0044: A Little Excitement, and the Big Spenders Paid Again

"Brother Gang, District One is lagging again!"

"Didn't the players who came to watch leave?"

"I don't know either."

"Post a game announcement and guide the low-level players in District One to transfer to other districts."

"..."

At around eight thirty that evening, District One started lagging again.

Soon after, the other five districts, including the newly opened District Six, gradually filled up as well.

Chen Guiliang carefully checked the latest forum replies, then logged into the game on an alt to chat with people. He quickly figured out what was going on.

New players had been steadily transferring over from other private servers like "DuDu Legend" and "17577 Legend."

In fact, quite a few private server players had heard last night that "Legend of the Abyss" was interesting and wanted to try it out. But the download link had been cut off at the time, so many could only wait until today to play.

Those players had already flooded in at noon today.

Meanwhile, the players who had pulled all-nighters grinding dungeons last night had gotten enough sleep and logged back in.

There were also more and more internet café players.

With several waves of players crashing together, how could the servers not lag?

"The lag isn't too bad. It's barely still playable," Yang Yuhui said.

Tao Chenggang said, "We'll have to rent more servers."

Chen Guiliang said, "Give the big-spending players free accelerators. Don't publicize it—there's no need to even tell them. They'll understand on their own."

Just then, Tao Chenggang's phone rang.

He ran to a corner to answer it. After only a few sentences, he waved Chen Guiliang over.

Chen Guiliang walked over and asked, "What is it?"

Tao Chenggang said, "Luo Xiaoping, the guy who made the Dungeon Manager for us—didn't he bring in a friend to work on it with him? Our private server blew up, so that friend went onto the forums to brag about it. Now everyone knows they made the Dungeon Manager, and lots of people are contacting them to buy it. They want to follow the trend and make private servers with dungeons too."

"That friend is probably just him, isn't it?" Chen Guiliang assumed the worst.

"Definitely not," Tao Chenggang said. "Luo Xiaoping is pretty reliable. He often shares the private server tools he develops for free. So many people have asked to buy the Dungeon Manager, but he hasn't agreed to sell it yet. He called me first to discuss it."

After thinking it over, Chen Guiliang said, "It took us ten days of tweaking data just to make this private server good. We can agree to let him sell it—consider it making a friend. If those copycat dungeon private servers go live in just two or three days, they definitely won't be anywhere near as fun as ours. If they take ten days before going live, it won't affect us much anyway, because Shanda has already made its move against us."

Tao Chenggang called back. After chatting for a few moments, he hung up. "He plans to price it at ten thousand. At that price, probably only a few people will buy it."

Chen Guiliang said, "Who knows when Shanda will make its move? We need to hurry up and make quick money. Announce a Shabak Siege for eight tomorrow night. Players can apply for eligibility starting now. That'll push them to grind more dungeons for gear!"

A few minutes after the game announcement went out.

Boss Shi stood directly in the Safe Zone and shouted, "Guild recruiting! Only players level 28 and above! Join the guild and get 3 Abyss Tickets, plus a weekly salary of 5 tickets. Hurry and join—first come, first served! Grind all night tonight and take Shabak tomorrow night!"

Lord Jing Fu Guoqiang was stunned. He had been planning to recruit people the same way. But he was only going to give one ticket for joining and two tickets a week as wages.

"Which bastard is this? How the hell is he so rich?" Fu Guoqiang couldn't help complaining.

An old brother in the party said, "I know one of his underlings. He's an old ID from 'Legend.' The guy shouting just now might be the owner of Brain Gold."

"Damn it! How are we supposed to compete for Shabak now?"

"Brother Qiang, why don't we switch districts? We can't outspend them."

"Switch my ass. Did we grind all night for nothing? This private server doesn't sell equipment, and Abyss Tickets are only five yuan each. No matter how much he tops up, he can't pull that far ahead."

"Brother Qiang, are you planning to go all out?"

"Whatever benefits he offers to recruit people, I can offer too. You guys shout and recruit people. I'll go top up a few thousand yuan more."

"Yeah, crush Brain Gold! I've been sick of their ads for ages!"

"..."

For tomorrow night's Shabak Siege, the big spenders across all six districts began an arms race.

Top-up amounts instantly surged!

The vast number of Free Riders, along with the small number of paying players, also became more motivated because of this. They swarmed into guilds, got dungeon tickets from the big spenders, then happily turned on guild mode and ran dungeons.

Xie Yang stood behind the top-up customer service desk, watching transaction record after transaction record. His eyes nearly popped out of his head.

Making money was really this easy.

On Saturday night, the players were all going crazy.

Tomorrow night's Shabak Siege would be even crazier.

As more and more internet cafés proactively reached out to cooperate, Tao Chenggang opened District Seven at noon on Sunday.

"Brother Gang, we'll head back to school first," Chen Guiliang said after lunch.

"Alright. Studies come first. Don't let this delay you."

Tao Chenggang took out two hundred yuan and handed it to Xie Yang. "Thanks for coming to help, little brother."

Xie Yang hurriedly declined. "President Tao, there's really no need. I only helped make a few posts and chatted on QQ a little whenever customer service was too busy."

"Take it. We'll have chances to work together again," Tao Chenggang said with a smile.

Xie Yang turned to look at Chen Guiliang.

