"It smells so good."
In the kitchen, Zhou Keyu took a sip of chicken soup from his ladle, his eyes crinkling into crescent shapes as he savored the taste, saying, "I didn't expect I had such a talent for cooking."
"Haha, here comes the chicken soup!"
Wearing Winnie the Pooh apron, Zhou Keyu carried a pot of soup out of the kitchen. The table was filled with steaming home-cooked dishes: scrambled eggs with tomatoes, hot and sour shredded potatoes, boiled sliced pork...
"The dishes are all here, why aren't you eating?" Zhou Keyu took off her apron, sat down opposite Su Hang, and asked, puzzled.
Su Hang crossed his arms and said, "I'm afraid you've poisoned the food."
"Not Big Brother?" Zhou Keyu's defenses crumbled. "You threatened me with your fists, saying you'd smash my head in if I didn't cook for you. Now that the food's ready, you suspect I poisoned it?"
Su Hang gestured invitingly, "You eat first."
"Okay, okay, I'll eat first."
Zhou Keyu picked up his chopsticks, took a bite of food, and, cupping his blissful face in one hand, said self-satisfiedly, "Wow, my cooking is so delicious. Whoever becomes my wife is truly blessed in their past life."
Su Hang finally picked up his chopsticks, took a slice of meat, put it in his mouth, chewed it a couple of times, and frowned, "Disgusting."
"Disgusting?"
Zhou Keyu retorted angrily, "I spent three hours painstakingly preparing this nutritious meal for you, and you dismiss all my hard work with just one sentence: 'It tastes bad.'"
Su Hang swallowed it and said, "It tastes bad, but it's edible."
"You have a sharp tongue." Zhou Keyu's eyes were resentful, but he decided not to argue with Su Hang, after all, the other party was a patient suffering from blood deficiency.
Su Hang, shoveling food into his mouth, said, "Tell me about Sovereign Dominion's situation."
"The situation is not optimistic," Zhou Keyu said solemnly. " Imperial Crown has already reached into Sovereign Dominion, using tempting offers such as high-priced contracts and guaranteed compensation for breach of contract to poach a large number of Sovereign Dominion's players."
"The management team of Sovereign Dominion is practically defunct, with only a dozen or so loyal staff members from the finance and operations departments struggling to keep it afloat."
"Not to mention elite and ordinary players, 99% of them jump ship to Imperial Crown. There's no way around it; they offer more and cover Sovereign Dominion the team. There's no reason not to go to Imperial Crown."
Su Hang ate his food without touching it.
Zhou Keyu couldn't bear it and said, "You're too lenient. When other teams' members breach their contracts and leave, they have to pay 5 to 10 times the penalty. What about Sovereign Dominion? They only pay 1 time and don't even enforce collection."
Su Hang asked, "How many people are left in Sovereign Dominion now?"
Zhou Keyu frowned and recalled, "Before the Three Champion Emperors returned to the Imperial Crown, Sovereign Dominion had nearly 1,000 people. After returning to the Imperial Crown, Sovereign Dominion only had less than 100 people left."
Su Hang slightly raised his blood-red eyes, "How many people are there in the Imperial Crown?"
Zhou Keyu counted on his fingers, " The Imperial Crown main team, the nine departments of Imperial Crown, the twelve Imperial Crown Imperial Alliance, plus the signed King of Glory streamer guilds, the invested KPL teams, and so on, conservatively estimated at 100,000 people."
Su Hang's bloodshot eyes flashed. "100 to 100,000?"
Zhou Keyu continued, "More than a thousand sponsors, including Pepsi-Cola Durex, are pouring money into Imperial Crown, and Imperial Crown's commercial valuation in the capital market has exceeded 100 billion RMB."
Su Hang asked, "Where is Sovereign Dominion?"
Zhou Keyu took out his phone and said, " Sovereign Dominion's financial reserves are 30 million RMB, plus the team's own commercial value, it's about 100 million RMB."
Su Hang slightly raised his eyelids. "100 million?"
"I'm still overestimating the value at 100 million."
