Chapter 1 Wednesday, August 22nd

Yan Qi watched the last bug on the platform get fixed and finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Finally finished!

God knows what he'd been through these past few days.

Actually, according to the original development schedule, *Blade of the Empire* should have gone live a week ago. But because of many unexpected bugs that kept popping up, the game was delayed for more than a week.

And that was with everyone working like crazy to find and fix bugs as quickly as possible.

Even though it was delayed for a week, it was a good thing for Yan Qi.

If it weren't for the blessed ground (fengshui baodi), he didn't know how long it would have taken to find these bugs. While that would have meant the game could have been released a week earlier, he would have been swamped with work after launch, still fixing bugs, and it might have even affected the game's reputation.

As for how many bugs were left in the game, it was hard to say.

All he could say was that the bugs that had a high probability of appearing and were relatively easy to find had been found. Although there might still be other bugs, if they couldn't be found in the blessed ground (fengshui baodi) state, then players were even less likely to encounter them under normal circumstances.

Yan Qi packaged the modified game and installed it on his phone, then went back to the Chaolu Games platform.

Whether the game could be launched or not didn't depend on their own statistics of remaining bugs. It depended on how many bugs Director Tang encountered while playing.

"Director Tang, don't worry, we've fixed all the bugs that can be encountered in the game. This time, there definitely won't be a single bug!"

Yan Qi was full of confidence.

Tang Yishu didn't say anything, just nodded and took the phone.

Yan Qi watched from the side. As he expected, the game ran smoothly. Accepting quests, entering levels, fighting monsters... everything was fine.

Seeing that half an hour was almost up, Yan Qi finally relaxed.

But just when he thought it was stable, the game suddenly froze and crashed!

The time was exactly 29 minutes.

Yan Qi was shocked.

How could this be?

The testing team had clearly run the game several times after fixing the bugs and hadn't found any new ones!

How could there still be one?

How unlucky would you have to be to encounter it?

Tang Yishu handed the phone back: "Well... it meets the requirements, you can arrange for the game to go live."

Yan Qi took the phone, suddenly feeling very lost.

Logically speaking, now that he had met the goal of less than three bugs in half an hour, and the game could be launched, he should be very happy.

But he hadn't expected that Director Tang would still find a bug!

Yan Qi nodded: "Okay, Director Tang, I'll go back and fix this bug too, and then arrange the launch!"

Back at his workstation, Yan Qi immediately sent a screenshot of the bug to the testing and development teams, telling them to fix it immediately.

However, after trying for more than an hour, they still couldn't reproduce it!

If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes when Director Tang was playing, Yan Qi would have even suspected that the bug really existed.

What was going on?

Today was Wednesday, shouldn't bugs be at work?

Had the blessed ground (fengshui baodi) stopped working?

But looking at the testers from other companies, they were all enthusiastically looking for bugs, so everything seemed normal.

The only explanation was that this was a very deeply hidden bug with a very low probability of reappearing. Even in the blessed ground (fengshui baodi) state, encountering it was still a very difficult thing.

Yan Qi was conflicted. He felt like his obsessive-compulsive disorder was acting up.

He knew that there was a bug in the game, but he couldn't reproduce it, and he didn't know how to fix it. It was like a splinter stuck in his hand, impossible to find or pick out, and he always felt vaguely uncomfortable.

Damn it!

And what was even more speechless was that the Chaolu Games platform had interfaces for the test backends of various game companies, and the number of bugs in the current version on the test backend was displayed in real time on the game platform.

Originally, the number of bugs had become 0, but now it was 1 again.

This wasn't just the difference between 0 and 1, it was the difference between having something and having nothing!

Yan Qi struggled for a long time, but finally gave up.

Forget it, it was just one bug. It wasn't worth delaying the game further for a bug with such a low probability of reappearing, that most players would never encounter.

He should just launch the game!

Yan Qi notified the development team and communicated with the staff responsible for the connection on the Chaolu Games platform to officially launch the game.

The launch operation itself was very simple, but it definitely couldn't be a dry launch, they had to arrange corresponding promotional resources.

If the game was launched but no players saw it, wouldn't that be a lonely launch?

Currently, the Chaolu Games platform had already undergone two rounds of large-scale promotion. Although the conversion rate wasn't high, it had accumulated some players. Moreover, there were few games on the platform in the early stages, and competition wasn't so intense. It was easy to get a relatively good recommended spot, which was enough to meet the requirements of small companies.

The staff on both sides quickly carried out the preliminary preparations and set the launch time at 4:00 PM.

Besides continuing to look for that hard-to-reproduce bug, Yan Qi had nothing else to do, so he waited for the game to launch while opening the webpage to check out the netizens' discussions about the Chaolu Games platform.

