41: Chapter 41, "The Azure Sky," was leaked during its public beta test.

The Blue Whale Games office area was brightly lit. It was already eleven o'clock at night, but the Research and Development Department was like a disturbed hornet's nest, with every face etched with anxiety. The open beta data for "Cangqiong" was still flashing on the screens — 200,000 downloads on the first day, soaring to 238,000 on the second, and stabilizing at a daily average of 240,000. It should have been a time for celebration, but the server crash alarms were ringing incessantly like a death knell.

"It crashed again!" A young man from the Testing Group slammed his mouse. "That's the 17th time! As soon as the number of concurrent users exceeds 250,000, it immediately lags like a slideshow and then just dies!"

Research and Development General Manager Wei Xiang's Mediterranean hairstyle was ruffled like a chicken's nest. He kicked open the door to the technical director's office. Chang Yuan was staring blankly at the code, the cigarette butts in his ashtray piled up like a small mountain.

"Chang Yuan! Give me a straight answer, damn it! Can this BUG be fixed or not?" Wei Xiang's roar made the windows rattle.

Chang Yuan looked up abruptly, his dark circles so heavy they looked like smoky eye makeup, his voice hoarse: "General Manager Wei, give me three more days... no, two days! I can definitely fix it!"

"Two days?" Wei Xiang sneered, grabbing the project proposal from the desk and throwing it at him. "Tomorrow! The Chairman is flying back from Japan and wants a report by noon! You want me to tell him 'wait two more days'?"

The proposal hit Chang Yuan's face with a "smack," but he didn't dare dodge. Wei Xiang panted heavily, his tone carrying a hint of despair: "Do you have any idea what the President just said on the phone? If it's not resolved in one day, I'm out! Whether he can keep his own position as President is hard to say! You think this is a minor issue? This is this year's strategic-level project!"

The open beta data for "Cangqiong" should have been a cause for celebration for the entire company. With 200,000 downloads on the first day, soaring to 238,000 on the second, and stabilizing at a daily average of 240,000, the revenue had surpassed ten million in the following month. Even the President had patted Wei Xiang on the shoulder at the victory party, saying, "This year's year-end bonus will be doubled."

But no one expected that with only two days left until the official release, the server would suddenly fail — once the number of concurrent users surpassed 250,000, it would be like a punctured balloon, collapsing instantly, with only a line of eerie garbled code appearing in the back-end logs.

The people from the Technology Department stayed up for three nights in a row, scouring the code over and over again, before finally reporting with pale faces: "General Manager Wei, it's an issue with the underlying core module. There's an encrypted code block that has locked the expansion logic, and we can't crack it."

Everyone's eyes fell on Chang Yuan.

The predecessor of "Cangqiong" was the "star path project." Last year, when Zhang Fan handed this demo over to Chang Yuan, Chang Yuan had even promised Zhang Fan that he would definitely submit it to the higher-ups.

He did submit it, but the name was changed to Chang Yuan's own.

In fact, this project was just one of the most inconspicuous among many plans; who would have thought Zhang Fan would make this game so well.

With its stunning space exploration setting and smooth combat system, it was spotted at a glance by Research and Development General Manager Wei Xiang and was praised as an excellent planning project all the way.

A month ago, at the victory party for "Deep Sea War," the President had even decided on the spot that it would be the key project of the year. He had also patted Chang Yuan on the shoulder, saying that this game alone could guarantee a year-end bonus of at least seven figures.

During that time, Chang Yuan walked on air. He even took Gu Feifei to the Maldives for a week, spending nearly a hundred thousand just on bags for her.

But none of the leaders knew that the original framework of this project came from an employee who had been fired — Zhang Fan.

"Director Chang," a young programmer spoke cautiously, "should we try reverse compilation?"

"Try my ass!" Chang Yuan stood up abruptly. Although he only had a superficial understanding of the project's core logic, his years of professional experience were no joke; otherwise, he wouldn't have become the director of the Technical Programming Department.

"This code is encrypted; forcing a crack will only trigger an infinite loop!"

