F1: The Making of a Racing God

Chapter 216 I've hooked up with a God of Wealth
Just leave.

Before leaving, Shu Long thought about it again and felt that this was also an opportunity to be honest. So he simply dug out a few small devices from his suitcase and prepared to record a vlog for his impromptu trip.

The first thing he did was ask Gan Mengning to find the video footage of her recording at the Shanghai International Film Festival in 19. He already had a fairly interesting idea in mind.

"Good morning, everyone. It's 7:45 AM now. I've been waiting here for 20 minutes. I wonder what time the drivers will arrive at the factory to start work."

That's right, it was the time when Gan Mengning pretended to be an ordinary fan and asked for an autograph at the entrance on the first Friday of practice.

The girl proudly held up her Shulong Red Bull No. 69 baseball cap to the camera, posing and looking at it from left to right, until she was startled by the screams of "Shulong" from other sharp-eyed fans at the entrance, at which point she suddenly looked up.

"Oh! He's here! He's here!"

Like the other enthusiastic fans around her, Gan Mengning cheered and rushed forward, holding up her hat and marker and waving her arms vigorously.

With an excited heart and trembling hands, the whole scene shook quite violently, but it still froze on a frame showing a sleepy-eyed person looking in this direction with some surprise.

"This is me."

With a voice-over that sounds like an inner monologue, the camera quickly cuts through the process of rushing to the airport, boarding the plane, rushing to the airport again, and taking a taxi. Finally, the camera relaxes and sits down on the big bed in the hotel. The ambient sound seems to have returned to the state of live recording.

"It's tough on everyone seeing my face every day lately. It's more tiring than driving! I finally have a winter break, but it feels like I'm working overtime."

Perhaps too lazy to think of an opening statement, Shu Long began to complain about the hardships of being a worker in front of the camera. Then, as he was talking, he remembered something important and took the portable miniature microphone off his collar.

"Test, test, Redio check! The sound recording is pretty good, right? It's from DJI. And this action camera, it's from DJI too."

Shu Long showed off all the equipment his sponsor had given him on camera, and the advertising lines were so cheesy that even the sponsor had to facepalm.

The team has now officially joined Bilibili, and he is the only one in the team who has a semi-official daily account here, ID: Lazy Dragon Goes Out.

Horner meant to say something like, "Don't be so lifeless all the time. Interact more with your fans on the platform and help your sponsors get more exposure."

Since Shulong didn't have any formal submissions yet, he took advantage of this trip to kill two birds with one stone, which explains why he felt like he was working overtime.

And of course, there's the most important one.
Shu Long held the camera in one hand and groped around with the other, then pulled a small, fair hand into the lens, which he held with his fingers.

"Girlfriend, this is mine! I won't recommend her to you guys, why don't you come and say hello to everyone?"

Gan Mengning, who hadn't yet gotten used to her appearance being exposed, initially covered her face with her phone, feeling a little embarrassed in front of the camera. In the end, she awkwardly waved her hands a couple of times to admit that she was Dou Ke.

"I've been having a hard time guessing these past few days online. Since the Lunar New Year is coming soon, I won't keep everyone in suspense any longer. We've known each other since we were less than a year old."

As they were talking, Shu Long took some more pictures of the Shanghai street scene outside the hotel window.

Almost three years later, he returned to the place where he played his only home game in his career. However, this time there were no cheers, no expectations, and no engine screams. He was just preparing to go to a very special location to check in.

There was no agent team, no draft contract; it was just a purely recreational activity.

Of course, it would be even better if I could bring back a few figurines!
It's really hard to get authentic merchandise from Amazon overseas. The high prices of the products you find online are a minor issue; the real problem is that you don't even know if they're just some small workshop making fakes.

Every time Shu Long wanted to add to his collection, he was deterred by reason. Not only did he rarely return to China, but he also often had a lot of things to do, which made him temporarily put the idea aside. When he thought of it again, he was deterred by reason.

It's an infinite loop.

When Zhang Xin learned that they had received an invitation, she couldn't stop smiling. Anyone with a little sensitivity to the current economic market knows exactly what size company miHoYo is now, and it is completely unaffected by the stock market.

If you cough!
It's best to maintain a calm attitude during the first contact. Once you build a good relationship, there may be more opportunities for cooperation in the future.

After resting at the hotel for a day, we set off early the next morning to Lao Mi's headquarters in Guangqi Park to join in the annual meeting.

An annual meeting is, of course, more than just a place to have fun.

When Shu Long and Gan Mengning arrived at the headquarters, they seemed to still be summarizing their work for 2021, so they could only follow the receptionist's guidance to "MiKa" to order a coffee and wait.

I heard the fun part of the annual meeting is yet to come. I'll let loose for a couple of days, wrap up the work, and then everyone will go home for the New Year.

Just by looking at the furnishings, you can tell what kind of atmosphere the company has overall.

It was less like a company and more like a MiHoYo-themed anime convention. Just as Shu Long was scrolling through his phone on his chair, a white-haired MiHoYo cosplayer flashed by.

