Chapter 48: Learning Exchange, Budget Flush

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

This month, Pei Qian was already trying his best to splurge the money.

He divided the purchase of art resources into two portions where the first part was spent the previous week and the other part was spent this week.

He had also paid for the rental of the office space.

The salaries and overtime pay of the employees were paid out too.

There were still other casual expenditures.

Furiously, Pei Qian had managed to spend most of the System Funds.

However, everything was not over yet.

There were still two more months to go before the next settlement!

During these two months, Ghost General would still pump money continuously into the System Funds. Other than the fixed expenses of the office space rental and employee salaries, Pei Qian had to think up other ways to lose all that money!

He was a little worried.

“It truly requires knowledge to conduct a budget flush.”

“What’s the best way for a budget flush?”

“Hmms… cohesion events?”

“That’s right, cohesion events!”

Pei Qian suddenly thought of a brilliant idea.

There shouldn’t be an issue to use the System Funds for cohesion events, right?

They could casually look for a high end restaurant for a meal. For 30 over people and an estimated spending of 100 per person, that would be a few thousand yuan gone instantly!

No, that wasn’t right.

A few thousand was too little.

Pei Qian thought about it and felt that he was still being too conservative – he should let Assistant Xin handle the issue.

He called Xin Hailu to his office.

“We’ll arrange for a cohesion activity at the end of this month. You’ll plan for the schedule,” Pei Qian instructed.

“Alright, please elaborate.”

Assistant Xin was a smart person; she would never doubt Pei Qian’s instructions, merely asking to obtain his desired outcome.

Pei Qian thought for a moment. “I’m planning to bring our employees to… yes, Guangzhou! We’ll tour the place and go for a learning exchange! We won’t have to go for too long. Around five days will do.”

Pei Qian was initially undecided on where to go.

If they wanted to go abroad, they would have to apply for visas and it would be really troublesome since they would be foreign to the place.

Domestically, most of the gaming companies were gathered in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Pei Qian thought about it and decided that since Guangzhou was the furthest, the air tickets to that place would be the most expensive!

The system did not ring any warnings.

Pei Qian could not help but cheer up internally – he was getting better at reading the system’s temperament!

His excuse was a cohesion activity to visit, exchange and learn – everything sounded logical and reasonable.

As to what there was to visit, exchange and learn about from a bunch of gaming companies…? Don’t ask! The answer would be that they were there to learn from the experience of the successful gaming companies there!

“Five days. We’ll visit a company each day. Assistant Xin, remember to liaise with them beforehand. At that time, we can treat the designers or the bosses of the companies to a meal as well. That won’t be an issue.”

“It’ll be best if we can find companies that deal with creating large scale games. Companies that create FPS games would be beneficial to us too.”

“The rest of the time will be free and easy for everyone so that they can appreciate the culture and food of the place while relaxing their minds. That will help them to work better.”

“Air tickets, accommodation and group meals would all be paid for by the company!”

“Do up a schedule and let me know the rough estimate.”

Pei Qian instructed everything quickly.

“Sure thing, Boss Pei. I’ll get back to you soon,” Assistant Xin was reliable as always.

Pei Qian did not dare to have them go for too long. It was in part because he was afraid he might be issued a warning by the system if they had too much fun – after all, this was a learning exchange. At the same time, he was worried that the game’s progress might be affected. If he could not announce the game in time and that resulted in a postponement of the settlement date, it would be an extremely awkward situation.

Because the scheduled progress for the next month wasn’t so tight, Pei Qian felt that it was a good idea to take five days out for everyone to have some fun and spend some System Funds at the same time.

They could definitely spend at least a couple hundreds of thousands through it!

Even though it still felt like he was using a cup of water to salvage the forest fire, the fact that they could spend that much for a mere cohesion activity was something rather sweet!

…

Assistant Xin’s was extremely efficient and by afternoon, the schedule was prepared.

Pei Qian was delighted as he took it over and checked out the price.

“It’s not even 150,000?!” He was somewhat stumped.

That was much less than what he had expected.

Assistant Xin smiled gently. “Everything’s calculated based on the current standards.”

Pei Qian looked through everything carefully.

Assistant Xin had arranged for only 30 people – there might be some employees who did not want to travel all the way to Guangzhou.

For those people, Pei Qian would not force them. After all, it was just a fun, no, learning exchange – it was voluntary.

Return air tickets ranged around 2,000 per person.

Based on 300 per person, the accommodation cost 600 per two person room.

Coupled with the expenses for group meals, traffic and other additional costs as well as some extra budget for employees (If more than 30 people wanted to go, they would make use of the extra budget), the total sum was less than 150,000.

Even after Pei Qian’s calculation, the sum did not increase!

‘Can’t we fly first class?’

The moment that thought surfaced, he was warned by the system.

Of course not!

This was a normal exchange cohesion activity. Allowing every employee to take a first class seat would be crossing the line – the system would not allow that.

At the same time, allocating 300 yuan for each person for accommodation was more than enough. He could forget about playing punk with something like assigning each person a single presidential suite or the likes.

Pei Qian looked through the entire schedule and honestly could not find any place he could top up money for…

That had him feeling a little depressed.

‘It only takes 150,000 to bring 30 over employees for a trip to Guangzhou?’

That was much less than Pei Qian had imagined…

Of course, Pei Qian’s judgment of it being cheap was based on the state of the System Funds.

If he were to average it out, that would be around 5,000 yuan per person.

If Pei Qian was the one who had to whisk out 5,000 yuan for a couple of days in Guangzhou, he would find it to be extremely expensive instead!

“Forget it, 150,000 then. We’ll go with that estimate. Let’s prepare beforehand,” Pei Qian handed the schedule back to Assistant Xin.

He did not dare to cross the line. Even though he found it to be too little, the fact that the system did not deny it was already something to be thankful about.

…

Pei Qian’s planned period was during the end of December.

It was partly because the weather would be turning colder and they could seek warmth by heading to Guangzhou.

At the same time, Guangzhou had many gaming companies with a great ecosystem and environment. It would be perfectly logical for him to claim that they were heading there for a learning exchange.

But of course, he had to prepare beforehand for things such as booking of air tickets and liaison with the gaming companies there.

Even though Pei Qian did not intend to make a big deal out of it, he required his employees’ identifications for the booking of air tickets and thus, news of it eventually leaked out through the company.

Within the inner circle of the design team, many people could not contain their excitement and were discussing it.

“Are we really headed to Guangzhou for a learning exchange?”

“I think it’s for real! I’ve heard that Assistant Xin is already preparing to book the air tickets!”

“Aren’t the benefits for this company way too awesome? I’ve never heard of any other gaming company that would bring their employees for a learning exchange…”

“Indeed, neither have I…”

“I think a trip like this is going to cost quite a bit of money. I’d definitely not be willing to spend on something like this myself!”

“What are the companies that we’re going to visit? I suppose Sun Strike Studios will be one of them?”

“I think so? Sun Strike Studios is so famous and they specialize in FPS games. That’s suitable for us.”

“Man, I’ve dreamt of visiting Sun Strike Studios before I even joined the industry.”

“Aren’t you going to do it now? We’ll get to learn how a top-end studio functions as well!”

The entire design team was thoroughly hyped.

As for the other rest such as the arts and administrative team, their interest laid elsewhere.

They were deciding on what they should eat and where they should visit, taking it as a free trip entirely.

That was only normal. After all, most of the people in the design team were young internet addicts who had a passion for the well known domestic studios and gaming companies.

As for the rest, they were less bothered and interested in Sun Strike Studios and whatnot.

But at the end of the day, all of them were equally excited about the free company trip!