Crappy Game

Chapter 47

The next day, at the detention center.

Cao Jing had bandages wrapped around his head, a collapsed nose, a split brow, bruised eye sockets, and was missing a front tooth.

Yet he stood there obediently.

Across from him stood an old man and a burly man.

The old man had secured visitation time to meet Cao Jing alone.

"What exactly happened..."

Cao Jing said miserably, "I'm sorry, Ma Ye. I was set up... and I don't even know who set me up..."

"What happened with Wang Siwen? Why did you fight?" Ma Ye asked.

Lowering his head, Cao Jing said, "This is what happened..."

He recounted everything that had happened the night before in full detail.

After hearing it, Ma Ye furrowed his brow tightly.

Before coming here, he had already gone to the hospital to meet Wang Siwen.

Combining that with Cao Jing's account, he realized there had been a third party.

This had been a carefully calculated setup. Someone had thoroughly figured out the situation and targeted them deliberately!

The goods were gone, and so was the money. That was not the most critical part; together, the losses only came to ten million, which he could still bear.

The most critical thing was the contact code phrase!

The other side actually knew that! Cao Jing had been played like a fiddle partly because that person was truly skilled at manipulating hearts, leading him around by the nose through all sorts of details!

But the biggest reason was that the code had matched! Cao Jing had read the text message and believed it completely. That was why he had panicked and given them an opening.

"There's a mole! Right by my side!"

Ma Ye clenched his fists, furious beyond measure.

Not many people knew that kind of code phrase. There were only ten of them, and every one was someone he had considered trustworthy.

Yet one of them had turned traitor.

"Who? Who could it be... No one would dare do this without colluding with outsiders. There must be someone backing them who's no weaker than me."

If the other party had possessed that intelligence and directly joined forces with the narcotics squad to lay an Impenetrable Net, or even cast a long line to catch a big fish, his losses would have been even greater. He might very well have been caught himself.

Yet the other side had not done that, which meant they could not possibly be working with the cops.

That being the case, they definitely were not on the legitimate side, greatly narrowing the field.

"Those who dare make a move against me and can bribe my people are only a few." Ma Ye narrowed his eyes. He already had several suspects in mind.

"Heh, I was just about to expand my business when this happened. Someone wants to steal my market."

"Ma Ye, there must be a mole around me too. Once I get out, I'll find him!" Cao Jing said.

Ma Ye glanced at Cao Jing and said flatly, "Save it. You'll stay locked up here."

"Armed gang fighting, intentional assault, suspected extortion, robbery... Remember, those are all you've done."

Cao Jing looked somewhat dejected and nodded. "I know. I haven't done anything else."

Ma Ye left with the burly man.

Inside the car, the burly man said, "Cao Jing has gone in. Should we..."

"No need. Though he's always causing trouble, he's risked his life for me for many years. Don't make things too big, Tie Long. That wouldn't be good," Ma Ye said.

Ma Ye then added, "Look into the number that texted Cao Jing's phone. Find where that SIM card was sold."

"Understood," Tie Long said, then asked, "After this, we're cut off from our supply. Should we continue trading?"

Ma Ye sighed. "We can't let the supply stop. If we don't eat from this bowl, someone else will."

Tie Long pondered. "I think this is very strange. What was their purpose? There's a traitor by your side, and such an important matter was exposed so easily, all just to take down one Cao Jing?"

Ma Ye had been considering the same thing. He had lost ten million and a capable subordinate, been cut off from his supply, and offended a sales channel.

It looked as though the other party had profited greatly, but they had also alerted him to the fact that there was a mole by his side.

"I've been thinking about this. Could they really be so confident that I can't find the mole?" Ma Ye said.

"Ma Ye, only a few brothers know the code phrase. No matter which one you wrongly dispose of, it'll only hurt those close to you and delight your enemies," Tie Long said.

Ma Ye shook his head. "If I can't be certain who the mole is, I will never knowingly make the wrong choice."

Tie Long turned back and said, "But if that's the case, then you've been set up. As long as the mole isn't rooted out, you won't dare place heavy trust in everyone. In the end, the only people you'll dare use without reservation... will be..."

Ma Ye frowned. "Only you... and Cao Jing."

Tie Long said in a low voice, "What if Cao Jing is the mole... Think about it. He made such a huge mistake and got locked up. It looks terrible. But precisely because of that, you wouldn't suspect him of being the mole."

"Would an enemy lurking in the shadows, painstakingly bribing your trusted men, really do all this just to make you lose ten million? That wouldn't shake your foundations."

"Unless... alerting you was itself beneficial!"

With that reminder, how could Ma Ye not understand?

The other party had first made him lose ten million, then used that to alert him and make him realize that one of his trusted men was a mole.

Afterward, unable to identify the mole, he would become suspicious of everyone. Among his ten trusted men, apart from Tie Long, whom he could trust completely, the others were all suspects, so he would not dare trust them too much.

When he was truly short on manpower, he would certainly choose to reinstate... Cao Jing!

Because among all the suspects, Cao Jing was the least suspicious one. He had practically gotten himself thrown into prison...

But what if he looked at it the other way around? What had happened last night might also have been Cao Jing deliberately cooperating with the enemy's plan, ruining his own prospects so he could rise again later.

If Cao Jing really was the mole and had used a self-inflicted injury scheme to gain even greater trust from him, then he might very well deliver a fatal blow next.

