Chapter 9: 《Romance of the Three Kingdoms》? Then He Really Is Talented

Backstage.

“Once we win the national championship, let’s take a trip to Toronto. I’ll take you all horseback riding.”

“Genuine Arabian warmbloods.”

Shi Xiaoqiang spoke with absolute confidence.

Without confidence, could he even be called a rich second-generation heir?

His father was the chairman of Chaoren Network, the man who had created 《Conquest》, a game that once swept across the nation.

In just a single year, it had raked in hundreds of millions of US dollars.

And that was back in 2007.

Keep in mind, just a few years prior, his family had still been selling health supplements.

During holidays and festivals, who didn’t buy their products?

That was precisely why his sights were set on the national championship, not this petty internal contest.

Simply put.

He looked down on it.

For a rich heir of his caliber to be studying at Ye University was genuinely baffling to people.

By all rights, he should have gone to North America or another developed country to study abroad long ago.

This was a past chapter Shi Xiaoqiang was loath to bring up.

According to insiders on the Tieba forums.

Shi Xiaoqiang had chosen Ye University mainly because his white moonlight^[1] was there.

To be with his white moonlight, he gave up the chance to go abroad and picked Ye University instead.

Yet after barely two months, he caught her secretly fooling around with someone else in a grove of trees.

This incident completely broke the top-tier rich kid, shattering his faith in love forever.

From then on, he took a page from Principal Wang^[2]‘s playbook, letting loose and flirting with multiple girls at the same time.

Never initiate, never refuse, never take responsibility.

The girl he was currently hitting it off with was the one right beside him, Wang Yuting.

Wang Yuting was from the art department, blessed with a pretty face and a smoking-hot figure.

At Shi Xiaoqiang’s invitation, she had joined the game development team as the art planner, effectively the lead artist.

“Sounds great, Xiao Shi, but I’m afraid of horses.”

“No worries. You can sit in front of me when the time comes, and I’ll teach you.”

Their exchange was thick with flirtation.

This left another girl feeling disgruntled.

Shen Manman.

She had feelings for Shi Xiaoqiang and was one of the female companions by his side.

She served as the assistant lead artist on the game team.

Seeing Shi Xiaoqiang and Wang Yuting flirting so openly made her deeply uncomfortable.

Yet there was nothing she could do.

Shi Xiaoqiang was like this with everyone, utterly careless and completely indifferent to her feelings.

Shi Xiaoqiang seemed to notice the displeasure written across Shen Manman’s face.

“Manman, once we go on stage, I’ll focus on highlighting our innovations in the art.”

“You did a great job on that front. Quite a few veteran artists at my dad’s company spoke very highly of the parts you handled.”

Hearing this.

Shen Manman softened a bit.

Being completely love-struck was truly her whole personality.

At that.

Wang Yuting became displeased in turn.

Still, she could only let out a cold snort in her heart.

She and Shi Xiaoqiang hadn’t formalized their relationship; at most, they were flirting and seeing where things went.

She did her best to appear gracious. “That’s right, Little Man has made tons of outstanding contributions to our team.”

Shen Manman: ???

Disgusting.

What was she playing at?!

Trying to act all generous, huh?

…

Soon.

Shi Xiaoqiang took the stage, brought out his game, and began demonstrating the gameplay while explaining it to the audience and judges.

He had made a Three Kingdoms-themed strategy role-playing game.

It counted as an SLG, with a touch of SRPG mixed in.

“Many games only have a Three Kingdoms title, while in reality having nothing to do with it.”

“Next, I will show everyone a true Three Kingdoms!”

“Over two hundred cities, recreated one-to-one!”

“Over two hundred military generals, each uniquely crafted!”

“Here, players can storm cities, seize territory, stockpile grain, and make strategic deployments using their brains and wisdom.”

“General pairings, unit types, terrain, marching routes, road-paving^[3], which cities to assault, which mountains to defend, it is all entirely up to the player.”

Shi Xiaoqiang focused his presentation on two main points, the first being the game’s realism and gameplay.

“Let’s take terrain as an example.”

“If you had to defend a city, where would you build it?”

“With its back against a mountain? Or at a crossroads open in all directions?”

“Backing a city against a mountain certainly has its benefits. You don’t have to worry about defending the rear; attacks can only come from the front.”

“However, once the enemy lays siege, there is nowhere left to run…”

Next, Shi Xiaoqiang moved on to introduce the art.

“We adopted a realistic art style. There are plenty of Three Kingdoms artists on the market right now whose work looks sharp, yet it has completely lost that authentic flavor of the past…”

Finally, he concluded:

“Hundreds, even thousands of players, supporting one another and giving their all.”

“When I’m in trouble, they will stand guard over me for a dozen hours.”

“When one of them is in trouble, even knowing I can’t win, I will still charge to the front line to shield him.”

“In victory, we rule the world together!”

“In defeat, we rise again together!”

“Thank you, everyone. That concludes my demonstration of 《Romance of the Three Kingdoms》.”

Shi Xiaoqiang seemed like a natural-born orator.

His hands-on gameplay demonstration just now felt remarkably like a professional game launch event.

Tang Zhengfeng was grinning from ear to ear.

Even Su Cheng was caught by surprise.

What the heck, wasn’t this just that pay-to-win mobile game from his past life?

The famous meme for it was: “Damn it, we’ve been fighting for three days and three nights, the brothers have lost everything, so where the hell is our alliance leader?!”

The only difference was that it had gone from a mobile game to a PC title.

The gameplay and monetization hooks were practically the same.

He had to admit, Little Shi really did inherit some of Old Shi^[4]‘s genes.

His dad made Conquest, and he made 《Romance of the Three Kingdoms》.

This guy was no mere flashy poser; he was genuinely talented.

According to Su Cheng’s memories, this kind of game had been an absolute cash cow in his previous life.

Shi Xiaoqiang had done a solid job with the game.

However.

He was up against god, a deity, a legend in the history of fighting games!

No, wrong.

A legend in the history of video games as a whole!

《King of Fighters》!

To vent his frustration and bring some pride to Old Zhang.

Su Cheng had sacrificed a lot of his own interests.

Although the cinematic trailer for King of Fighters 2 had been released long ago, the actual game itself had never been shown.

Bringing King of Fighters 2 to compete in Supernova was essentially premiering the game at a competition.

It was truly using fine timber for a petty task.

However.

If he could use this opportunity to gain some exposure and let more people know about the game, it would still be well worth it.

The exposure from this competition was also equivalent to an eye-catching recommendation slot on the platform.

With exposure came attention, and game sales would naturally rise.

As sales went up, the platform would grant even more recommendation slots, generating even more exposure.

A virtuous cycle.

Soon.

Su Cheng took the stage.

“Judges, fellow students, good afternoon.”

The moment he showed his face.

Many students in the audience cheered excitedly for Su Cheng.

Clearly.

《King of Fighters》 held a high place in the students’ hearts, and he, as its creator, was hugely popular.

“The entry I’ve brought today is 《King of Fighters 2: The Gathering Clouds^[5]》!”

Following that, Su Cheng gave a brief introduction.

“Next, I would like to invite our development team’s lead programmer to join me for the live demonstration.”