A Three-Million-Yuan Car, Just Tinkering Around for Fun

What could be more exhilarating than the joy of seeing your favorite niche, god-tier treasure of a game suddenly come back to life right after it announced it was about to die?

Although to others, it might not be a treasure, or perhaps it's just a piece of trash, at least quite a few people in the Anime Club loved playing it.

Soon, the game development team's announcement was forwarded to the Anime Club's group chat.

It immediately caused a massive uproar.

"Holy crap, they actually managed to secure funding! I really want to know which god-like benefactor invested in this game?"

"According to this article, it's a young entrepreneur who's passionate about the gaming industry... Well, it has to be a rich bro. Those old geezers at the financial institutions would never invest in a low-return project like this."

"Sigh, capitalism!"

The topic quickly drifted off course.

The Anime Club naturally had a bit of an edgy, dramatic vibe. When everyone started acting eccentric, the visual impact was actually quite similar to that of Boss Du from Bangbang Technology Game Studio.

The difference was that Boss Du was older and lacking in the looks department, whereas Jiangcheng University Anime Club's top-tier cosplayer group... okay, maybe not top-tier, mid-tier... the lively bunch of girls were still somewhat cute.

The Anime Club's main group chat, which had been quiet because everyone was engrossed in teaming up to play games, suddenly became active because of this breaking news.

In all fairness, no one likes it when a game they love playing suddenly shuts down out of nowhere.

However, most of the time, this isn't something ordinary people can intervene in. Despite everyone criticizing this and that on the forums, they all know deep down that making a high-quality game costs a lot. Even for an indie game, it requires the core developer's blood, sweat, and tears... Time is also a cost, after all.

Immediately, everyone in the club's activity room started discussing important information about the game's next version.

New gameplay mechanics, new maps, overpowered characters, and meta builds...

They were completely immersed in it, oblivious to everything else around them.

That being said, whenever times like this occurred, there was always some blind fool who would ruin the mood.

At this moment, in a room in the boys' dormitory, Photography Guy looked at the bustling scene in the Anime Club's group chat, a look of disdain appearing on his fat, greasy face.

"Tch, these boring people, obsessing over a game all day long. I don't even know what the point is. Don't they feel like they're wasting their college lives?"

Photography Guy, the Anime Club's Chief Master Photographer... That was his former title. Although he had bestowed it upon himself, no one had ever disputed it, so it supposedly held some weight.

However, after Su Bai took over the Anime Club, absolutely no one gave a damn about him anymore.

After all, Su Bai's equipment casually cost two or three hundred thousand yuan, and he even had foreign manufacturers custom-make a set worth over a million. Coupled with the fact that the cosplayer girls all loved to curry favor with Su Bai, it was only natural for the former master photographer to fall out of favor.

At the end of the day, the girls didn't need overly profound photography skills. Su Bai's strengths in other areas were more than enough to make up for that.

As a result, Photography Guy wilted. He lost his former glory, and even when he tried to show off in the group chat, barely anyone paid attention to him.

"Wasting it? Heh, to each their own. The girls are just looking for something fresh and exciting. It's not necessarily that they love the game so much, but rather that they currently lack something else to stir their emotions."

"...True."

Photography Guy glanced at his roommate.

This dorm room was occupied by juniors, and it was actually right next to Su Bai's building. Before Su Bai became Jiangcheng University's newly minted big star, this place used to receive a lot of attention, and one of the reasons was thanks to this very roommate.

This guy was sporting a greasy slicked-back hairstyle, wearing gold-rimmed glasses and a dashing, uninhibited floral shirt. His whole persona exuded a refined scum kind of vibe.

Niu Zhihong, the famous King of Show-offs among the juniors, studied at the School of Economics and Management. As everyone knows, the density of show-offs in business majors is very high. Yet, even in the School of Economics and Management where experts were as common as clouds, Brother Niu was still a standout.

This guy was a sports scholarship student and a member of the university's basketball team. He also had outstanding talent in arts and literature, having won an award in Jiangcheng University's campus singing competition. You could say he blossomed in both arts and sports.

However, the most talked-about thing Niu Zhihong had ever done was during his sophomore year when he single-handedly sponsored the 70th-anniversary celebration of the School of Economics and Management.

More accurately, the sponsorship was made under the name of a company he had founded.

The entire gala, from venue rental to various material costs, to inviting off-campus performers, cost a total of 170,000 yuan. This amount of money could be an entire year's salary for a Jiangcheng University graduate student after graduation. Yet, Brother Niu casually tossed it out just for fun, which made people shake their heads in amusement.

Normally, on various social media apps, Niu Zhihong frequently showcased his high quality of life, attracting countless girls who yearned for a refined lifestyle. He changed girlfriends quite frequently, too.

To be honest, lately, Niu Zhihong felt that his thunder had been stolen by that kid, Su Bai.

Whether it was on Douyin or Xiaohongshu, his traffic had drastically plummeted.

There were even people chatting about Su Bai in the comment sections of his short videos, ruthlessly diverting his traffic. How infuriating!

Of course, none of that was the main point. The important thing was that this guy Su Bai actually had some real substance.

Before Su Bai burst onto the scene, many students at Jiangcheng University knew that Niu Zhihong was the proud owner of a prestigious Porsche Panamera.

He drove a relatively entry-level version, which cost just over a million yuan after taxes and fees, and it was bought brand new, a genuine million-yuan luxury car.

Once upon a time, Niu Zhihong used this car to look incredibly cool around campus.

Of course, Jiangcheng University was an elite university after all, so there wasn't a culture of mindlessly sucking up to the rich. The girls had their own sense of reserve and pride. However, Niu Zhihong wasn't just mindlessly showing off his wealth either. He had always been great at packaging himself. Besides having a luxury car, he was also a brilliantly talented poet, an indie musician, an extreme sports enthusiast, a singer, an inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage of Kung Fu tea, an entrepreneur, a basketball player, a leatherworker, a silversmith, and the owner of a golden left profile...

In short, he was a man of profound depth.

With the blessing of these titles, Brother Niu used his Panamera to pick up girls with unfailing success. From the major departments of their own university to the normal university across the street and the second-tier college next door, student Niu Zhihong left his dashing silhouette everywhere.

However, after Su Bai drove that Panamera with the wooden cabinet wrap into the parking lot of the university's south campus, Niu Zhihong's King of Show-offs filter seemed to shatter a bit.

Compared to Su Bai's eccentric behavior, Brother Niu's car indeed lacked a bit of prestige.

First was the price. Su Bai's car was the ultimate top-tier trim with custom features; it could buy two of Niu Zhihong's cars.

Second was their completely different attitudes toward their cars. Although Niu Zhihong relied on his rich experience in showing off to create a sufficient sense of chillness in his short videos, compared to Su Bai, it was absolutely nothing.

That guy was what you called truly chill. He didn't treat a three-million-yuan car like a luxury vehicle at all. Honestly, that kind of goofy anime wrap could never be brought to a formal occasion. In other words, Su Bai had just messed around with this car purely to drive it for fun on ordinary days.

This gap was simply massive.