Unfortunately, there are many places inside the building where video recording is prohibited. After all, it's a workplace, and you never know when you might accidentally capture confidential documents on your computer desktop, ruthlessly thwarting Shulongshui's plans to record videos.

The people who came were not just Shu Long and his companion; Gan Mengning's studio also has its headquarters in Shanghai.

Upon hearing that the young girl had successfully completed the task assigned to her by the organization, everyone was incredibly excited and insisted on coming to see her in person.

Brother Dawei figured this would enrich the annual meeting, so he simply invited everyone who was still in the area to come and organize a team-building event.

Gan Mengning sat in the coffee shop for about half an hour, chatting on her phone for a long time. She only went out to Shulong for a short while, and when she looked up again, she was surrounded by layers of people.

That's pretty amazing.
For these senior voice actors, a person like Shu Long, who seems to exist only in news and legends, is someone who doesn't seem like someone who could possibly connect with this industry.

Games—a cheap form of entertainment with very low barriers to entry; racing—a symbol of walking on the edge of life and death, rebellion, and extravagant spending, which most people simply have no way of getting involved with.

It looks very disjointed no matter how you look at it, right?

Moreover, after learning about him over the past few days, they felt that Shu Long had become so legendary that it seemed unreal.

A top genius who suddenly appeared out of nowhere, with a bumpy and tortuous early career, and a phoenix-like rebirth, it's like a movie protagonist coming to life.

Oh no!
If a movie were to actually be made like that, they would all think it's an absolute masterpiece, a masterpiece of insane genius!
But these people are not only real, they are so real that they are sitting right in front of them, and you can even feel their body temperature when you shake hands!
[Are you crazy? It's not like it's dead!]

For Shulong, this was quite a strange experience.

Hearing your girlfriend's voice in the game is really strange; it's a bit awkward, a bit out of place, and most importantly, a bit funny.

It's better not to know, because once you know, you really can't bear to look at it anymore.
Therefore, for the two characters that Gan Mengning configured, he usually just draws all the cards and then puts them aside, trying not to use them unless necessary.

What now?
"This is Sister Susu."

【Yes, Himeko-sensei.】

"This is DaDaGua. We used to stream together a lot, so you should be quite familiar with him."

[Dolly's auntie. Seriously, wouldn't this setup just be Klee and Jean?]

Each time Gan Mengning introduced someone, Shu Long would shake their hand. There was a certain awkwardness on both sides, a kind of restraint that usually existed only online. The atmosphere was quite formal until Gan Mengning made her introduction.
"This is N-chan, or Sister N."

【Hehehehehe】

The scene fell into a deathly silence. Shu Long was a little confused as to why there was no movement around him all of a sudden. He felt that the other person's handshake suddenly increased by 3KW. When he looked up, he found that everyone was looking at him with a very strange look.

"Did I just laugh?"

Experiments have shown that "hehehe" is contagious, especially when everyone is doing it together; the level of its addictiveness can be described as increasing exponentially.

After finishing his annual meeting summary, Dawei had just received a notification from the front desk. When he came downstairs, he saw a bunch of people gathered around, making him feel like he had come to the wrong place.

For many people present, Brother Dawei was an old acquaintance. He was very approachable and friendly, like an old friend.

Only Gan Mengning remained a little reserved. This was only the third time she had met this big boss. The first two times, she had only caught a fleeting glimpse of him, and he had even personally added her contact information and entrusted her with the important task of inviting Shu Long.

Wait a minute, now that I think about it, it doesn't seem like such a big deal, does it?

Shu Long didn't know why Gan Mengning suddenly acted so proud. He had originally just thought that they should say hello and go their separate ways.

When Renmin University's Wei Ge heard that Shu Long himself was a veteran player who had reached the maximum level and was now fully skilled, he asked for suggestions on how to film him and then enthusiastically offered to personally show them around.

With so many people involved, the annual meeting naturally had a lot more fun and entertaining ideas, and if the results were good, they planned to upload them to MiYouJi's account.

One of the tasks was to have these voice actors imitate the lines of other characters to see how familiar the employees at Memory were with their own games and whether they could tell the difference.

Although taking photos and videos was not allowed in this area, Brother Dawei still took Shulong to see some of the projects that were under development inside Lao Mi's company, and also took him to visit their motion capture studio.

Whether it was part of the original plan or a spur-of-the-moment thing, you can even see Brother Dawei himself wearing a motion capture suit and dancing a segment of "Please Look at Me Carefully".

Well.
After a long and winding journey, the true intentions were finally revealed. Brother Dawei led the group to a small, dark room next to the gym, where six sets of racing simulator equipment were neatly arranged.

"Actually, there are a lot of people in our company who like car culture and motorsports. They dragged me to watch a few of your races, which made me interested too. Now we occasionally organize virtual racing competitions here, and the winners get prize money and medals."

As he spoke, Brother Dawei pulled out a few ordinary people from the crowd who had joined the parade at some unknown time. They had all secretly followed along after seeing Shulong to catch the tail end of the procession.

