Chapter Fifty-One: Recruiting Top Talent

Chapter Fifty-One: Recruiting Top Talent

Shi Bai returned to the old city, determined to lose the entire ten million. Knowing the nature of the system, there was no room for shortcuts, so he planned to invest every penny into his company.

His current company, Happy-Go-Lucky, had only ten employees, all housed in a presidential suite at a five-star hotel. The daily cost was ten thousand, each employee earned twenty thousand a month, and all expenses—food, lodging, everything—added up to no more than six or seven hundred thousand per month. At this rate, it would take more than a year to burn through ten million—far too slow. Shi Bai decided to expand.

He wanted to establish a new gaming division—not just to spend money, but because it had always been his dream. In his previous life, he'd tried to teach himself simple programming languages, longing to create a game of his own, even something as basic as Super Mario. But self-teaching programming was just like learning to play guitar: the idea was beautiful, but the moment his fingers touched the strings, he gave up, never getting beyond a few simple strums.

Now, however, he had ample funds. He couldn't make a game himself, but he could pay others to do it. Sometimes, money truly is a remarkable thing—it can solve most of the supposedly impossible problems in life.

Without delay, Shi Bai contacted an office building near the Wells Hotel and rented a hundred-square-meter office. At the rates of the time, rent was inexpensive—about one yuan per square meter per day, so a hundred yuan a day, three thousand a month. Shi Bai paid for an entire year up front and even received a discount—thirty thousand for the year.

He didn't mind saving on rent; what he wanted was a great game, and it was most meaningful to concentrate resources on the project itself. With the office secured, he bought twenty high-end computers, installed legal software, set up the internet—hardware was settled.

Next, he opened a recruitment website to search for the country’s top gaming talent. Originally, he hoped to find the gaming legends of his previous life, but he wasn’t part of that world. Other than Ma Tengfei, the big boss, he knew none of them. And Ma Tengfei was already famous in this era—no chance of recruiting him.

So Shi Bai set the bar as high as possible, hoping to find the best talent yet undiscovered. While others asked for one or two years of experience, he required at least five—excluding those with just five. Others didn’t demand a portfolio; he insisted on it, and would personally assess the quality. Where other companies offered seven thousand a month, he offered twenty thousand.

Shi Bai believed that only with high standards and high rewards could he attract the truly exceptional.

Once the recruitment was underway, Shi Bai created another task for himself: to have LeNet sell him back the copyright for "The Adventures of Zhang Gouzi" at a low price. Last time, he’d sold the adaptation rights to them and worried they’d try to gouge him. Fortunately, the system’s abilities proved powerful—LeNet had bought the adaptation rights for a million, and sold them back for the same. Reportedly, their chairman had been furious after the purchase, deeming "The Adventures of Zhang Gouzi" utter nonsense. The LeNet staff were at a loss, so when Shi Bai called to buy the copyright back, they couldn’t have been happier.

By the time everything was ready, it was eleven at night. Shi Bai opened a bottle of ’82 Lafite and took a leisurely sip. The wine slid down his throat, its sweet and sour notes blossoming into a lingering fragrance.

Suddenly, he lost all interest in school. After all, he already had so much money and owned a company worth millions—why bother with school? For most, school was just a means to build a company and make a fortune, but he already had both.

At that thought, he made up his mind: he would take a leave of absence. He was confident in his college entrance exams, so attending school was irrelevant, and he’d still pay the tuition—surely the teachers wouldn’t object. Besides, with the system, even if they wanted to refuse, they couldn’t.

After a bit of maneuvering, his leave was approved: teachers agreed he could skip regular classes as long as he showed up for key events and exams. Shi Bai was satisfied—this left him just enough opportunities to show off, which he was more than happy with.

The next morning, Shi Bai woke up, checked the recruitment site, and found over fifty applications. Reviewing them one by one, it seemed they were all experts—he began to wonder if there was really so much gaming talent in this era. Just as he was about to painstakingly select among them, he slapped his forehead—why not just use a custom task?

He opened the system: “Custom task—successfully select twenty top gaming talents.”

“Task accepted. Initiating.”

With that, Shi Bai assigned numbers to the fifty candidates, wrote them on fifty slips of paper, and drew twenty at random.

In short, it was a lottery.

Once the drawing was done, he hired the twenty whose numbers he’d picked. To his astonishment, the group included exactly three planners, seven programmers, seven artists, one accountant, one HR specialist, and one security manager—a complete configuration for a small company.

Shi Bai couldn’t help but applaud—the system was truly more thorough than any person.

He quickly arranged for these people to interview at the new company. Despite being a startup, the salaries were sky-high, and the Happy-Go-Lucky name was already making waves online, so there was no hesitation—all of them agreed.

Of course, as CEO and chairman, Shi Bai went through the motions, asking the usual questions:

“Do you have a dream?”

“Do you want to change the world?”

“Do you want to live a different life?”

In short, he tossed out a few lines that would become legendary on the internet, stoking the entrepreneurial passion of these top talents.

“Chairman Shi! I have an idea—the future belongs to mobile internet! Apple’s iPhone is about to launch, and it will change the world! So we should seize the opportunity to make phones!”

“Chairman Shi! Once mobile internet arrives, desktop chat software will be obsolete. I suggest we immediately develop a mobile chat app—I’ve even got a name: WeChat!”

“I know of a game based on DOTA—I suggest we develop it right away! It will one day sweep the world!”

Shi Bai was nearly grinning from ear to ear. These weren’t just gaming talents—they were the future of the entire nation! Who would have thought that a single move would net him the most powerful talents destined to dominate the internet, just like being reborn in the Three Kingdoms era and recruiting all the top figures of Wei, Shu, and Wu at once.

Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi as your strategists, Liu Bei, Cao Cao, and Sun Quan as your ministers, Zhang Fei and Guan Yu among your generals—every capable person under your command.

How could one describe this feeling? Perhaps only with one phrase: When you hold two jokers and four bombs in your hand, who could possibly beat you?