The Biggest, Baddest Bootlegger Has Arrived

Actually, it wasn't that Ye Zhiming was dead set on finding Anonymous just to meet him. The truth was, the man had far too much.

Tens of billions of Qi Luck Points.

And in the foreseeable future, that number would break into the hundreds of billions before long, and might even climb higher.

Hundreds of billions—that was the Great Gan Kingdom's total income for two years. How could that not tempt anyone?

Granted, it was only Qi Luck Points, but it was still an absurd amount.

To a certain extent, Anonymous was already rich enough to rival a nation.

With that much money, surely he could lend a little—no, donate a little. That should be fine, right?

No, it was absolutely fine.

Even the famous Shen Wansan, who was rich enough to rival a nation, had to donate this and that to Old Zhu all the time. Otherwise...

As the current emperor of Great Gan, what was wrong with asking him to donate a few Qi Luck Points?

Besides, all under heaven belonged to the king; all who lived within its borders were his subjects.

Ye Zhiming didn't think there was anything wrong with his idea.

Wasn't that only right?

The only problem was that he couldn't find the man.

Besides, if Anonymous were part of a large organization, then Ye Zhiming wouldn't have much to say. If they earned a lot, they surely had a lot of expenses, too.

Take the Taoist School and the Confucian School, for instance, along with the great Lineages—the Zhao, Liu, Li, and Zhu families, among others. Each had tens or even hundreds of thousands of people. They couldn't maintain their livelihoods without earning a lot.

But judging from the information they had, Anonymous was at most a small organization, or perhaps just an individual. In that case, having so much was... not exactly ideal.

This matter would have to be handled slowly. Ye Zhiming pondered in silence.

"By the way, Minister Lang, there's something I'm especially curious about. How did you manage to solve those hundreds of thousands of problems in only two or three days?"

As far as Ye Zhiming knew, the mathematical talents in Great Gan's capital, Zhongjing, shouldn't have been able to do it that quickly. After all, every problem needed an accurate answer.

If they could simply copy the problems directly, a few days really would have been enough.

But there was a problem. If they wanted to upload the divine ability to the Heavenly Dao Virtual Network and sell it, it couldn't be too similar to the original. In other words, they couldn't copy it exactly; they could only use it as a reference.

Yes, as a reference.

They currently had no way—or, rather, no need—to alter the framework, rules, or even functions of the Chicken-Rabbit Cage Divine Ability, so they could only put in the work on the problems themselves.

At least half of the problems had to be different.

That was why Ye Zhiming was curious about how his Great Gan chancellor had managed it. They needed an enormous number of problems, but there were only about a dozen mathematical masters in Zhongjing.

At that, Chancellor Lang Jingbo gave an awkward little laugh before replying, "Your Majesty, we actually have that Anonymous to thank."

"Thank Anonymous?"

"Didn't he recently release a problem-generation feature?

"After generating a problem, it can give you the answer directly. It can even tell you whether the problem has appeared before.

"Using that, we found over a thousand people with mathematical talent at the academies in Zhongjing. They solved five hundred thousand problems in two days."

At the end, Lang Jingbo couldn't help chuckling under his breath.

Though they couldn't find Anonymous, there was no way he could have guessed that the new divine ability they'd copied—no, used as a reference—had come about this way.

Otherwise, just coming up with those hundreds of thousands of problems, checking the answers, and weeding out duplicates would have held them up for dozens of days.

"Oh, so that's how you did it."

Hearing this, Ye Zhiming laughed in understanding. "So that's another way to use this divine ability."

He'd been wondering how Chancellor Lang had worked so fast.

At first, he'd thought they must have padded the numbers with the few hundred, or perhaps thousand, problems passed down from their ancestors.

It seemed Anonymous really had helped him out a great deal.

Thinking of this, Ye Zhiming wanted even more to meet Anonymous. He truly, truly wanted to thank him in person.

At that moment, Chancellor Lang added, "Your Majesty, we solved the 'one problem, multiple solutions' issue the same way. Otherwise, we'd probably have spent several more hundred million."

"By the sound of it, we really do owe Anonymous our thanks."

In his heart, Ye Zhiming couldn't help sighing. Anonymous really was a good man.

A good man. I really want to meet you.

Whether he simply wanted to meet him, or had other intentions, was something only Ye Zhiming could say.

"Very well, Minister Lang. Resolve this matter as quickly as you can. That way, we can seize Qi Luck Points from other countries, and even other races.

"This is a great achievement that will benefit the present and generations to come. Make sure you don't slack off."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Chancellor Lang answered, but didn't leave the imperial study. Instead, he stepped forward. "Your Majesty, there's still one problem we haven't solved."

"There's another problem?"

Ye Zhiming furrowed his brows. Hadn't they already solved all the problems?

Whatever couldn't be solved, they'd flattened with Qi Luck Points. How could there still be more?

Wasn't all that remained to upload the divine ability to the Heavenly Dao Virtual Network and sit back while the Qi Luck Points rolled in?

"Your Majesty, we've finished the divine ability. How do we promote it now?"

"Promote it?

"Just as we always do. Promote the greater good and urge everyone to buy our people's..."

"Wait. Anonymous is human, too?"

At that moment, Ye Zhiming suddenly realized this situation really was different from before.

In the past, whenever another race created a useful divine ability or classic, the human side would quickly produce a version of its own, using the original as a reference.

