Game Encyclopedia

Platinum Member (Recommended to the Point of Vomiting Blood): Top up or accumulate spending of 500 yuan (original price 1,000 yuan) to get 20% off internet access.

Diamond Member (The Boss's Choice): Top up or accumulate spending of 1,000 yuan (original price 2,000 yuan) to get 30% off internet access.

Supreme Member (Money Is No Object): Top up or accumulate spending of 5,000 yuan (original price 10,000 yuan) to get 40% off internet access.

This promotion is valid only on the 27th and 28th. Original prices will resume afterward, so please seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Pentium Internet Cafe reserves the final right of interpretation for this promotion."

After reading the flyer, the owner of New Century Internet Cafe was thoroughly baffled. What kind of madness had gotten into Chen Xingguo?

Giving things away and offering discounts too—was he planning to shut down his internet cafe?

The image of a decisive, tough-as-nails peer surfaced in his mind. This didn't seem like something Chen Xingguo would do!

Other than quickly recouping funds, no matter how he calculated it, this would be a loss in the long run.

After pondering it for ages without finding an answer, the man shook his head and told the underling who had brought the flyer, "Go check out Pentium's situation tomorrow. Keep investigating and report back."

Meanwhile, Chen Hao and Pang Ban had just cleared out all the junk from the internet cafe's unused storage room and were now cleaning it.

The storage room was small, only a little over twenty square meters. Chen Hao figured there would definitely be more customers later on, so he would temporarily turn it into a rest area. Once they expanded in the future, they could add more computers here too.

Once they had finished cleaning, Chen Hao and Pang Ban began hauling things back and forth like ants moving house: plastic stools, folding tables, and piles of board games—Chinese chess, Go, checkers, playing cards, and more.

They also made a trip to the bookstore and carried back a huge pile of secondhand gaming magazines, placing them on a shelf in the storage room.

After finishing all that, Pang Ban was neither red-faced nor out of breath, while Chen Hao lay sprawled on a barstool like a dead dog, panting heavily, taking in less air than he was breathing out.

Manual labor was fucking inhuman. In both his lives, he had been completely incompatible with physical work. Brainwork, though, he could handle.

Every so often, the teenagers handing out flyers would finish their assignments and come to Chen Hao for payment like soldiers returning victorious from battle. Chen Hao could only force himself to settle their wages one by one.

"Hao Ge, Hao Ge, how do I get past this?" Another troubled youth with a gaming question.

"Wait a second—let your old man catch his breath first!"

Pshh, glug glug glug.

Chen Hao cracked open a can of Happy Water and took a huge gulp.

Burp—

He exhaled a mouthful of bubbles. It felt amazing!

What Chen Hao didn't know was that, at the same time, regular internet users who saw the flyer were spreading the news far and wide. They couldn't afford to miss such a chance to snag a bargain.

A whirlwind known as the Pentium Internet Cafe Top-up Rebate Promotion was sweeping through this ordinary little town.

Over the past two days, a rumor had been circulating among the internet addicts in the eastern part of town: aside from Pang Ban, the incredibly formidable local boss at Pentium Internet Cafe, there was now also a Hao Ge known as the Game Encyclopedia.

This man knew every game on the market inside and out, and his skill level was extremely high. Cheat codes, Secret Manuals, walkthroughs—there was nothing he didn't understand.

Every word he spoke struck home, every suggestion hit the mark—that was only one part of it. The most impressive thing was that he could pick up any game with effortless ease. That Judgment with 0–32 attack in Legend had been dropped by him. In Counter-Strike, StarCraft, and Red Alert, he could take on several opponents alone. His flashy strategies and playstyles were unheard of. There were only games you hadn't heard of, never games he couldn't play.

Over the past two days, many people had come specifically to seek him out—those stuck on a level, those lost in mazes, those wanting to become his disciples.

