I am Really a Superstar

There was an explosion of interest for the demo at the booth!

Voices of unexpected surprise by the gamers were constantly sounding!

Ha Qiqi wondered and asked, "The booth babes have already left, but why are there still so many people?"

"Plants vs. Zombies?" Little Wang hesitated for a moment, then said, "How can a game with such a title be any fun? Could these people be shills paid for by the video game company? Why are so many of them praising the game? How much money did they spend to employ them!"

Shills?

Shills your sister!

Zhang Ye rolled his eyes at her.

Wu Yi came up from behind them. "Looks like there\'s a lot of praise for this game, I’m also gonna give it a try."

Wu Yi went to join the line. When Little Wang and a few others from The Voice\'s program team saw that, they were also itching to give it a try. Ultimately, they ended up joining the line to give the game a try as well.

When it was their turn to try, their indifference at the beginning turned to shock!

When the game started for Ha Qiqi, she was startled for a moment!

It was the same for Wu Yi. He immediately started clicking the mouse and was so focused on the game that he couldn\'t hear his colleagues talking even though they were right beside him. His full attention was squarely on the game.

Little Wang even exclaimed, "This game is ten times more fun than Fishing Master! Is this a new game or a sequel? Why haven\'t I heard about this game before if it\'s this fun?"

Wu Yi marveled, "After just two levels, even a person like me who doesn\'t usually play games is getting a little addicted. This creativity, graphics, design, and the attention to detail! This should be a game made by some foreign company, right?"

A female editor pointed at something. "No, look there. It\'s a domestic video game company."

Wu Yi said unbelieving, "There\'s actually a domestic video game company that can create such an excellent product?"

Little Wang immediately waved to the area outside the booth. "Director Zhang, come and try, come and try it out!"

Zhang Ye laughed, "I\'m fine here, thank you."

"It\'s super fun, really!" Little Wang praised loudly.

Thinking about it, Zhang Ye also joined the line. Of course he knew how good this game was. Back in his previous world, be it Plants vs. Zombies or Plants vs. Zombies 2, he had played them both. The reason he was going to give the game a try was mainly because he wanted to see how close to the original game Fat Sis\'s company had managed to make it. He wanted to know if they closely followed his plan and design. In addition, if there were any bugs he could inform Fat Sis to get them fixed in time.

Once he started the game, Zhang Ye had a good grasp of it.

The restoration level was very high!

It was probably at about 90% of the original game!

Knowing this, Zhang Ye began to feel reassured. He knew that Fat Sis and her staff had made this game in accordance to his design, without adding any modifications of their own. The design of the plants, the zombie\'s speed and health, the graphics style, every plants\' cooldown times—they were mostly all the same as the original.

At this moment, a few media representatives from a video game magazine and some newspaper publishers headed over when they heard about the popularity of this booth. Extremely curious of all that was going on, they also joined the line to give the game a try. As a result, the few of them ended up looking at each other, and could see the shock in each other\'s eyes. Immediately, they lowered their heads again and continued to research this game. Judging from their expressions, they were quite stunned with amazement at this Plants vs. Zombies game, and simultaneously felt that it was incredible!

A domestic video game company?

It\'s even a small, unknown video game company?

And yet their game is fantastic! But no one has ever heard of a domestic video game company that had such standards! Which rock did they pop out from under?

What exactly was a puzzle game? To the countless people in this world, their concept and understanding of a puzzle game would surely be simple graphics, simple gameplay, and simple controls. However, on this day, Plants vs. Zombies had made them open their eyes and made them get a renewed understanding of puzzle games. Real-time strategy? Combined with tower defense features? Looking at those demo versions with their grayed out game modes, there was even an adventure mode included? Zen Garden? Mini-games? The depth of richness of this game and replayability was simply many times greater than other puzzle games! If puzzle games could be segregated into large, medium, and small, then Plants vs. Zombies was clearly considered as a mega-scale puzzle game!

These video game media personnel were in disbelief!

Around them, the gamers who had tried out the game also thought that this game was a great surprise to them!

"I have a feeling! That this game will definitely be an instant hit!"

