Interlude III

Fortune rose and fell; life was unpredictable.

Zhang Yi was now the "boss" of a small business. Three companies were registered under his name, ostensibly operating in several respectable-sounding fields such as health technology, biological research and development, and e-commerce consulting. Their actual scale was not large, but they barely maintained a respectable facade.

He kept a pretty mistress outside, rode around in a sedan with a private driver, owned properties in several first-tier cities, and was often greeted with a smiling "President Zhang." He looked every bit the successful middle-aged entrepreneur.

Yet aside from a few "old associates," few people knew that this man had once tended boiling-water furnaces at a coal plant, changed his name more than once, and had originally been called "Zhang Yimao" on his household registration.

Or rather, few knew how this seemingly prosperous, affable, profit-making "boss" had built his fortune in the first place.

—Well, put bluntly, he had relied on methods marketed under banners like "health supplements for the middle-aged and elderly" and "miracle medicines for wellness"—methods that operated everywhere along the edge of the law, yet somehow did indeed count as "legal."

An IQ tax. What a wonderful term.

Much like that gentleman alien named Mephilas, "when a person's intelligence does not match his wealth, that wealth returns to the hands of someone who does." That had been exactly the sort of thing Zhang Yi loved in his youth.

...The kind of saying worthy of becoming a personal motto.

Even after wisely turning his ship around and striving to whitewash his past, those inconspicuous gray traces had begun steering toward shore long ago.

Boss Zhang, who had never liked showing his face in public, had always understood one thing clearly—horses did not grow fat without night grass, and men did not grow rich without windfalls.

Unfortunately, the gray foundation of his rise to wealth clung to his spine like a birthmark.

It invisibly cut off many respectable paths beneath the sun.

Everyone cared about saving face, after all.

He had to admit that this was often one of Boss Zhang's regrets.

Of course, that did not prevent a shell company that, theoretically, was not registered under his name at all, merely had certain business dealings with his small factory.

Its recently launched "flagship product" was a high-end therapeutic device, supposedly painstakingly developed with the most advanced foreign "quantum energy field" and "far-infrared light wave" technology. After a thirty-percent discount, it cost only 1,400 yuan each.

High quality and low price, better suited to elderly constitutions!

That was the advertisement.

...Though in truth, the most valuable component inside that exquisitely made metal casing was merely a heating resistor wire that cost forty yuan and had deliberately been fashioned to look "high-end," along with several low-power massage magnetic pads designed for the human body, plus a few strings of LED lights that gave off a faint blue glow.

All one could say was that no one stayed foolish and rich forever, but there would always be someone foolish and rich.

To be honest, Zhang Yi had originally thought his life would probably go on like this. And there was nothing bad about that.

But after he was fortunately invited at random as a Visitor into this mysterious world called the Main God Game, he relied on his somewhat kindly, honest-looking face to gain help from quite a few strangers in the same mission world. He passed the Newcomer Trial, which had been the first round at the time, and became an official Level 1 Main God user from then on.

—This was a place full of potential!

The moment he stepped onto the Main God Platform and saw that bottomless exchange list, he quickly understood that.

Even Zhang Yi himself was surprised that the drive from his youth—the ruthless determination to achieve his goals by any means, the fierce pursuit and motivation that rose from the depths of his heart—seemed to blaze violently in his chest once again!

Like a starving wolf catching sight of lamb.

But ideas were important; opportunities were even more important!

And now that this situation had appeared, as he watched unfamiliar crowds surge in like a tide amid beams of light.

Once he recognized the clear information gap, and saw how uneven these people's qualities were—how their eyes seemed full of "vigilance," while beneath that lay an utterly undisguisable undertone of uncertainty and confusion. Many of them clearly had never "seen the world," in the literal sense of people from all walks of life...

A certain professional "instinct" clearly reminded Boss Zhang—most of the people here were fat sheep...

There seemed to be no reason to hesitate too much.

