The setting sun cast its glow westward.

Through the thin veil of the bedroom curtains, the beautiful dark golden light appeared even more hazy.

On the carpet beside the bed, a sweet strawberry pajama set and a comfortable soft dark blue sleep shirt lay slightly scattered.

The golden-red light climbed up along the bed curtains like a gentle clear spring, quietly flowing and softly caressing the girl's pink arch, the curve of her fair wrist so delicate it reflected the setting sun into a crescent moon shape.

The warm golden-red extended along the straight and slender calf, spreading over the smooth silk coverlet like a warm breeze blowing over sand dunes.

Her smooth, delicate back, like warm white jade, showed a slight pink blush, with a graceful waistline as elegant and deadly as a curved blade crafted by the world's most skilled artisan, shimmering with golden-red radiance under the sunset's glow.

And now, this deadly curved blade was held by a warm, well-defined hand.

Buzz buzz—

Suddenly, the vibration of a phone disrupted the even breathing in the bedroom.

"Mmm—hello?"

"Hey, kiddo, still sleeping?"

Hiss—!

The sound of Shen Wanlin's voice on the phone made Shen Miaomiao shiver, instantly waking her up!

Seeing Gu Sheng's sharply defined face lying opposite her, her face flushed bright red as if covered by a large red cloth!

"Um um—ah—ah!"

As Gu Sheng also opened his eyes, Shen Miaomiao quickly put a finger to her lips, signaling him to be quiet, stammering:

"Wh-what's up, dad?"

"Oh, nothing much,"

Shen Wanlin's voice sounded normal on the other end, as if completely unaware of anything unusual:

"I just wanted to ask if you're coming over tomorrow."

Tomorrow was Sunday, and by routine they should be going to Lao Shen's for a meal.

However.

Just as Shen Miaomiao was about to answer, she unintentionally lifted her leg to bend her knee but felt a sudden pain like an electric shock, making her gasp lightly and inhale sharply:

"Hiss— Gu Sheng seems to have a video conference tomorrow, we... we'll come next week instead?"

"Oh, alright then, I'll be going out of town with your Uncle Li tomorrow,"

Shen Wanlin replied:

"It's fine, you two can go back to resting."

"Ah, oh—"

Hearing this, Shen Miaomiao sighed in relief but immediately realized something was wrong!

Wait?!

What did he mean by ["you two can go back to resting"]?

"Hey, I—"

Beep... beep... beep...

Before Shen Miaomiao could explain, the call had already ended.

Instantly, Shen Miaomiao's flushed face spread to her ears. Looking at the ended call, then at Gu Sheng who was smiling opposite her, she let out a whimper and buried herself in Gu Sheng's arms like a little ostrich:

"What kind of talk is that—so embarrassing really—it's all your fault—"

If they hadn't been fooling around until noon, how could they possibly still be sleeping at this hour?

Gu Sheng laughed heartily, holding the warm and soft figure in his arms, lowering his head to gently kiss her hair that carried a faint peach fragrance:

"Hahaha my fault, my fault, you really change moods as quickly as flipping pages, were like a little tiger this morning, now turned into a kitten?"

"Who says I'm a kitten, I'm still a little tiger now,"

Saying this, Shen Miaomiao tilted her head and lightly bit Gu Sheng's arm, leaving faint teeth marks, then looked up at Gu Sheng, wrinkling her little nose to make a funny face:

"How about that, scared?"

"Wow! So—scary!"

Gu Sheng made an exaggerated expression, then leaned down to kiss those tempting red lips:

"So scary it makes people unable to resist kissing them."

Shen Miaomiao giggled, hooked her arms around Gu Sheng's neck to respond, then rested her head on Gu Sheng's shoulder, nuzzling his neck, her smile sweet and utterly clingy:

"This is so nice."

She didn't need to ask Gu Sheng if he loved her, nor would she say things like "you have to take responsibility for me."

Because at this moment, her heart had never been so certain.

Because at this moment, Gu Sheng's embrace had never felt so warm and intimate.

Saying "this is so nice" was already enough.

"Hungry?"

After lingering for a long while, Gu Sheng noticed the sunset outside gradually fading and asked Shen Miaomiao:

"What do you want to eat?"

"Wow—"

Hearing this, Shen Miaomiao looked up, her big eyes sparkling with mischief:

"At least you have some conscience, knowing to take care of me. I want tomato beef brisket."

"Mm,"

Gu Sheng nodded:

"Then keep wanting."

Shen Miaomiao: "...I'll beat you to death!"

"Ouch ouch ouch, it hurts!"

Gu Sheng gently patted Little Nezha's hand pinching his waist:

"Wrong wrong wrong, I'll do it, I'll make it, I'll make it."

"Hmph! That's more like it!"

Shen Miaomiao twisted her neck, tilting her head:

"Off you go then!"

"Right away!"

