When Mingzhi pushed the door open and came in, the two brothers were chatting. Although she couldn’t hear exactly what they were talking about, judging by their expressions, the relationship between them had clearly eased quite a bit.

Looks like Xie Yunfan had finally grown up a little.

Mingzhi felt somewhat relieved. She stepped forward, set the insulated lunch container in her hand on the table, and called out, “Come on, eat something first. I made fish fillet congee—it’s easy to digest.”

Xie Xinghe coughed lightly and asked, “Sis, were you the one who brought me to the hospital yesterday?”

Mingzhi looked at him, her expression rather complicated. “Luckily I had business with you yesterday afternoon and went to your apartment. If I hadn’t seen the empty bottle on your table and gotten you to the hospital in time, you might already be dead by now.”

Xie Xinghe looked away and said hoarsely, “I was just acting on impulse. I thought if I died, at least I wouldn’t drag all of you down with me…”

Mingzhi scolded, “What nonsense are you talking about? Money problems can be solved slowly, but you only have one life. Don’t you ever do something like that again.”

“Mm.” Xie Xinghe lowered his head in shame. “I’ve caused you a lot of trouble lately.”

Cousin Mingzhi had graduated from a prestigious university with a degree in accounting. After Xie Xinghe took over as CEO, thinking that “having family handle the accounts is more reliable,” he invited Mingzhi back to work as the Finance Director of Xingyun Group.

Recently, she had been handling the company’s bankruptcy liquidation. Yesterday, luckily, she had gone to find Xie Xinghe and discovered that he had swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills, getting him to the hospital in time. Otherwise, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

Xie Xinghe lowered his head and drank his congee. Xie Yunfan also went off to eat nearby. To be fair, their cousin was pretty good at cooking—the congee was fragrant, rich, and tasty.

After drinking a big bowl and filling his stomach, Xie Yunfan took the initiative to clean up the bowls and chopsticks. Then he walked over and said, “Sis, the doctor said my brother’s condition is stable. He can be discharged today.”

“Alright, I’ll go handle the discharge procedures now.”

…

The driver came ahead of time to pick them up at the hospital entrance.

After they got home, Xie Xinghe looked at Mingzhi and said guiltily, “Sis, you should hurry and look for another job. With your qualifications, you can definitely get into a big company. I don’t want to keep holding you back.”

Mingzhi hesitated for a moment, then said, “I really have been planning to find a new job lately. I don’t have much savings, and I still have a daughter to raise. I can’t keep following you into a startup anymore.”

Xie Xinghe immediately said, “I understand. The company’s situation is already settled. It’s the right choice for you to find another way out. I really owe you too much. I can’t even make up your wages for this period.”

Mingzhi gently patted his arm. “We’re family. Don’t be so formal. If you need my help in the future, call me anytime.”

Xie Xinghe nodded and walked her to the door.

After their cousin left, the two brothers went to sit together in the living room.

Xie Xinghe was obviously in low spirits. He lit a cigarette and smoked it slowly without saying a word.

Xie Yunfan turned on his phone and glanced at the time. “Brother, tomorrow let’s go sell my sports car first and use the money to pay off next month’s loan.”

“…You’re serious?” He had thought his younger brother had only said that casually in the hospital, but he hadn’t expected him to actually mean it.

To make his little brother sell his car to repay debt, Xie Xinghe honestly felt pretty embarrassed. He stubbed out the cigarette, awkwardly rubbed his nose, and said in a low voice, “The money I owe doesn’t need you to help pay it back.”

“The car was a gift from Mom and Dad, and the savings were left to me by Mom and Dad too. You’re my real brother. Now that you’re in trouble, how could I possibly ignore it?” Xie Yunfan looked at him sincerely. “If Mom and Dad knew in the afterlife, they’d want us brothers to help each other too, right?”

That… actually made some sense. Before Xie Xinghe could refute him, his brother added, “You’ve been under too much pressure lately. Now that the company situation already has an outcome, how about you go travel somewhere, clear your head, and relax a little?”

“…Clear my head?” He truly wasn’t in the mood for traveling.

“Mm. Staying at home just makes it easy to spiral. You’d be better off putting all these worries down for a while and going out for a walk.” Xie Yunfan suggested, “Once you’ve adjusted your mood and come back, maybe you’ll have new ideas. Our Xie family might still be able to make a comeback.”

Xie Xinghe looked at his brother in confusion.

Strange. After going through all this, his younger brother seemed to have suddenly grown up and matured. He was taking the initiative to care about him, selling the car to help repay loans, and even suggesting that he go traveling to relax?

Then again, right now he really couldn’t think of any way to pay off that enormous debt. If this kept going, he felt like he would fall into depression. Maybe going out for a while would help him find a new path.

After a moment of silence, Xie Xinghe said, “Alright. I’ll go spend a few days by the sea and think of something when I get back.” He looked at his brother seriously. “You go back to school and study properly. Don’t think that just because I’m not around, you can do whatever you want. If you fail more than two finals again, don’t blame me when I beat you.”

“Got it.” Xie Yunfan smiled and scratched his head. “Go ahead and take your vacation. I’ll go to class properly.”

“Mm.” Xie Xinghe gave his brother a doubtful glance and turned to go upstairs.

Xie Yunfan quietly let out a sigh of relief.

As an adult, being lectured by his older brother really wasn’t something he was used to.

Only after sending away this big brother—who had no real business sense but absolutely loved “looking after his little brother”—could he freely do what he wanted.

At the very least, he could now use the three million their parents had left behind as he saw fit. Otherwise, being chased around every day by his brother demanding, “Why are you wasting money again, you little punk?” would be its own kind of headache.