Especially since, during the seven-day interval, he had decisively set aside almost all his affairs and, like most users, crammed up on the settings and theories from certain "specific web novels." Out of professional instinct, he had also carefully studied the "transactional nature" and "relevant rules" of the currency called Universal Points, which measured the value of circulating goods, among the various notices provided by the Main God.

At that moment, Mr. Zhang Yi almost reflexively came up with some ideas...

...Some rather bold ideas.

"Holy shit! What the hell is he doing?!"

He had forgotten the beginning, forgotten the middle, and forgotten the end. In short, before this bizarre sight—a guy seemingly setting up a roadside stall with a Golden Megaphone, shouting, "Don't miss out, come take a look! Premium ancestral dog-skin plasters and miracle pills!"—

Especially since the golden megaphone in the other man's hand clearly had some kind of special effect.

In such a noisy environment, he was nowhere near the point where others had to shout themselves hoarse to communicate, yet every word and syllable he uttered could still be heard clearly by swathes of "spectators" around him!

The sight made one's scalp tingle, a strange sensation mixed with even greater shock.

Yet for some reason, Du Qifeng felt an odd familiarity.

As though he had experienced something like this before?

Oh, he remembered!

It had been right after they passed the Newcomer Trial, when he heard someone trying to take out a "loan" from the Main God!

This jaw-dropping, absurd yet somehow reasonable feeling was actually so similar?

But when he turned his head, not only the college student himself, but even "He Zhizhang" and "Lu Xun" beside him were visibly dumbfounded.

But wasn't that why people said age brought wisdom?

While Du Qifeng and He Qiu were still staring in shock, unable to make sense of it, Lu Yansheng, with his relatively richer life experience, had clearly caught the scent of something!

This was just like back in the era of paper ticket stubs, when those "experts" in stock trading halls would sidle up with mysterious expressions and sell you so-called "exclusive insider information"!

He was going to exploit the information gap to deceive... no! To harvest these newcomers who entered the Main God Game later!

Looking at the man with the beer belly not far away, deliberately speaking fluent English while his face remained hazy and impossible to make out clearly!

There was no need to doubt it. The man was obviously up to no good!

Just as Lu Yansheng hesitated over whether he should say something.

Apparently having been somewhat aware of the situation here all along, the man holding the Golden Megaphone slowed his tone, then turned his head first and gave the three of them a meaningful look.

[User No. 0104754, you have received an in-person message from User No. 0112137. (Viewable)]

After a moment of silence.

Seeing the two young men beside him still standing there like stunned deer, their heads full of question marks and exclamation points while they remained completely oblivious, Lu Yansheng said nothing. With a clear thought, he silently opened the message.

[—Friends, please do not interfere with my business. Once it is done, we split it seventy-thirty. How about it?]

The instant he read it, the Main God's cold voice rang out—

[User No. 0112137 has initiated a Main God Arbitration Agreement with you. Do you accept? (The specific terms of the agreement may be viewed)]

While this middle-aged user surnamed Lu sank into thought.

Elsewhere, someone also calmly withdrew his gaze.

"...Once there are enough people, every kind of 'talent' shows up indeed."

A total of five hundred thousand invitations had brought in two hundred and forty thousand Visitors, who ultimately became just over two hundred thousand "new users."

Compared to the first round's two thousand-plus people, the scale had abruptly expanded by nearly a hundredfold.

By now, even if all sorts of monsters and freaks emerged among them, it would not be all that surprising.

That user named "Zhang Yi" held an [All-Server Announcement Golden Megaphone] he had only recently exchanged for, apparently born from some illusory spacetime. He sang its praises and boasted so extravagantly that he was nearly making flowers bloom from his mouth!

He was even "thoughtfully" telling the Visitors who had cleared the trial how to activate their numbers and claim their mission settlement rewards, then warmly and amiably sending in-person trade requests to waves of newcomers within sight...

It was a case of swinging the stick three times first, whether there were dates on the tree or not...

Li Yun could see clearly that this was not even an isolated case.

After learning that the Main God's "transaction rules" required the usual foundation of both parties being clear-headed and relatively willing, and that taking by force or coercion was impossible...

Gentle methods such as inducement, suggestion, and even deception naturally became almost the only options available to these users.