Gu Sheng sat up, bowing and nodding:

"This humble one shall take his leave for now, rest well, I'll call you when food's ready～"

Shen Miaomiao giggled, also sitting up, but suddenly frowned: "Hiss— ouch."

Seeing this, Gu Sheng put an arm around her shoulder, gently stroking Shen Miaomiao's hair, saying softly: "You should rest quickly."

Then, lowering his voice to whisper in Shen Miaomiao's ear: "Be gentler next time?"

However, Shen Miaomiao wrapped her arms around his neck.

"No way, I can handle it,"

She said, biting her lip shyly while shaking her head, a sweet smile curling her lips, giving his cheek a light peck, whispering similarly:

"Love you."

《Sweet! The Most Romantic Confession in History Arrives!》

《SNG 10/10! Hummingbird 10/10! SLGamers 10/10! It Takes Two Receives Rave Reviews!》

《Another Masterpiece After "To the Moon"! Unprecedented Perfect Scores Across All Media!》

《First Winning Annual Choice! Then Achieving Perfect Media Scores! Golden Wind Unstoppable!》

《Peak Gameplay! Excessive Sweetness! Analyzing What Makes the Globally Discussed It Takes Two So Fun!》

(......)

The next day!

After a full day of fermentation, news about It Takes Two unsurprisingly exploded across the gaming circle.

Almost all media outlets gave this iconic game perfect scores!

【SNG (10/10): Action! Adventure! Shooting! Racing! Sports! Almost every game genre you can think of is realized in this game. It's an unprecedented collection of game types. Sam uses his nearly extravagant talent to bring the gaming world a romantic game worthy of being recorded in history!】

【China Gaming Forum (10/10): The proposition of the "most fun" game in history has always been perplexing, but now, with the appearance of It Takes Two, this question seems to have an answer! The dazzling variety of gameplay is astounding, the exquisite graphics are addictive, and the ultimate tuning makes it immersive! This adult fairy tale adventure is enough to become a milestone in gaming!】

【China Gaming Forum (10/10): The proposition of the "most fun" game in history has always been perplexing, but now, with the appearance of It Takes Two, this question seems to have an answer! The dazzling variety of gameplay is astounding, the exquisite graphics are addictive, and the exceptionally refined tuning makes it immersive! This adult fairy tale adventure is enough to become a milestone in gaming!】

【Player Campfire (10/10): Perfect score! Anything less would be disrespectful to the gaming industry! This is a romantic adventure journey, and a crazy display of skill by GW and Sam! An extravagant, wildly romantic designer is born! We can even feel the blazing love and profound, great sincere emotions through the screen!】

【Player Campfire (10/10): Perfect score! Anything less would be disrespectful to the gaming industry! This is a romantic adventure journey, and a crazy display of skill by GW and Sam! An extravagant, crazy romantic designer is born! We can even feel the blazing love and profound, great sincere emotions through the screen!】

Reviews like these were endless!

As the media said.

This time, Gu Sheng's romantic confession could truly be called extravagant.

Even in his previous life, this "It Takes Two" caused an uproar across the entire gaming industry, with countless media giving perfect scores and players exclaiming how amazing it was.

In this world, under the current gaming industry environment, the appearance of It Takes Two is undoubtedly a dimensional strike against the entire gaming circle!

In this world, under the current gaming industry environment, the appearance of It Takes Two is undoubtedly a dimensional shock against the entire gaming circle!

"Ah? It can do this too?"

"Holy crap! This coordination is insane!"

"Incredible! How did they even think of this, this design is so fucking brilliant?!"

Exclamations like these were endless.

Under such ultimate gameplay performance, media simply couldn't find reasons to give low scores.

Under such exceptionally refined gameplay performance, media simply couldn't find reasons to give low scores.

Many players even joked that this wave of perfect scores from all media was like "gift money style perfect scores".

Besides that!

There was actually another point that particularly caught the media's attention and caused quite a stir in the industry!

That was the game's "production studio."

Yes.

Right after Cody and May reconciled with a touching long kiss in the game, ending this fairy tale-like adventure, the entire game reached its conclusion.

The real-world couple woke up to find their daughter Rose had left a letter and run away from home.

In the letter, Rose blamed their divorce and discord on herself, thinking she wasn't good enough which caused mom and dad to separate.

So, she decided to leave home, believing that if she was gone, mom and dad could reconcile.

After reading the letter, Cody and May hurried out to search for their daughter.

Fortunately, Rose hadn't gone far yet, and in the beautiful sunset, the family of three finally reunited at the bus station.

And now!

As the game ending concluded, credits for the production team appeared.

For players, reaching this point in the game was just chat time.

Some players might respect the game development team enough to watch through the credits, discussing the game's design with their partner.

But more players would end here, close the game, and rush eagerly to the comments section to give a perfect score review.

However!

