To ascend, I had no choice but to create games

996? That’s a blessing, something you don’t qualify for! At your age, can you even sleep? Give me 25 hours of work every day! If there’s not enough time, get up an hour early to come to the crew!

Haven’t been home for a while, feeling down? I’ll raise your salary!

Work stress too much, don’t want to do it anymore? I’ll raise your salary!

Feel that the company’s environment is too poor, the sleeping bags you use every night stink, want money to buy a new one? Forget about bonuses, I’ll raise your salary!

Each employee has their own stress bar and level of happiness, where rest can reduce stress, while a high salary can increase happiness.

As long as the stress bar doesn’t exceed the level of happiness, employees will remain emotionally stable and continue to toil for the boss, grudging and grateful at the same time.

And through Liuzi’s series of actions, the employees’ daily stress levels soared, but so did their happiness, racing neck and neck, a fierce battle that left employees’ heads shining bright red.

Moreover, due to the 24-hour non-stop work, the employees’ exhaustion levels were also skyrocketing.

For this reason, Liuzi began to buy a large amount of beverages that could relieve fatigue, since compared to the cost of drinks, the loss from letting employees rest would be even greater.

Every day he was promising pie in the sky, constantly demanding overtime, squeezing their mental energy to the limit, with employees often complaining: “I don’t have a brain left,” “Grandma, is that you,” “I really want to rest, but the director has given us too much,” and similar nonsense.

In the blink of an eye, as the month in the game was about to end, he had already successfully produced four programs.

These four shows were created by the crew working day and night, with a weekly show’s efficiency comparable to that of gods, every minute filled with blood and sweat.

And because he used high-star employees, the quality of the programs was very high, making them highly competitive in their first year, definitely at the level that would dominate the charts if released.

However, high efficiency and high quality meant high salaries, and by the end of the month, the employees’ wages had been pulled extremely high.

The salaries of the greedy five-star employees were outrageously high; if he really paid out this money, it would likely lead to hyperinflation, with prices possibly soaring by hundreds of times.

The only path awaiting Liuzi was bankruptcy.

But Liuzi chose another path.

He fired the whole group.

This group of employees had been working overtime day and night for a month, and just as they were looking forward to getting their hard-earned pay the day before…

They were fired…

If they were real people, not game NPCs, they undoubtedly would have already planned how to spend their wages—whether to pay off mortgages or car loans, send children to school, or treat themselves to some good food…

They were fired…

In reality, when the boss promises too much, employees quickly catch on, but here it’s a game, and NPCs have their own set of game logic.

They can’t spot the problem; they can only passively comply.

Through the screen, Liuzi could see the astonishment and anger of this group of people.

Some even kept asking Liuzi over and over, the dialogue box popping up again and again, repeatedly asking, “Are you really going to do something like this? Weren’t we cooperating happily before?”

After forcibly firing everyone, each employee became exceptionally angry, and they were extremely dissatisfied but powerless.

They were just a group of NPCs, what could they do?

The game had no severe penalty for the director who fired employees, only a hit to the player’s reputation.

And those employees who were forcefully dismissed, their anger went off the charts, and in the future, facing Liuzi’s banner, they would just spit fiercely, probably unable to use these employees again.

But Liuzi didn’t care.

He was new to running a program group with no reputation to lose, and even if it went negative, Liuzi didn’t mind.

After all, he already had four pretty good programs in hand, what did a little reputation matter to him?

Convinced Liuzi was resolute, these employees could only file out of the program studio, cursing as they went:

“What a lousy company, I’m never coming back.”

“Trash producer. Trash crew.”

“I hate you guys.”

“You’ll regret firing me.”

“What you’re doing is against the law.”

“I’ll call my lawyer!”

The employees on the screen could only keep cursing Liuzi, but due to the game mechanics, they couldn’t do much except leave the place angrily and go outside.

Watching these humanized reactions of the employees made Liuzi feel a bit uneasy.

However, great achievements require sacrifices of minor matters; what is a small sacrifice for one’s grand directorial ambitions?

After all, it’s just a game; there’s no need for such high moral standards.

The world is so big, it’s hard to find three-legged toads, but there’s no shortage of employees desperate for jobs.

In the following year, Liuzi’s tactics became very straightforward.

Constant campus recruiting, constantly hiring employees, and then working them 24 hours straight to do his bidding, firing them the day before payday.

This strategy required no salary payouts to the employees, and the monthly expenses were just some operational costs. Anyway, his initial capital was sufficient, and one year’s time was insignificant.

Easily accumulating over 60 quality programs, Liuzi felt ready to move to the next phase.

Out of these, he sold forty programs that were of slightly lower quality.

And though they were of lower quality, this was in comparison to the other sixty programs.

Compared to other programs on the market, the quality of these programs was excellent, and since each one was a combination he had researched, every one of them had the potential to be a hit.

Due to their superior quality, the market gave his programs extremely high ratings; the funds he garnered from selling the programs allowed Liuzi to accumulate a large sum of money in the first year, totaling to what he had in his sixth year previously.

In business simulation games, as long as one’s capital operations are solid, the earnings throughout the game don’t increase linearly but exponentially.

Having acquired the wealth of what one might only achieve by the sixth year, the achievements Liuzi could reach after might be ten times greater than his previous playthrough, or even higher.

Looking at the rapidly increasing numbers on the screen, Liuzi felt as though he had unlocked the body’s meridian channels; he had an epiphany.

This is how the game should be played!

You can get your conscience back, but lost money is gone for good!

With the startup capital in hand, next up was to whitewash the past and provide positive coverage for himself through advertising campaigns, while hiring employees for training and enhancing their attributes.

He split his employees into two groups very quickly; those with lower star ratings kept churning out subpar programs. Even programs riddled with flaws could be sold, as his reputation was high, and the base enhancements were quite significant.

Even if the clients weren’t satisfied, it would only result in a deduction of some of his reputation, but he had plenty of paid posters, so a little blow to his reputation was no big deal.

The high-starred employees with exceptional traits were his treasures; he rarely used them, instead, he let them train continuously and increase their attributes, secretly cultivating them as his ace in the hole.

By the tenth year, Liuzi had mastered the unorthodox tricks of the trade.

The layoff strategy was still in use, but this time it targeted low-level employees who had maxed out their fatigue levels.

These employees were worn out, and it would take them half a year of rest to recover, leaving their residual value almost nil.

Rather than letting them occupy his quota, it was better to give them severance pay and let them go.

Since their star levels weren’t high, their wages were not high either; the severance pay was a drop in the bucket for Liuzi and didn’t matter to him at all.

Moreover, because he provided severance pay, his reputation actually improved a bit, and the title of ‘Conscious Director’ emerged, making Liuzi feel like he was somewhat of a great philanthropist.

Finally, in the fifteenth year, the long-coveted right to direct the Spring Festival Gala appeared, and his long-treasured employees were put to use. Their high attributes made the gala a great success and smoothly secured him the directorial rights for the following years.

By the twentieth year, he had finally achieved fame and fortune.

At this moment, he had been playing continuously for ten hours, from night until dawn.

Although he was exhausted, seeing the list of achievements presented by his secretary, he was satisfied and ready to welcome the final ending.

However, when he saw the ending with former employees appearing one by one, the smile on his face gradually froze.