Chapter 61: I Want to Be the Cult Master

"Because I have found the true philosophy that this game aims to express. President Gu's wuxia game is by no means a simple wuxia game; there is far more he wants to convey, and the evidence is the true hidden ending."

"Let me draw a conclusion first: the game continuously portrays the various sufferings of the common people at the bottom of society during the twilight of the dynasty. There are natural disasters, but far more man-made catastrophes. He definitely wants the players to change all of this."

"On the surface, one should resist to prevent the most direct invasions and the flames of war, but subsequent developments show that merely doing this is not enough. If the protagonist wants to save the common people, he must do much more."

"The orthodox path is entirely unreliable."

In the game, the protagonist becomes the leader of the orthodox martial arts alliance, yet the forces of the orthodox sects will not rebel alongside him. The orthodox practitioners are mostly respectable people of property, and they also possess a simplistic ideology of loyalty to the sovereign and patriotism.

The greatest characteristic of this Alliance Leader route is the ability to rally fellow martial artists, easily resolving Jianghu affairs through one's massive reputation. Whenever a standard wuxia conspiracy unfolds, the moment the protagonist appears, everyone believes him.

This force becomes significantly weaker when placed on a battlefield, though it still provides certain bonuses; convening a Hero Assembly can summon a batch of people to temporarily defend a city, but they can only offer intermittent help because Jianghu wanderers are inherently free spirits.

"Obviously, if one wants to rebel, I can only become the leader of the Demonic Cult."

The live stream chat began to scroll: "Isn't the Demonic Cult route the path to a bad ending?" and "Besides, Dragon King actually said during a previous live stream that the true ending has no further branches, and when asked if one could become the emperor themselves, that was also denied."

When the hardcore fan created his video, he must have anticipated this kind of barrage: "Don't listen to President Gu's previous statements thinking there are no more endings; just watch my gameplay."

Regarding the live stream, turning the clock back to shortly after the game's release, before winning the championship tournament, someone had asked whether there was a true ending.

Gu Meng recalled how, in his past life, Game Science continuously avoided responding to the massive public discourse surrounding the number of endings during the early release period of Black Myth, leaving streamers frantically searching for a third ending.

Actually, as we know now, there are two endings, and judging by data mining, it is very likely that there was originally only one ending, and another branch was added right before release without a cinematic animation—whether for confidentiality reasons or otherwise remains unclear.

At the time, Gu Meng as a player felt quite annoyed because, ultimately, knowing whether there were two or three endings wouldn't really constitute a spoiler, yet after the second ending was found, Game Science's persistent refusal to give a direct response felt like they were toying with the audience.

Later on, it seemed they probably didn't know how best to respond. Their consistent strategy during development was to ignore the outside world and focus entirely on making the game, weathering numerous controversies through silence, under the premise that saying nothing prevents mistakes.

Before the release, Game Science mostly used in-game footage for promotion, while normal commercial promotion was minimal, relying instead on organic word-of-mouth.

Standard promotion involved heavy ad spending like Honor of Kings, but Black Myth lacked that kind of traffic budget, relying almost entirely on sheer core quality.

Every year, the in-game footage released was substantial dry goods, requiring players to actively seek it out.

At that time, Gu Meng thought to himself that he had already given very explicit commands to the system.

The true ending—that incredibly passionate solitary defense of an isolated city where one struggles to the bitter end—culminates in the best possible branch where one holds out until the very last breath. There was absolutely no narrative of successfully counterattacking the Mongols, nor would the Great Song be preserved simply due to the protagonist's resistance. The system could not possibly violate such repeatedly emphasized directives.

Gu Meng was aware that the protagonist could kill the Great Song emperor; having experienced the backlash of the true identity of the pure-love hidden ending heroine last time, he explored thoroughly this time. The ending where killing the emperor plunges the realm into chaos was known to him, considered a neutral ending with similarly no further derivative branches.

Gu Meng personally felt that there were no further derivative outcomes concerning the true ending, which was why he had responded directly: stop looking, there aren't any.

Speaking of which, Gu Meng was extremely busy.

