China's Top-tier Anime Mobile Game Played Worldwide

The girl standing in front of him looked familiar. He had some impression of her, but he really couldn't remember who she was.

To be honest, Su Bai was indeed a bit face-blind.

The girl looked awkward for a moment, then waved her hand and laughed self-deprecatingly, "I guess you really haven't seen me in my everyday look much, junior. I'm Little Bear from the Anime Club!"

"Oh, I see."

That made sense.

The number of times she had appeared in front of Su Bai in cosplay was indeed far greater than in casual clothes.

Actually, this girl wasn't ugly even without heavy makeup. She was definitely a pretty little thing, though she couldn't compare to Su Bai's female confidantes.

But she had a great personality. She had once tried to hit on Su Bai, but after being rejected, she didn't pester him. Instead, she focused on helping him get things done. Her emotional intelligence was definitely online.

Su Bai really liked cooperating with this kind of person. She knew her boundaries. After all, to live comfortably as a mega-rich guy, he couldn't just rely on his intimate female companions. He also needed ordinary connections that were a couple of notches lower in intimacy.

For instance, Little Bear could help Su Bai handle many matters related to the Anime Club, and she did it efficiently, without dragging her feet.

Although according to the System's scan, her dating history was a bit too rich, she was at least very reliable as a friend.

"Are you by yourself, junior?"

"Yeah, just me. The girls are all sleeping in."

"Then come join us. We're near the front of the line and almost up."

"Sure."

Waiting in line was something Su Bai rather hated. If he had known beforehand that this damn clay pot porridge required lining up, he probably wouldn't have come. Instead, he would have grabbed a Jianbing Guozi, a Chinese savory crepe, with spicy strips added, right next to his dorm building.

Running into an acquaintance who had already done the waiting for him was a different story.

What a stroke of luck.

The girls from the Anime Club were pleasantly surprised by Su Bai's arrival. Perhaps in their minds, they would never run into someone like him in the cafeteria.

"Is there anything special about this clay pot porridge?" Su Bai started the conversation with a soul-searching question. He had always liked getting to the bottom of things. Back when he was a nobody, he often kept his mouth shut to avoid trouble. But now, he didn't need to care about emotional intelligence. No matter how outrageous or weird his remarks were, the cosplayers from the Anime Club would smooth things over for him. Moreover, no one would call him a creep.

When you have money, there will naturally be great scholars to defend your words.

"I don't know. Maybe it's because our school didn't have clay pot porridge before?"

"Not really, doesn't the Cantonese combo window in the South Campus cafeteria have it?"

"That one isn't authentic..."

"It seems to be some new flavor that fuses local specialties..."

"Sounds like a culinary disaster."

The girls chimed in one after another.

Su Bai more or less understood.

It was probably just to try something new. Of course, there was another relatively important reason: this clay pot porridge stall seemed to have hired a minor internet celebrity to promote it.

Calling her an internet celebrity was a stretch; she was actually just a student with a large following on TikTok. The girl Su Bai had just seen holding a selfie stick and live-streaming was her.

"So our school's cafeteria is this scheming too..." Su Bai was amazed.

"Jiang University has always placed a lot of importance on publicity."

"You're an internet celebrity too, junior. I bet that girl might come over to do a collab with you later."

"A collab would be a total win for fans of both."

"You're a major content creator, after all."

"She'd just be leeching off our Young Master Su's traffic..."

The girls giggled and chatted playfully, spouting nonsense.

The main reason Su Bai still spent a large part of his time hanging around the campus was probably because of these innocent and lively girls in front of him. Well, to say they were purely innocent might be a stretch, they all had their own little schemes, but compared to women out in society, they were definitely much more pure.

They knew Su Bai was very wealthy, but they didn't build up a wall of solemn awe because of it. There wasn't much of a sense of distance.

Soon, it was Su Bai and the girls' turn.

The group found a rather large table. It seemed these cosplayers liked to stick together in a group, probably because they shared a common language. While waiting in line just now, Su Bai noticed they were all grinding away at an anime-style mobile game. Their taste in games was pretty much the same as Wang Haoran's.

They really had to stick together. They probably couldn't hold a conversation with your average passing female college student.

Even though they were all of the same age and even went to the same university, people's hobbies and interests varied wildly. Something Su Bai always wanted to complain about was how many older people would forcefully lump together young people who actually had nothing in common, assuming they shared the same interests.

For example, take reading web novels. Could someone who loved male-oriented harem power fantasies ever find common ground in a conversation with someone who loved female-oriented historical tragic romances?

It would be a miracle if they didn't start a fight...

Noticing Su Bai paying attention to the game they were playing, one of the cosplayers asked him, "What have you been playing lately, junior?"

"I haven't been playing anime games much recently. It's either League of Legends or Valorant every day."

"Your rank must be pretty high, right?"

"Haha, I'm stuck in silver and gold. I completely rely on my girlfriend to carry me... This game looks new. I saw my roommate playing it too."

Su Bai noticed that they all had an uncommon icon on their phones. When opened, it showed an unfamiliar interface that didn't belong to any game Su Bai knew.

The art design looked quite exquisite.

And Su Bai recalled that Wang Haoran seemed to be playing this recently too.

"Oh, this? It just went into open beta recently, but rumor has it the company ran out of money and is about to go bankrupt."

"Then shouldn't they hurry up and release more characters to bait people into spending money?" Su Bai teased.

"They can't really do that. This game has always prided itself on being ethical. The art and gameplay are quite interesting, but it's a buy-to-play game. They don't sell characters..."

Haha, a niche, premium, buy-to-play anime mobile game?

From a player's perspective, they might get to experience something uniquely characteristic without spending much money.

But from a commercial profitability standpoint, it was hard to judge...

Just which genius investor funded this bizarre project, I'd like to ask?

A buy-to-play model naturally had a disadvantage compared to free-to-play with gacha mechanics. Mainly because it was a small studio with no successful track record, so players would remain skeptical.

Moreover, the game was dirt cheap. It was priced at eighteen yuan a copy, which was only the cost of two or three pulls in a gacha game.

"I'll download it and give it a try." Seeing them play so enthusiastically, Su Bai's curiosity was piqued. He decided to get a copy and play it before this game company with its bizarre thought process went out of business.

After all, this was a good game jointly certified by the otakus of the Anime Club and the anime game immortal, Wang Haoran. He had to experience it.

He downloaded the game while eating his clay pot pork rib porridge... No, wait, why was this clay pot porridge soy-sauce-flavored, slightly spicy, and filled with lotus roots?

Su Bai suddenly smiled in realization. He now understood why the promotion said it was improved according to local specialties. After all, from a stereotypical perspective, Jiangcheng's local specialties were its famous lotus root soup and its relatively spicy food...

But putting lotus roots in clay pot porridge was indeed a bit too weird.

The girls finished taking pictures, letting their phones eat first, before dipping their spoons in to taste it.

Their expressions all turned a bit subtle.

Senior Little Bear commented, "I feel like the taste... isn't as good as the Jianbing Guozi next to the dorm building."

Lao Xiong is spot on.