Once they'd made their version, the state or the various schools would promote it on the grounds of the greater good, saying that they couldn't let Qi Luck Points flow out of their hands.

Most of their people could understand that, and they supported it, too.

But this time was different. Anonymous was human, too.

That made things rather difficult.

Everything was ready. Were they really going to stumble at the very last step?

Ye Zhiming felt inexplicably irritated. What if they spent all those Qi Luck Points and never made their investment back?

Wait. If they set the price at a hundred Qi Luck Points, they'd have to sell ten million copies just to break even.

Without the greater good to promote it, without the advantage of being first to market, and with other factions and even countries competing against them, Ye Zhiming honestly wasn't sure they could sell ten million copies.

Thinking of this, Ye Zhiming understood how difficult the matter was. "Minister Lang, do you have any ideas?"

Chancellor Lang cautiously glanced at the emperor of Great Gan, then dipped his head in deference.

"Your Majesty, my suggestion is to cooperate with others. First, make it widely available at the academies, in the army, and in the local governments. Then we can expand gradually."

After speaking, Lang Jingbo fell silent and waited for the emperor of Great Gan to decide.

"Cooperate?"

Ye Zhiming murmured the word, then fell into thought.

In the past, the profits from using someone else's divine ability as a reference had been small, and there hadn't been many people fighting for the market. Cooperation hadn't been necessary.

But this time was different. The profits were enormous, and everyone could see that. The costs weren't too high, either, so there would surely be a lot of people getting involved.

But the market was limited, so cooperation was inevitable. Otherwise, everyone would end up hawking their wares at a loss.

Of course, cooperating meant sharing the profits with others. In return, they'd have fewer competitors and could even split the costs.

Among the human race, the imperial house of Great Gan competed with Great Chu, Great Wei Kingdom, the various schools spread across the human lands, and the great Lineages.

Wait.

The human race had ten billion people. Suppose only one-tenth of them wanted to buy this divine ability, which was currently used for studying. That would make for a total of around one billion sales.

At a price of a hundred each, they'd need to sell ten million copies to avoid taking a loss.

In other words, in the human market, at most a hundred sellers could make back their investment.

That was before accounting for Anonymous's share, which might leave room for even fewer.

So, in reality, even fewer could break even.

And if the competition became too fierce, nobody would make a profit. They'd have to grind it out over time, relying on the next generation of buyers.

But there was no telling. If someone discovered a cheaper way to solve the problems, then those factions that had invested heavily up front and failed to recoup their costs in time would truly have no hope.

Looking at it this way, they really did need to find partners. Otherwise, their billion would go down the drain.

After mulling it over for a long while, Ye Zhiming finally sorted out the crux of the problem. He called toward the door. "Someone, go invite Chancellor Li and Chancellor Wang."

"Jingbo, don't rush. Let's wait until Chengyao and Huaizu arrive, then discuss the details and see how we should cooperate."

Chancellor Lang Jingbo bowed and said, "Yes, Your Majesty!"

Negotiations with other factions weren't his responsibility. At most, he could make suggestions.

That evening, Lu Mingyuan checked the sales of his divine ability, as usual.

"Hmm, things are going pretty well. It's almost at thirty billion."

To be honest, only now did Lu Mingyuan understand how the wealthy people of his previous life must have felt.

For him, Qi Luck Points were now just a number. No matter how much he had, it could no longer stir his heart.

Suddenly, Lu Mingyuan noticed that beneath the search for "Chicken and Rabbit in a Cage," nearly everyone from second place onward had been replaced.

"What's this?

"Have they taken their listings down?

"But that doesn't seem likely. Their versions may not measure up to mine, but they can keep adding problems, and this is free exposure. Why would they take them down for no reason?"

By default, search results were sorted by time, so the ranking of Lu Mingyuan's divine ability shouldn't have changed.

All at once, Lu Mingyuan seemed to realize something. He hurriedly changed the sorting method to sales volume.

"Whoa, how did I end up in fortieth place? I was still first a few days ago. The ranking dropped that fast?"

"Let's see. Second place is from the Fox race, third is from the Monkey race, and after that come the Rat race, the Snake race..."

"They're all from other races. This...

"Could those major factions have entered the market?"

Realizing this, Lu Mingyuan nearly cried out in shock.

Only they could overtake him in sales volume so quickly.

Lu Mingyuan himself was no different. If the quality and price were the same, he'd definitely buy from his own people.

That went without saying.

"At last, the ones who were bound to come have arrived."

"Then they must have taken down the old listings to clear out the independent sellers. Once they put them back up, they'll probably end up at the very bottom of the rankings.

"Let me check if that's what happened."

Lu Mingyuan kept scrolling down the time-sorted results. It wasn't until around five hundredth place that he found a familiar name: "Wan Dongliu."

If he remembered correctly, this person had originally ranked ninth. But now...

"So that's how it is."

"They really have entered the market. The biggest bootleggers. And the strongest bootleggers, too."

"Good thing I still have some advantages, and haven't exposed them.

"Otherwise, I might have cooked the pot myself and still not gotten so much as a sip of the soup.

"I'll have to be more careful next time.

"As for this time, I'll think about it after I'm done with what I'm working on."

Lu Mingyuan had long expected the various races, countries, and other major factions to get involved. If he were in their position, he'd do the same.

Forget whether it made money or not—Qi Luck Points absolutely couldn't be allowed to flow out of their hands.

Otherwise, someone else could use those Qi Luck Points to develop a supreme divine ability and attack them.