I see

Su Ze's office was also empty.

The word "also" was used because Xu Luoluo suddenly realized that the company's senior management's offices were completely dark. Her colleagues had obviously also seen the game demo, and some with extensive development experience immediately sensed something was wrong. Perhaps because the big boss wasn't present, a murmur of murmurs made the entire office area somewhat noisy.

Xu Luoluo sat quietly in front of the computer, not joining the gossip, but her right hand gripped the mouse tightly. A dark cloud hung over her, a sense of impending doom looming.

Frustrated, she opened the company's internal forum, but after scrolling for a long time, she still couldn't find any data on the mobile game's launch. Usually, there would be posts reporting the data and celebrating on the first day of launch. But the mobile game was making no splash at all, so it was easy to imagine that the data was not ideal.

This was the first game Xu Luoluo worked on after switching to game design. She thought it was a great opportunity to make a splash, but now...

She kept refreshing the page all morning, somewhat unwilling to give up, but there were no new posts about mobile games. In the afternoon, a small window suddenly popped up on her computer—a message from Liu Jia. Xu Luoluo was surprised; they rarely communicated so formally using the company chat software, usually having added each other as friends privately long ago. She paused for a moment before opening the message, only to see a line of text with an unfamiliar tone: "Luoluo, if you're free now, come to my office..."

She and Liu Jia were quite familiar with each other, and they always spoke directly in their messages, unlike in a long time when they had been so tactful and distant. Considering the mobile game's release, Xu Luoluo had a bad feeling. The string of ellipses on the screen felt like cold, heavy stones pressing down on her heart.

On the way to Human Resources, Xu Luoluo was subjected to an unprecedented barrage of gazes. Curious, scrutinizing, bewildered, worried, and even gloating. Among these gazes, the last one was particularly unsettling, clinging to her like a leech. Xu Luoluo couldn't help but look up in resistance, only to see Liu Ping staring intently at her. Annoyed, she turned her gaze away, but inadvertently caught sight of a familiar face: Deng Lingling.

Deng Lingling turned away from her, avoiding eye contact, but a barely concealed smile played on her lips. Recalling the anonymous text message Deng Lingling had sent her earlier, it seemed she had anticipated this day and was simply waiting to see her make a fool of herself.

Her bad premonition intensified. After this unexpected and sudden online appearance, and all the stares she had received along the way, she was almost certain what she would face next. Xu Luoluo didn't want to look anymore, biting her lower lip tightly and quickening her pace.

As she walked out of the company, it wasn't yet time to leave work. The orange sunset in the winter stretched her shadow long, but it brought no warmth. Xu Luoluo let out a soft breath and tightened her grip on the folder in her arms. Inside, besides her project proposals from this period, was the dismissal notice she had just signed.

She lowered her head, hiding her face in the shadows, and quietly walked back without looking back at the cold, gray glass building of T Company.

But no one saw that her face, which should have been dejected, now had bright, sparkling eyes and a half-smile playing on her lips.

The story goes back to when she was doing odd jobs in the administration department. At that time, her scriptwriting was not progressing well and she couldn't get enthusiastic about her administrative work. She thought that if she transferred to the planning department to do game scripts, it would probably have something in common with writing film and television scripts. She could also learn and improve her storytelling skills and see if the position was suitable for her.

It's really difficult to switch roles internally without prior experience, so she had prepared a mobile game design proposal before the transfer. She hoped to impress Tang Yizhuo, the big boss, and thus smoothly transfer from the administration department to the planning department. However, he immediately told her that the script was too amateurish for a game script, and the so-called "highlights" were not feasible.

But then he abruptly changed the subject, saying that this "unfeasible highlight" perfectly suited his needs, so he not only wanted to transfer her to the planning department, but also to promote her to lead planner. She was surprised by his thought process, but she was always a very clear-headed woman, and she knew very well that there was no such thing as a free lunch, so she asked him what the conditions were.

"Aren't you going to ask me why I did this?" Tang Yizhuo's gaze was fixed intently on her eyes, as if he were examining her heart.

"No need, I don't care." Xu Luoluo shrugged. "We've known each other for so long, we naturally know you have your reasons. Isn't a fair trade, where each gets what they need, better?"

"As expected of you, the king of the heartless world." Tang Yizhuo shrugged. "The condition is, stick to your 'highlights' and ruin this game."

As soon as he finished speaking, Xu Luoluo stared at him in disbelief. This was a game from his own company!

However, Tang Yizhuo himself looked very serious and did not realize that he had said something wrong.