"Right, Water Bear? How's your project going? Tell us about it. I remember you guys added some tribute elements, didn't you?"

"Oh~ are they the railway workers from earlier?"

When he was caught, the guy quickly shook his head, explaining that he was in charge of the art direction for another new action game, and that the progress wasn't as fast as the new game based on the Honkai Impact IP next door.

However, the overall framework of the game is almost complete, and a preview trailer is expected to be released in the middle of the year. The next step is to continuously refine the gameplay, fill in the content, and polish the quality. However, some basic elements have already been determined in the early stages.

There wasn't much I could reveal to Shu Long beforehand, but as I got excited, I spilled a lot of information, almost scaring Brother Dawei.

For example, they designed a mascot called Bomb, which included a character dressed in a racing suit waving a black and white checkered flag.

For example, they designed a faction of characters who race in the wilderness. There is a beautiful girl who is so lazy that she is comparable to Shu Long in terms of mental state, but has superb driving skills. There is also a beautiful girl who can make a special energy drink (Red Bull) and dance with flames.

Even the main color scheme of the entire character lineup's clothing is red and black, which is similar to Red Bull.

The implication is very clear: using public funds to chase celebrities and then not even acting anymore is definitely a violation!

Of course, bringing Shulong here wasn't just to show off their simulator.

"This is a rare opportunity. I wonder if we'll have a chance to experience the level of the world's top drivers up close?"

With such high praise bestowed upon him, Shu Long had no reason to refuse, especially since he hadn't touched a steering wheel for almost a week and was now itching to try his hand at these expensive simulators.

However, considering that none of us are professional gamers, we didn't choose a highly professional type of simulator game. Instead, we launched the F1 21, a new annual release that was just released in the middle of last year, which combines entertainment and realism.

Fast and Furious is indeed an addictive drug that triggers the release of dopamine.

It's unclear whether miHoYo had any other plans, but right now, Shu Long is just sitting there welcoming the challenges from the entire miHoYo headquarters and all the voice actors.

The race format is set as a 5-lap sprint race, with a 20-second slow start followed by a slow, brutal cut-and-slice-like process, letting them experience the true despair of Shulong's colleagues and rivals on the track.

Those who lose go to the back of the line and rejoin the queue, carefully analyze their mistakes, and then try to lose even more miserably next time.

From around 14:10 PM until 18:30 PM, the crowd continued to gather and participate, with more and more people coming to watch and join in.

So much so that there wasn't enough room in the back room, so a few more tech guys volunteered to do the wiring on-site, allowing everyone to go back to their workstations to watch the live stream.

Dawei was humiliated three times in a row before he was finally shoved off by the crowd who couldn't bear to watch any longer.

But the other person didn't seem angry at all. They stood aside and watched with a smile, calculating how many autographs they should get later.

Inviting this person was definitely the right decision; we don't even need to think about what to give the employees as New Year's gifts anymore.
Then someone reminded everyone of the time, and everyone reluctantly parted ways to hurry up and finish up their work before the new year.

Brother Dawei then asked the guests he had invited to stay for a while, and planned to treat them to a meal at a restaurant near the park.

Gan Mengning and her senior colleagues sat at two separate tables, while Shu Long sat at one table with Dawei and his group.

Besides Shui Xiong, who introduced "Project X" and is also the best driver in the group, Brother Dawei also called over another boss from their company, Mr. Luo, as well as Zhenyu, who is said to be in charge of project development.

At first, it was just normal casual conversation, but judging from the way things were going, Shu Long knew what was going to happen soon.

Sure enough, when the dishes on the table were almost all cleared away, and while the men next door were still laughing and joking, the group here finally got down to business.

Previously, there was no way to make contact, so it was a pleasant surprise that Gan Mengning and I were connected by such a wonderful connection.

Although Shulong hadn't specifically considered this before setting off, and at most just wanted to sneak away with a few genuine figurines before leaving, the topic eventually returned to sponsorship.

Honkai Impact and Genshin Impact are already very mature IPs, and the new game Railway is based on the Honkai Impact IP, so there is basically no need to cross over into the racing genre for promotion.

Now, Dawei seems to be using public funds to chase after celebrities as an excuse, and incidentally using Shulong's name to promote their "Project X".

Anyway, you have to spend money on marketing and promotion when you release a new game. F1 races are all over the world, which is equivalent to spending a sum of money to advertise in at least 20 countries. What could be more cost-effective and a win-win situation than spending money on your own people?
Although it was only a verbal expression of intent and no formal negotiations had begun, Lao Mi's generosity still gave Shu Long a small financial shock—a personal sponsorship of 800 million after tax.

Just for a new game that's not even finished yet?!
However, the first thing that came to his mind at that moment was not how full his wallet would be, since once income reaches a certain level, it becomes a numbers game that doesn't really matter.

He was thinking about his earlier conversation with Uncle Shufu about moving into Weichang; that old Mi was so rich.
(End of this chapter)