novelraw Chapter 63: Trouble
Chapter 63: Trouble
Tang Yao and Kang Ming kept finalizing more and more items on their to-do list.
Eventually, Tang Yao simply pulled out her notebook and began recording everything they’d confirmed.
Of course, these were just preparations for the early development phase.
"…Honestly, considering the scale of this game, it’s still a bit much for just the two of us. It’s doable, but way too slow."
Kang Ming watched as Tang Yao typed on her keyboard, hesitated a moment, then said in a low voice, "If you trust me, I actually have two friends who could help out. They were my college roommates… remember the battle platform I built? They helped me a lot with that."
He’d probably been hit with too many shocks just now.
Kang Ming suddenly felt like he hadn’t been taking things seriously enough...
So he decided to bring his friends in too.
Tang Yao paused at his words and looked surprised. “Your roommates? Are they any good?”
"I’ve worked with them before. They’re not top-tier or anything, but definitely above average." “Then give it a try and see if they’re interested.”
Tang Yao didn’t reject the idea. She thought for a second, then added gently, “But about their pay…”
She knew full well—relying solely on Kang Ming as the sole workhorse just wasn’t sustainable.
But if they brought in too many people… it’d be hard to manage financially.
“It’s fine, both of them are currently unemployed… we’d just need to pay them a basic salary.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll tell them I’ve got a hunch. That working with you won’t be a loss… and doing this might end up looking really impressive on a résumé someday.”
Kang Ming looked at Tang Yao, as if making a big decision. “As for me, if funding’s really tight, you don’t need to pay me. At least not until the game is actually profitable—I don’t need a salary.”
He really meant it.
After finding out Tang Yao drew Fate/Zero, and after everything they’d talked about… his opinion of her had skyrocketed off the charts.
“That won’t be necessary. I can’t let you guys compromise your normal life.”
Tang Yao gently shook her head. “Let’s go with the pay standards of a small indie game company for now. I really can’t afford average industry rates.”
The gaming industry here made way too much money—the average pay was ridiculously high… and she definitely couldn’t cover that.
Kang Ming opened his mouth, wanting to say more.
But Tang Yao cut him off, her tone soft but firm: “Don’t overestimate yourself—or your friends. And let’s make this clear: if your friends aren’t up to par… I’ll have to let them go.”
Kang Ming thought about it… then nodded silently.
“Okay, then it’s settled. Go ahead and invite them, just explain everything clearly. Also, take a look at the urgent tasks and check if we’ve missed anything—especially on your end.”
As she spoke, Tang Yao flipped the notebook toward him so the screen faced Kang Ming.
Kang Ming glanced at it. It was full of the stuff they had just discussed. At the very top was “Company Registration,” and the status next to it said “In Progress.”
The rest covered all sorts of topics.
Some weren’t even game-related. For example, one item noted that Chapter 2 of Fate/Zero would be released today…
As for Kang Ming’s responsibilities, Tang Yao had marked them clearly. The first item listed was “Buy a Computer.”
"Nothing seems to be missing."
Kang Ming read through it carefully, then shook his head. “But I noticed Mingyu Tech seems to have quite a few unused PCs outside…”
“Wouldn’t it be kinda shady to just milk them for everything they’ve got?”
Tang Yao paused at his comment… and realized he had a point.
But still, she hesitated.
Why did it feel like she was stepping over Mingyu Tech’s corpse to make her game?
Kang Ming whispered, “If they really are going under, I’m sure they’d be happy to sell off some of their equipment… what’s the point of letting those computers sit there gathering dust?”
Tang Yao considered it for a moment. “...Alright, I’ll talk to them about it too.”
Fine. If she had to step over them to make her game, so be it.
At least if they agreed, she’d save herself a lot of trouble.
“Right… about releasing Chapter 2 of Fate/Zero—where’s that going out?”
Kang Ming acknowledged with a nod, then glanced again at the task list. He hesitated and asked, “Social media?”
“Yeah. Not like we have a better option, right?”
Tang Yao gave a definite answer: “If you want to follow it, the account name is Third-Rate Artist…”
“I’ll follow it. But wouldn’t it be better to build a personal site? The manga’s really popular right now—bet it’d pull in a lot of traffic.”
Kang Ming suggested, “And once the game’s done, we could transition it into the official game site—smooth transition…”
“…”
Tang Yao’s eyes lit up at the idea. She hadn’t thought of that: “That’s a good point… but wouldn’t that distract you too much? We’ve already got our hands full.”
“Ahem.”