Chang Yuan knew better than anyone who had left this encrypted block of code.

Back then, Zhang Fan was pushed down the stairs by Gu Feifei and hospitalized, and then fired by the company on the grounds of "absenteeism." Chang Yuan had immediately moved Zhang Fan's computer over.

At first, he just wanted to see if there were any missing design drafts, but deep in the D drive, he found an encrypted folder — inside were all the patch solutions for the "star path project," from initial loading optimization to later server expansion, and even potential BUGs were clearly marked.

The previous times "Cangqiong" had issues, they were all smoothed over using these ready-made solutions. He had even earned the reputation of a "Technical Genius" in front of the President based on these repairs.

But this time, under the entry for the "250,000 concurrent users threshold" in the folder, there was only a single comment: [Key].

"Key?" Chang Yuan had scoffed at it then, thinking Zhang Fan was just being mysterious. Now he finally understood that this was a trap.

Chang Yuan leaned back in his chair, cold sweat soaking his shirt. Only now did he realize in hindsight — Zhang Fan was not as easygoing as he seemed.

This encrypted module's BUG was clearly left there on purpose! Usually hidden away, it would jam the entire project at a critical moment, forcing the company to seek him out.

"General Manager Wei, how about... we temporarily limit the number of online users?" Huang Cailun from the Technology Department shrunk his neck, his voice as thin as a mosquito's hum.

"Limit the number of users?" Wei Xiang sprang up from his chair, the bloodshot veins in his eyes looking like they were about to burst. "Are you thinking with your ass?"

He grabbed the cigarette box nearby and threw it hard, along with the half-box of unopened cigarettes inside. The cigarette box hit the conference table with a "smack" and split open, cigarettes rolling all over the floor.

The meeting room was dead silent. All twenty-plus people kept their heads down, even their breathing becoming shallow.

Du Xiaoyu from the Game Testing Department had white fingertips from tightly clutching the expected data sheet; a young girl from the Operations Group was so scared her eyes turned red, the pen in her hand fell to the floor with a "clatter," and she hurriedly bent down to pick it up, her movements as frantic as a startled rabbit.

"Right now, 'Cangqiong' has 12 million registered users!" Wei Xiang's roar made the glass tremble. He grabbed the reports from the table and slammed them onto the floor, A4 papers scattering everywhere. "The Planning Department calculated that this game's peak concurrent users could break 10 million! 10 million! Do you know what that means?"

He panted heavily, his leather shoes grinding over the papers on the floor as he walked step by step toward Huang Cailun, glaring down at him: "It means that from the skin store alone, we could have a daily revenue of fifty million! It means we can leverage three billion in copyright collaborations! You want me to tell the Chairman, 'Our game is too popular, we have to limit the traffic'?"

Huang Cailun's face was as white as paper, his lips trembling, unable to say a single word.

Wei Xiang turned around abruptly, his gaze cutting into Chang Yuan like a knife, his finger almost poking his face: "I'm telling you, Chang Yuan, if this BUG isn't fixed by eight o'clock the day after tomorrow—"

He paused, his voice laced with ice, "Both you and I will have to pack our bags and get lost! No, before getting lost, we'll have to bear tens of millions in compensation! You'll never be able to hold your head up in the gaming industry again!"

Chang Yuan's face turned pale and then flushed, cold sweat from his forehead dripping down his sideburns and soaking his shirt collar. He opened his mouth, wanting to say "I'll do my best," but seeing Wei Xiang's murderous eyes, he swallowed the words back down.

Everyone knew that tomorrow's official version would collaborate with three major live-streaming platforms to promote a "Server-wide Leveling Race." There were over twenty top-tier streamers signed on, with an estimated peak of at least one million concurrent users.

Dropping the ball at this time, let alone compensation, it was likely that even the Chairman wouldn't be able to protect them — after all, the Chairman had already flown back from Japan last night, and when his private jet landed, he was accompanied by the company's Legal Department and Audit Department.

"Meeting adjourned!" Wei Xiang kicked over a nearby folding chair, the metallic crash so piercing it made one's scalp tingle.