9: Steam removal incident

Cheng Mo's finger pressed against the screen as the progress bar reached one hundred percent.

Published successfully.

He didn't move. His phone was still connected to a hotspot, the screen glowing as the page loaded the Steam store interface. The game icon featured a cracked pixel leap platform against a black background, with the title "leap platform nightmare" written in a jagged font. Below it, the status showed "Online," and the player count began to tick up from 0—1, 3, 7... surging to over two hundred within fifteen minutes.

He sat on a bench outside a convenience store. The wind was a bit strong, blowing the hood of his sweatshirt back. He didn't bother to fix it. The silver stud in his right ear caught the streetlamp's light, flashing for half a second.

He opened the backend monitoring tool and stared at the server connection status. The data flow was normal, and request responses were within the millisecond range. He switched to a test account, preparing to check the actual performance of the first level.

He clicked to enter the store page—

404.

Page does not exist.

He blinked.

Refresh.

Still 404.

He tried a different browser in incognito mode; the result was the same. He grabbed his backup phone and logged into his account, but the developer backend wouldn't open either, showing only a line of grey text: Content under review, temporarily invisible.

He didn't curse. He didn't smash his phone. Instead, he leaned back, sinking his entire body into the bench.

He knew this wasn't a technical glitch.

If the server had crashed, he would have received an alert. If the network was down, the hotspot wouldn't still be online. The current situation was that the front-end entry point had been cut off; the platform had blocked it directly, leaving no way to even file an appeal.

He clicked on the log system and pulled up the access records for the past ten minutes. The last legitimate request came from a Steam CDN node exactly three hours ago. After that, every request was met with a 403 and 404 combo—a typical targeted removal process.

The corner of his mouth twitched.

It wasn't a smile, nor was it anger. It was a sense of calm that came after confirming a certain hypothesis.

Someone had made a move.

And they moved fast. The game had been online for less than three hours, with barely any negative reviews yet, before being kicked off the shelves.

This kind of operation was uncommon. Usually, a platform would issue a warning, limit traffic, or lower its ranking first, only delisting it if all else failed. A direct wipeout indicated a push from behind, not an automated system penalty.

He opened an encrypted messaging app and scrolled through the message logs from yesterday to now. The email from Tencent's law firm was still there, its content citing "suspected plagiarism of an unreleased project." Ridiculous. He hadn't even heard of that project. But the fact that they dared to send the email meant they weren't afraid of leaving evidence, which meant they were already prepared to take the next step.

He remembered the black car parked ten meters away last night. The driver's side window rolled down, and a hand wearing a white glove rested on the window sill.

Looking back now, that was a signal.

Not a threat. A countdown.

He logged back into the developer backend, this time using a hidden channel to bypass the regular entry. The interface loaded, appearing entirely grey. Most functions were locked, except for an inconspicuous notification popping up in the bottom right corner:

[Unconventional content removal behavior detected, matching 'External Suppression' trigger conditions]

He stared at the line of text.

The next second, text with a golden border emerged in the center of the main interface:

[Reverse User Satisfaction System · Level 2 Response Initiated]

[Double Rating Compensation Mechanism Activated]

His breathing hitched for a moment.

The system had determined that this delisting was artificial suppression, not natural market elimination. This meant that as soon as the game was relisted, even if it received nothing but negative reviews, its rating would rise at double the efficiency. The platform's recommendation weight would increase simultaneously, and the traffic pool would automatically expand.

Absurd.

But logical.

The game he made wasn't meant to thrive on positive reviews anyway. The more the players cursed and the higher the refund rate, the happier the system would be. Now that even being delisted counted as "negative feedback," it was practically a free win.

He placed his phone face down on his lap and closed his eyes.

He knew who did it.

Wang Zhen.

That man who wore a suit but had a Switch controller peeking out of his pocket. A photo of him with Pony Ma hung in his office; he spoke of cooperation, but his eyes were full of annexation.

They wanted to use a legal letter to scare him into stopping. He ignored them. So they moved to delete the game.

Fast, precise, and ruthless.

Unfortunately for them, they didn't understand the rules of this system.

The harder you suppress it, the higher it rebounds.

He lit up his phone again and switched to the monitoring panel. Although the store page was gone, players who had already downloaded the game were still running it. Local data was still being transmitted back. Crash reports popped up one after another; the average survival time was 47 seconds, and no one had broken through the third level for the longest clear record.

He clicked on a player ID named "Steel Coin Smurf No. 3." This guy had died twenty-one times in a row, finally uploading a screen recording to the community with the title "Is this game even made by a human?". There were already over three hundred comments under the video, half cursing and half asking how to download it.

Interesting.

The game was delisted, yet its popularity was actually rising.

He noted down the ID, planning to have Chen Hao get in touch later. Now was not the time.

He looked up at the sky. Dawn was approaching; the streetlights were still on, but their light had weakened. The convenience store owner came out to collect the promotional signs by the door. Seeing him still sitting there, the owner paused for a moment, said nothing, and retreated back inside.

He didn't care.

All he wanted to do now was wait.

Wait for Steam to relent and relist the game.

As soon as the game returned, the system could start working. The more negative reviews the better, and the faster the refunds, the more wonderful. All those posts cursing his ancestors would become fuel for the rating growth.

He pulled out his earphones and plugged them into his phone. Playing inside was the game's background sound effects—a monotonous electronic ticking with irregular intervals that was irritating to hear. He had specifically tuned it to accelerate the heart rate.

He liked listening to this.

Like a pre-battle warm-up.

He opened the real-time data stream, watching the number of remaining active players. It dropped from two hundred to eighty-nine, then down to sixty-three. Many people uninstalled it immediately after discovering it was delisted. But seventeen people remained in the game, repeatedly challenging the first level.

One of the IDs was "Brother Tie Zhu," who had died one hundred and eight times and was still trying.

He remembered this name.

This kind of person was a core user. Unafraid of difficulty or frustration, the more they were tormented, the more they wanted to clear the game. They were the first batch of believers and the seeds for future promotion.

He looked down at the phone on his lap. The screen was still on that golden notification.

Double Rating Compensation Activated.

He suddenly felt a bit hungry.

But he didn't want to move.

He knew this night wasn't over yet.

Delisting was just the beginning.

There would definitely be more moves later. It could be a smear campaign by paid trolls, a media onslaught, or a new round of legal pressure.

But he wasn't afraid.

What he feared was being ignored.

As long as someone was watching him, wanting him to disappear, then he would certainly survive.

And even thrive.

He took off his earphones and bit into the remains of a long-melted lollipop. Lemon flavored, a bit sour.

He whispered, "Come on, let me see how else you can suppress me."

After speaking, he put his earphones back on and opened the backend monitoring panel. The data stream was still ticking. Seventeen players, sixteen crash reports, the third abnormal memory usage peak.

He stared at the screen.

His finger rested on the refresh key.

Waiting for the relisting notification.

Waiting for the tsunami of negative reviews.

Waiting for the moment the system truly activated.

His phone suddenly vibrated.