Two Countermeasures

"You think I'm stupid? What use is cash? You can even track the serial number on every bill. Did you think I didn't know? I want gold!" Gao Linzhi said bluntly.

He didn't need to worry about the other side guessing anything.

In the game, those Corporate Players couldn't top up their accounts, but gold was still useful—the village accepted it.

"There is some! I have gold at home, a full thirty kilograms. I'll take you to get it right now." Xu Hai felt relieved. He'd been worried the man wouldn't accept money.

Smack! Gao Linzhi slapped him to the ground. "I told you not to take me for a fool."

"Then what do you want?" Xu Hai asked, aggrieved.

"It's simple. Find someone obedient in your family and have them put the gold at the second peak from the mountain road on Nanshan..." Gao Linzhi gave him a location.

"Okay, okay, I'll tell them to take care of it right away," Xu Hai thought.

Good. As long as he alerted his family, they would surely find a way to rescue him.

Gao Linzhi then took Xu Hai's phone and made him place a call.

Of course, he knew the phone could be tracked.

Xu Hai hurriedly called his wife.

He called three times. The phone rang for a full five minutes before someone finally picked up.

"Honey, I've been kidnapped. Hurry and take the few dozen gold bars from my safe—they weigh thirty kilograms in total. Take them to..." Xu Hai quickly began.

"Hai, are you joking? Who in Xu City would dare lay a finger on you? Stop trying to fool me like you do your good-for-nothing friends!" came a woman's lazy voice from the other end.

"I'm serious. If you don't believe me, start a video call and see for yourself."

The video call connected.

A middle-aged lady in her pajamas appeared onscreen.

She was in her thirties, had just removed her makeup, and was sitting on the bed talking on the phone. The mattress sagged deeply beneath her.

Gao Linzhi took one look and thought, Heh, a Tiger tank.

The woman on the other end was instantly shocked. "Who are you? Let my husband go! Do you believe I'll have someone arrest you right now?"

"I'll find your location!"

"Let my husband go at once!"

Gao Linzhi slapped Xu Hai twice, then said to the tank on the screen, "Do you understand now?"

"Stop hitting me! Stop! I'll get you the gold right now."

The next day, at noon.

On the second peak from the mountain road on Nanshan.

Gao Linzhi wasn't there, of course. He had summoned his pet, the Corpse Vine, to guard the place.

This was when having loyal underlings came in handy.

Besides, the pet could come back to life after dying.

It was the perfect time to have it do a job like this.

He hadn't originally planned to kidnap anyone.

Not because he was a moral purist, but because this kind of job was a hassle.

But kidnapping Xu Hai was no big deal.

That damn Xu Clan had cost him assets worth tens of millions, which he had no way to convert into gold legitimately.

They deserved to die.

He was only taking back what he was owed.

Gao Linzhi stood beneath the fifth peak, with Xu Hai at his feet.

Gao Linzhi had left Xu Hai's phone somewhere else.

He watched the second peak from a distance.

He saw a group of people stealthily making their way up the mountain.

They were all fully armed, wearing bulletproof helmets and vests and carrying submachine guns. They looked ready to kill.

As expected, the other side hadn't handed over the gold quietly.

He patted Xu Hai on the head. "Looks like you don't have much status in your Xu Corporation."

"They don't care one bit about your safety."

"I was going to let you live if they handed over the gold without a fuss."

"After all, this is my first time in this line of work. I need to build a reputation. If I kill the hostage right away, nobody will pay a ransom in the future."

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Grandpa, let me go. I'll get the gold for you myself!" Xu Hai pleaded, tears and snot streaming down his face.

He truly felt death closing in on him.

"Heh. If I hadn't heard what you said earlier, I might actually have believed you." Gao Linzhi reached out and twisted.

In his final moments, Xu Hai had only one thought:

Damn those lowly commoners. They have power!

The clan head and the others were all wrong!

This game world has given the aristocratic families and corporations a chance to monopolize power, but it's also given ordinary people the chance to rise up overnight.

We should treat them like we treated talented commoners in the past, bringing them into the fold through marriage alliances. Then we can all exploit the non-players together!

Rogue Players are players too. Once they get access to the game, they should be brought into the fold...

Xu City.

At the very center of the city stood a ninety-nine-story building. In a large conference room on its top floor,

five people sat at a long table.

Each of the five represented a branch of the Xu Clan and wielded great power in the company.

That showed how important this emergency meeting was.

"Xu Hai of the Third Branch was kidnapped. The Security Department confirmed that the kidnapper was a game player." A beautiful female assistant stood to one side, reciting a report like a robot.

"At the location where the kidnapper demanded the ransom, there was no sign of him. Xu Hai's body was found on the fifth peak."

"The kidnapper is no novice and has some experience evading detection..."

After finishing, the female assistant placed the report on the table.

Xu Zongxin, head of the First Branch and chairman of Xu Corporation, said coolly:

"All right, let's hear your suggestions. How should we deal with this lawless man?"

Xu Zongtong, head of the Third Branch and general manager of Xu Corporation, said viciously:

"What's there to discuss? Lock down the whole city, put out a bounty in the game too, and search every inch of the place. We have to catch that bastard!"

"I'll tear him limb from limb!"

Xu Zongyin, head of the Second Branch, looked up at Xu Zongxin.

"Big Brother..."

Xu Zongxin immediately frowned. "We're in a company meeting. Use our titles."

"Oh. Chairman, I think it's time we changed our approach."

"As you know, I advocated using marriage alliances and a conciliatory approach to win over Rogue Players as soon as the Game Poster appeared."

"After all, game talents vary in countless ways. How can we ensure we don't miss anyone if we rely on heavy-handed tactics?"

"There are hundreds of billions of commoners, anyway. We only have to offer the Rogue Players a tiny bit of the scraps, and we can win them over. We can even use them against the Rogue Players who refuse to bend the knee."

"It's just like how we dealt with the gifted commoners in the past. Our old methods worked very well..."

"Bullshit!" Xu Zongtong jumped to his feet. "If we listened to you, we'd be courting death!"

"Third Brother, what do you mean?" Xu Zongyin said, displeased.

"Hmph. You need to understand that game players are different from everyone else. We can't deal with them the way we used to." Xu Zongtong looked at him with contempt.

"It's simple: players can each be an army on their own! They're not like those gifted commoners."

"Those gifted commoners might be smart—even if they had an IQ of 200 or 400, so what?"

"To make use of their talents, they still need a company. Even if we give up a share of the profits, our family's resources and huge numbers will let us get even more out of them and keep them under control."

"But players are different. Once you give them a chance to grow, all they need to do is develop properly, and one person can suppress an entire aristocratic family!"