great Sage to take photos together.

Someone even joked with Tang Monk: “Master, can you recite the Band-Tightening Spell a few fewer times!”

The player of Tang Monk put his hands together: “Amitabha.”

It caused a burst of laughter all around.

The comic con was extremely lively. Passersby and players who rushed over offline upon hearing the news were too numerous to count, and many players deliberately took the high-speed rail from nearby cities to rush over.

The merchandise booths were directly snatched empty. This battle array frightened the few people in the marketing department, who hurriedly contacted the warehouse to replenish stock.

The topic #JourneyToTheWestComicConExplosivelyPopular# was once again sent onto the hot search list by the players.

That evening, the annual Huaxia Game Ceremony Awards Ceremony was held in the Imperial Capital.

Countless players, merchants, and students majoring in game design were paying attention to the awards ceremony. This edition was still star-studded, and major game companies all sent representatives to attend.

The online live broadcast rights were bought out by Lingmao TV. At 8 PM, the number of people in the homepage live stream room broke 1 million. The lens swept across the guest seating on-site, perfectly catching Xie Yunfan’s face.

【I see Little Sailboat! Sitting in the second row, his status has upgraded!】

【Hahaha, he was still sitting in the corner last year】

【This is the chief director of Journey to the West? He’s kind of handsome】

【Little Sailboat is very handsome. Clearly he could rely on his face to debut, yet he insists on making games~】

【Protect our side’s conscientious Little Sailboat!】

The awards ceremony proceeded in an orderly manner.

“The one winning the Holographic Game of the Year is—Fighting Master!”

Hearing this name, Xie Xinghe almost burst into tears on the spot.

When this game was taken off shelves initially, it was ridiculed and criticized by the whole network. Who would have thought that returning to the furnace for remodeling today, shedding its old skin and gaining new life, it would actually be highly welcomed by players.

Xie Xinghe forcefully held back his tears and said with a choking voice: “Thank you to all players for your support of the remastered version of Fighting Master! Here, I also want to specially thank two people. One is President Luo of Qihang Games. For this game to be re-listed on the market, it relied entirely on President Luo’s full assistance.”

“The other is my younger brother, Xie Yunfan. During my most difficult times, he kept supporting me and encouraging me—he is my closest relative in this world, and also the family member that makes me proudest!”

The camera cut to Xie Yunfan, who was smilingly applauding his brother.

On the day he first arrived in this world, he encountered his brother committing suicide and being rushed to the hospital for emergency rescue. At that time, he was still a bit dazed. Thinking about it now, it felt as if these things had already passed for a very long time.

The debts his brother owed to the bank had been paid off, and he had completely stepped out of the haze, even becoming his strongest assistant. The merchandise revenue developed by the marketing department was so good, and the stationery collaboration was so successful; Song Qian and his elder brother were both indispensable.

The host said excitedly: “Next to be awarded is the very last award of this awards ceremony—Most Popular Game of the Year!”

“This game took the lead in adopting a ‘serialized update’ method. In the entire half-year period from June to December last year, it created a myth of ‘the whole nation chasing updates’!”

“It not only became the single-player game with the highest download volume, highest rating, and best reputation on Mobile Games Home, but the figure sales of its main characters even shattered the records in world gaming history, breaking through the 1 billion mark!”

“This is a game that makes all of us Huaxia players proud.”

“Let us shout out its name loudly!”

Inside the live stream room, dense white bullet comments directly covered the entire screen.

【Journey to the West!】

【It’s our Great Sage!】

【Awesome, a single figure’s sales volume exceeds the half-year gross revenue of many games】

【As expected, Little Sailboat is the MVP】

This last award presented was, of course, also the most valuable.

Most Popular Game of the Year—represents the recognition coming from the players.

In some years, if there were no games with sufficiently high ratings, good reputations, and explosive sales volumes, this award would rather be left vacant than awarded to bad games.

In the cheers of the entire venue, Xie Yunfan walked onto the stage with a smile.

He accepted the golden trophy, picked up the microphone, and said in a resonant voice: “Thank you to the organizing committee of the Huaxia Game Ceremony, I am highly honored to receive this award.”

“The game adopts a serialized update method, which is a bold attempt by our Yangfan Studio. Thank you very much to all players for your understanding, support, and patient waiting.”

“To be able to get everyone’s positive reviews, I feel very happy and proud!”

“In the future, Yangfan Studio will make more fun games to give back to everyone.”

“See you in the next game!”

He bowed deeply toward the audience below the stage.

Inside the live stream room, the players were all crazy with excitement.

【Next game? Does this mean he already has an idea?】

【Suggest opening it for download tomorrow, don’t make us wait too long】

【Little Sailboat’s games, I’ll blindly enter the pit from now on】

【This studio is truly awesome at making games, every single one they make becomes a smash hit!】

【That’s Little Sailboat, after all, the youngest dark horse director in the gaming industry】

See you in the next game.

This phrase of Xie Yunfan’s was absolutely good news for the players.

But to other manufacturers who had a competitive relationship…

Heavens, the nightmare is coming again!