Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 109: President Gu Plugs the Loophole! (Four updates for monthly passes!)

Chapter 109: Chapter 109: President Gu Plugs the Loophole! (Four updates for monthly passes!)

Azazel rubbed his hands with a somewhat sheepish expression, "Ah, Lady Lilith, you flatter me. What ulterior motive could I possibly have? Against someone as formidable and terrifying as you, a minor figure like me wouldn’t dare any mischief.

"But... this clause itself doesn’t really impose any constraint on you, does it?"

Lilith was momentarily at a loss for words and looked to Gu Fan for help.

Gu Fan was very calm, "Of course, we can accept this clause. However, if we add this one, the cut of negative emotional energy we receive when the game is running at a loss should be increased to one-eighth; and when the game is profitable, it should be adjusted to three-quarters."

Azazel almost jumped, "You’re asking for the moon! Sorry, I can accept the increase to three-quarters when the game is profitable, but increasing it to one-eighth during a loss is absolutely non-negotiable!"

Lilith’s face darkened, "You dare to haggle with me!"

Azazel stood his ground, "Lady Lilith, I am also serving Lord Lucifer. It is acceptable for me to offer up some negative emotional energy in return for the Human World currency you invest, but one-eighth is too much!"

Neither side would budge. Although Lilith’s aura grew increasingly powerful, Azazel stubbornly refused to give in.

Seeing the stalemate, Gu Fan intervened in time, "President Li, let it go.

"President Sa, how about this? Since you said you can accept an increase to three-quarters of the negative emotional energy when profitable, we are willing to compromise and go with this arrangement:

"After the release of Hell Frontline’s game, there must not be ’Major BUGs that deviate significantly from the original design’; otherwise, your side will not have to pay any negative emotional energy.

"In return, if the game is profitable, you will pay President Li three-quarters of the negative emotional energy as well as all profits; if it is running at a loss, you will give her one-tenth."

Azazel visibly hesitated, glancing at Lilith with some confusion.

Lilith was still somewhat reluctant, but seemingly having no way to deal with Azazel, she nodded, "Fine, let’s go with that then!"

With a wave of her hand, a quill and a lengthy contract scroll appeared in the air.

After a flurry of writing, the contract was completed.

Azazel carefully read the contract several times from beginning to end before finally relaxing and signing his name.

"Lady Lilith, there have always been rumors in Hell that you are capricious and unreasonable, but today it is clear that those are nothing but slander spread by inferior demons!

"You are obviously an understanding, fair, and impartial demon! No, no, no, a majestic demon who commands respect!"

Lilith stood up, "I will have the money transferred to your company’s account. Gu Fan, let’s go!"

...

Once they were back in the red Ferrari, Lilith finally voiced her doubts.

"Strange, you actually agreed to that condition?

"I thought you would find a way to bribe that programmer to secretly change their game!

"Like, stuffing some weird BUGs into their game or something."

Gu Fan jumped in alarm, "President Li, you can’t be serious, stuffing BUGs into a game? That’s absolutely impossible for a programmer to do!

"The program of a game is a very complex and chaotic system. Any single line of code going wrong could lead to a complete crash of the program, let alone inserting a BUG!

"If I really did that, it would definitely be discovered, and if you two demons were to be called to account by Lucifer, you wouldn’t have a leg to stand on!"

Lilith pondered, "Oh, is that so?"

Gu Fan inwardly breathed a sigh of relief, thinking how cunning and deceitful Hell Demons are, nearly falling for Lilith’s ruse.

If Gu Fan had agreed that "programmers could stuff BUGs into games," Lilith’s first reaction would not have been to figure out how to put BUGs into Hell Frontline’s game, but to suspect whether the BUGs in Nitiandang’s game were Gu Fan’s doing.

That would have spelled disaster!

Fortunately, Gu Fan reacted swiftly.

Clearly, Gu Fan’s categorical response confused Lilith as well, "Then why did you confidently sign the contract with him? Don’t tell me you were really just after that one-tenth of the negative emotional energy.

"Although trading money for one-tenth of his negative emotional energy isn’t too bad a deal for me, I always feel like you are brimming with confidence, with an even deeper plan."