"This is really uplifting for our countrymen!"

"Yeah, can you think of a time when a video game company from our country made such an amazing puzzle game? In the past, haven\'t we always just been imitating the foreign games and picking up their leftovers?"

"Although I don\'t wish to admit it, the development of our country\'s puzzle games is much poorer than puzzle games from other countries. Their game production standards are ahead of ours by four or five years, like that very popular Fishing Master which was developed overseas, and was only licensed by a domestic video game company. If I have to say it, then there are no puzzle games made by our domestic video game companies worth mentioning. But all of that has changed now! A worthy name has appeared! This game is definitely world-class standard!"

"Not only that! I think that Plants vs. Zombies is even leading the overseas standards by a couple years! I\'ve never heard of any foreign video game companies that could create such an excellent game! It\'s way too much fun!"

"When does it go on sale?"

"I can\'t wait!"

"Fuck, I\'ve always pirated games in the past, but I think I should definitely support the original this time! It\'s so rare that we finally get a game that can match a foreign-made game!"

...

At Hall 3.

Some of the staff members at several game booths were chatting.

"Eh, why is the crowd getting smaller and smaller?"

"Yeah, where did everyone go?"

"It\'s not even lunchtime yet. Weren\'t there a lot of people just a while ago? Why did it become so deserted now? It has never been like this in the past years, has it?"

"Don\'t you all know yet?"

"Know about what?"

"A lot of the visitors have gone to Hall 2. I heard that there\'s a puzzle game being exhibited there, a game called \'Plants hitting Zombies\' or something. It\'s such a hit that all the gamers have the booth surrounded. More than twenty of those video game magazines and media outlets have also gone over to take a look. It seems to be causing quite a sensation, but I don\'t know about the details myself."

"Puzzle game? How can a small-scale game like that be any fun!"

"What? Rather than coming to try out our large-scale 3D graphics games, everyone went over there to play some puzzle game instead? How\'s that possible! Those people must be confused, right?"

"I wonder about that too!"

...

At the booth of Plants vs. Zombies.

Right now, this place was extremely packed, with the visitors gathering and extending to the outside of the booth for dozens of meters! It was basically full of people!

When the organizers received news of this, they flew into a rage, thinking that this exhibit must have gotten the bikini booth babes to come back to their booth. They immediately brought a team of security personnel and rushed over, but when they got there, they were dumbfounded by the scene they saw. Rather than the bikini booth babes, they saw that the booth babes who were within the dress code had all been nudged out of the booth to some place else instead. The entire booth was filled with gamers! A sea of gamers!

What…what was this situation?

Fuck, why are there so many gamers gathered around here!

And they were still wondering why the other games\' booths in Hall 2 were so empty. So it was because everyone had come running over here!? Are you guys giving out games or giving out cash? The popularity over here is getting too hot to handle!

Inside the booth.

Zhang Ye and the others made their way out from the booth after they finished playing a demo of the game. Only after they left did they notice that Jiang Yuan, his kid, and the dozens of Central TV Department 1 staff were all lining up to try out the game.

Jiang Yuan also saw them, but did not make any direct eye contact. Central TV Department 1\'s relationship with Zhang Ye had completely broken down, and since they couldn\'t get their hands on The Voice\'s overseas copyright from him, the overseas license deal that they had already completed negotiations on with the foreign party—worth was large sum—couldn\'t be completed. Not to mention Zhang Ye\'s court case that everyone knew about and had embarrassed all of them. Whether it was a matter of image or interest, their relationship was ruined beyond all repair. The only relationship that the two parties had right now could only be described with one sentence: Fight it out! Let\'s see if our Central TV Department 1\'s freezing of artists is more powerful or whether you, Zhang Ye, have more endurance! In Jiang Yuan\'s opinion, this battle was already decided the moment it started. No matter how many lawsuits Zhang Ye could win against them, he could not escape from the "freeze" they had in place for him! Making a celebrity lose their source of popularity in less than a year would definitely be a fatal blow to them. It was as good as a death sentence! Since it had already come to this, no matter how capable Zhang Ye was, Jiang Yuan could no longer be bothered by the sight of him anymore. He had basically caused so much trouble for them at Central TV Department 1 that the executives of Department 1 hated him to the bone!

