432: A whole year of wasted time

Instead, he proactively worked overtime at home to complete it.

Xu Lian carefully flipped through the stack of design drafts.

To be honest, after his personal training, the Planning Department's progress was quite obvious.

Many of the ideas were good, the only drawback was that the overall design concept was still a bit unrefined.

They put a lot of effort into character appearance design, but somewhat overlooked the core positioning of League of Legends—this isn't an online game primarily focused on aesthetics.

Every hero has their own unique backstory.

Some are bleak, some are sad, some are painful, some are joyful, or carefree.

The world behind each character is rich and colorful, not something that can be summarized by a single style.

It is these different settings that define the true appearance of each character.

KaiSa is a very successful design example.

Even if her face was largely covered before her debut, it didn't affect players' love and pity for her at all!

Despite this, Xu Lian still patiently went through all the design drafts.

Just as Xu Lian thought there would be no surprises this time, a design of a lean, knife-wielding skeleton caught his attention.

His gaze lingered there for about half a minute, and during this silence, the Planning Department Director's heart pounded like a drum.

No one could guess what Xu Lian was thinking at that moment.

"Who drew this picture?" Xu Lian pulled out the artwork and, after seeing the signature, continued, "Lan Xinju, your bonus for this quarter will be doubled directly."

As soon as he finished speaking, the Planning Department Director's mouth slightly opened, his face filled with disbelief.

Happiness came too suddenly!

This was something the entire department had dreamed of!

This not only meant that Lan Xinju would be commended, but that the entire design team had won honor!

The director desperately suppressed his excitement, nodding repeatedly, already planning how to generously reward this meritorious employee after the meeting.

The Planning Department saw the Design Department receive praise, feeling both admiration and envy.

"The Planning Department also performed well this time, keep up the good work."

Xu Lian said this, concluding his work inspection of the two departments.

The Planning Department Director immediately responded, already thinking about how to strategize this week to gain President Xu's affirmation next time.

Meanwhile, as Xu Lian was chairing his meeting, another scene was unfolding in the meeting room of Xinyi Clothing Company.

However, compared to the relaxed discussion atmosphere, the mood at New Clothes was as oppressive as the low pressure before a storm.

Aside from answering questions, the executives didn't dare to say an extra word!

Fearing that they might accidentally incur the boss's wrath and be fired.

Slam!

The Chairman abruptly stood up and slammed the document heavily onto the table!

"Is the Public Relations Department just sitting around doing nothing? I'm paying a bunch of useless people, aren't I?!"

He roared loudly, his emotions somewhat out of control.

Looking at the Chairman with red eyes and a swollen neck, the meeting room fell into a deathly silence, some people already couldn't help but lower their heads.

"Why aren't you going to find a way to spend money to put out the fire, to suppress the trending topics?!"

A fiercer reprimand rang out, scaring the Public Relations Director into quickly standing up, even stumbling and almost falling.

Bang!

The Chairman grabbed the water cup from the table and threw it at him, "Now get out!"

The situation was far worse than imagined.

Before the board meeting, the stock price had only dropped by 7%; now the decline had expanded to 11%!

You know, even with good performance, it's hard for the stock to rise more than 3% in a day.

This single day basically meant he had worked for an entire year for nothing!

Thump thump thump!

A knock on the door broke the deadlock, and everyone in the room secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

They didn't know who was unlucky, but at least it would divert the Chairman's attention.

A female employee in professional attire pushed the door open and entered, holding documents in her hands, but her palms were already sweating.

"Chairman Chen, here's the latest stock market situation."

She tried to maintain a smile as she handed over the documents.

At the same time, she already anticipated what would happen next—without surprise, the documents would be thrown back at her untouched.

Slam!

As expected, the stack of documents hit her abdomen heavily.

She seemed to be accustomed to such scenes, lowering her head to pick up the documents, placing them back on the table before quietly excusing herself.

This interlude, however, not only failed to ease the atmosphere but made the room even more tense and oppressive.

No need to think much to know that the stock price had definitely crashed again!

After the woman walked out, her whole body went limp, and she sat on the floor, silent for a long time.

"Sister Yun, are you okay?" A young girl from the same department, Honghong, asked with a worried expression.

These days were like a nightmare for them.

Sister Yun nodded weakly.

She was on her period today, feeling several times more uncomfortable than usual, which was why she couldn't hold on.

But she also knew that this company had now completely made her lose confidence.

If the boss was so anxious and distressed, what future could this company have?

Honghong seemed to understand what she was thinking and whispered, "I was brought up by you; if you leave, I'll go with you."

After hearing her, Sister Yun looked at her thoughtfully.

Although she still had confidence in herself and wasn't afraid of not finding work wherever she went.

But Honghong had just graduated and lacked experience, and her future development truly worried her.

It wasn't just Sister Yun; in fact, many employees at New Clothes had long considered resigning.

It was just that other companies currently didn't have suitable positions open, so everyone had no choice but to remain here for now.

Staying in such a negative environment offered no hope for development.

...

Inside the Aoyou Tianxia Game Company President's office.

Xu Lian held a character sketch drawn by Lan Xinju, lost in thought. He had to admit, he did have some talent.

The design of this character almost perfectly matched the image he had been thinking about for a long time.

This person is pyke!

pyke was born in Bilgewater, a dangerous and savage place. Many locals made a living by scraping by at the slaughter docks.

The place where pyke usually worked also had another name—Bloodharbor.

Every day, monsters caught from the deep sea were brought ashore there, waiting to be dissected. No matter how big the waves, they couldn't wash away the greasy stench seeping from the deck seams.

As time passed, pyke gradually lost patience with the monotonous slaughtering work and decided to try a hunting method that almost no one dared to use—a technique derived from the traditional methods of the Serpent Isles, which involved leaping onto prey with bare hands, plunging hooks into the monster's body, and then disemboweling it on the spot.

Over time, his skill became increasingly refined, and the heads cut off by pyke became the most sought-after commodity.

However, constantly dealing with death was always a high-risk job. During one hunting mission, the fleet was attacked by a monster, and the terrified captain, in order to outlast, directly cut his lifeline.