Zhou Keyu shook his head and said, " Sovereign Dominion can't compare to Imperial Crown. Imperial Crown actually controls all the top-tier King of Glory tournaments, including the KPL League, the Overlord Feast, the Clash of Kings, and the Crowned and Proclaimed Emperor."
" Guangzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou... almost every provincial capital city in Huaxia has King of Glory esports venue jointly invested and built by Imperial Crown and the government. These real estate properties alone are worth tens of billions of RMB."
"On the other hand, Sovereign Dominion has nothing."
Su Hang took a sip of cola and said, "After all, Imperial Crown has been developing for ten years, while Sovereign Dominion has only been established for a month; it's still a newborn."
Zhou Keyu hesitated before saying, "There's something I'm not sure if I should say."
"Please feel free to speak."
Zhou Keyu said in a deep voice, "One hundred against one hundred thousand, one hundred million against one hundred billion, facing the behemoth that is Imperial Crown, you have absolutely no chance of winning."
Su Hang squinted and said, "You want to persuade me to give up on seeking revenge against the Imperial Crown?"
"I'm just stating the facts," Zhou Keyu said earnestly. "Right now, all the top players, popular streamers, and professional teams in the King of Glory community have been signed by Imperial Crown and brought under their umbrella."
"With the addition of the Three Champion Emperors and core members, Imperial Crown has converted at least a billion King of Glory players into team fans. Its influence and appeal are comparable to that of a large country."
"And what about your Sovereign Dominion Team? Excluding those who overlap with Imperial Crown's fans, the number of fans who truly like Sovereign Dominion is at most one million."
Su Hang remained expressionless.
Zhou Keyu continued, "One billion against one million, even if each of Imperial Crown's fans spat, they could drown your Sovereign Dominion fans."
"In Imperial Crown's eyes, Sovereign Dominion is an insect, someone he can crush whenever he wants. You see Imperial Crown as a target for revenge, but he sees you as a clown for his amusement."
"If Imperial Crown ever gets impatient, all he needs to do is issue a nationwide announcement to destroy Sovereign Dominion. Imperial Crown won't even need to lift a finger; his 1 billion fans, one comment each, will be enough to cyberbully Sovereign Dominion until it disbands."
Su Hang took a sip of his cola and asked, "How many fans do you think I have in the King of Glory community?"
Zhou Keyu paused slightly, then said, chin in hand, "You have over 50 million followers across the internet, but tens of millions of those followers came from the live stream where you rescued the chief deputy captain. The vast majority of those are from outside the entertainment circle, so they don't really count."
"Excluding the number of fans who overlap with Imperial Crown, the number of die-hard fans is at most 1 million. After all, if King of Glory players had to choose between the two, they would definitely choose Imperial Crown."
"Those are just fans of my alt account Exalted Emperor," Su Hang said, glancing at me. "What if we add fans of my main account, Imperial Emperor?"
" Imperial Emperor?" Zhou Keyu laughed. "Your main account, Imperial Emperor, doesn't have Douyin account. You don't have any followers in the King of Glory community. You're probably not..."
Zhou Keyu suddenly froze halfway through his sentence.
Imperial Emperor may not have any fans in the King of Glory community, but all players in the King of Glory community are Imperial Emperor's fans!
If we compare King of Glory to a country, then the Imperial Emperor is the founding head. Which country's people aren't fans of its founding head?
" Imperial Crown's 100,000 members versus Sovereign Dominion's 100 members; Imperial Crown's valuation of 100 billion versus Sovereign Dominion's 100 million; Imperial Crown's 1 billion fans versus Sovereign Dominion's 1 million fans."
Su Hang's bloodshot eyes flashed with a captivating light.
" The Imperial Crown will not wage war against Sovereign Dominion because Sovereign Dominion is too weak to be considered a match. So, under what circumstances do you think the Imperial Crown would treat Sovereign Dominion as an evenly matched opponent?"
Zhou Keyu's eyes widened. "You mean..."
Su Hang downed his sugar-free cola in one gulp, nodded, and said, "Okay, let's publish that 'Sovereign Dominion Announcement' that terrified the Imperial Crown across the entire internet."