"You're finally awake. Li Yue, you watch over her. I have to go check on the patients," Gu Wanqiu said, and left without looking back.
"Yu!!! Nan!!!"
Yu Nan saw that Li Yue was wearing sunglasses and walked in through gritted teeth.
Do you know how many days you haven't slept?
Yu Nan counted on her fingers: first, two nights of all-nighters, plus three days... about two and a half days, then modifying the code... how long did it take to modify the code?
“How can I possibly keep track of time while modifying code in the basement?” Yu Nan shrugged. “How about this, next time I’ll try to glance at the clock before I faint.”
Li Yue slapped Yu Nan on the head, glaring at her with exasperation, "Do you want to keep fainting? You almost died of a sudden shock, do you know that?"
"If I actually die from overwork while making games, will I be able to enter some kind of game god world?"
"How can you curse yourself like that? If you don't take care of your health, no doctor can save you!"
Yu Nan made a face, "Isn't Wanqiu here? I trust her the most!"
"Is Gu Wanqiu your wife or mine?"
Li Yue felt so angry that her liver hurt.
"You've worked so hard on indie game development, exhausting yourself to the point of near death, have you actually achieved anything?"
Hearing this, Yu Nan clutched her chest, rolled her eyes, and leaned to the side, pretending to be so angry that she was about to faint.
"Keep acting! Do you think I'm afraid you'll actually die suddenly in the hospital?" Li Yue crossed her arms and looked at Yu Nan with a cold smile. "How old are you? Why are you acting like a child?"
"You say you want to pursue your dreams and give everything for them, but you have to look at the reality!"
"Does the policy support you? Does the market support you? Do the players support you? What's the use of just shouting slogans about dreams!"
"Yu Nan, you're practically my ancestor! Please, look at reality! Domestic single-player games are dead! They can't even get a game license, let alone develop one! What's the point of you even starting one!"
"Even if you go through all the trouble to create something, how many people will be willing to pay for it? What does the market accept? It accepts reskinned versions of pay-to-win games! It accepts one-hit kills!"
Yu Nan covered her ears and turned her back to Li Yue.
Every time she's hospitalized, she inevitably has to listen to Li Yue's insane rants. At first, she would argue with Li Yue, but now she's impervious to their attacks.
Anyway, Li Yue would at most scold her, but she didn't really oppose her developing independent games.
Furthermore, Li Yue doesn't really understand games. She only started paying attention to the game industry because she was making games herself, and after reading a few pessimistic industry analyses, she concluded that indie games were doomed.
Is it really not possible?
There are just too few people willing to devote themselves to carving dragons.
With the emperor far away and Li Yue in the east of the city unable to control Yu Nan in the west, the situation was dire.
When Li Yue saw Yu Nan's expression, she knew that the brat hadn't listened to a word he said.
As expected of Yu Nan, forever young, forever with tears in her eyes, forever chasing her dreams, and forever unyielding.
Well, at least I can comfort myself by thinking that this brat is becoming more and more indomitable and fearless of hardship, and I guess he won't be mentally damaged anymore.
With her current tenacity, she might actually be able to forge a path through the harsh winter.
It's not that I'm against her developing independently; even if she develops it for the rest of her life, the two families' wealth can support her.
What really angered me was that she lost track of time while working on it, ruining her health in the process.
I'm not afraid of her giving up, I'm afraid of her being ambitious.
You should know that Yu Nan was born healthy. Her current illnesses are entirely caused by her previous over-focused and sleepless work. She has only herself to blame!
Seeing that Li Yue was silent, Yu Nan quickly smiled and said, "Every cloud has a silver lining. Look at me, running to the hospital every few days, haven't I managed to get you and Sister Wanqiu connected?"
Li Yue's anger, which had already subsided, suddenly flared up again.
Li Yue suppressed her anger. She couldn't argue with Yu Nan, nor could she listen to his rambling—otherwise, she would be driven mad sooner or later.
"You have quite a lot of games in your inventory, don't you?" Li Yue looked down at Yu Nan.
"Probably more than eight hundred," Yu Nan said, puzzled as to why Li Yue suddenly asked this question.
“Very good,” Li Yue said, taking a contract out of her bag. “Sign this, or you can forget about continuing development.”
Yu Nan glanced at the "Contract stipulating that game development cannot proceed until all games in the inventory have been played."
"If you want to do a good job, you must first have the right tools," Li Yue sneered. "If you haven't even finished playing the few games in your inventory, don't even think about developing your own."
"But many games are just freebies and trash; playing them will pollute your brain!"
"Then go ahead and play the ones with the highest ratings. Look at your Curry, you haven't even finished 'One-Armed Wolf: Two Lives' yet."
"That's because I'm bad at the game! I beat it online!"
"Pfft," Li Yue thought she had heard the biggest joke in the world. "If watching the live stream is enough, then why did you buy it?"
"Look at your playtime and your achievement completion rate. People who know you know you're stuck (Note 1), but people who don't know you might think you're just AFK (Note 2)."