Their enthusiasm actually frightened Chen Hao. He had merely played around with them these past two days, spouting nonsense without restraint, and accidentally bragged too hard. In StarCraft, for example, he mentioned things like the 6D Zergling Rush, multi-pronged drops, and placing tanks on Battlecruisers. In later years, these things would be commonplace, but at the time, they left those players who couldn't even max out at 200 population, much less move out, and only knew how to turtle for Battlecruisers utterly stunned.

These newbies treated Chen Hao's words as sacred doctrine and wished they could write every word down in little notebooks. It was all pure gold.

When Hao Ge finished up and came inside, voices calling "Hao Ge" rose one after another throughout the internet cafe as everyone greeted Chen Hao. In gaming, regardless of age, skill came first.

Chen Hao found time to grab several large sheets of paper and scribble on them. His parents had probably seen the flyers to some extent. Older people these days had very traditional ideas—one was one, two was two. He had to prepare in advance so he wouldn't get beaten up!

Old Ban returned carrying stacks of brand-new cards and placed them behind the counter. There were a hundred cards per stack, five stacks in total.

Chen Hao pulled one out for a look. The material was ordinary. In the center were the bold words "Pentium Internet Cafe Membership Card," with the words "Membership Card" slightly smaller. The lower-right corner bore the number 00001.

Even the cleverest housewife couldn't cook without rice. Chen Hao had originally planned for regular members to use these ordinary cards, while higher-tier members would get increasingly cooler membership cards—holographic cards, gilded cards, black cards, and the like.

Forget it. They could deal with that after they had money. He simply took the first hundred cards and set them aside separately. For now, he could only make something of the card numbers.

Suddenly, the phone rang, interrupting Chen Hao's thoughts. He answered it, and the Twelve Golden Medallions of the Imperial Court ordered him to return home at once.

It looked like Father Emperor was thunderously furious. Fortunately, he had prepared for this. He folded up those sheets of paper and stuffed them into his bag.

He explained some of tomorrow's arrangements to Old Ban.

On the way home, Chen Hao took out his phone and made a call.

"Big Bird, where are you?"

"Come help out at the cafe at seven tomorrow morning. We'll be busy all day. I'll explain the details when we meet."

"What? You sold the account for twenty thousand?"

"Fuck, why so much? It's not a scam, right? Oh, payment first? Then it's fine."

"Uh, there isn't some shady ass transaction behind this, right? Your butt's okay, yeah? Hehehe~"

"Enough fooling around. Don't forget, seven tomorrow morning! Hanging up."

A few minutes later, Chen Hao opened the door and entered the house.

Seeing his father and mother sitting on the living room sofa turn off the television and stare at him solemnly, Chen Hao inexplicably felt a little nervous. Before the two elders could speak, he quickly took the initiative.

"I know what you want to ask. Let me explain first. After I'm done, if you're not satisfied and want to hit or scold me, I'll accept it."

Having a low position in the family was bad in that way. He had no confidence and couldn't intimidate the two big shots. This move obviously failed. Chen Xingguo and Wu Xiuhua didn't care about any of that and immediately began interrogating him.

Chen Xingguo frowned deeply, his face dark as water, and struck first. "Something this big, you should've discussed it with the two of us and thought it over before announcing it. But you? You acted first and reported afterward."

What angered him was the feeling of being kept in the dark. Someone else had told him about his own family's business.

"Wasn't I just trying to give you two a surprise~"

"Hmph. I didn't see any joy—just a whole lot of shock!" Chen Xingguo snorted.

Wu Xiuhua was not particularly angry, but she did feel sorry about the money. "I just calculated it. Based on the promotion on your flyers, our overall net profit will be around thirty percent lower than under normal operations."

"So, Mom, Dad, do you think our internet cafe is losing money?"

Wu Xiuhua thought about it. "Not exactly losing money. We're just making less." Chen Xingguo nodded.

"Exactly. Even the two of you think that way, which means this promotion is definitely going to work." Chen Hao clapped his hands, took several sheets of paper from his bag, placed them on the coffee table, and squatted down to explain things to the providers of his food and clothing.