This part is very important in the eyes of media and industry peers!

And not looking was fine, but when they looked, it really shocked everyone!

【Golden Wind】

【Melancholy Blues Studio】

【Presents】

When the final credits appeared!

The industry was instantly in an uproar!

Because as everyone knew, after two rounds of expansion, Golden Wind now had three studios under its banner.

First was the founding team that produced 《Titanfall》, 【Golden Experience】.

Then the team introduced from the "Komera talent market" that developed the phenomenal motion-sensing pod action game 《Sekiro》, 【Steel Chain Fingers】.

And finally the former "Ubsoft" team acquired through reverse acquisition from CloudPower for eighty million dollars, now renamed 【Melancholy Blues】.

The first two studios were nothing special.

They already had outstanding track records, great reputations, very good word-of-mouth, even worthy of being called a top-tier industry team.

This team's reputation wasn't just a mess—it was practically shit-tier.

Some had even speculated that Golden Wind bought Melancholy Blues mainly to flex their muscles through reverse acquisition, showing off their strength.

As for what to do with Melancholy Blues afterward... dismantle and sell it off, of course.

After all, with such a terrible reputation, everyone thought even Golden Wind wouldn't dare rashly use them.

Result!

Unexpectedly!

Golden Wind not only used Melancholy Blues.

But they actually entrusted such an important project to them.

And what made the industry even more astonished was that Melancholy Blues not only delivered the game but did so at a top-tier level!

This created a very awkward situation—

#2 Milky Snow: Oranges grown south of Huai are oranges; grown north they become bitter

#3 Pink-Red Hair: They say it's not scary to wear the same clothes, it's scary who looks worse. I kind of want to see Konik's expression after hearing this news

#4 Turkey-Flavored Chips: Looks like former UB's terrible quality wasn't because UB wanted to be terrible. Konik has a certain beauty of having his pants pulled down

#9 Shocked: Why are the IDs on this damn forum getting more and more absurd?

#16 Hero Never Dies: Just checked, total sales for 《It Takes Two》 on both platforms are almost eight hundred thousand copies now

#17 Litang's Strongest Tiger: Holy test! Eight hundred thousand copies means... forty-eight million dollars! Holy shit!

#21 Far Ahead: Feel like Konik's face must be green hahaha! Damn, sold the studio for eighty million dollars, and they made it back in two and a half days!

#34 Canned Cola 1: Konik deserves to die! Time to open champagne!

#53 Little Flame: Sold them an ultimate money-making machine. Heard many original IPs and project plans were sold along with UB too

#66 Solo Six: 6

For a time!

Discussions about "Melancholy Blues' rebirth from ashes" and "oranges grown south of Huai are oranges" surged wave after wave in the gaming circle.

But actually, thinking carefully, it made sense.

After all, they had nearly twenty years of gaming industry experience.

Although the team wasn't the same as twenty years ago, the heritage passed down was enough for them to regain glorious vitality in the right place.

And at that moment, as industry onlookers said, within CloudPower Group, Konik's face was green!

Goddamn it!

Sold too cheap!!!

Looking at It Takes Two's perfect scores across all media, and seeing those "original UB's rebirth from ashes, Melancholy Blues sailing anew" discussions, Konik felt his heart discomforted!

It Takes Two achieved sales of forty-eight million dollars!

At this rate, total weekly sales across both platforms exceeding four million was certain, maybe even reaching the terrifying five million mark!

Single week! Five million copies?!

What kind of concept is this?

You should know, this game is Golden Wind's highest investment cost work to date.

Total cost reached 212 million dollars.

Maybe for their CloudPower, this cost wasn't terrifying yet, but undoubtedly, this cost was enough to reach AAA-level game standards.

And historically!

No AAA-level game has ever recouped costs within a single week!

What does this mean?

Konik beat his chest in frustration, his fat face turning red, blood pressure soaring!

This goddamn means Golden Wind cultivated a money tree that showers gold!

If Golden Wind has any business sense, looks at the money aspect, stops all other projects, and focuses entirely on developing 《It Takes Two 2》.

Then countless banknotes would rush into their accounts like a surging river!

And he was the idiot who personally handed the cash cow to Golden Wind!

This wave, Konik lost until he bled.

However!

This situation also, to some extent, strengthened Konik's determination to acquire Golden Wind.

Now, Golden Wind had separated from under Shen Capital, becoming a truly independent company.

Although they were very closed off, completely uninterested in going public, not even willing to glance at it.

But it didn't matter. With their style of going all-in on investments, as long as he successfully intercepts them once in the future, he could severely damage them!

But before that...

Thinking this, Konik looked at the stock price on the display before him—though the sharp decline had stopped, it was still trending downward overall—and sighed viciously before picking up the internal phone on his desk, calling his secretary:

"Notify everyone, meeting at nine!"

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by lotustale.com