Chapter 290: Waiting for a Better Time
At this moment, Pei Qian had just left the Against the Wind Logistics headquarters and was on his way to inspect the Moyu Internet Café Huanyu Sky Street branch.
After all, the game's situation was already beyond his control—what he needed to focus on now was spending money as fast as possible.
Everything at Against the Wind Logistics was progressing smoothly. Lu Mingliang was working hard to recruit staff and open new branches.
Normally, Lu Mingliang was so reliable that Pei Qian shouldn't have had any reason to worry.
But given how critical things were right now, Pei still felt compelled to personally keep an eye on things.
Busy or not, he had to endure it—just make it through this month's settlement!
While he was deep in thought, his phone suddenly rang.
He glanced at the screen—it was Li Yada.
Pei Qian's heart skipped a beat.
"Don't tell me Turn Back Before It's Too Late has run into trouble again…"
Please, not now!
I'm already fighting for my financial life here—don't you dare make things worse!
He hurriedly answered the call.
"President Pei, should we release an English version of Turn Back Before It's Too Late?"
"I noticed a lot of foreign players commenting, hoping for an English release."
"Plus, this might help us expand into the international market! The officials have been encouraging us to promote domestic games and traditional culture overseas, right?"
Pei Qian's heart nearly exploded.
"N-no rush on that!" he said hastily.
An English version?! That's suicide!
Pei Qian knew all too well—the Dark Souls series had first become popular in Europe and North America, where players loved punishingly difficult games.
If Turn Back Before It's Too Late got an English version, it would spread like wildfire overseas.
That would be the death of him!
Of course, he couldn't just say "never." The key point was: it was the end of the settlement cycle.
Even if the game did make money later, it shouldn't be now!
There was less than a month left before the system's settlement. Pei Qian was already opening new internet cafés and launching the Against the Wind Logistics stations—if he could just burn through enough cash quickly, he could force a loss of a few hundred thousand yuan, fill his own pockets, and still qualify for the system's special reward.
But now, right at the finish line, she wanted to launch an overseas version?!
Wasn't that just asking to be destroyed?!
Sure, making an English version would cost money—they'd need translators, editors, and localizers—but the amount wasn't even close to enough!
In Western countries, translation was considered a well-paid, respectable profession.
But in China, written translation was dirt cheap compared to interpretation or conference work—three to four hundred yuan per thousand characters was already considered high.
Even if they translated 100,000 words, it would barely cost a few tens of thousands at most.
For Pei Qian, that was pocket change—not nearly enough to offset the potential millions in profit the English version could bring in.
Even if they hired famous translators, the total cost would still be maybe a hundred thousand yuan tops, a drop in the ocean compared to the massive earnings an English release might cause.
If he approved Li Yada's proposal, with her efficiency, she'd have a team of translators assembled within two days—they'd divide up the text, translate it all, and have the English version ready in no time.
And that would spell his doom, right before settlement!
No way.
If they had to translate it, that would have to wait until after this month's settlement!
Pei Qian coughed lightly and said calmly,
"That's too hasty."
"Entering the overseas market required the right timing, favorable conditions, and the right people—none of which could be missing. Without strong resources and support, rushing in would likely lead to failure."
"Of course," Pei Qian continued, trying to sound calm and composed, "it's not that we're afraid of failure—it's just that this concerns the company's long-term strategic plan. There's no need to rush things."
"Let's stabilize the domestic market first. We can think about a multilingual version next month."
"For now, you can start looking for suitable translators, but as for when exactly we begin work on it… let's discuss that next month."
Li Yada hesitated.
"Ah, but what about the foreign players right now? They seem so pitiful. Are we really going to make them play while flipping through a dictionary until next month?"
Pei Qian straightened his expression and said seriously,
"Why not? This is a great opportunity for them to learn Chinese!"
"The ones playing now all have some understanding of Chinese anyway. Letting them check a dictionary, review what they've forgotten, and learn a few new phrases—isn't that a good thing?"
"As for those who don't understand Chinese at all… well, they'll have to wait either way. What's another couple of weeks?"
"Besides, our game has so many ancient poems in it—translating those properly is extremely difficult. If we rush and end up with machine translation-level quality, wouldn't that just make us a laughingstock among foreign players?"
"So we can't rush this. We must take the long view. You can go ahead and look for some top-tier translators, and we'll talk again once you've found the right people."
Li Yada thought about it for a moment—that did sound reasonable.
