Chapter Seventeen: This Is Only the Beginning

Two hundred thousand downloads...

Sun Peng swallowed hard, his strength almost gone. He glanced at the clock—three in the afternoon. Only fifteen hours had passed, and there were already two hundred thousand downloads...

His legs felt weak. The peak concurrent users of Stone Age barely exceeded two hundred thousand, and the total registered users probably only numbered in the millions. At this rate, in less than a week, this cheat would likely be ubiquitous...

Abei Cheats, after all, was a paid cheat. Expecting it to cover more than half the players was wishful thinking, but something free and effective could easily spread to every corner of the player base.

A young technician, seeing everyone so dispirited, tried to comfort them, “They’ll have to start charging eventually. When that happens, the number of paying users will definitely plummet…”

Sun Peng shot him a look and said, “And what then? If they keep the price below fifteen yuan, they can take all our users!”

“Then we’ll lower the price! Ten yuan!”

The speaker was Jia Bei, the leader of the Abei team, known as Abei.

“And if they lower their price too?” Sun Peng said coldly. “When you used the free cheat to go head-to-head with us, didn’t you consider this possibility?”

Jia Bei was left speechless.

Yes, the other side started out free. Were they really afraid of a price war? What a joke!

Meanwhile, on the second floor of Big Spider Internet Café in Haizhou.

Zhao Kang sat slumped in his chair as if his soul had left his body. He muttered to Li Mu, “If this cheat started charging, how many people do you think would actually pay?”

“At most, a few tens of thousands,” Li Mu analyzed. “Given the current state of Stone Age, it’s reasonable to expect that many would be willing to pay.”

“My god.” Zhao Kang was stunned. “If there are thirty thousand, that’s five hundred thousand a month! That’s…”

Li Mu’s expression remained calm. “Don’t do the math like that. It doesn’t work that way.”

He explained that sales would start from zero and climb gradually—it wasn’t possible to sell tens of thousands overnight. There were also distribution costs and profits at each level. Even if monthly sales hit three to five hundred thousand, collecting over a hundred thousand would already be optimistic.

“Even a hundred thousand is incredible!” Zhao Kang felt dizzy. “My parents don’t even make twenty thousand a year. Earning a hundred thousand would take six or seven years. If we kept this cheat business running for ten or twenty years, wouldn’t we become multimillionaires?”

Li Mu shook his head. “This business won’t last that long. At most, it’ll thrive for another two or three years.”

“Why?” Zhao Kang asked, puzzled.

“Ever been to a nightclub?”

Zhao Kang nodded. “A few times. It’s pretty wild.”

“Heard of those party pills?”

Zhao Kang nodded again. “Heard of them.”

Li Mu smiled. “The game company is like a nightclub. They invest in the venue, equipment, and staff, not just to make money from tickets, but also from selling drinks and snacks—that’s where the real profit is, right?”

“That’s right.”

“And party pills?” Li Mu continued. “They’re a kind of drug that makes the club goers have a better time. Our cheat is like those pills—something that makes the game more exciting for a few. But it’s harmful to the club itself. The profits from the pills don’t go to the club, and not every customer takes them. When some people start taking them and get too wild, it ruins the experience for those who don’t. Eventually, the regulars begin to leave, and the club’s business collapses. Do you think the club would let that happen?”

“Damn.” Zhao Kang suddenly understood and exclaimed, “They’ll be out to destroy us!”

“Exactly.” Li Mu laughed. “Cheats are like party drugs. The business can’t last long. If we rely on one nightclub for too long, the club will find ways to keep our drugs out and crack down on us. At that point, we’ll just have to find another club and start over.”

He continued, “It’s just that the law hasn’t caught up yet. But in time, cheats will be targeted by both the government and the game companies. We could even end up in jail. So, this is a quick-cash opportunity, not a long-term business.”

Now Zhao Kang truly understood and nodded repeatedly. “So what’s your plan?”

Li Mu replied, “We can ride this for two years, but Stone Age has no future. The best way to handle Stone Age Overlord is to find someone to take it over, pocket the money, and look for another game come September or October.”

...

After calming down, Sun Peng carefully considered his situation. He decided to first contact the developer of Stone Age Overlord and see what their intentions were. If there was a chance to cooperate, that would be ideal. But if the other side was determined to wipe them out, there was nothing he could do.

So Sun Peng added the contact left by Li Mu on Stone Age Overlord to his QQ.