To say nothing else, at one corner of the platform far in the distance, there was a "priest" with pale golden light radiating from his body. He held an ancient, incomplete handwritten copy of the Bible in his hands and wore a solemn expression, yet he was yellow-skinned and dressed in a set of outdoor sportswear. He was attempting to temporarily "preach" to the surrounding crowd—

But from what Li Yun heard, the man was nearly substituting concepts through several ambiguously suggestive turns of phrase, vaguely linking "the Father in Heaven" with "the great and sole sovereign god whose gaze descended from the heavens upon this place." At the same time, he deliberately or casually mentioned the notion of "indulgences"...

Mm, he had a little cleverness. He borrowed the Main God's name as borrowed authority, but did not directly mention the title "Main God" in any positive sense.

Although the Main God would probably not bother with such trivial matters before he truly crossed a certain line, the man was indeed cautiously avoiding the risk of directly mentioning the Main God in his speech.

Still, when Li Yun looked at the scripture in the man's hands, which had clearly been drawn from a Newcomer Blind Box only a few days ago, along with the other man's similarly newly improvised yet completely unhesitant rhetoric, implications, adaptations, and connections...

Li Yun could only say that people's talents really were different.

—Just as some people could only sit in a beer hall eating pickles and sulking, while others could use a five-hundred-thousand-mark loaf of bread as a microphone in a beer hall.

Even in this man's silver tongue, the Main God Game sounded like a trial bestowed upon mortals by that supposedly omniscient and omnipotent Lord under another name.

The lambs would wash away their sins in the trial by fire, while as a "Noah" of the new age, he would lead those "innocent ones" who passed judgment aboard the ark of salvation at last...

Oh, right. From the sound of it, the ark in his story was also supposedly a major project located in the real world, which still needed "fundraising" from all the believers present before it could be completed...

Don't ask. The physical object was not here, so if you wanted to see it, surely you had to first offer up a little "meeting gift," right?

And yet, surprisingly enough, some among the various listeners around him actually seemed quite receptive to this!

Quite a few eagerly crowded forward, murmuring ceaselessly as they tried to touch the seemingly holy light enveloping the area, which in reality was simply flowing out from that scripture. Some even knelt down on the spot, wanting to speak in detail with this "Noah of the new age" and ask for his help...

In short, it was truly an eye-opening sight.

Of course, strictly speaking, compared with that "Zhang Yi," these people differed only in details such as their particular rhetoric, methods, scale, and target demographics.

In essence, there was not much difference.

This trend of "harvesting newcomers" had undoubtedly only just begun to sprout, but Li Yun had no intention of interfering.

After all, the information gap between veteran users and newcomers objectively existed. In that case, unless the Main God's rules explicitly prohibited it, the trend of people trying to profit from it could not be stopped.

As they said: profit, three hundred, noose.jpg.

Personally, Li Yun did not particularly like such behavior.

But after ensuring "certified enforceability" and "respect for both parties' wishes" in transactions, if the Main God interfered further in this ordinary process, which was essentially also "part of the natural transaction process," that would indeed be unwise.

After all, aside from inevitably raising suspicions of affecting the free-trade mechanism.

Such matters also contained a degree of mutual adjustment through natural market feedback, and there was even an implicit value-system judgment from the "Main God" sitting there.

It was destined not to get out of hand.

Grasp the greater trend, let the lesser trends flow—that was the way of relative "balance."

Take Zhang Yi. Even while concealing his obvious characteristics and trying to harvest a round of nearby newcomers with half-truths, he had ultimately only proposed the "relatively restrained" price of five Universal Points. He did not dare go too far.

For one thing, he probably considered that if the price was too high, others clearly would not accept it easily. These Visitors who had only just arrived might not understand the exact situation, but they should not be complete fools.

For another, in the real world, he could have made it a one-shot deal, changed his appearance and name, fled elsewhere, and started over with the airs of "President Zhang."

But on this Main God Platform, which seemed to possess limitless possibilities, heh...

Profit had always clouded people's judgment.