249: Chapter 249, "The Sword of the Archangel," is now available.

"I won't go," Chen Fan's tone was flat, but every word was firm. "First of all, your platform doesn't have a rule against advertising. Secondly, if you don't agree, I'll just switch platforms."

The other end of the phone went quiet.

"Pen name, don't be impulsive." Xinghe's voice carried a hint of nervousness. "I'm not saying it's definitely not allowed; I'm saying the higher-ups might have objections. Don't be in such a rush to make a decision."

"Fine. Regardless, I'm definitely going to run the ads. If all else fails, I'll just post them on another platform."

Chen Fan spoke lightly, but there was no room for negotiation in his tone.

Over this period, the wealth store had refreshed several novels that would become huge hits in the future, and this "cataclysm of all races" was just one of them.

Even if he stopped writing this one, he had others he could write. Given his reputation, switching to a different platform would still attract plenty of readers.

Chen Fan could even actively promote pirated versions; his goal was just to promote the game anyway.

"Okay, okay, I understand. Rest assured, if the leadership really has objections, I will try my best to communicate with them."

"Alright, then I'll leave it to you."

Chen Fan hung up the phone, placed it on the desk, and leaned back in his chair.

He wrote books to drive traffic to the game, not to earn royalties, so this advertisement had to run; not even the King of Heaven could stop him.

In the blink of an eye, it was April 30th.

Many days had passed, and the business of both companies had made significant progress.

First, on the Fanti side, they had reached a cooperation agreement with the production crew of "Love is Not Blind".

The sponsorship fee for the joint promotion was finalized at 800,000.

The contract clearly stipulated the brand exposure methods, usage rights for promotional materials, cooperation duration, and other details. Every clause was written out clearly, leaving no room for ambiguity.

800,000 was not a small sum, but in exchange, they got a full year of brand bundling and exposure opportunities from a 300 million box office hit. No matter how you looked at it, it was a good deal.

Besides that, Li Nan had already taken people to evaluate Su Jingqiu's factory.

She and the merchandiser Sun Min stayed at Su Jingqiu's factory for most of the day. They inspected every aspect, from the layout of the production line to the operating condition of the equipment, and from the craftsmanship of the workers to the inventory management of the fabrics.

The pros and cons were clear at a glance. The equipment was a bit old, with some machines dating back to the early 2000s, but they were well-maintained and running normally.

The workers had solid skills; the sample garments they made had even stitches and smooth seams. While not top-tier, they had no trouble meeting the production requirements for Chen Fan's batch of clothing.

Thus, Li Nan signed an OEM contract with Su Jingqiu on behalf of Fanti.

The first batch order was for 3,000 pieces. From next month on, they would place follow-up orders, with a required monthly production volume of 30,000 pieces.

When Su Jingqiu signed her name on the contract, her hand trembled slightly, but her gaze was resolute.

She promised to complete the production of 30,000 pieces next month, and if she failed to do so, she would pay liquidated damages as required by the contract.

Yesterday, Chen Fan specifically visited Su Jingqiu's factory to check on the first batch of products produced.

From the time the contract was signed until now, Su Jingqiu had really been pushing herself—the production line ran from 7:00 AM to 10:00 PM with workers in two shifts, and she even oversaw the quality control herself.

When Chen Fan arrived at the factory, Su Jingqiu was in the workshop performing random checks on finished products with the quality inspector, and only stopped her work when Chen Fan, the client boss, arrived.

With Su Jingqiu working so hard, the first batch of 3,000 pieces was not only completed in less than ten days, but the quality was also quite good.

Chen Fan stood by the assembly line, picked up a finished product, and examined it carefully. Both the fabric and the workmanship met Chen Fan's requirements.

It was now the end of April. Chen Fan's plan was to begin official sales in June, by which time they would probably have produced over 30,000 pieces.

This amount wasn't a lot, but it wasn't a little either; it was enough to test the initial market.

Before the official sale, the marketing plan still needed to be refined.

Although they had reached a joint promotion cooperation with "Love is Not Blind", the movie wouldn't be released until November, and Chen Fan couldn't wait until then to start selling clothes.

According to the current progress, official sales in June would be no problem.

Progress on the Fanti side was rapid, and Fanyu was not slow either.

As the popularity of the advertisement shot by Nick Cheung, Naza, and Reba continued to spread, along with the promotional ads at the end of every chapter of Chen Fan's new book, the popularity of "archangels sword" was now exceptionally explosive.

The three words "Zhajiahui" had been hanging on the Weibo hot search list for several days. Related memes, ghost-animal videos, and parodies were emerging one after another, and the topic's view count had already exceeded 50 million.

Although Naza and Reba didn't make the hot search list, their names appeared with increasing frequency in game-related discussion forums.

With the viral spread of the addictive advertisement, the visual appeal of the two attractive girls, and the traffic driven by Chen Fan's novel advertisement, the number of pre-registrations for "archangels sword" shot up like a rocket.

As of today, the number of pre-registrations had reached 1.75 million.

At this level, in 2011, no other game could achieve this.

Therefore, it could be foreseen that the performance after the game went live would definitely far exceed everyone's expectations.

The next day, at 10:00 AM, the servers opened on time.

Chen Fan did not sit in his office but instead came to the operations floor.

In the office area of the second department, about thirty people were sitting at their respective workstations, eyes fixed on their screens. The air was filled with a tense yet excited atmosphere.

No one was chatting, no one was scrolling on their phones, and even when drinking water, they would take a quick sip during the intervals when the data refreshed.

Technical Lead's workstation was at the very back. On the desk, two monitors were placed side by side; one was for server load monitoring, and the other was a chart of the number of online users.

He sat in his chair with his back straight, his eyes scanning back and forth between the two screens, his fingers hovering above the keyboard, ready to deal with any emergencies at any time.

Chen Fan walked over, stood behind him, and his gaze fell on the screen displaying the number of online users.

At 10:01, the number jumped. From zero to 3,000 in less than thirty seconds.

At 10:03, the number of online users surpassed 10,000.

At 10:05, 20,000.

At 10:17, 30,000.

At 10:38, 50,000.

One hour later, the number of online users had reached 80,000.

This number was still rising, but the rate of growth had slowed down, changing from the initial thousands per minute to a few hundred per minute.

However, compared to other games, this result was still terrifying. Ordinary products couldn't even reach 5,000 online users one hour after opening, so 80,000 online users was already the level of a top-tier product.

Seeing this data, Chen Fan knew it was stable.

In this day and age, if a game could reach 50,000 online users on its first day, it could be considered a blockbuster.

And "archangels sword" had reached this number in just over half an hour, and it was still growing.

Although the rate of growth had slowed down afterwards.