You said you were going to make games, how did you become the richest man without doing anything?

Lu Yu replied without hesitation, "I'm good at cleaning up."

The man stared at him for a long while, then grinned and said, "Then I'll help you write a group of NPCs who can cry, laugh, hate, and leave."

"But don't regret it."

Lu Yu smiled: "I have never regretted it."

The third one was someone Lu Yu met by chance at the wedding of a friend of a friend of a friend.

Her name is Tang Zhiyan. She was once a top writer for otome games. Later, she quit her job to write poetry, opened a flower shop, made handmade fragrances, and anonymously wrote some "useless person's diary" on Douban.

Her writing style is as gentle as the early spring breeze, delicate yet melancholic, never sentimental, but always able to evoke sadness unexpectedly.

On her wedding day, she wore a white halter-neck dress, her hair casually tied up, and a marshmallow stick dangling from her lips, looking like a literary heroine who had wandered onto the wrong set.

She stood in the corner, silently watching one pair of guests after another toast, exchange pleasantries, exchange pleasantries, and toast again. Her face was expressionless, only her eyes held a hint of world-weary weariness.

Lu Yu walked over and handed her a glass of warm water.

"You must be Tang Zhiyan? I've read your book, 'The Free Clinic: Sherlock the Unlicensed Healer'."

She took the water, looked up at him, her eyes warm but with a hint of wariness.

"Are you here to poach our staff?"

"It is."

“I don’t write system plots,” she said. “I only write dialogue that nobody remembers.”

"for example?"

"For example, an NPC stands under the eaves on a rainy day and says to you, 'Today, the rain seems colder than yesterday.'"

Lu Yu remained silent for a while.

“Come on,” he said. “I want the players to remember this NPC.”

She blinked and chuckled softly: "Aren't you afraid I'll write too much nonsense?"

"Nonsense is also a part of life."

“I can give it a try.” She paused, then said softly, “But I write very slowly. I only write at night, because I have to take care of my flowers during the day.”

"I'll get you a night owl programmer."

"...You're very good with words."

I will only tell the truth.

The fourth one is someone who doesn't even have a code name.

Lu Yu saw a strange string of binary code posted in the comments section of "Don't Play This Game".

No one can solve it.

But he understood it.

It was an "emotional fluctuation simulator" written with custom logic. It could determine the player's current "psychological state" based on every choice, pause, and even the duration of the player's gaze in the game, and dynamically adjust the NPC's language style, dialogue rhythm, and background music.

He followed the hidden IP address in the code and found an anonymous account called "Fu Bai".

It took three days to finally contact the other party through an encrypted email address.

“I don’t go into the company.” The other party’s reply was cold and direct. “I have social anxiety, I don’t use video calls, I don’t make phone calls, I only communicate with text.”

"I don't write resumes, I don't accept assessments, and I don't attend meetings."

"I only do one thing—make players visible in the game."

Lu Yu replied with an email containing only one sentence:

"Then you be yourself, and I'll help you dim the light in the world a little."

Five minutes later, the other party replied with a piece of code.

That was the first "emotional response curve" he wrote for the new project in Taoyuan Township.

Lu Yu smiled after reading it.

He knew he had found the last piece of the puzzle.

He didn't recruit the best programmers, nor the most professional planners, nor did he hire people whose CVs listed twenty hit projects.

He recruited a group of people who "didn't want to win."

Some people write code like they write poetry, some write dialogue like they plant flowers, some build systems like they dream, and some don't even have a real name.

They don't chase data, they don't compete for launch time, and they don't care about the cutthroat competition among their peers.

They simply wanted to quietly, earnestly, and slowly create a game in a corner of this world.

It's not about topping the list, not about getting more investment, and not about changing the industry.

It's just to leave a place where people like them can "catch their breath".

This is Lu Yu's team.

Taoyuan Township is not a company.

It is a safe haven.

……

Taoyuan Township Studio, 3 PM.

Sunlight streamed through the blinds, casting lazy shadows on the conference table. An orange cat curled up in the corner of the sofa under the projector screen, dozing, occasionally twitching its tail as if kicking air in its sleep.

Lu Yu sat at the head of the conference table, his black hooded sweatshirt undone, a wrinkled corner of his T-shirt peeking out, and his third cup of cold-brewed oolong tea beside him. He looked like he had just gotten out of bed; the ends of his hair were still a little unruly, but his eyes were wide awake.