"Alright then, I'll make some preparations first."
Once the call ended, Pei Qian let out a long sigh of relief.
"Whew… that was close. Almost caused a disaster!"
Anything that could wait until the next settlement cycle could be discussed next month.
As long as it wasn't within these few critical days, everything would be fine after the system's accounting reset.
He calmed himself, and before long, the car arrived at Huanyu Sky Street.
Pei Qian got out and headed straight to the third floor where the Moyu Internet Café was located.
He hadn't checked on the café in a while—he'd been busy watching over Tengda.
Now that things there were running smoothly, he needed to make sure this place was still safely bleeding money.
But the moment he approached the entrance, something felt off.
It was Sunday afternoon, and Huanyu Sky Street, being Jingzhou's largest upscale shopping mall, was naturally bustling with people.
Normally, even though the mall was crowded, that had nothing to do with the internet café.
Most shoppers came to eat, watch movies, or browse the clothing stores—not to sit down and play games.
When Pei Qian had scouted this location, he'd taken great care to make sure of that.
The third floor had two clothing brands with poor foot traffic and a coffee shop that was half-empty most days.
It had seemed like the perfect place to quietly lose money.
But today, something was clearly wrong.
He had taken the direct elevator up, and it was packed with people—which he hadn't thought much of at first.
He assumed they were all heading to the cinema or restaurants.
But when the elevator doors opened on the third floor…
The entire crowd poured out right behind him!
Pei Qian froze in shock as he watched the flood of people all heading in the same direction.
Toward the Moyu Internet Café.
'Wait—wait a second! Stop! Where are you all going?!'
'Don't just—don't just walk in there!'
He hurried forward in disbelief, but when he reached the café entrance and looked inside, he nearly fainted on the spot.
The café was more than sixty percent full!
At this rate… it was about to start turning a profit!
Pei Qian's first reaction was to look for Ma Yang and Zhang Yuan.
Where are they?!
The internet café turning out like this had to be those two's doing!
Whoever's responsible better get ready to take the blame—if I catch you, there'll be no good fruit left for you to eat!
Pei Qian continued deeper into the café, his heart pounding harder with every step.
He'd felt this kind of dread once before—back at the flagship Moyu Internet Café.
But at least back then, the café's coffee and bar business were the ones booming; most of the crowd came to hear Chen Lei sing.
This branch, though, only had the internet café side!
And all these people were actually sitting at the gaming stations, seriously playing games—many of them were even playing Turn Back Before It's Too Late!
There were couples, squads of friends gaming together—the place was lively and packed, nothing like the quiet shop it used to be.
Painful!
Pei Qian stepped into the lounge area. On the big projection screen, Qiao Liang's newest video was playing.
Around the long table sat several customers—some sipping coffee, others milk tea—all watching the screen intently. Occasionally they'd nod with expressions of sudden realization, as if enlightened by divine wisdom.
Ma Yang was sitting there too, but Zhang Yuan was nowhere to be seen.
"Brother Qian, you're here!"
Ma Yang's long face broke into a broad grin as he waved Pei Qian over to sit.
"Want some coffee? The café next door saw our place getting busy, so they teamed up with us for a promo—buy internet time and get drinks thirty percent off! Not bad at all, it tastes pretty good. Look, everyone's got a cup now."
Pei Qian's mouth twitched slightly.
That first strike hit him so hard his brain almost rebooted.
"Why… why are there so many people today?" Pei Qian asked, voice trembling.
Ma Yang looked puzzled. "Huh? Not just today. It's been this crowded every day lately."
Pei Qian: "…"
You long-faced demon, are you trying to kill me? What good does it do you if I die of rage?!
Forcing himself to calm down, Pei Qian asked through gritted teeth, "So… when exactly did it start getting this busy?"
Ma Yang tilted his head, still looking confused. "Brother Qian, don't you know? It was around the time you were busy with Turn Back Before It's Too Late!"
"I didn't realize it at first, but even though our café's occupancy rate wasn't great before, we'd already built up a solid reputation in Jingzhou thanks to all those earlier incidents!"
"This new branch's reviews have been high on AllReviews ever since it opened."
"At first there weren't many people, but then more and more started coming in. Folks shopping around would get tired, and since the coffee shops were packed, they'd come to our internet café instead. Ten yuan an hour—pretty affordable compared to the rest of the mall."
"And guess what, Brother Qian—just a few days ago, the big roller-skating rink in the mall finished renovations and officially reopened!"
<+>
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