Then, to his surprise, he discovered that during the time he was busy fixing bugs, netizens seemed to have had a very heated discussion about Chaolu Games platform's behavior of displaying the number of bugs in each game!

"I've discovered that this Chaolu Games platform is obviously deliberately hyping things up, putting on a show! The so-called display of the number of bugs in all games is completely fake data, just to deepen the players' impression and promote themselves!"

"How can you tell it's fake data?"

"It's very simple, I've been paying attention to the changes in the number of bugs. On Sundays, the number of bugs in these companies hardly moved at all. Even if there were changes, whether it was finding bugs or fixing bugs, it was very slow. But once it comes to Monday and Tuesday, the speed is like it's on steroids, growing rapidly!"

"Ah? Isn't that normal? The company is on holiday on the weekend."

"That's too amateurish. What do you mean by taking a holiday on the weekend? First of all, game companies generally work overtime with high intensity before a game is launched, and even working all night is normal. Taking a holiday on the weekend? Keep dreaming! Do you think all the companies in the industry are like Tengda? Secondly, those games where the number of bugs hasn't changed at all, I'll assume they're on holiday, but what about the ones that are changing slowly? Why is it slow to find bugs on weekends and fast to find them on Mondays?"

"Now that you mention it, it does seem suspicious..."

"That's right, I've also discovered that the speed of finding and fixing bugs is simply unscientific! It feels much faster than the normal speed! According to common sense, finding bugs should be getting more and more difficult in the later stages of a project's testing, but the change in the number of bugs on the Chaolu Games platform is linear and always very fast! So, I also suspect that this should be pre-made fake data."

"Damn, what's the point of faking this? It's simply incomprehensible."

"The significance is huge! First of all, it's precisely because most people don't think that the platform needs to fake things in this matter, so it's not easy to be suspected of faking, and it won't be exposed. Secondly, this marketing event is nothing more than creating a gimmick, claiming that the games on their platform are all launched after the bugs have been fixed, and establishing a 'few bugs' persona for their platform. Wouldn't that also attract many players?"

"Damn, then this behavior is very bad! Although it's not very destructive, it's extremely insulting! Isn't this treating us players like monkeys?"

Watching these people's discussions, Yan Qi was simply stunned.

They were actually arguing about this?

Yan Qi knew very well that the reason why bugs were being found so quickly was because of the existence of the blessed ground (fengshui baodi).

But the players didn't know that!

They only saw that the speed of bug fixes was obviously wrong, so they suspected that the Chaolu Games platform was faking data.

Yan Qi even wanted to speak up for the Chaolu Games platform, this was all real data! It really couldn't be more real!

But then he thought about it, he was just a nobody, and his statements probably wouldn't be believed, and he would instead be treated as a lackey or shill for the game platform.

"What's going on, it feels like the Chaolu Games platform is plagued with bad luck?"

"It seems that nothing has gone smoothly since the site was built."

"They've spent a lot of money on promotion, but not much money has actually landed, and they've been misunderstood all along. Fixing bugs was originally a good thing, but it's been misinterpreted as hype."

"Hey, forget it, I can't help much. I'll send a private message to Chaolu Games platform and tell them this news. As for how to deal with it, let them handle it themselves."

Yan Qi didn't know if Director Tang knew about these online opinions, but it was always good to give a reminder.

So, he opened the chat group and sent a private message to the staff member who created the group.

Soon, the other party replied: "Well, thanks for the reminder, we've already noticed it and are thinking of a solution."

Yan Qi shook his head slightly.

It was probably a bit too late to think of a solution now...

He looked at the discussions online. They had been arguing since Monday. In the beginning, there were still some players speaking up for the game platform, but today was already Wednesday, and the Chaolu Games platform hadn't come out to explain, so those who believed that the platform was faking things had gained the upper hand.

In the case of such public opinion events, once a stereotype is formed, it's too late to clarify.

Unless there was some major event that could suddenly reverse public opinion, but how could such a thing be encountered just when you needed it?

Yan Qi wanted to say a few more words, but then he thought about it. He had already done his best by saying this much, and saying more would only make him seem nosy. He could only let the Chaolu Games platform fend for itself.

Yan Qi thought for a long time, but in the end, he didn't say anything else and prepared to close the chat software and continue with his own work.

But just then, he saw someone send several messages in a row.

"Something bad is happening, a big problem!"

"The negative review rate of our game is very high. If this continues, it will be taken down on Friday!"

"What to do?"

Several messages in a row, and they also sent a screenshot.

Yan Qi took a closer look and recognized the person who sent the message. It was the person in charge of a local game company in Jingzhou.

This game was relatively old and had been operating on other platforms for more than half a year, so it had very few bugs. It was one of the four games that were officially launched on the first day of Chaolu Games platform's trial operation.

But now, this person in charge was constantly @ing the group owner, wanting to get an explanation.