"Dad, is it our turn yet?" Little Qi asked impatiently

Jiang Yuan replied, "It should be our turn soon. There\'s still five more people ahead of us."

Little Qi said angrily, "Why are they so slow? Tell them to hurry up!"

Beside them, Jiang Yuan\'s secretary suddenly called out loudly, "Director Jiang, let Little Qi come over to this line. It\'s my turn over here!"

"OK." Jiang Yuan let Little Qi run along.

After a short while, a young staff member from Central TV Department 1 flanking him fawned, "Director Jiang, come over to my line. I\'ve got a spot for you!"

Jiang Yuan did not stand on ceremony as the console with the demo was coincidentally situated right beside his son. He strolled over casually and picked up the mouse to accompany his son to test out the game.

Innermost of the booth.

A woman who was in charge of the booth for Plants vs. Zombies finally freed up some time to welcome the media. "Hello, everyone. Sorry to have kept you waiting. I will start accepting interviews from the media now." Looking at her, she seemed very excited, probably because she hadn\'t expected such an explosive scene today. She had just gotten off the phone a moment ago after making several calls to report to the company on the situation here.

At this moment, more than 15 media outlets surrounded her!

They included those from the video game magazines, newspaper firms, and even Central TV!

A reporter from one of the top video game magazines in the country quickly kicked off the interview. "This is just the first day of this year\'s National C-G Gaming Expo, but your company\'s game is already getting all the headlines. You\'re even outclassing other titles like Spiritual Realms: The First War, The Immortals Descend, and other anticipated MMO and RPG titles that the gamers were looking forward to for a long time now. It could be said that this is the greatest dark horse to emerge in this year\'s National Gaming Expo! Can you let us know if you all had anticipated this?"

The manager smiled and said, "Our company is extremely confident about our game, but honestly…" Her eyes swept across the booth. She gave a wry smile and continued, "…we really hadn\'t expected this at all. Thank you, everyone, for your love!"

A reporter from the newspaper firm hurriedly asked, "How much money did you all invest into the game?"

The manager hesitated for a moment. "I can only say it was in the tens of millions."

A media reporter from Beijing asked, "I tried out the game just now, and it\'s absolutely amazing. Our country\'s puzzle games are still only in the infancy of development, but to suddenly have a product that is so amazing pop up from nowhere, can you explain to us how you all did it? Isn\'t this leap too great? What inspired your company to create this Plants vs. Zombies?"

Hearing this, the manager could only smile. "Regarding the inspiration, I actually don\'t know about it either."

"Ah?" The media personnel were all taken aback by this reply.

The surrounding gamers were also in disbelief when they heard that. You don\'t know about it either? The fuck? You\'re the publisher! If you of all people do not know, then who would?

The manager laughed and said, "This game was actually done with the aid of a patron."

"Patron?"

"What patron?"

"Can you clarify what you mean by that?"

Nobody could understand this explanation.

...

Not far from them.

Little Qi was clapping and exclaiming, "This is so fun! Dad, this game is way too much fun!"

Also surprised, Jiang Yuan played two stages and commented, "Yes, this game is indeed different from other puzzle games. Even I, who has almost never played any games before, got the hang of it quite quickly, hur hur. This game is really quite interesting! Quite interesting!"

Even the director enjoyed playing it?

Jiang Yuan\'s secretary immediately observed, "Director Jiang, your evaluation of the game is spot on. This game truly is very enjoyable to play and easy to get the hang of. It suits people of all ages, whether they\'re young or old!"

Another person from Central TV Department 1 remarked, "I didn\'t know that puzzle games could also be this much fun!"

The person from Central TV Department 1 who had earlier clashed with Ha Qiqi and the others said, "When it gets released, I\'ll be buying a copy for my son. He will definitely love this game."

Little Qi said, "Dad, I want one too!"

Jiang Yuan smiled. "Sure, I\'ll buy it for you. Even I\'m getting interested in this game after playing it. A game is just like a TV show. It depends on how innovative it is, which is where this game excels in. I wonder which company created this game that even got me interested even though I don\'t usually play games."

