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Chapter 243: The Start of the Second-Year Arc
Chapter 243: The Start of the Second-Year Arc
In 2012, before the popular Q&A community, Zhihu[1], fully opened its registration, the members of C Site’s development team surely had one burning question they wished they could ask:
【What is it like to discover that your boss is a high school student?】
When Mei Fang made his first appearance at C Site’s inaugural offline meetup, he stunned all of his employees. If it weren’t for his fluent responses to all matters related to C Site’s operations, no one would have believed that this young kid, who hadn’t even fully grown up yet, could actually be the boss of C Site.
“Mei… Boss Mei must be a rich second-generation kid from a very wealthy family, right?”
“Don’t call me Boss Mei. We’re all friends here, let’s work together in harmony.”
Mei Fang was approachable and lacked any air of a typical boss. While this could have been risky for the company, fortunately, Lin Youxi and Mei Yue were willing to play the role of the “bad cop,” so things remained in balance.
“So, should we keep calling you ‘Young Miss’? I don’t think I can say that anymore…”
“How dare you disrespect our Fangbao? Fangbao! Look at this person, we should fire him immediately!”
“‘Fangbao’ doesn’t work either… it’s too corny.”
Previously, Mei Fang had been using Lin Youxi’s account to pose as the ‘Young Miss’ and chat with everyone, but now he needed to come up with a new name, though nothing had struck him yet.Lin Youxi chimed in from the side, “If you can’t think of anything better, let’s just call him ‘Webmaster Fang’ for now. It suits him.”
“Since Boss Mei is the webmaster, who among Yuanbao and Young Miss will be the director’s wife? Hahaha——”
The young crowd burst into laughter, while Xia Yuan blushed and tried to calm down the teasing.
“That won’t do… we’re still high school students! We’re not allowed to date yet.”
“I get it! This is the classic ‘My Tragic Love Triangle with My Childhood Sweethearts,’ right?”
The bond between Mei Fang, Xia Yuan, and Lin Youxi felt like something out of a light novel, and these seasoned otakus at C Site eagerly jumped at the chance to reference it.
After enjoying a hearty meal, everyone gathered at the office building where C Site was located. Here, Mei Fang reintroduced the company’s organizational structure.
First off, C Site was actually maintained and operated by two companies: Lin Xi Technology, the main entity of C Site, and Ximilu Games, an independent game studio that leveraged C Site’s traffic to publish games. The studio was responsible for globally popular titles such as Flappy Bird, and the moderately famous Reigns and Life Restart Simulator.
At first, everyone thought Mei Fang was just a rich second-generation heir with too much money to spend, so while they admired him, there was a bit of underlying disdain.
However, once they learned that the entire C Site was funded by Mei Fang’s own game development efforts and that his family was just “ordinary” (at least financially), they began to hold him in genuine respect.
“He started learning to code in elementary school and was already thinking about creating games and websites as a teenager. Meanwhile, I was still playing in the mud.”
“It’s over, we really have a coding genius with ten years of experience who’s not even 20 years old.”
For programmers, respect is earned through coding skills. If you write excellent code, leave clear comments, fix bugs quickly, and never hold back your team, you’re revered as a god among coders.
Both Lin Youxi and Mei Fang possessed these qualities, so their code was always regarded with the highest respect.
Most of C Site’s artists were involved in UI design, primarily creating visuals for the site’s interface. Only a few, like the cute girl Cola, were responsible for drawing chibi-style original artwork. After seeing the company’s strategic plans and the portfolio of fitness-loving beauty, Guo Yun, the artists were in awe and eagerly gathered around her to learn her techniques.
The enthusiasm for exchanging ideas was infectious, but soon after, under Mei Yue’s guidance, everyone found their assigned workstations according to the seating chart.
Currently, the main office area has about 50 workstations. The left half was mostly occupied by current employees, while the right half was largely vacant, reserved for future expansion of the Ximilu Studio.
In addition, there were five rooms in the office: a large conference room, a small conference room, a server room, a storage room, and finally, Mei Fang’s personal office, which, at his request, was furnished with a very soft couch for him to relax on when tired.
Although Lin Xi Technology was now on the right track, Ximilu Games remained more of an indie studio. To gain real influence, marketing and operating the game is crucial.
This was also a challenge for the members of Lin Xi Technology. In Mei Fang’s previous development strategy, C Site’s indie game module focused on sharing niche indie games. Besides the legendary To the Moon, they had published many domestic and international games, but these were only listed and given a basic recommendation.
To ensure the successful launch and promotion of their first-party game[2], Cloudy Journey, will be the first step in Mei Fang’s plan to build a new C-Station empire.
The current C Site served dual purposes, akin to both the old Bilibili and TapTap platforms. Of course, once the indie game section grew large enough, Mei Fang planned to spin it off into a standalone gaming platform, essentially a new TapTap.
This new TapTap wouldn’t just focus on the domestic mobile gaming market. Mei Fang hoped to take a piece of the pie from Steam, which hadn’t yet expanded its influence across the entire industry.
At least in the field of indie games, C Site’s current indie game section was completely on par with Steam. Mei Fang didn’t rely on indie games to make big money, but he could continue to build and maintain its good reputation.
The all-staff meeting left a deep impression on everyone present.
Especially noteworthy was the precious bond between Xia Yuan, Mei Fang, and Lin Youxi, their childhood friendship was more valuable than gold.
The three of them have been working toward a common goal, recruiting more companions, and remaining steadfast in their friendship. This sense of camaraderie, once imagined, once possessed, and even once lost, resonates deeply with many.
After all, who hasn’t had a childhood sweetheart?
It’s just that we lose touch with them during the course of growing up.
As summer vacation came to an end, Mei Fang’s friends were about to leave Jiangcheng and return to Baimei County.
During this time, Zhang Ming became determined to continue on this journey with Mei Fang, and with Mei Fang’s encouragement, he confessed his feelings to Lu Xueqing.
Mei Fang didn’t ask about the result of the confession. But on the night before they left, Zhang Ming sought out Mei Fang and invited him for skewers.
The two of them sat at a barbecue restaurant next to the hotel, eating grilled food and drinking Sprite (since high school students are not allowed to drink alcohol), quietly bringing this rare gathering to a close.
All their emotions were poured into that bottle of Sprite.
Later, Mei Fang thought back and realized that the Zhang Ming he had known in his previous life had always seemed to be a boy with no ambitions, just coasting along, showing no interest in girls. He had thought Zhang Ming would always be like that, but now he realized he was probably wrong.
What boy is born with nothing but games on his mind?
Even Mei Fang, in his previous life, had once been attracted to Liu Xiaoyu.
And so, as the summer vacation ended and the new semester began, the second year of high school arc, full of various changes, officially opened its curtains.
Translator's Notes:
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