Why did Tao Chenggang want to merge the first few servers in pairs?
Because the loss of free players had become a bit severe. Not counting those who simply quit the game, some had gone to new servers to make new accounts, while others had switched to other private servers.
There were mainly three "other private servers," and all of them used the Abyss Dungeon gameplay. They were obvious copycats.
The first one died quickly, with bugs everywhere.
The second and third had clearly been polished with care.
The third private server in particular advertised, "Get an Abyss Ticket as soon as you enter the game," which was extremely appealing to Free Riders.
Shanda was not Chen Guiliang's enemy. His real enemies were his fellow private-server operators!
December 11th, Wednesday.
Legend of the Abyss had been online for thirteen days.
Chen Guiliang was preparing for the monthly exam. Before he had even finished lunch, he received a call. Chewing on twice-cooked pork, he asked, "Brother Gang, did Shanda's Lawyer's Letter arrive?"
"Can't you say something nicer?"
Tao Chenggang did not know whether to laugh or cry. "The server merge scheduled for Friday night has been canceled."
"New players joined the game again?" Chen Guiliang was rather surprised.
Tao Chenggang said, "Popular Software's interview article about us was published in the second issue this month, which came out this Monday. Some new players flooded in that night, and even more came on Tuesday and Wednesday. I estimate the numbers will rise again over the weekend, so there's no need to rush into merging servers."
Although Popular Software magazine had already begun to decline, its circulation per issue was still above 150,000 copies.
Many of those readers had computers at home.
"What a pleasant surprise." Chen Guiliang smiled.
Tao Chenggang continued, "I'm also reaching out to more internet cafés for partnerships. Internet café players may have somewhat weaker spending power, but they create a great active atmosphere in the game. With lots of internet café players around, the big spenders can have more fun."
After chatting a little longer, Tao Chenggang said, "I'm hanging up first. Boss Shi sent me a QQ message!"
Tao Chenggang slipped his phone into his pocket and typed on his keyboard. "CEO Shi, good afternoon."
"Your private server is still alive? Shanda really isn't taking you seriously."
"They're rich and powerful. They don't think much of our little operation."
"Have you thought it over? Come work with me to develop games."
"I'll think about it some more."
"Fine. I'll leave you my office number. Whenever you come to Magic City for fun, give me a call and we can have a meal..."
"Thank you for thinking highly of me, CEO Shi. Here's my mobile number..."
Boss Shi had already decided to go to Beijing next week to sign the contract. He would package up Brain Gold and sell it to a friend, then sell 75% of Golden Partner's shares to Sitong Company.
Once he sold those, he would begin moving into the online gaming market.
As for leaving Tao Chenggang his number, that was simply Boss Shi's personality. He did not make friends based on status, but on whether they got along. Sometimes, sharing a drink was enough to become friends.
Even if Tao Chenggang refused to cooperate, he could still go have a meal with Boss Shi.
Twenty years later, Boss Shi would be forced to repay 1.765 billion yuan, all because he recklessly guaranteed loans for others. He had simply made too many messy friends. As long as someone drank happily with him, he could lend them millions without hesitation and sign guarantee contracts while drunk.
People who rose during that wild era were just that damn casual in the way they did things.
Saturday.
Legend of the Abyss's peak concurrent player count exceeded 8,600.
Chen Guiliang, meanwhile, faced his second exam since being reborn.
The monthly exam.
The first- and second-year students had the weekend off, conveniently freeing up classrooms as examination halls for the third-years.
The exam room assignments were completely random and were not arranged according to midterm results.
Of the guys from Room 302, only Liu Zhihong was in the same exam room as Chen Guiliang.
"Feeling confident?" Chen Guiliang ran into Bian Guanyue in the hallway.
Bian Guanyue said, "Not bad. I've improved a lot recently. Every day, I asked Wu Meng about many difficult problems. What about you?"
Chen Guiliang said, "I'm doing all right too."
"Good luck."
"Good luck."
Bian Guanyue was actually somewhat nervous.
She had always been an arts student before, but now that she had switched to the regular track, it was hard for her to keep up no matter how hard she worked.
This was her first exam since transferring schools.
Chen Guiliang entered the examination hall full of confidence, but the Chinese Language and Literature paper actually left him a little bewildered.
He was uncertain about the very first multiple-choice question on character pronunciation.
There was also a multiple-choice question in the reading comprehension section. Although he knew which answer would earn points, he still felt that every option was correct.
The question was poorly designed!
There was another question where, from the test setter's perspective, he knew he had to choose D to get the points. But answer D itself contained the logical fallacy of reversing cause and effect.
These questions left Chen Guiliang particularly speechless.
He even wanted to curse the test setter as an idiot!
Math was in the afternoon.
Chen Guiliang could only skip around the paper. For knowledge points he had not yet reviewed, he was completely lost and could not answer them at all.
As for the knowledge points he had already reviewed, he could solve seven or eight out of ten.
Then came English.
He mostly guessed on the listening questions.
All right, he guessed on many of the English questions that followed too...
Then came the humanities comprehensive exam.
Chen Guiliang handled it fairly smoothly. At the very least, he had written an answer for every question.
The two days of exams ended.
The guys from Room 302 were excited, all believing they had performed above their usual level.