Zhang Ye looked over.

When they heard Jiang Yuan, his secretary, and the rest of the group praising the game nonstop, Ha Qiqi, Little Wang, and the others who were standing outside shot them a glance.

But suddenly, the next line from the manager who was taking questions from the reporters about Plants vs. Zombies astonished everyone at the scene!

In the face of all the media outlets\' microphones and cameras, the manager chuckled and said, "The patron. Well, since I was just coming to it, let me make use of this chance to make an announcement here. Plants vs. Zombies will officially be launched next week, and for the endorsement of the game, we have already discussed with a big shot celebrity. That person is Teacher Zhang Ye, who will be acting as our spokesperson." Before the crowd could react, she threw out another bombshell of an announcement. "Teacher Zhang also happens to be the patron I just mentioned. I myself really do not know what inspired this game, because it was all from Teacher Zhang Ye. He contributed to the game\'s name, Plants vs. Zombies, the character models, the graphics palette, technical support, mathematical attributes, level designs, and many other things. The entire concept of the game was by Teacher Zhang Ye, so you can say that this game was a collaboration project between Teacher Zhang Ye and our company!"

At that moment, the entire venue burst into an uproar!

"What?"

"Damn! Teacher Zhang came up with the concept?"

"Ah?"

"Fuck, is this for real?"

"Did Zhang Ye cross over to the video game industry as well?"

"What the hell!"

"It\'s Zhang Ye again? It\'s Zhang Ye again?"

The media was stunned!

The gamers were dumbfounded!

No one knew how to react anymore!

Ha Qiqi was staring with her eyes wide!

Little Wang stared dumbfounded at Zhang Ye, who was next to her!

Wu Yi shouted out "fuck" and went into shock!

Then, after the shock, Ha Qiqi, Wu Yi, and the others suddenly turned their sights in unison to Jiang Yuan, his secretary, and the entire group who were still playing the Plants vs. Zombies demo. They looked at them without batting an eyelid!

Jiang Yuan\'s face turned green!

Jiang Yuan\'s secretary let out a swear and dropped the mouse in his hand!

The other Central TV Department 1 staff, who were just praising how good this game was, were all staring at each other with their mouths agape. Their faces flushed red and paled at the same time, their expressions looking somewhat distorted!

Zhang Ye\'s?

Having praised the game so much, they discovered now that this game was created by Zhang Ye?

Suddenly, a few gamers in the crowd suddenly cried out.

"Eh, look at that person who\'s playing the game! Why does he look so familiar?"

"Eh? Isn\'t, isn\'t that the person who was fighting the lawsuit with Zhang Ye?"

"Oh, I remember, I remember! I saw him on television a few days ago. He is Jiang Yuan, the Deputy Director of Central TV Department 1! The Central TV Department 1 executive who did not issue Teacher Zhang\'s salary to him, and even tried to steal his copyright!"

"Surely not? He was really enjoying the game just now and even praising it to the high heavens."

"Yes, that\'s him! That\'s definitely him!"

Jiang Yuan: "…"

His secretary: "…"

When those words were said, the entire venue quieted down. Everyone was staring at Jiang Yuan and the people from Central TV Department 1 with subtle looks in their eyes!

Silence!

Dead silence!

At this moment, it was as though the sound of face smacking was reverberating out from nowhere, as the invisible hand smacked across the faces of Jiang Yuan, his secretary, and their group of people!!

Ha Qiqi mouth twitched.

Little Wang held in her laughter until her face turned red!

The Central TV cameraman who was holding the camcorder up for the interview was also dumbfounded, as he stood still where he was!

Wu Yi also stood there in amazement for the longest time. He had seen before how Director Zhang face-smacked others, but this was the first time he was witnessing such a harsh face-smacking!

This was far too ruthless!

This face-smacking was so hard that it nearly left its victims shitting in their pants!!

Right now, Jiang Yuan only had one thought. If there was a sewage pipe in the ground, he would have definitely crawled inside to escape all this!

Zhang!

Fuck your grandpa!!!