On Li Mu’s computer, a notification popped up in the lower-right corner.

Li Mu quickly hit the shortcut key to open it. After one glance, he snapped his fingers, “He’s here!”

The friend request came from someone with the handle Roc, who wrote, “Leader of Abei Cheats.”

Li Mu had been waiting for him—he’d even chosen his own alias for this very reason.

“Unyielding.”

“Who names themselves ‘Unyielding’? What the hell…” Sun Peng cursed at his screen. The name itself gave him an intense sense of pressure. Was the other side declaring they’d fight to the bitter end in the cheat business?

“Doesn’t look like someone to be trifled with,” muttered a few programmers gathered behind him.

Just then, Sun Peng received a reply.

“Unyielding has declined your friend request.”

Zhao Kang was surprised, “Isn’t this the one we were waiting for? Why did you refuse him when he reached out?”

Li Mu grinned slyly, “This is just the beginning. The cheat hasn’t even been online for twenty-four hours. If I added him and started negotiating to sell now, I’d lose all leverage.”

Zhao Kang stared. “So you’re going to string him along for a few more days?”

“Exactly.” Li Mu nodded with a smile. “The trial version of Stone Age Overlord lasts fifteen days. There’s plenty of time. Let Abei’s team stew a bit longer. The more anxious they get, the better it is for us.”

“Whatever you say.” At this point, Zhao Kang’s admiration for Li Mu was beyond words. He’d decided to follow his lead no matter what.

It was six in the evening. Li Mu said to Zhao Kang, “Let’s head home. There’s nothing urgent for the next few days. Just keep spreading the word when you have time.”

“What about the computers?” Zhao Kang asked. “Should we keep renting these two machines?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” Li Mu sighed. In these days, nothing was convenient. Portable hard drives didn’t exist yet, nor did USB drives. Floppy disks had tiny storage, and most internet café computers didn’t even have floppy drives. Even CD drives weren’t standard; usually, there were only one or two per café for system installations.

With no portable hard drives and no solutions to power or circuitry issues for regular drives, you couldn’t really move data around. CD burners existed, but they were expensive. He couldn’t possibly buy a burner just to store a six-megabyte program and some source code. What a pain.

Li Mu decided to figure something out—if worst came to worst, he’d borrow some money from home and keep renting the two computers long-term.

Downstairs at the front desk, Li Mu said to Er Bin, “Brother Er Bin, is my three-day rental up? How much extra do I owe for today?”

Er Bin waved him off. “Go home, it’s fine. Business isn’t full every day anyway.”

Li Mu grinned. “You’re a good man, Brother Er Bin.” Then he said, “I’ll book another day tomorrow and pay you then.”

“Alright, we’ll start counting from when you arrive tomorrow. No one will touch your booth tonight, don’t worry.”

Li Mu nodded, realizing he’d have to solve his data storage problem soon. Otherwise, keeping two computers reserved just for storage was wasteful and risky.

Suddenly remembering Abei Cheats, Li Mu asked, “By the way, Brother Er Bin, do you also sell cheats here?”

“Yeah,” Er Bin replied. “Abei Cheats. Got them from the provincial agent.”

“Provincial agent?” Li Mu frowned. “So many layers.”

“Who knows?” Er Bin laughed. “The provincial guys handle all the city internet cafés. They approached me directly.”

He added with a smirk, “But Abei Cheats is probably finished. Last night, Stone Age Overlord appeared and instantly killed their business.”

Li Mu joked, “So you’re taking a loss?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Er Bin laughed. “I only sell maybe a hundred copies a month. It’s nothing.”

Leaning on the counter, Li Mu hesitated, then asked, “Brother Er Bin, do you have a CD burner here?”

“Nope, those things cost over a thousand. No use for it here. Why, you need one?”

“Yeah,” Li Mu nodded. “I want to burn some stuff.”

“I’ll borrow one for you tomorrow,” Er Bin agreed readily. “I’ve seen one at my support company—they have an HP burner.”

Li Mu’s eyes lit up. He knew that most internet café owners weren’t tech experts, and every city had ‘support companies’—small businesses specializing in setting up and maintaining internet cafés. Burners were essential for them.

“I’ll leave it to you then, Brother Er Bin.”

“No problem,” Er Bin smiled. “I’ll pick one up when I pass by tomorrow and get you a couple of blank discs too. They have plenty, and they’re cheap.”