"Take it," Chen Guiliang said.

Only then did Xie Yang awkwardly accept the money. "Thank you, President Tao."

In a small city where the average monthly salary was only a few hundred yuan, receiving a massive two-hundred-yuan red envelope for casually helping out over just two days was an incredibly rare opportunity for a poor student.

After Tao Chenggang left the little restaurant, Xie Yang pulled Chen Guiliang toward the restroom. "President Tao is really generous."

"He really is." Chen Guiliang smiled.

Giving him two hundred yuan was naturally out of consideration for Chen Guiliang's sake.

Those other customer service staff and Internet Trolls only received a monthly salary plus a small bonus.

Since they were in no hurry to return to school, Chen Guiliang, Xie Yang, and Tao Xue chose to take an intercounty coach.

Tao Xue snatched a window seat first and beckoned to Chen Guiliang. "Come over here, nephew!"

"Okay, Aunt Xue." Chen Guiliang was in a good mood after making money, so he took the opportunity to give Tao Xue a nickname.

Tao Xue pondered it. "Why does that sound so familiar? I feel like I've heard it somewhere before."

Xie Yang burst out laughing. "Romance in the Rain."

Tao Xue suddenly realized what he meant and punched Chen Guiliang in the shoulder. "It sounds awful! I don't want to be called Aunt Xue."

"Okay, Aunt Xue." Chen Guiliang called her that even more cheerfully.

"Asshole! I'm going to kill you!"

Tao Xue immediately flew into a rage, grabbing Chen Guiliang by the neck with both hands and shaking him hard.

Chen Guiliang cooperatively rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue, looking as though he had already been strangled to death.

Xie Yang sat in the adjacent seat across the aisle, watching the two of them fool around as he thought, Which one is Chen the Hero going to choose? Bian Guanyue is prettier, but Tao Xue is adorable too. Damn it, I couldn't choose either. He can't possibly decide by drawing lots, can he?

The three took the coach to the county bus station, then transferred to a city bus back to school.

After getting off the bus, Chen Guiliang ran straight toward a pharmacy by the roadside.

Thinking he was going to buy medicine, Tao Xue followed him over, only to discover that Chen Guiliang was weighing himself.

"I only gained two jin this week. Looks like I've been working too hard," Chen Guiliang seriously reflected.

Tao Xue said irritably, "You came all the way to a pharmacy just to weigh yourself?"

"What else?" Chen Guiliang said.

Xie Yang stood at the pharmacy entrance, too lazy to go inside, and complained, "I'm used to it by now. This bastard comes to weigh himself every two or three days."

The three of them chatted and laughed as they entered campus. Near the spot where Chen Guiliang sold books from his stall, they waved goodbye and headed back to their respective dorms and apartments.

It was still fairly early. No one was in Room 302 yet; the other six brothers had not returned to school.

Xie Yang sprawled on his bed and said, "Coming back to school all of a sudden, these past two days feel like a dream."

Chen Guiliang lay down on his own bed as well. "What are your thoughts?"

"I don't dare think about it." Xie Yang was deeply emotional. "Rich people are just ridiculously rich. They topped up thousands and thousands of yuan just to buy dungeon tickets. If they topped up a few more times, they could buy a house in the county town."

An old workers' apartment in the county town only cost twenty or thirty thousand yuan!

"Still going to play games?" Chen Guiliang asked.

Xie Yang seemed to have suddenly cured his gaming addiction. "Playing games is boring. I want to make games that other people play. Chen the Hero, are you planning to work with President Tao to start a company someday?"

"I can't work with him. Even if we did, we'd split up sooner or later." Chen Guiliang shook his head.

"President Tao is very straightforward," Xie Yang said. "He'd make a pretty good business partner."

"I'm the same kind of person as him," Chen Guiliang said. "He wasn't even willing to work with Boss Shi. Do you think he'd listen to my decisions in the future? Once we disagreed on some major issue, we wouldn't be able to get along happily anymore."

"So if he makes games himself, you won't get involved either?" Xie Yang asked.

"I don't have the capital right now. He'd definitely hold the controlling stake," Chen Guiliang said.

"You could still take some shares," Xie Yang said. "Once the company grows bigger, you could sell your shares and use the money to start your own business."

"Founding shareholders can't just sell their shares whenever they want. They need approval from more than half of the other shareholders. And he'll need to raise investment too, so my shares will get diluted. Whether I sell my shares or they get diluted, it could create a whole mess of conflicts."

Xie Yang hesitated, not knowing what to say, because he truly did not understand any of this.

Suddenly rolling over and climbing out of bed, Xie Yang walked to the dorm door. "Going to the classroom?"

"What for?" Chen Guiliang asked.

"To study. Let's get into a good school first. I've realized I don't understand anything. When you guys talked these past two days, I often couldn't even join the conversation. I just stood there like an idiot. I don't want to be an idiot. And I'm not an idiot."

Chen Guiliang did not know whether to laugh or cry. "You're really quitting games?"

"They feel pretty pointless now," Xie Yang said.

Chen Guiliang offered no comment. Who knew how long this guy would keep it up? Maybe in two or three days, Xie Yang would be back at an internet cafe.

"I'm off!"

Xie Yang flicked his hair with an incomparably dashing motion and vanished through the dormitory door.