The room fell into thought.

  "So," Lin Feng spoke up after giving them a moment to consider. "What do you guys think?"

  Chen Ming spoke first.

  "It sounds interesting. We generate promo for each other." He nodded. "I'm in."

  Zhang Wei shrugged.

  "I don't mind either. It isn't a loss for us anyway." He scratched his head. "I suppose I should work on the banner ad then."

  Lin Feng turned to Li Jun.

  "What do you think? As the CEO of both companies."

  Li Jun considered for a moment.

  Then he nodded.

  "I believe it's a good deal for both parties."

  He extended his right hand and shook his left.

  "Deal."

  The others burst out laughing.

  Lin Feng shook his head with a smile, then turned to Zhang Wei.

  "I'll send the promotional art to you. You can do your thing from there."

  Zhang Wei nodded. "Leave it to me."

  Then he paused.

  "By the way, we really need a developer account to post our app officially. Especially now that we're planning to expand."

  "It might look sketchy always distributing our app through the binary file."

  Chen Ming nodded in agreement.

  "I've also noticed some people trying to spread malware, claiming it's an updated version of our app." He frowned. "I banned them and it doesn't seem like anyone fell for it, but still."

  Lin Feng nodded slowly.

  He glanced at Li Jun.

  "We're working on a developer account for Game Store right now. It shouldn't be all that different for App Store and Pie Store." He paused. "We'll work on it."

  …

  Later that day, Lin Feng’s office.

  "Our growth has somewhat gone stale since the initial boom," Yu Shen began. "But it's still climbing steadily. We're estimated to hit two million AUM tomorrow, or the day after."

  "Thanks to the optimized algorithms, the profits have somewhat stabilized." He paused. "Well, not really. It still fluctuates a lot, but we don't have as many low days anymore."

  He looked up.

  "Our usual gain now hangs around five hundred to a thousand yuan in performance fees. As for management fees, they're still climbing steadily."

  Lin Feng nodded slowly.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Still, he hadn't expected the rate of growth to slow down this much. They were probably getting frequent withdrawals now. The people who went in first might have lost their initial enthusiasm.

  This was common.

  Maybe they should consider broader advertisement.

  Well, they would think about that later.

  For now...

  "Have you encountered any problems?" Lin Feng asked.

  Yu Shen shook his head.

  "Not much. Just a few minor inconveniences here and there, but I solved them."

  "How much do we have in savings?"

  "About fifteen thousand."

  Lin Feng leaned back.

  "We've grown quite fast," he said. "I'm expecting a compliance inspection soon."

  He tapped his finger on the desk.

  "I know a lawyer, so I'll start working with him on the compliance report. How about you work on things on your end?"

  Yu Shen nodded. "I understand."

  "While you're at it," Lin Feng continued, "use some of that money to get an office space for Tianji Capital. An exclusive one."

  He gestured around the room.

  "This office is for Fenghua. While it's not illegal for us to operate here, it could cause us problems down the line."

  Yu Shen nodded again.

  "I'll look into it."

  With that, he stood, gathered his things, and left.

  The door clicked shut behind him.

  Lin Feng remained seated, staring at the wall.

  …

  Lin Feng glanced at his phone.

  A notification from the Xunfeng Delivery app.

  He tapped on it.

  The banner ad for Fool's Gambit was already live, displayed prominently across the top of the screen.

  He was about to put the phone down when another notification caught his eye.

  He opened it.

  It was a community post made by Su Yue. The image was from the photoshoot they did - she lay gracefully on a floating crescent moon, bathed in soft ethereal light. The text beneath advertised her return stream.

  He smiled.

  He scrolled down to the comments section.

  Excitement. Anticipation. A few simps declaring their undying loyalty.

  His smile widened.

  He set the phone down and stretched his arms above his head.

  Then he opened his laptop.

  Since the game was live for testing, he should get started working on any bugs that were reported.

  He pulled up the statistics page alongside the production environment and began monitoring the situation.

  …

  A while later, he glanced at the time.

  It was time for his lesson.

  He closed out of the production environment and began preparing.

  The lesson went as it always did - two hours of teaching, guiding his student through the material.

  When he finished, he gathered his things and headed out.

  He hailed a taxi and gave the driver Su Yue's address.

  …

  Lin Feng knocked on the door.

  A moment later, it opened.

  Yanzi stood on the other side.

  "Lin Feng," she greeted, stepping aside to let him in.

  He nodded and walked past her.

  Inside, Su Yue sat on the couch. Mengqi was at the table nearby, her expression stern as she typed furiously on her laptop.

  "Hey," Lin Feng said.

  Su Yue looked up and smiled. "Lin Feng."

  Mengqi didn't respond. Her eyes remained fixed on the screen.

  Lin Feng walked over and came up behind her, glancing at the laptop.

  "How are things going?"

  "I'm working on it," she said without looking up. "The music is about to go live. And she’s going live in thirty minutes."

  She paused her typing for just a moment.

  "Could you help me set up the equipment?"

  "Sure."

  He set down his things and folded up his sleeves.

  He grabbed the streaming equipment from the corner and began setting it up - the camera, the lighting, the microphone stand.

  As he worked, his mind went over the plan they had made for her debut.

  First, they would make posts about the return stream. That was already done.

  Then, a few minutes before the return stream, they would post the official audio release for the mini album.

  He would then use his water army to link to the mini album in the forums that were discussing the leaked clip.

  The people would come to listen to the leaked song and in turn listen to the full mini album. They would quickly realize it wasn't from their favorite group.

  They'd want to know who this was.

  Since the streaming platforms linked to her account, they would eventually find her. And then they'd find the return stream post and realize she was about to go live.

  They would wait.

  Of course, although the people who had seen the leak were many, those who were actually interested in the whole controversy were just a fraction of that.

  And those who would be available to view the music right now would be an even smaller fraction.

  And those who would go sleuthing to find her streaming account would be another fraction still.

  But even so...

  The raw number of people waiting on her return stream…