To make a Mushroom Chicken Skewer, you need one mushroom and one piece of fowl.
Luckily, she had picked up plenty of mushrooms earlier.
And she had “conveniently” grabbed a piece of poultry from beside the pot.
So she had just enough ingredients to make one skewer.
Dai Xiaomei clicked “Start Cooking.”
A progress bar appeared at the bottom of the screen, with a pointer moving across it.
Having played plenty of games, she timed it well—pressing the button right when the pointer reached the darkest, central section.
Success.
She obtained a Delicious Mushroom Chicken Skewer.
As a perfect-quality dish, it could restore 1,200 HP.
“Did you guys see that?!
I’m amazing!”
She put her hands on her hips, looking proud.
“666!”
“Just blind luck.”
“Classic you.”
In-game, since she only had one piece of poultry, she could only make one skewer.
She circled around Lynn but couldn’t find any more meat.
Reluctantly, she gave up.
“Looks like poultry is a pretty rare ingredient in this game.”
“I wonder if the city sells it?”
She guessed.
Not having hunted birds yet, she didn’t know they dropped poultry.
Still, she planned to check the city and buy some if possible.
Leaving the cooking station, she headed toward the large city she had seen earlier.
When she reached the stone bridge, she noticed a group of pigeons gathered in the middle.
As she ran toward them, they all flew away.
Sighing, she continued forward.
Crossing the bridge, the massive city walls came into full view.
Beyond them, enormous windmills slowly turned, towering even higher than the walls.
In the distance, she could faintly see a grand cathedral-like structure.
Seeing all this, she froze.
“Wow… they really recreated everything from the trailer perfectly…”
She still couldn’t believe it.
How could a game company from China achieve something like this?
As she moved forward, she spotted two armored knights guarding the city gate. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
####
At the same time, in miHoYo’s headquarters meeting room—
Da Zhuang from the marketing department watched her stream with regret.
“Ah!
Why isn’t she following the intended route?
She’s missing so many beautiful scenes!”
“She could’ve unlocked the statue and seen the dragon!
And there’s even a wide-angle view of Mondstadt!”
“And now she’s missing Amber too!”
Xiao Wang from the programming team suggested:
“What if we add a restriction?
If players don’t activate the statue early, they can only explore a limited area?”
But Gao Yao, head of planning, shook her head.
“That wouldn’t be right.
It goes against the spirit of an open world.”
“If it’s truly open, players should have full freedom.”
“Mistakes are part of that freedom.”
“Agreed,” Lin Yuan nodded.
But his focus was elsewhere—on the game’s data.
An hour had passed.
It was time to see the results.
He turned to Da Zhuang.
“How are the sales and metrics?”
Da Zhuang quickly pulled up the data and projected it onto the big screen.
Everyone stared at the numbers.
The room went silent.
This wasn’t like trailer views.
This was the real result—the outcome of six months of work.
“One, two… six, seven… seven digits?!”
“Oh my god—it’s over a million!”
Gao Yao’s eyes widened in shock.
Da Zhuang stared at the numbers, his face trembling with excitement.
Amazing!
Yes!!”
He started cheering and dancing.
Even President Peng, though more composed, couldn’t hide his excitement.
A wide smile spread across his face.
The entire room erupted in cheers.
Only Wang Xiaomei remained relatively calm.
As an artist, she didn’t fully grasp what the numbers meant.
But judging from everyone else’s reaction, it was clearly a big success.
Lin Yuan explained:
“Typically, first-hour downloads are about half of the first-day total.”
“So we’re looking at around 2 million downloads in 24 hours.”
“Only top-tier AAA studios reach numbers like this.”
“And we did it without major promotion.”
“Now I see…” Wang Xiaomei nodded, her eyes shining.
“I’m honored to have been part of this project.”
“Thank you,” she said sincerely.
After all, nearly every detail—animation, music, story—had been directed by Lin Yuan himself.
But then she noticed—
He didn’t seem nearly as excited as everyone else.
“Are you… not satisfied with this result?”
“…A little,” Lin Yuan admitted.
“But given the lack of promotion, it’s already very good.”
In this world, a million downloads was impressive.
But compared to what Genshin Impact had achieved in his previous life—
It was still far behind.
Back then, the game had surpassed 10 million downloads across all platforms within just 7.5 hours.
The gap between 2 million and 10 million was enormous.
Of course, that version had massive pre-launch marketing.
Here, everything relied on word of mouth.
“That means… it’s time to push harder.”
After a moment of thought, Lin Yuan uploaded three pre-prepared character trailers to the official account:
Barbara, the Shining Idol.
Klee, the Runaway Sun.
Venti, the Windborne Bard.