So Xu Luoluo began to seriously consider his words, and somehow the phrase "one rotten apple spoils the whole barrel" popped into her head. Ugh, why was she comparing herself to a rotten apple? But if she really did what he said…

“Everyone in the game development department is my senior. The flaws you can spot, they probably can too. At that point, it won’t be enough for me to insist on continuing to implement the highlights.” Xu Luoluo now felt a sense of sarcasm towards the word “highlights.”

"Don't worry, I've arranged everything."

"So you mean I should be the main planner, stick to the wrong strategy, everyone should cooperate tacitly, and in the end the game will fail, and I'll be the one to take the blame and suffer the most?"

"Not bad." Tang Yizhuo nodded, his eyes showing approval.

"Praise my foot!" Xu Luoluo rolled her eyes at him. "With such a high risk, what benefit would I get?"

"An opportunity to work on a game project." Tang Yizhuo turned on his computer, typed a few keys, then turned the screen towards her, a slight smile playing on his lips. "There's also a bonus surprise; you can check out the data for the new drama."

Although Xu Luoluo was a struggling screenwriter, she sold the rights to quite a few web series, but they were all low-budget productions with relatively low royalties, and she didn't gain much recognition. Furthermore, with hundreds or even thousands of web series produced each year, after the initial novelty wore off, she continued to focus on writing new scripts and stopped paying attention to the subsequent broadcast status.

But now she stared wide-eyed at her script, "Left and Right Men," which she had written last year. She remembered that after the script was sold, it didn't make a splash for a long time, which was common. Film and television companies buy many scripts every year, and the scheduling depends entirely on the mystical market. Her script wasn't the most popular genre at the time, so she probably didn't know when it would be scheduled.

She had thought she might never see this drama on screen in her lifetime, but now she found it on the trending drama list, and upon closer inspection, she discovered that a popular young actor was the lead, and the famous producer Xu was the executive producer. No, it wasn't so much that a popular young actor was the lead; rather, the two leads became popular young actors after the drama became a hit, enjoying immense fame. Xu Luoluo had heard of their names, but she hadn't connected them with her own drama. Besides, she generally wouldn't watch her own dramas when they aired—partly because she didn't have time, and partly because she felt a strange sense of shame about reading her own writing; it made her feel uncomfortable. After several failed attempts, she had to give up.

Xu Luoluo suddenly remembered that when they first met, Tang Yizhuo had asked her what drama she was currently writing. She mentioned this one, saying that the subject matter was too niche and she was purely writing it out of passion. Fortunately, a small company wanted to test the waters, so she sold it easily, and her account received two months' worth of living expenses. But once it was sold, that was it. She didn't think this kind of subject matter would be popular with the general public.

What did Tang Yizhuo say back then?

"The market is also subject to change; just because there was no market before doesn't mean there won't be one in the future."

That's what they seemed to say. However, Xu Luoluo took it as just a way of comforting herself and didn't take it to heart. Now, thinking back, she realized the speaker hadn't meant anything by it, but the listener had taken it to heart. Tang Yizhuo was constantly monitoring the data for a show she hadn't even been paying attention to.

"You didn't orchestrate this, did you?" Xu Luoluo looked at him in surprise. "Did you start planning this back then? Or did you start before we even met...?" Could it be that their initial meeting wasn't accidental, but rather something he deliberately arranged? The more she thought about it, the colder she felt.

“The market has become too homogenized in the last two years. We want to innovate and find a new niche.” Tang Yizhu tapped the table with his index finger, but did not answer her question directly. “However, the field we analyzed is too niche, and there are very few mature scripts. So we screened the scripts we received to see if there were any usable ones. Your script happens to be this kind of subject, and the idea is good. Although the text is a bit immature, Producer Xu has mature screenwriters under him.”

At this point, Tang Yizhuo paused, giving her a meaningful look, probably thinking he had explained it clearly enough, and if she still didn't understand, then she simply lacked the wisdom to comprehend it. Xu Luoluo opened her mouth but had nothing to say, so she simply moved her laptop closer, opened the first few episodes, and scrolled through them.

The plot was somewhat similar to her original script, only the order was different, and the arrangement was much tighter. She herself had realized that the weakness of her scripts was the lack of dramatic tension; simply put, she couldn't build up the build-up and climax in a progressive manner, failing to create a truly gripping and unforgettable experience. However, the drama before her was clearly not based on her original script; each punchline was perfectly timed, making the viewer eager for the next episode. This screenwriter who "polished" her script was incredibly talented. If she had such a mentor, wouldn't she improve by leaps and bounds?

She couldn't help but glance at the screenwriter's section of the TV series.

Besides her name, another unfamiliar name was prominently displayed: Cheng Jun.

Who is this?