Chapter Text
Shang Qinghua sold out. Going forward, he has accepted all loss of creative control as his lot in life. His brainchild of Proud Immortal Demon's Way was abandoned, and his parental rights were revoked. His stories were turned into papapa and there is not a single character of his that has not been abused violently in some way shape or form. His payout kept him in his shitty apartment eating puddle water ramen, but a shitty apartment was still an apartment and shitty ramen was still ramen so really what did he have to complain about?
It turns out he had a lot to complain about in fact as he stared at his termination notice and watched his bank account dwindle down to a pittance with nothing to show for his dream story but a gacha game that's credits don’t even feature his username let alone his given name.
He had spent a good part of his employment time at Frost Desert Gaming replenishing character designs and lending the occasional code but there was never a meeting regarding his past accomplishments or game design experience. This was a shame because he was quite proud of Proud Immortal Demon Way and considered it his crowning achievement. He could make thousands of hot NPCs and go-no-where storylines in seconds flat, but his heart would always be with his first-ever video game. A game that he was now extremely suspicious was the reason why he was no longer allowed to work on the Cultivate System Go world.
PIDW, as it was, was just gathering dust due to the open-world and free-AI concept being too insecure for investors with current market trends. People wanted sexy scenes and soft-core stories, not immersive experiences and deep NPC backgrounds. Not to mention the fact that the original game had no intention of ever having microtransactions. A one-time payment made everyone happy! Everyone that is except shareholders.
Shang Qinghua thought that getting any amount of money for it would allow him to work more on the story to make it more marketable but that was a pipe dream as he was forced day in and day out to use his skills to write basic prompts for other games that the marketing team took and ran with to literally seduce new players to their pay-to-play scams.
Shang Qinghua had actually been working on a new game, Cultivate System Go, for a couple months with great personal success. Until he was suddenly stripped of his contributor title and his work with the System discontinued for the foreseeable future. This just so happened to coincide with a major overhaul of the System game series with a new edition rolled out with weirdly familiar world elements.
One day he was creating new NPCs for an average game from an average company, and the next he was reviewing character code that reminded him an awful lot of the NPCs he had made in a rundown apartment with his co-coder breathing down his neck about plot holes almost half a decade ago. When he raised his concerns to one of the upper division project managers, he was reminded how they "are all a family at Frost Desert Gaming and family needs to trust each other". Shang Qinghua may not be good with recognizing red flags, but he knew bullshit when he smelt it. His boss was unfortunately good at spotting unease since he sent word to Shang Qinghua a day later about his position’s termination.
Shang Qinghua had met with a single lawyer to go over his options right after he was shot down from Frost Desert Gaming Studios but he had little proof the new hit gacha game, Cultivate System Go, was based on his open-world exploration game from college that he showed very few people, none of which were his employers. As a current employee, it would be nearly impossible to get access to any proof without possible legal backlash as a result.
After providing the attorney with the much needed comedy break, Shang Qinghua was promptly faced towards the hallway and shoved out of the office.
With barely a penny to his name, he set up an overdue meeting with a man who will give him a single sneer before sending him directly to the shadow realm without allowing for a single excuse to tumble from the impoverished artist's lips.
"You have got to be fucking with me, Airplane."
The french fries were heavenly, honestly Shang Qinghua should have resorted to begging for food way before he hit rock bottom.
There was a glisten of fresh oil on the rim of his plate, still hot to the touch, and the potatoes were gilded with crimson organic ketchup. His burger was heaped with thick cuts of bacon, and melty cheese, with enough sauce to drown in. His meal was fresher than anything he's consumed in the last week and his tastebuds were rolling out the VIP brain wave experience for what was the first low-ish sodium meal he'd had in months. Shang Qinghua was reveling in the rich fats flooding his bloodstream while his best and only friend was table's distance away from strangling him.
Shen Yuan had yet to touch his own dish of equally oily foods and instead opted to lower his head into his hands, practically growling like a feral animal at Shang Qinghua under his breath. The starving author swung his feet in enjoyment and let his creative partner take the time to judge if his life was worth saving. After a few barely audible comments about his lack of balls and how he must have burned down an orphanage in a past life to deserve such a friendship, Shen Yuan picked up a single fry off of Shang Qinghua's plate and lobbed it against the author's forehead.
"You're screwed. I'm screwed. You have screwed us both. You have let a cash-grab company bend us over and fuck us raw. Couldn't even provide lube. No prep just shove it in while I'm not looking." Shen Yuan angrily chomped at another fry he swiped from Shang Qinghua despite the man's best attempts to guard his starchy prey. "I told you to not settle for the first partnership you were offered but no don’t listen to me. What do I know?! Well, you’ve done it now see how little your story matters in the Reddit gamer gutters you dipshit hack."
"Oh well, aren't you just so high and mighty? Well, my lord, I don't remember you complaining when you spent all of your cut of the payout on Twitch subs." Shang Qinghua moved his plate onto his lap and had the audacity to attempt a fry theft from Shen Yuan which was subsequently thwarted by a boney hand slapping him away.
"Cucumber-bro!" Came the whiny voice of a little guy who has never done anything wrong his entire life. "Are you gonna help or not? I don't come to you to just be yelled at." Yes, he goes to his friend first and foremost for creative help and then to be yelled at, and he would appreciate it if the helpful aspect happened while the restaurant was still in hours of operation.
"This was my code too of course I'm gonna get the evidence. How dare you think I'm not getting my precious ones and zeros away from the shithole that is the System."
Shen Yuan and Shang Qinghua picked at their fries for a bit longer as they considered their options. When the nice waitress started giving them the side-eye and the line cooks started cleaning the grills, they knew they'd overstayed the welcome purchased with their meal. They paid the bill before heading out to hail a taxi to Shen Yuan's apartment. Shang Qinghua didn't even bother offering to host at his place, Shen Yuan's expression was already soured from getting gum on the bottom of his shoe, and he'd get worse than that in Shang Qinghua's disaster-zone of an apartment.