Gu Fan explained, "The investment agreement between Nitiandang and Hell Frontline actually has the following payoff rules:

"If Hell Frontline’s game is running at a loss, meaning their negative emotional energy harvesting is successful, then we won’t receive any financial return and we still have to fund their next game’s development costs. We get a tenth of the negative emotional energy they earn.

"If Hell Frontline’s game is profitable, meaning their negative emotional energy collection plan has failed, then we get to take all of their financial profits and three-quarters of the negative emotional energy they’ve gathered.

"This rule, under the game’s loss state, appears to be very fair and reasonable, so it’s actually just a smokescreen."

"Our real goal, of course, is to make their game profitable."

Lilith was somewhat puzzled, "But you can’t change their code, so how can you make them profitable? It seems impossible."

Clearly, Azazel couldn’t figure this out either, which is why he agreed to the contract.

Gu Fan smiled slightly, "Let’s try it, what if it works? And even if it doesn’t succeed, we have nothing to lose."

...

...

In the blink of an eye, a month had passed.

October 21st, Monday.

Zhou Yang hummed a tune, coming to work at the company as usual.

However, as soon as he sat down at his workstation, he heard some bad news.

"Zhou Yang, come here for a moment."

"What’s wrong, Big Brother Da Hui?"

At this time, it was still quite early, and there were only Zhou Yang and Feng Hui in the entire second floor of the café.

Feng Hui pointed to a line of code on the screen, "Look at this."

Zhou Yang looked as if he was seeing hieroglyphs, "This here... what’s wrong with it?"

Feng Hui explained, "The code you asked me to change last Friday, President Gu has changed it back!

"No, to be exact, not only has he changed it back, but he also added some new logic rules, completely plugging this bug!"

Zhou Yang was shocked, "What?"

He carefully looked at the submission records, indeed, Gu Fan had modified this part, and the time was Sunday afternoon at 2 o’clock.

"Why would he do this?" Zhou Yang was completely baffled and could not understand at the moment.

Feng Hui spread his hands, "How would I know? I just changed the code according to what you said, but now President Gu has changed it back. As for why, you figure it out."

Zhou Yang scratched his head, "Alright then."

Returning to his seat, Zhou Yang knitted his brows, lost in thought.

So far, the development progress of City of the Abandoned Gods had reached about 70%, and it was time to try doing something substantial.

The change that Zhou Yang had Feng Hui make was a bug he had conceived after racking his brains for a short period.

Or rather, a hidden mechanism.

In the game City Forsaken by Gods, NPCs also had many attributes. In addition to common base attributes such as health, magic, strength, agility, and intelligence, to better realize game mechanics, there were also three special attributes.

They were "Good-Evil Value," "Faith Value," and "Charisma."

"Good-Evil Value" is easy to understand; it affects the behavior of NPCs controlled by fake-AI. For instance, good NPCs are more likely to accept refugees or tolerate lower resource distributions.

"Faith Value" can be understood as the belief in angels or demons. The higher the faith value, the more one can use oneself as a medium to wield the powerful force of angels or demons.

"Charisma" is similar to charm and is also affected by the Good-Evil Value. For example, if an NPC is very good, they will have greater charisma with angel forces, while with demon forces, they will naturally attract ridicule.

Besides these, there’s also "Favorability," although only a few key NPCs in the game had it. In reality, it’s an attribute of little use.

In order to make his presence more valuable, to live up to the bonus President Gu gave, Zhou Yang had also been thinking about what kind of bug he should plant in the game.

After much thought, he finally came up with one: using the skill "Hell’s Bounties" to infuse "Hell Knowledge" into his foster daughter, Xia Mi!

With this, Xia Mi, having gained the knowledge of Hell, would change her behavior logic, and turn to the demon’s side, helping the player in the role of the City Lord.

However, this piece of code was discovered after it was submitted by Gu Fan.

Gu Fan not only eliminated the possibility of this operation, but also added an extra rule: as the human incarnation of Archangel Chamuel, any demonic skills used on Xia Mi would be purified by the holy power of angels, having no effect at all!

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