“So, my opinion is,” he said slowly, his gaze sweeping over the crowd, “that we should make a very mediocre game this time.”

The room became so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.

"What did you say?" Jian Xingzhou blinked, the reflection in his glasses concealing the confusion in his eyes.

“Mediocre.” Lu Yu nodded, his tone serious to the point of being somewhat solemn. “It’s the kind of game that you open and think, ‘Hmm…not particularly interesting, but not worth uninstalling.’”

"We want to achieve that sense of stability that makes people willing to spend five minutes on the toilet."

Amos nearly choked on his coffee: "Are you serious?"

“You can’t tell when I’m serious.” Lu Yu shrugged. “I think that games these days are too ambitious. They keep talking about ‘reconstructing emotional boundaries’ and ‘creating a new era of narrative,’ which puts a lot of pressure on players.”

"Why don't we do the opposite and make a game that leaves no room for excitement, and even makes people doze off while playing it?"

Hua Wu raised her hand: "Do we still want a storyline?"

“Yes, but not too touching.” Lu Yu thought for a moment. “We can write about… less important lives.”

"For example, the story is called 'My Cat is Missing,' and you spend three days asking around from one end of the street to the other, only to find out that your cat has been adopted by the grandma next door."

"Or the protagonist is a convenience store cashier whose daily tasks are scanning codes, giving change, checking goods, and eavesdropping on customers' gossip."

"What we want is not ups and downs—but the horizon."

Jian Xingzhou's eyes widened as if he had opened the door to a new world: "This is amazing... I've always wanted to make a game like this! Like 'Afternoon Life Simulator,' where the protagonist is unemployed, single, and socially awkward, and his only hobby is sitting on the balcony drinking herbal tea!"

“Okay!” Lu Yu slammed his hand on the table. “Then we’ll give him a task system called ‘Try to survive today too.’ The tasks are: do laundry, take out the trash, and order takeout.”

"I occasionally take on a neighbor's plumbing repair job, and if I fail, I get yelled at."

Hua Wu excitedly said, "I can write the plot! The NPCs are all elderly people in the neighborhood, single mothers, and somewhat impolite deliverymen!"

"Everyone is a bit annoying, but they're all pretty real."

“We can create a ‘resident preference system’ where you’ll lose points if you deliver the wrong package, and you’ll gain points if you help walk the dog.”

"Then the protagonist's only skills are 'listening,' 'comforting,' and 'doing Tai Chi.'"

Amos rubbed his temples. "Are you guys serious? This sounds even more Zen than 'emotional healing'." "We're not Zen," Lu Yu corrected him. "We're practical."

He paused, then said seriously, "We want to make a game that, after playing it, makes people not want to change the world, but just want to go home and mop the floor."

"I've already thought of a name."

He got up, walked to the whiteboard, and quickly wrote a few words:
Passive Life RPG

Jian Xingzhou read it once, a fleeting, inappropriate tear welling up in his eyes: "Isn't this just me..."

Wan Xiaotong lay on the sofa hugging a cushion, her tone languid: "So, what should our system do? Do we still need a skill tree?"

“Use it.” Lu Yu nodded. “But we call it the ‘Life Endurance Tree’.”

"For example, if you select the 'Don't blush in awkward situations' option, you can unlock the 'Chat with your neighbor in the elevator' skill."

"If you select 'Emotion Regulation,' it will automatically switch to 'Smiling Mode' when your boss criticizes you."

"The ultimate goal of the skill tree is to be able to eat even on an unhappy day."

Hua Wu laughed so hard she almost fell over: "Then how about we create a 'lying down achievement system'?"

"For example, if you don't log in for three consecutive days, the achievement will be unlocked: 'You're great, keep it up.'"

"Or you could do only daily tasks for a month without progressing through the main storyline, and the system would prompt: 'That's life; if you don't do it today, you can do it tomorrow.'"

Jian Xingzhou slapped his thigh: "I suggest that the protagonist should not have a 'backpack system'!"

"All the props are kept at home; you have to go back to get them if you want to use them."

You'll find that you always bring the wrong things when you go out, but that's life!

Amos finally couldn't hold back any longer: "You guys...you guys are joking, right?"

"Do you even know what our competitors are up to right now? AI-generated storylines, real-time physics interaction, multiple branching endings, and emotion recognition systems!"

