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Wait, wait!

There’s something seriously wrong with this guy, a big problem!

The name almost made Chen Qing lose his composure, instinctively wanting to retort sarcastically, but the personality he’d developed over twenty years of hiding things forced him to hold back, because he suddenly felt that something was off!

These people claim to be from the company, but why... it seems like... they don’t know about the Divine Path System?

You’ve got to be kidding, right?

The Divine Path System was a mode of play introduced six months after the public beta of the game, tested in over a hundred new districts, and these people don’t know about it?

"Chief Designer Pu YunChuan?" Chen Qing asked again for confirmation.

"That name hasn’t been used in a long time," the King of Qin said, laughing with a hint of sentimentality in his smile... it seemed unmistakably genuine.

Chen Qing suppressed the doubts in his heart and looked toward Zi Yue: "And you? Who are you?"

"Mu Ling’er..."

"Mu...Mu Ling’er?" Chen Qing choked for a moment.

He remembered the name; she was a veteran employee of Polar Light Studio, specializing in database management.

She was in charge of testing data a month after the project went public, extremely reliable, and later it seems due to. .. what was the reason?

Right, a severe illness, middle ear cancer, advanced stage. She had to urgently leave the project team.

Just about to ask about others, Chen Qing suddenly remembered something, something extremely strange.

Among the three known time-travelers, besides the one who was now claiming to be him, the other three—Chen Xiaopang, the top female player from the first internal test version of the guild, and then Mu Ling’er in front of him—all seemed to have had accidents before the Divine Path System went online.

Yes, accidents. Mu Ling’er had to leave the project team due to middle ear cancer, and afterwards, because Chen Qing was too busy, he hadn’t visited her for several months.

The female player apparently had an accident while traveling abroad, being tricked by a close friend and taken to Southeast Asia; her family had to pay a ransom of several hundred thousand, and it was said she still hadn’t been retrieved.

And then there was Chen Xiaopang, who was in a car crash!

Chen Qing felt that something was amiss; could it be that...

"And you?" Zi Yue asked curiously. "Who are you? Since you can mention the development and management teams, you must be one of them, right? But we’ve gathered all the development team members; are you from the management team?"

"The development team...all gathered?" Chen Qing was startled and asked skeptically, "How many people are on the development team?"

Zi Yue frowned at this question, because neither development nor management team members should be ignorant of their own numbers.

But she still answered: "Fifteen people."

Chen Qing: "....."

Fifteen people; indeed, before the game launch, there were only fifteen core development team members.

The widespread use of artificial intelligence significantly reduced the demand for coding in many programs so that a project which previously required three to four hundred people could be completed by just a dozen experienced coders.

This was also the reason behind the approval of thousands of new games every day later on.

But... after the game launched and became wildly popular, over a hundred new districts were added in just six months, resulting in more operational maintenance and minor bugs that needed addressing.

Subsequently, they urgently recruited over thirty additional people to the team to revise bugs and update version content.

Interestingly though, at the beginning of the project, due to other game projects kicking off, except for Chen Qing the designer and Mu Ling’er the Data Master, who were retained, the rest were temporarily transferred to different teams.

So, the fifteen people Zi Yue mentioned were correct, but that was a month before the game went live!

Now Chen Qing had some idea of who was under the King of Qin, but there was a problem... Even if the others had been pulled from the project team at that time, wouldn’t they know about the Divine Path System?

After all, it was part of the game project they had worked on. Even though they hadn’t returned when the game took off, how could they possibly show no interest?

Did their memories only retain the very earliest version of the game?

What exactly was going on?

For a moment, Chen Qing felt an eerie sense of wrongness, but he didn’t pursue the matter further because more bizarre than any of this was the man standing before him, impersonating himself.

Who exactly is he?

Using the title of chief designer, he gathered all members of the development team to work for him, which must mean he knows me very well. Otherwise, it would not be likely for him to successfully impersonate me.

So... who exactly is he?

"Chen Qing, can’t you remember who you are?" Zi Yue frowned and said.

"I..." Chen Qing looked at the King of Qin, who was also looking at him with a puzzled face. Chen Qing felt even colder inside.

"I... I don’t know..." Chen Qing finally chose not to expose the imposter because he didn’t think Zi Yue would believe him after the revelation. He needed to understand exactly what was happening.

The King of Qin and Zi Yue glanced at each other, then the King of Qin spoke, "What do you think about my proposal then?"