It was now January first of the New Year. Theoretically, it was New Year's Day, a statutory public holiday, but in reality, he had already started working.

Aside from him, there weren't many other people in the company. Having just concluded a major project, everyone needed rest and couldn't keep working overtime constantly.

Gu Meng had discovered that sometimes people are not unwilling to work; rather, they simply haven't found something they genuinely love doing.

In his past life, Gu Meng had absolutely zero desire to go to work, struggling to get out of bed every day and squeezing onto the subway to the company right at the deadline.

He used to think that whenever he got rich, he would charter a whole subway train just to let those hanging bastards commuting with him watch enviously, while he wouldn't have to work anymore.

As it turned out, once he was truly wealthy, he indeed didn't need to crowd onto the subway anymore, because Gu Meng practically lived at the company.

Over the past half year, managing the company, handling institutional frameworks and major decisions, and focusing heavily on talent placement and promotions...

At first, he was flustered and chaotic, but he quickly got the hang of it.

Perhaps it was the experience of his predecessor, or perhaps it was the tremendous enhancement of his mental fortitude and stress resistance from living two lives, making him tireless and boosting his learning capacity.

As he gradually grew familiar with everything, many tasks became second nature, and he could command the entire company as smoothly as moving his own fingers.

His mind grew increasingly clear, his handling of affairs faster and more accurate, spotting any flaws at a glance.

Soon, even though he intervened in every aspect with a sort of obsessive-compulsive thoroughness, it didn't consume all his time. While it was unclear what state the diligent emperors of ancient times were in, Gu Meng felt that his current mental state was so strong it didn't feel like himself anymore, as if his CPU had been upgraded.

During the span of half a year, he snatched moments to write hundreds of thousands of words of scripts himself. Some unused pieces were optimized by the system, and he simply published them online under his real name as short wuxia stories.

Even the recycling of discarded drafts made the employees marvel that the Dragon King's energy was simply overflowing.

Only then did the employees realize just how terrifying President Gu's workload truly was.

In addition, there were many more activities, such as giving public short-term speeches. Gu Meng frequently went all out to pump up his employees, driving everyone to build up their confidence.

Reading the news in his past life, Feng Ji said his main job was just this kind of morale-boosting, imitating a certain electronic succubus and cyber Daji—

Of course, we players know that his actual job was writing lyrics, making a whole trip just to buy a cup of vinegar; Feng Ji made games purely for his musical dreams (a massive misconception)!

Emulating these outstanding predecessors, Gu Meng delivered over eighty large and small 1-on-1 and 1-on-many speeches within half a year. Every mosquito in the company could recite Gu Meng's speeches backward and forward.

Every single time, the atmosphere was burning with passion, emotions were pushed to the limit, and coming from the bottom of his heart, he worked the hardest while offering compensation two and a half times that of industry peers.

At the peak of his enthusiasm, Gu Meng would also use plenty of physical gestures, such as raising his arms and shouting calls to action.

Gradually, even the pure wage earners who were initially indifferent to Gu Meng's grand ambitions began to respond, raising their hands along with him.

They grew increasingly motivated, working overtime until Gu Meng had to mandate rotational rests to prevent overwork.

Reaching a peak state, even the logistics staff and security guards were inspired, feeling that what they were doing alongside Youxuan was meaningful work—not simply making money, but carrying the mission of revitalizing Huaguo's stand-alone gaming industry and shattering the destiny that all masterpieces must be foreign.

As the company team grew under the double blessings of the system, the game gradually matured, and through Gu Meng's massive financial injections and system optimization, the working materials were integrated and refined.

Throughout this entire process, the team's cohesion was also growing stronger.

Normally, when a team exceeds five people, work efficiency continuously declines because interpersonal communication takes a long time. When the headcount grows from one person to fifty, assuming uniform skill levels, work efficiency does not increase fiftyfold; managing to increase it by twenty or thirtyfold is already considered exceptional.

In his past life, major giants like Ubisoft had tens of thousands of employees, whereas Game Science had just over a hundred formal employees.