"You all want to be lazy, procrastinate, and not do any work here!"

"You're going against the industrialization of gaming!"

Lu Yu leaned back in his chair and smiled: "That's right."

“We are not against industrialization, we are against the ‘oppression of goal-oriented players’.”

Don't you think games these days are too competitive?

"As soon as you log in, you have to do daily tasks, sign in, participate in limited-time events, ranking challenges, and season rewards."

"You feel like you're missing out if you don't play, but you feel tired if you do play."

"The core concept of the game we made can be summed up in one sentence—'It's okay if you don't play it.'"

The conference room fell into a brief silence.

Then, Jian Xingzhou clapped his hands lightly: "Lu Yu, you're a madman."

Hua Wu nodded, "But I like this madman."

"I can write an NPC that is specifically responsible for reminding players that 'today is not a good day to work hard'."

"He sits on the bench every day, watches you log on, and then says, 'You don't seem right today, do you want to go and space out for a bit?'"

Amos's eye twitched, but after a moment of silence, he sighed and said, "Alright... then I'll write a passive AI system."

"It can survive on its own even if you don't operate it."

"It can cook for itself, bathe itself, and just sit there daydreaming."

"The only thing you can intervene in is deciding when he orders takeout."

Lu Yu gave a thumbs up: "Okay, done."

"Our game doesn't have leaderboards, battles, or pay-to-win elements."

"All we need is a city, a rental house, and a bunch of NPCs who talk nonsense."

"Let players relax, slack off, air out their blankets, and drink tea in the game, and then slowly, they'll find that they don't hate being alive so much."

He paused, turned to look at the crowd, his eyes gentle yet firm:
"What we're making isn't a game where players can win."

"It's a game that makes players feel that it's okay not to win."

"It's okay to be mediocre, it's okay to fail, it's okay to stop."

"This is life."

In the conference room, sunlight slowly shifted, illuminating the few crooked words on the whiteboard:

Passive Life RPG

The orange cat rolled over and yawned.

The next project in Taoyuan Township has officially begun, in the hands of a group of people who "don't want to work hard".

On the whiteboard in the conference room, Hua Wu had just written four words: "Main Couple".

She turned around, her expression complex, as if she had just eaten half a lemon.

“I still think… this premise is too bland.” She frowned. “The protagonist is just an ordinary married man? And not even one of those ‘savior disguised as a passerby’ tropes? He’s just so ordinary it’s a bit… boring?”

"Look at the protagonist's profession: community librarian."

"Spouse's occupation: housewife".

"Main activities: organizing bookshelves, greeting neighbors, and going to the supermarket to buy eggs."

She pointed to the whiteboard, her voice tinged with disbelief: "Are we really going to make a game like this?"

Lu Yu sat at the end of the conference table, holding a teacup in his hand, his eyes calm, and a smile that was almost amusement on his lips.

"That's it?" he said softly, as if talking to himself. "It's done."

Mo Xiaoxuan was taken aback: "It's settled? Brother Yu, you said it's settled?"

“Yes.” Lu Yu nodded gently, his tone gentle yet firm. “This game is mediocre enough, relatable enough, and lacks any excitement.”

"I like."

Jian Xingzhou was sitting by the window, flipping through his yellowed notebook. Hearing this, he couldn't help but look up and push up his glasses: "You're not really planning to let players experience married life, are you?"

"Anyone really wants to play with content like everyday conversations, fighting over the remote control, how many eggs are left in the fridge, and who picks the kids up from school?"

"Are you making a game, or a simulator for a marriage counseling center?"

Amos, holding his laptop, leaned against the corner and said coldly, "I can already foresee the comments in the rating section—'Playing this game made me realize that I can't even maintain a virtual marriage.'"

"Thanks to this game, I've completely given up on marriage."

"My wife has been angry for three days since I came back from the dungeon. What did I do wrong?"

Hua Wu couldn't help but laugh out loud: "You know what? I tried writing a dialogue between a married couple today, and I got sleepy on the fifth sentence."

"Why are you walking with a slight limp today?"

"The insole is crooked."

“I told you to change your shoes yesterday, but you didn’t listen.”

“Those shoes are too expensive, I can’t bear to wear them.”

"'You really are something.'"

"This is the rhythm of our storyline."

As she spoke, she made a yawning gesture: "Can we please stop making players experience a 'midlife crisis' in the game?" (End of Chapter)