"Coexistence of Yin and Yang?" Chen Qing took a deep breath, "It sounds good, and I’m not opposed to relinquishing control of the Jiangnan Divine Path."

As soon as he said this, both Zi Yue and the King of Qin looked much more pleased. If he really was from the development team, they would prefer to avoid a life-and-death struggle with Chen Qing. After all... the identity of a friend from a past life was already a rare warmth in this cold world.

"But what do you plan to do afterward?" Chen Qing asked directly.

Now that he had expressed willingness to cooperate, it was not excessive to ask about their future plans.

The King of Qin nodded and said, "In the short term, we’ll continue to strengthen our base of power as per your original plan, but most of the divine positions will be given to the high-level demons of the Dragon Palace to first boost the overall combat capability."

Upon hearing this, Chen Qing hesitated and then nodded.

In the Divine Path System, the stronger the believers, the stronger the main god.

That was why, after the West Sea Princess Ao Zhen joined, he and the Western Sea God Tian Heng were able to step into transcendence instantly, wielding the power they now had!

"But the Human Race is mainstream. With a large number of demons occupying key positions, the path for the rise of humans will be further narrowed, which will dampen their enthusiasm.

.." Chen Qing furrowed his brows in confusion, "With the invasion of the Ancient Evil imminent, the time for humans to improve is extremely limited. I don’t think bringing a large number of demons into the Divine Path System is a good thing, especially the Dragon Palace Forces.

Once they occupy the main position, they will surely have their own agenda regarding the distribution of the power of faith, sparking conflicts ahead of time and causing discontent among the Human Race. "

"Why do you want to increase the power of the Human Race in such a short time?" The King of Qin looked at Chen Qing and chuckled.

Chen Qing was startled, "Shouldn’t we? It’s only if the Human Race is powerful that we have a chance to break the cycle of the Earth Spirit.

The Divine Path System can make the whole Human Race strong, it’s our best chance to break this seal.

As long as we break out of this world, we won’t be limited by the Earth Spirit and can contend with the Ancient Evils from beyond the sky, right? "

"Turns out... you want to liberate the Human Race..."

"Don’t you feel the same way?" Chen Qing frowned.

"Did you forget what I just told you?" The King of Qin chuckled, "Once the Human Race grows, will they definitely follow your will?

Making demons the main gods will inevitably make them targets of the Human Race.

Sooner or later, you will be abandoned by the Human Race.

And you still dream of breaking the seal as a collective? "

"We can make preparations in advance to avoid that as much as possible..."

"It’s unavoidable..." The King of Qin shook his head and said coldly, "The Human Race doesn’t deserve such consideration from us. They should simply serve as nourishment!"

"Nourishment?" Chen Qing stared at him, while Zi Yue beside him looked down, a flicker of an indescribable glow in her eyes.

"They only deserve to be nourishment..." Speaking of the Human Race, the King of Qin’s voice grew colder, "Use Hell to replace the Path of Yin and Yang.

Before the arrival of the Ancient Evil, we will completely control reincarnation.

They will naturally be forced to negotiate with us because once we eliminate their resentment with your reincarnation, the Earth Spirit will, within a very short time, leave again.

The long-awaited revival of the Earth Spirit will become a pipe dream, and then they will be willing to talk. "

"Your ultimate goal... is to negotiate with those pioneers?" Chen Qing stared blankly at him.

"What else?" The King of Qin chuckled, "The Ancient Evils, nearly monopolized by those guys, are extremely hard for us to kill even one, not to mention we have fifteen, oh.

.. including you, sixteen. This number is not many.

If one faction is willing to give up fifteen spots for us, we can have a reincarnation that we completely control. This temptation is irresistible!"

"Complete control of reincarnation will allow us to finely tune the resentment of the Human Race so it doesn’t collapse due to unbalanced slaughtering among the factions.

If controlled well, there will never be a revival of the Earth Spirit, and with the pathway already closed, as long as we maintain it well, that will be eternal wealth and longevity! "

"So you mean to treat the Human Race... as pigs to be fattened?" Chen Qing looked at him and laughed, "Turns out you just want to become the new Evil Dragons."

"What’s wrong with being an Evil Dragon?" The King of Qin scoffed, "Would you rather be a saint and wait to be betrayed by this world’s Human Race?"

Chen Qing: "...."

"What do you think? Deal... or no deal?"

"No deal!" Chen Qing answered him and, in the instant he replied, he made his move!