"Alright, there's no point in saying more. You should get some rest. I hope you can play through at least 50% of the inventory before becoming a creator. Be responsible for your health, for the games you make, and for the players who are willing to wait for you."
“You’re right,” Yu Nan said, looking intently into Li Yue’s eyes. “I really should play some games.”
"I promise you a balance between work and rest. I can't guarantee I won't make games anymore, but I will gradually finish all the games in my inventory."
"Fine." Li Yue pouted; Yu Nan's attitude was so sincere that she felt embarrassed to say anything to her.
"However, I don't trust your ability to manage time. When you're focused, you can't see that everyone already knows the time."
"So, I'm planning to find you a companion."
"What?" Yu Nan thought she had misheard. "Arranged marriages are no longer in vogue. This is the era of free love."
"You wish."
Li Yue rolled her eyes, just like Yu Nan.
“A perfectly nice young girl is risking becoming a widow by being with you. I’m here to find you a roommate, to remind you to eat and sleep, and not to keep working on things endlessly, going through several nights in a row.”
“Fine… then,” Yu Nan said, feeling wronged. “I didn’t mean to. I was just absorbed in my work before, it’s a traditional virtue.”
Li Yue sat on the hospital bed and gently rubbed Yu Nan's head.
Li Yue knew exactly what kind of people her family members were, and she herself had never been much better than Yu Nan.
"You should get some rest. I need to go and take care of things at the company."
Author's Note:
Note 1: Stuck on a certain level in the game and unable to pass it.
Note 2: Playing the game for a certain amount of time will drop sellable cards. "Hanging up cards" refers to leaving the game running without actually playing it, thus increasing the game's playtime.
Chapter 7 So This Is What You're Like, Dr. Gu
After Li Yue left, Yu Nan became completely unruly.
"Dr. Gu, when can I be discharged from the hospital?"
Gu Wanqiu glanced at her and said, "Your cousin won't let me let you out, so you'd better stay here for a few days."
"But I'm so~ bored~"
Yu Nan yawned, "I'm completely paralyzed on the bed and can't do anything. It's like being in prison."
"No, this is worse than being in jail! At least in jail you get labor reform! My sister took all my electronic devices! At least leave me an MP3 player to listen to music!"
"Should I call your sister back to keep you company?"
"No, please don't," Yu Nan said, clasping her hands together and making a pleading gesture to Gu Wanqiu.
"Dr. Gu, I understand your eagerness to see your wife during work hours, but you also have to consider the patient's feelings. What if the patient is so excited to see President Li visiting the hospital in his busy schedule that he passes away with a smile on his face?"
“Please, this patient should also consider other people’s feelings,” Gu Wanqiu pushed up her glasses. “Every time she faints, it’s in the middle of the night, and every time she’s keeping us up all night. Can’t she just faint during the day?”
"I can't control it. If I could, I wouldn't have fainted," Yu Nan shrugged. "I hope this won't interfere with your good time together."
Gu Wanqiu didn't want to talk to her.
Such a lovely girl, why does she have to have a mouth?
"Dr. Gu~ Do you doctors chat the whole time during surgery? What do you usually chat about? Chat with me for a bit, okay?"
Gu Wanqiu ignored her.
"When I was in the lab, we often chatted while doing experiments, otherwise we just couldn't endure several hours of long experiments."
Yu Nan said to herself, "I'm so useless. I can't do experiments anymore, and now I can't even make an indie game."
How did this become emo?
Gu Wanqiu turned around and stared at Yu Nan expressionlessly.
If Li Yue hadn't asked her to look after Yu Nan, she wouldn't have wanted to stay in Yu Nan's hospital room for even a second longer.
"Dr. Gu, you're so aloof! How did my sister manage to win you over?"
Gu Wanqiu thought to herself, "At least your sister doesn't have your gossipy mouth."
"Dr. Gu, you don't want to see me, do you?"
Gu Wanqiu nodded without any attempt to hide her agreement.
"Then hurry up and put me back!" Yu Nan looked at Gu Wanqiu with a grin, "That way, it's good for you, good for me, and good for everyone."
Are you a primary school student?
I really don't know where the Yu Nan who used to be so proud, who would frantically reflect on herself and secretly shed tears if she heard someone say something bad about her, has gone.
“That’s right!” Yu Nan slapped her thigh. “Actually, I’m 6 years old this year, in the first grade of elementary school. I’m Li Yue’s illegitimate daughter. She had me with another man behind your back. But because I’m growing up so fast, she has to claim to the outside world that I’m her cousin.”
"Then you'll have to call me stepfather," Gu Wanqiu sneered. "Your father's going to check on you, so stay put, understand?"
"So my sister is the bottom one?" Yu Nan feigned surprise. "I didn't expect you to be like this, Dr. Gu."
Gu Wanqiu had already given up on life, so he shouldn't have bothered to respond.
"Given your current physical condition, you'll have to come back within a few days of being discharged from the hospital."
"How could that be!" Yu Nan grinned and held up three fingers. "Dr. Gu, how about we make a bet?"