Kang Ming coughed awkwardly, then looked away. In a small voice, he said, “Well… actually, here’s the thing. My three friends and I didn’t just build a battle platform… we also made, um, a… sort of image-browsing site—for uploading and viewing bishoujo images we collected…”
“If you want, we could just tweak the UI a bit and update the code—it’d work as a manga reader. There’s only one manga anyway… posting it on social media won’t help much with retaining fans.”
Yeah. By “bishoujo images”…
He meant lewd pics.
That site? It was Kang Ming’s.
“…”
Tang Yao looked at him, actually shocked for the first time.
Kang Ming’s face turned red. He stammered, “We were just bored, okay? And phone storage was limited…”
The more he explained, the quieter he got.
Because yeah—it was kinda dumb.
“You guys really are geniuses.”
Tang Yao finally snapped out of it and said, genuinely impressed, “I don’t mean that sarcastically—you guys really think outside the box. If it’s really like you say, I’ll pay to buy it off you. Let’s go with your plan—just rework the image-browsing site into a manga reader. If you need art assets, let me know.”
Seriously—genius!
She’d been stressing out just yesterday about releasing the manga on social media… and now Kang Ming had casually solved the whole problem in a few sentences.
“But, we’ll still release this chapter of Fate/Zero on social media to maintain buzz. If we go too long without an update, the hype will die down.”
Tang Yao looked thoughtful and continued, “...As for future traffic, maybe we can do a basic animated ad? It’s a bit early, but have you heard of skeletal animation tech? Familiar with those kinds of tools?”
Kang Ming perked up, forgetting his embarrassment. “Skeletal animation…?”
“Basically a tool that lets static images move.”
Tang Yao gave a quick explanation. Skeletal animation, in simple terms, was a more efficient animation technique. Traditional animation requires redrawing every frame to show movement. But skeletal animation only needs one static image—the movement comes from manipulating a skeleton beneath it.
Sure, if you want it to look good, manually keyframing and deforming stuff is still a hassle. But it’s way easier than traditional animation. Tang Yao could animate, sure—but with her current workload, that was a one-way ticket to an early grave.
Most dynamic CG in galgames used similar tech.
The simplest example might be Nekopara’s use of E-mote. It wasn’t quite skeletal animation, but it did move 2D characters by shifting, rotating, and distorting image parts—although the effect was very basic.
After Effects could also simulate subtle movement like breathing using its puppet tool… The House in Fata Morgana’s dynamic CGs were rumored to be made with AE, though no one knew for sure.
In gaming, the main tools were Live2D and Spine.
Lots of game ads used those—like the early commercials for Azur Lane.
Those two tools were the ones Tang Yao knew best. She was familiar with the whole process—rigging bones, painting weights, keyframing animation. As long as she had the right software, she was confident she could make some decent promotional videos.
“...You know how to do that too!?”
Kang Ming’s eyes went wide.
He hadn’t studied the tech in depth, but he’d at least heard of it.
“…”
Tang Yao gave him a look like, what do you think? “I’m the game’s Lead Artist. I was planning on trying it out for the main game client’s home screen—give players a little surprise… Why wouldn’t I know how to do it?”
Kang Ming: “…”
“So, do you know anything about it?”
“I’ve only heard of it… not really familiar.”
“I see… I’ll do a bit of research later.”
Tang Yao thought for a moment, then stood up. “Let’s put that aside for now. It’s still early days. We should take care of the more urgent stuff first… I’ll go talk to that Si Jinliang guy at Mingyu Tech about the servers. Then I’ve got to release Chapter 2 of Fate/Zero… What a pain…”
She grumbled under her breath as she hurried off.
Leaving Kang Ming sitting there alone.
He watched her go, then turned to look at the pile of documents on the desk—and suddenly felt that working under a boss like her… was really stressful.
…
At the same time.
On the other side of the city.
Su Deqiang, as usual, opened Wenxin Online’s official social media account to check for updates on Fate/Zero.
It had been a few days since the manga award. That “Holy sht, who ends a manga at that scene?!”* frustration had worn off a bit, and he wasn’t quite as fired up as before.
Still… he wanted to see what happened next in Fate/Zero. The thought gnawed at him every day like an itch.
Where’s the next chapter?Where is it!?Hurry up and release it already!
So today, as usual, he opened Wenxin Online’s official social media account, hoping for some kind of update.
After all, the account had once posted: “Please be patient—we won’t let our readers down,” and even pinned the post.
But then…
When Su Deqiang refreshed Wenxin Online’s official account, he realized…
That pinned post?
It had been deleted.
Su Deqiang: “???”
What the h*ll does that mean?