34: Chapter 34: The game is cheap, but the keyboard is expensive!

On the StarNet Forum, the top three spots on the popularity chart were completely dominated by "a dance of fire and ice".

On the third day of release, the one hundred bounty slots were finally claimed.

The completion recordings uploaded by players became the focus of attention across the entire web.

Especially the hidden level "The Last Hope" and the bonus track "Rush E".

Jack sat in front of his computer, sweating profusely. He had cleared "Rush E", but the cost was that the spacebar on his mechanical keyboard was completely ruined.

The keyboard history keystroke statistics software showed that in just three days, he had struck the spacebar up to ten million times.

A highly upvoted comment appeared in the comment section of the Xinghai Steam Platform.

"I'm so happy that I only spent twelve coins to enjoy such a musical feast. God Ye is truly the conscience of the industry."

Below this comment, Ye Fei's official account replied.

"The game is cheap, but the keyboard is expensive."

This single sentence directly ignited the players' nerves.

"Hahaha, Old Thief is truly ruthless!"

"My keyboard has already been sent for repairs; the customer service asked me if I used it to crack walnuts."

"Twelve coins to buy the game, three hundred coins to replace the keyboard—this wave is a huge loss!"

Just as players were complaining about keyboard wear and tear, Bo Bo Sai Bei, a hardcore tech streamer on the Xinglan Live Streaming Platform, went live.

Bo Bo pushed up her black-rimmed glasses and pulled up a code analysis chart.

"Everyone is cursing this game for wearing out keyboards and having strict judgment. But you haven't seen the true technical core of this game at all."

Bo Bo used a red pen to circle a line of data on the chart.

"This is the underlying operation logic of 'a dance of fire and ice'. Do you know why, even under such insane rhythms, the landing point of the small ball can still achieve millisecond-level precision?"

The barrage screen was filled with question marks.

"Because Ye Fei added a dynamic latency calibration system." Bo Bo tapped the whiteboard. "All rhythm games on the market have device input latency and monitor refresh rate differences. But in 'a dance of fire and ice', the system automatically captures your hardware latency data the first time you press a key and compensates for it in the background at the millisecond level."

The livestream room went quiet.

"This means that whether you are using top-tier peripherals worth ten thousand coins or a crappy membrane keyboard worth ten coins, the gaming experience is completely consistent." Bo Bo said with a serious tone, "Many 3A games from big studios can't even achieve this set of underlying algorithms. Ye Fei stuffed it into a twelve-coin small game."

The news spread back to the forum, and the sentiment reversed instantly.

"He actually did underlying optimization in a twelve-coin game?"

"No wonder I couldn't feel any latency even when using my laptop's built-in keyboard!"

"God Ye mocks us for wearing out keyboards, but behind our backs, he has optimized everything to the extreme. What kind of tsundere producer is this!"

"I unilaterally declare that Ye Fei is the true God of Gaming!"

Silver Horn Studio.

Ye Fei looked at the comments on the StarNet, expressionless.

A cerulean system panel floated in mid-air.

[Current collected "Super Difficult" evaluation count: 120 / 1000]

The numbers remained motionless.

These people are at it again. Even though they were tortured into smashing their keyboards, they insisted on digging out details from a pile of code to move themselves.

Ye Fei closed the panel and zipped up his suitcase.

With the Spring Festival approaching, the studio went on holiday.

Song Yan stayed in The Capital to follow up on the outsourcing docking for "dark souls", and Ye Fei booked a high-speed rail ticket back to his hometown, Jiangcheng.

Jiangcheng, an old residential compound.

Ye Fei pushed open the security door.

The heater was on in the house, and the television was playing a foreign documentary program.

Ye Father sat on the sofa, holding a teacup in his hand, his eyes fixed intently on the screen.

On the screen, a hunter from the Bald Eagle Country was lying in the snow, aiming his hunting rifle at a red deer in the distance.

"Dad, I'm home." Ye Fei changed into slippers.

Ye Father turned his head, a smile appearing on his wrinkled face: "Little Fei is back. Sit down quickly; your mom is stewing pork ribs in the kitchen."

Ye Fei put his suitcase in the bedroom and walked over to sit by the sofa.

The hunter on TV pulled the trigger. A gunshot rang out, and the red deer fell into the snow. The hunter walked forward and began to process the prey with a knife.

Ye Father watched with great interest, occasionally picking up his teacup to take a sip.

"You still like watching this?" Ye Fei asked.

"This is so exciting." Ye Father pointed at the TV. "When I was young, your grandfather was a forest ranger in the mountains, and I followed him into the mountains to hunt rabbits too. I can't do it anymore; my legs aren't nimble, and I don't have the conditions for it."

Ye Father sighed, his tone filled with regret.

Ye Fei looked at the vast snowy plains and dense coniferous forests on the TV screen.

A real-world hunting experience.

Tracking footprints, identifying wind direction, judging the freshness of animal droppings, selecting suitable ammunition.

"call of the wild".

That hardcore hunting game from his past life, known as a "walking simulator", surfaced in Ye Fei's mind.

The pace was extremely slow and tested one's patience to the extreme. You could crouch in the wild for half an hour and might not even see the shadow of a rabbit.

"Dad." Ye Fei began, "After the New Year, I'll make a hunting game for you. You can sit at home, put on a pair of headphones, and be able to go into the mountains."

Ye Father's eyes lit up: "Really? Can it be as real as the one on TV?"

"Even more real than this." Ye Fei nodded, "Even the sound of the wind blowing through the leaves will be the same."

Ye Father happily went to the kitchen to get bowls and chopsticks.

On the dinner table, it was steaming hot.

Ye Mother kept putting food on Ye Fei's plate, chattering about trivial neighborhood matters.

