Restart life

Chapter 142 0139 [A Young Girl's Whisper in the Wind, A Distant Phoenix Bell Rings] (Bonus Chapter for Alliance Leader Feng Sheng Shui Qi)
Chen Guiliang passed all six of his make-up exams, and all of them were barely passed.

The professors were very accommodating.

You can get by with your grades in the first semester of freshman year, but it won't be so easy in the second semester. If you fail too many courses, you won't be given a chance to retake them, and you'll be forced to transfer to another department or repeat the year.

After making several phone calls, Chen Guiliang finally got in touch with Peng Fei, who was recommended by his senior brother Kong.

This guy isn't even in Beijing; he just came here last year for work. Peng Fei currently lives in Shanghai, making a living by providing music for commercials, and occasionally taking on other jobs.

As for arranging music, he only participated as a minor figure, such as being responsible for the string part of "Legend".

Peng Fei had no experience in arranging the entire song.

He wanted to, but no one gave him the chance.

"Hello Mr. Peng, I am Chen Guiliang, the boss of ByteDance."

"Hello."

Peng Fei felt that the name "Chen Guiliang" sounded familiar, but he couldn't remember what he did.

Chen Guiliang said, "I would like to ask you to arrange the music for a song."

"Arrangement?" Peng Fei's tone was slightly excited. "Will I be in charge of it independently, or will I be someone else's assistant?"

Chen Guiliang said, "You'll be in charge of it independently. But as for the expenses..."

Peng Fei quickly replied, "A flat price of 5000 yuan, available anytime."

This is a proactive price reduction.

At this point, hiring an amateur arranger or student would cost between 1000 and 5000 yuan. A slightly more professional arranger would charge over 5000 yuan.

For example, the arrangement fee for "Mice Love Rice" was more than 2000 yuan.

For Peng Fei, making money is secondary; he wants to be in charge of composing music independently!

Chen Guiliang said, "How about this, I'll give you 8000 yuan, and you can take care of the post-production recording. I'll also cover your round-trip airfare, but you'll have to pay for your own food and accommodation. You'll have to fly to Beijing."

"Do you have lyrics, music, and singers?" Peng Fei asked.

Chen Guiliang said, "We are ready."

“I’ll go this weekend. Send me the address via text message,” Peng Fei readily agreed.

He doesn't even ask what kind of song it is; he'll accept any song, even those from the internet, just to take that first step from zero to one in his music arrangement career.

Chen Guiliang was unfamiliar with the music industry and unaware that the person he had invited would become a frequent winner of Best Original Music awards at domestic film festivals. He also composed the music for songs like Huo Zun's "Rolling Up the Pearl Curtain" and frequently served as the arrangement director for various music variety shows.

Peng Fei, of course, had no idea that he would become so awesome in the future.

……

As Chen Guiliang walked into the company, all the newly recruited employees from the previous weekend were secretly sizing him up.

One of them saw Chen Guiliang approaching and quickly stood up to greet him: "Hello, Mr. Chen!"

"Hello."

Chen Guiliang smiled and said, "You don't need to stand up anymore. Just do your own thing."

"Thank you, Mr. Chen." The employee quickly sat down again.

Chen Guiliang walked straight up behind Xie Yang: "What are you looking at?"

Xie Yang pointed to the NGA forum and said, "World of Warcraft opened its closed beta registration today, and the NGA forum is exploding with activity. Everyone is talking about how to fill out the questionnaire."

"You want to play too?" Chen Guiliang asked with a smile.

Xie Yang chuckled twice: "I do want to play. But I'm too lazy to sign up for the closed beta. I'll play after registration opens."

Chen Guiliang asked, "Have all the major gaming forums been drawn to World of Warcraft?"

"It's not that they've attracted everyone, but the most posts are definitely related to World of Warcraft," Xie Yang said. "Our Three Kingdoms Kill and Renren.com are currently experiencing a continuous rise in popularity, with almost no negative reviews. 5Q Campus Network, on the other hand, has been getting a lot of flak."

Chen Guiliang said, "Being criticized so harshly shows that there are indeed users, but the user experience is poor, probably because the social ecosystem hasn't been established. It's better if no one comments, it means that users are too lazy to criticize them."

Xie Yang was taken aback, realizing that this made sense.

After Renren.com opened registration, the number of users increased rapidly, and the number of registered users has now exceeded 35.

Especially in Beijing universities, where the virus spread earliest, more than 50% of students are users of the campus intranet—a figure that exceeds the proportion of students who own computers.

To support so many users, Chen Guiliang has switched to leasing servers, with monthly costs reaching 6.5 yuan. If the number of users continues to increase, the cost will rise even further!

We need to figure out a way to recoup our losses through advertising.

However, there can't be too many ads on Renren.com, otherwise users will be very unhappy. The content of the ads also has to be carefully selected; Chen Guiliang can't accept orders for medicines or health products.

Fortunately, there's still the Three Kingdoms Kill game to help you recover your health.

The online version of Three Kingdoms Kill currently has 47.6 registered users and 21.8 daily active users. In the 38 days since the recharge function was opened, the total recharge amount has reached 75.2 yuan.

The physical Three Kingdoms Kill card game is currently sold through over 6000 online stores. Most of these stores haven't sold a single set.

However, the results are very obvious, with peak daily sales now reaching over 320 sets. Even if you only make a few dollars per set, you can still make around 5 yuan in profit per month.

We still have to rely on the Three Kingdoms Kill game.

At this rate of development, the Three Kingdoms Kill online game is estimated to break into the top 10 by the end of the year!

Today's Chinese online gaming market is no longer what it was when Chen Guiliang and Tao Chenggang were making private servers.