…

The next day, Xie Yunfan went to the dealership and sold the sports car. The money from it was just enough for his brother to pay off next month’s loan. Although it was only a drop in the bucket, at least the bank wouldn’t start hounding him, and Xie Xinghe could breathe easy for another two months.

That very afternoon, Xie Yunfan decisively booked his brother a plane ticket to Nanyang Island.

Xie Xinghe couldn’t shake the feeling that his younger brother was in a hurry to send him away. He even suspected that Xie Yunfan had “ulterior motives” in suggesting the trip. So at the airport, he kept looking back every few steps and saying, “I’m leaving now. Don’t go causing trouble!”

Xie Yunfan smiled and waved at him. “I’m going to school tomorrow. If you don’t believe me, you can call my teachers and check up on me anytime.”

Still deeply unconvinced, Xie Xinghe went through security. After boarding the plane, he even sent a WeChat message: “I’m going to call your teachers. If you dare skip class or get into fights, just wait until I get back.”

Xie Yunfan: “…”

It looked like changing his older brother’s image of him as a useless brat was going to take a very long time.

…

After seeing his brother off, Xie Yunfan returned home, sat down in the study, and turned on the computer.

He opened the popular website Mobile Games Hub.

This was currently the largest third-party platform in the country. Almost every mobile game was released and promoted there, and players could also rate and review games. A lot of players came there to look for new games, and even niche or obscure titles could be found on the platform.

The platform’s rating system was extremely strict. User registration required real-name authentication linked to a phone number and ID card, making it difficult to simply hire fake reviewers to boost scores. This ensured that most of the game ratings on Mobile Games Hub came from genuine player opinions and were relatively fair and impartial.

Xie Yunfan clicked on the rankings, and a dazzling array of games immediately filled the screen.

The shooter Wilderness Crisis, the rhythm game Rock Band, the life-sim Monster Home, the adventure game Age of Great Navigation… there was also Gene Mutation, Visitors from Pluto, Cyberpunk District 74…

The more he looked, the more a question mark slowly appeared in his mind.

Earlier, he had only hurriedly checked some information and found a few strangely named games, but he hadn’t paid much attention. Yet now, with one glance over the rankings, they were all this kind of sci-fi-flavored game.

Judging from the descriptions, about 20% of the games were based on the real world, while the remaining 80% had backgrounds involving interstellar settings, wastelands, apocalypses, or cyberpunk themes…

The humans in these games were either already extinct, or on the road to extinction.

He had expected that after changing worlds, he wouldn’t see any familiar game titles. But what he hadn’t expected was that he wouldn’t find even a single title with a more “classical Chinese style” flavor.

For example, in his original world, overused IPs like all those countless Romance of the Three Kingdoms XXX or Journey to the West XXX games were nowhere to be found here.

Could it be that this world wasn’t the China he had once lived in at all?

But the people around him were all speaking Chinese, and there were no barriers in communication whatsoever.

Xie Yunfan frowned and thought for a moment, then quickly figured it out—

This other world was most likely a so-called parallel timeline, and at present, it simply didn’t have any classical-style games yet.

Xie Yunfan’s eyes suddenly lit up.

He had discovered a whole new continent!

Classical Chinese-style games were the type he was best at. Back in the day, in order to make games, he had consulted huge amounts of historical material. His head was packed with ideas, and many of those concepts had never had a chance to be realized.

Now it just so happened that the market for classical-style games here was completely empty. He could focus on the field he loved most and finally put into practice the things he had always wanted to make but never managed to create for one reason or another.

Five thousand years of Chinese civilization—

what an enormous treasure trove of material that was!

He believed that although this world favored sci-fi and post-apocalyptic games, beautifully classical, old-style games would definitely still have a place.

The first step: start by founding his own game studio.

Having made up his mind, Xie Yunfan searched online for the registration procedure for a personal studio.

A personal studio needed approval from the Bureau of Industry and Commerce and required submission of a series of application documents. At this world’s level of administrative efficiency, a business license could be obtained within three days.

For initial funding, he would take one million from his savings and register it as a sole proprietorship. As for whether to add shareholders later and expand into a proper company, he would adapt depending on circumstances.

Xie Yunfan opened image-editing software and, while he was at it, designed a logo for his studio.

Three simple wave lines, with a cute little sailboat floating above them.

Yangfan Studio.

Set sail, smooth sailing—it was a pretty good meaning.

It was also a name he had used before, and he hoped it would bring him good luck.

In his original world, after graduating from university, he had joined a well-known domestic game company and worked there as a game planner for several years, building up rich experience. Later, because of internal faction struggles inside the company, he simply quit and started his own business, forming his own Yangfan Studio.

At first the studio had only three people. Later it gradually became ten, then fifty… and by the time the game he had planned and developed reached the top of the bestseller charts, his studio already had several hundred employees.

Now, in this new world, he had no assistant, no team—

just himself, a lone commander.

Then let this count as starting from zero once again.

Narrowing his eyes, Xie Yunfan leaned back in the chair and stretched lazily.

At that moment, he suddenly rediscovered the hot blood and drive he had felt when he had first started his business.

Back then, after being squeezed out by company leadership, he had been suppressing a huge knot of resentment inside. He quit and founded his own personal studio, wanting to carve out a career for himself.

During that period, he worked overtime every day until late at night, lost twenty jin from the stress, and yet unfortunately, the first game he independently produced failed to make any money at all. He had worked for over half a year for nothing, so broke he lived on instant noodles every day…

Only later did his studio gradually begin to improve.

He was someone who had already weathered great storms.

So even though his older brother Xie Xinghe had lost the entire family fortune and still owed the bank 200 million, this kind of “hell-mode opening” had no effect on his mentality at all.

With the accumulation of experience from his previous life, at least this time, he could avoid a lot of detours.