"..." Ma Ye fell silent, sensing undercurrents surging and a storm on the horizon.

If that was truly the case, then the range of possible masterminds had narrowed further. Someone with power no less than his own, who wanted to bring him down and could scheme so deeply—there was only one.

"Golden Tooth, you truly are a venomous snake!" An old rival surfaced in Ma Ye's mind.

After carefully considering it, Ma Ye sighed. "Get Cao Jing out. Find a batch of fake goods and have him make a deal with them. Test him."

"Understood," Tie Long said calmly.

Huang Ji and the others had made nine million overnight. Today, Zhang Junwei used two million of it to pay off the debt for laboratory equipment, leaving seven million.

Those seven million could be freely spent. It was neither a great deal nor a small amount.

Everyone present was poor. Aside from Lao Wang, who had seen big money before but had now fallen on hard times, the others had never seen so much money.

But if they spent it extravagantly, this money might seem like a lot, but it would quickly run out, just like Huang Ji's previous three million had somehow vanished.

As for how to use the money, everyone offered their opinions.

Xiao Zha suggested directly buying their current warehouse so they would not have to pay rent every season.

Zhang Junwei said they would be better off opening several late-night food shops, claiming that the food and beverage industry was very profitable these days.

Lao Wang looked at him with contempt. "Do you think Xiao Hua got you all this money just so you could drift through life?"

"We have important things to do!"

After saying that, Lao Wang turned to Huang Ji. "Xiao Hua, seven million is enough to charter a ship! I originally planned to spend only two hundred thousand to hitch a ride on someone else's ship to London, but that wouldn't be secure. There would be too many unrelated people aboard, and the enemy could still trace us afterward. But if we charter the entire ship, the enemy will have no way of knowing we arrived in London."

Hearing this, Zhang Junwei asked curiously, "Why do you have to go to London?"

"Our leader is there," Lao Wang said.

Zhang Junwei's mouth fell open. Huang Ji was already impressive enough, yet he was not even the leader. This international thief organization seemed to be full of talent.

Lao Wang seemed to see what Zhang Junwei was thinking. After hesitating, he said, "Actually, Xiao Hua isn't part of our organization yet. He works independently..."

Having said that, he looked at Huang Ji, only to see Huang Ji browsing the internet at the computer, searching for something. He paid no attention to their discussion.

"Boss, what do you think?" Zhang Junwei asked.

"What can this little money do?" Huang Ji said.

Zhang Junwei grinned. Right. What business were they going to start? They had only been talking nonsense.

Thinking about it carefully, seven million was not even enough to buy a decent apartment in Magic City.

"Exactly! Xiao Hua, but this money is enough to charter a ship to London," Lao Wang said with a smile.

Yet Huang Ji shook his head. "No rush. I'm buying something."

The right to allocate the money was unquestionably in Huang Ji's hands. He could spend it however he wished.

No one objected. He could buy whatever he wanted.

But after searching online and browsing the major platforms, Huang Ji suddenly downloaded a crappy game called Minecraft, one with bugs everywhere, with an odd expression on his face.

It had an all-English interface, pixel graphics, crude environments, bizarre models, and monotonous visuals.

There was only Creative Mode, and the character did not even have a health bar.

Huang Ji entered the game, messed around for a while, casually dug up some dirt blocks, and wandered around without anyone knowing what he was trying to do.

"What kind of garbage game is this?" Zhang Junwei laughed from behind him.

Huang Ji controlled the character to dig blocks and stack them into a coffin-shaped house. Then he casually switched to third-person view, and the entire game suddenly crashed.

Everyone laughed. Was this some programmer's casual doodle of a game?

Unexpectedly, after the game crashed, Huang Ji smiled. "This is the one I'll buy."

"Huh?" Zhang Junwei scratched his head. "You have to buy this crappy game? If the boss wants to play, we can easily find someone to make something better than this."

Huang Ji ignored him and said, "Buy any small company right now and use its name to invest in this game."

As he spoke, Huang Ji wrote a note and handed it to Zhang Junwei. "The creator is in Sweden. This is his Twitter and email account. Find a way to contact him and tell him I'm willing to pay one hundred thousand euros for his game."

"Once the initial intention is settled, immediately hire a law firm as an agent to go to Sweden and sign an agreement with him. Be careful—don't buy it out. He can retain all rights to make, develop, and operate the game, and let him continue developing and improving it. We only want a share of the profits. Fifty percent is the bottom line."

"Get the agreement finalized within twenty days."

Zhang Junwei said in shock, "Boss, are you serious? You're giving one million to the creator of this crappy game? You're not joking, are you? Only a profit share? For this junk game, if you gave him a few tens of thousands and demanded one hundred percent of the profits, he'd be overjoyed."

Lao Wang was also speechless. "And it's so urgent too. Hiring lawyers will cost more money. What does this mean? Xiao Hua, you really have no concept of money..."

Stretching, Huang Ji said to Zhang Junwei, "Anyway, I'm giving you a budget of two million and twenty days. Get it done!"

"As for the remaining five million... Sigh, it's too little. We might as well use it to trade with Ma Ye..."

"What?" Everyone was stunned. What did that mean?

Trade with Ma Ye? Trade what? After taking down Cao Jing, were they going to take another bite out of Ma Ye?

"They've been cut off from their supply and lost a large sum of money. They have to restock somehow," Huang Ji said with a smile.

P.S. Sorry.