That could only mean the monthly exam had been easy, deliberately designed to boost everyone's confidence.
"Chen the Hero, how much do you think you'll score this time?" Xu Haibo asked.
Chen Guiliang said, "No idea. I did so-so."
Xie Yang bragged, "Everything went especially smoothly for me this time. I estimate I can get back above the First-tier University Line."
"I think I can pass the First-tier University Line too." Yang Hao beamed.
Yang Hao's grades fluctuated greatly. When the questions were easy, the more he did, the more confident he became. But when the questions were harder, he grew nervous. The more anxious he became, the worse he performed, and he would make mistakes even on questions he originally knew how to solve.
Everyone noisily discussed the monthly exam when Cousin Feng Tao suddenly called.
Chen Guiliang ran outside to find a Xiaolingtong signal, while Xie Yang sneakily followed him out.
"Cousin, is something urgent?" Chen Guiliang asked.
Feng Tao said, "The profits from the private server's first fifteen days have been calculated. Brother Gang had me handle the accounting specifically so you could rest assured."
"Players recharged the most over the weekend. Especially the day before the siege event, when the highest single-day amount exceeded 40,000 yuan. Those big spenders were crazy, bringing their entire guilds to grind dungeons."
"Normal daily recharges were much lower, only two or three thousand yuan on slow days and five or six thousand on better days."
"Over the past half month, total recharges came to more than 256,000 yuan."
"After deducting the private server's development costs, platform promotion costs, server rental fees, internet café revenue shares, bank fees, employee salaries, and bonuses, the four partners made a net profit of 158,000 yuan."
"Your share is 28%, which comes to more than 44,000 yuan. It has already been transferred into your bank account."
Chen Guiliang said happily, "Thanks for your hard work, Cousin."
Feng Tao said gloomily, "Cousin isn't tired. Cousin just regrets it."
"Hahaha!"
Chen Guiliang burst out laughing.
Feng Tao's investment in the private server partnership had only been a symbolic 2,000 yuan, so his dividend was practically negligible.
This time, Tao Chenggang gave him an additional 3,000 yuan, counting it under salary and bonus expenses.
In addition, Tao Chenggang rented a residential house and set up several computers as a command center. Tao Chenggang covered all those costs himself, since the rent was cheap and the computers and desks could later be moved into an internet café.
Chen Guiliang was in an excellent mood. His dividend for half a month was 44,000 yuan!
Moreover, the private server's development costs had been deducted in one go, so they would not need to be included in the next dividend calculation.
From here on, aside from operating costs, everything else would be pure profit.
Feng Tao quickly poured cold water on him. "This weekend, two more private servers focused on dungeon gameplay went online. One of them was even made by the DuDu Legend team. We have more and more competitors!"
"It was bound to happen. We'll make whatever money we can." Chen Guiliang took it in stride.
He hung up.
Xie Yang impatiently asked, "The dividends came in?"
Chen Guiliang nodded. "Yeah, I got thirty or forty thousand."
"Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit..."
Xie Yang had already run out of words. To him, tens of thousands of yuan was an astronomical sum.
Yet Chen Guiliang had earned it in only half a month.
"Come on, let's go to evening self-study." Chen Guiliang patted him on the shoulder.
Xie Yang finally came back to his senses. "You damn well have to treat me to lunch tomorrow!"
"No problem."
"And a pack of Hongtashan."
"Minors shouldn't smoke."
Evening self-study.
Homeroom teacher Liu Shuying entered with the test papers. "I'll announce the English scores directly. This month's exam questions were relatively easy, and the class's overall results improved compared with the midterms."
"The most praiseworthy student is Peng Yang. He has always been weak in some subjects, and his English score had long hovered around 100. Through hard work, he scored 118 this time! Everyone, give him a hand!"
"Clap clap clap..."
A scattered round of applause broke out.
Peng Yang's face glowed with pride, but he was too embarrassed to show off, so he straightened his back with a serious expression.
"Now I'll hand out the papers, from highest score to lowest. Wu Meng, 148 points, first place again!"
Wu Meng went to collect her paper like a proud little princess, head raised and chest out.
"Li Rui, 145 points. A huge improvement."
Li Rui ran up smiling to collect his paper.
Two minutes later, Liu Shuying said, "Chen Guiliang, 93 points."
Seeing that his homeroom teacher did not look pleased, Chen Guiliang shamelessly said, "Teacher, I improved. I only scored 82 on the midterm."
Liu Shuying said irritably, "The monthly exam was easier. You'd better take care of yourself. I can't manage you anymore."
"Bian Guanyue, 92 points. There's still plenty of room for improvement."
Bian Guanyue was very happy. She had only been able to score seventy or eighty on English exams before. Her recent efforts had indeed paid off.
The next day, the scores for each subject were announced one after another.
Chen Guiliang's monthly exam scores were as follows:
Chinese Language and Literature: 136. Math: 68. English: 93. Politics: 75. History: 79. Geography: 85. (There was no humanities comprehensive paper for the monthly exam; politics, history, and geography were all tested separately.)
Total score: 536.
It looked like a good result, but because the questions were not difficult, all the students had generally done well.
Based on the specific circumstances, the school roughly set several score lines.
The second-tier university line was set at 535 points.
Chen Guiliang had barely scraped past the second-tier university line.
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