Last year's annual online game rankings saw Ragnarok Online take first place, MU Online take second, and Fantasy Westward Journey 2 take third.

Legend has dropped to sixth place, and Legend of Mir 2 has dropped to tenth place.

Legend 3, which was almost destroyed by its distributor, has miraculously returned to eighth place.

Only two months into the year, "Swordsman Online II" has climbed to the top of the monthly charts, while "Legend of Mir" has surged from tenth to second place.

……

"Dong dong dong..."

A girl wearing a hat and carrying a backpack stood at the door, timidly knocking on the company door, which was not yet closed. "Excuse me, is this Game Science Company?"

"Come in. What are you doing here?"

"President Chen asked me to come to work. My name is Xu Fengyin."

"Mr. Chen is next door, over at ByteDance."

"Oh, thank you."

Xu Fengyin, like a thief, ran to the next office and asked, "Excuse me, is President Chen here?"

"Go inside, to the one by the window..."

The new employee who joined the company this week looked up while speaking and was stunned by the girl's beauty.

"Thank you."

Xu Fengyin moved without making a sound, as if she had practiced some kind of light-body skill.

"Hello, Mr. Chen, I am Tian Daoqian," Xu Fengyin said.

Chen Guiliang was startled, completely unaware that someone was beside him. He then stood up with a smile and shook hands: "Welcome, welcome, our lead artist has finally arrived. Come on, I'll take you to see the head housekeeper to complete your onboarding."

Upon reaching Ao Yanchen's workstation, Chen Guiliang introduced her, saying, "This is Tiandao Qian... uh, what's your real name?"

Xu Fengyin said, “Xu Fengyin. Xu means ‘noon’, Feng means ‘wind’, and Yin means ‘singing’.”

Chen Guiliang said, "Yes, Xu Fengyin. She is a top student from the XX Academy of Fine Arts. She was the one who designed the best-selling Three Kingdoms Show and general skins."

"Welcome, welcome!" Ao Yanchen was overjoyed.

"Is this where I complete the onboarding process?"

Xu Fengyin opened her schoolbag and took out a whole bunch of things, including her student ID, national ID, award certificates, and school internship recommendation letters.

"Snapped!"

While I was getting something, a comic book fell to the ground.

Xu Fengyin hurriedly bent down to pick it up, then quickly stuffed it back into her schoolbag.

In a flash, Chen Guiliang could see clearly that the cover image of this comic book seemed a bit inappropriate.

Ao Yanchen had her fill out a form and then go to photocopy her ID card and student ID.

Xu Fengyin lowered her head and ran to make copies, not daring to look Chen Guiliang in the eye again.

She's so embarrassed she doesn't even want to work here anymore; her secret was discovered by the boss on her very first day.

Ao Yanchen said with a playful tone, "President Chen, this girl is quite pretty."

Chen Guiliang rolled his eyes: "Am I that kind of person?"

"Hard to say," Ao Yanchen muttered, then asked, "How much salary will you pay her?"

Chen Guiliang said, "It's been agreed upon, the monthly salary is 3000."

At large companies like Shanda and NetEase, junior illustrators earned between 3500 and 5000 yuan per month. Senior illustrators, on the other hand, could earn nearly 10,000 yuan per month!
Of course, small companies certainly can't afford to pay that much; some are so stingy that they only offer 2000 yuan.

Xu Fengyin returned after photocopying the documents, and then signed the employment contract with her head down.

Ao Yanchen then said, "Write down the specific configuration of the computer you need."

"Oh." Xu Fengyin picked up her pen to write, glancing at the shoes beside her out of the corner of her eye.

Those were Chen Guiliang's shoes. Xu Fengyin hoped the boss would get out of here soon.

Chen Guiliang, however, stood there chatting with Senior Sister Ao, discussing the matter of launching an advertising business on Renren.com.

Ao Yanchen said, "I think three ads on the homepage are enough. One is the top banner ad, and two are the vertical ads on the sides. Let's test the user response first, and then gradually increase the number. As for ad pricing, I'll study other websites first."

How to study?

Of course, you call them one by one, claiming to be a customer, asking about prices, and also inquiring about their click-through rates and other data.

Chen Guiliang said, "There are only three advertising spaces, so there's no need to hire more people, right?"

Ao Yanchen said irritably, "Just say what you have to say. I can work part-time as an advertising salesperson!"

"Haha."

Chen Guiliang gave an awkward smile and finally left satisfied.

"Whoo~~~"

Xu Fengyin breathed a sigh of relief.

Ao Yanchen stamped the employment contract and said to Xu Fengyin, "You can choose your own workstation. But don't choose this office; you're an employee of Game Science next door."

"Thank you." Xu Fengyin quickly ran away.

"Wait a minute!" Ao Yanchen called out.

Xu Fengyin hurriedly ran back.

Ao Yanchen asked, "Do you have a place to stay?"

Xu Fengyin said, "We haven't found it yet."

Ao Yanzhen said, "All the employees who joined last year lived in Changchun New Garden. But no more people can come in there this year. New employees will rent houses in Yandong Garden. The company will provide a housing subsidy every month. Yandong Garden is an old staff building of Peking University. The accommodation conditions are a bit poor. You can find it yourself."

"Ok."

"You don't need to come to the company tomorrow. Go rent an apartment and buy daily necessities first."

"Thank you."

Xu Fengyin dashed away quickly, not even choosing a workstation, and ran towards the elevator.

Once outside the building, she realized she didn't know where Yandongyuan was, so she had to ask around and slowly search for a place to stay.

(End of this chapter)