"Your Aunt Liu's son got married, and your Uncle Wang bought a new car." Ye Mother stopped halfway through, her movements pausing, and she sighed.

Ye Fei shoveled a mouthful of rice and looked up: "What's wrong?"

Ye Mother put down her chopsticks, her expression somewhat gloomy: "This morning, I went to the City People's Hospital. Do you still remember Zheng Yiyun?"

Ye Fei's hand, holding chopsticks, stopped in mid-air.

Zheng Yiyun.

The original host's memories surged up. She was a girl who had grown up with him in the same residential compound since childhood. They were in the same class in elementary and middle school; she had excellent grades and a cheerful personality.

"What happened to her?" Ye Fei asked.

"Three months ago, the chemical plant where she worked exploded and caught fire." Ye Mother's voice was low, "That child didn't manage to run out in time because she was trying to save a few new interns. Her life was saved, but she suffered extensive burns all over her body, and her face was ruined."

Ye Fei frowned.

"I went to see her today." Ye Mother's eyes turned red, "Such a fine girl, now she locks herself in the hospital room all day and refuses to see anyone. Her mom says she often screams at night, and her mental state is on the verge of collapse. The doctor says it's severe post-traumatic stress disorder."

The atmosphere at the dinner table became heavy.

Ye Father sighed and picked up his wine glass to take a sip of bitter wine.

"She used to love pestering you to teach her how to play games." Ye Mother looked at Ye Fei, "Little Fei, if you have time, go see her. You two grew up playing together; if you go and talk to her, maybe you can persuade her."

Ye Fei was silent for a moment, then put down his bowl and chopsticks.

"Okay, I will go to the hospital tomorrow."

The next morning, at the City People's Hospital inpatient department.

The smell of disinfectant permeated the hallway.

Ye Fei carried a basket of fruit and walked to the intensive rehabilitation ward at the end of the hallway.

The ward door was ajar.

Ye Fei stopped and looked in through the crack of the door.

A person was sitting on the hospital bed.

Her head was wrapped in gauze, revealing only a pair of eyes. Her arms and neck were covered in thick pressure garments.

She was curled up in the corner of the bed, her hands tightly hugging her knees.

A middle-aged woman sat by the bed, holding a bowl of porridge, her voice choked with tears.

"Yunyun, eat a bite. How will your body hold up like this?"

The person on the hospital bed waved her hand violently, knocking over the porridge bowl.

White porridge spilled all over the floor.

"Get out! Let me die! Everyone get out!"

The sharp scream echoed in the ward.

It was a voice of extreme despair.

Ye Fei stood outside the door, his fingers gripping the handle of the fruit basket tightening slightly.

He turned around and walked to the window at the end of the hallway.

Outside the window, the winter rain in Jiangcheng was falling densely and fine.

Ye Fei brought up the system panel.

In addition to the game development function, there were also a large number of locked black-tech devices in the system store.

Among them was one called "Deep Neural Immersive VR Pod".

Through neural connections, it completely blocks real-world senses and reshapes a perfect body in the virtual world.

Ye Fei looked at the redemption requirements on the panel.

It requires three thousand normal positive reviews, or five hundred "Super Difficult" evaluations to unlock.

His current "Super Difficult" evaluation count is 120.

Ye Fei closed the panel and took a deep breath.

"Song Yan." Ye Fei dialed the phone, his voice cold and hard, "Notify everyone to end the holiday early. On the third day of the Lunar New Year, return to The Capital to start work."

Song Yan on the other end of the line was stunned for a moment: "Brother Fei, what happened?"

"I want to make 'dark souls'." Ye Fei looked at the rain outside the window, "Max out the progress. I want players all over the world to feel true pain on the continent of Lordran."

The phone call ended, and Ye Fei returned to the front of the ward door.

The middle-aged woman was cleaning up the white porridge on the floor, tears falling continuously.

Ye Fei pushed open the door and walked in.

"Aunt Zheng." Ye Fei began.

The middle-aged woman looked up, saw Ye Fei, was stunned for a moment, and quickly wiped away her tears.

"Little Fei, when did you get back?" Aunt Zheng barely squeezed out a smile.

"Just got back yesterday." Ye Fei put the fruit basket on the bedside table.

Zheng Yiyun on the hospital bed heard Ye Fei's voice, her body shrank violently, she hid in the corner of the wall, and pulled the quilt over her head.

"Don't look at me... Go away..." A muffled voice came from under the quilt.

Aunt Zheng's tears fell again: "This child, she's even afraid of light now."

Ye Fei didn't speak. He walked over, pulled up a chair, and sat down by the hospital bed.

"Xiaoyun." Ye Fei's tone was calm, without any sympathy or pity, "I am about to develop a new game."

There was no movement from under the quilt.

"It's a story about linking the fire." Ye Fei looked at the bulging quilt, "In a world without light, a group of Undead fight continuously and die continuously in order to extend the flame. Their bodies are covered with Dark Sigils, their faces are unrecognizable, and they are called Hollows."

Aunt Zheng stood to the side, somewhat at a loss. She didn't understand why Ye Fei wanted to say these things at this time.

"There is no savior in the game." Ye Fei continued, "Every time you fall, you lose everything. But as long as you have one breath left, you can stand up again by the bonfire."

The quilt moved slightly.

"Didn't you always complain that the games I played were too simple before?" Ye Fei stood up and pushed the chair back to its original position, "When I make it, I'll let you be the first to play it. Don't make me look down on you."

After speaking, Ye Fei turned and walked out of the ward.

Aunt Zheng chased him into the hallway: "Little Fei, don't mind her, she is currently..."

"Aunt, take good care of her." Ye Fei interrupted Aunt Zheng, "I will find a way."