Chapter Nineteen: Ruthless Determination, All in Vain

Hearing what Jiabei said, Sun Peng frowned. "You want to track him down directly?"

"Exactly!" Jiabei’s teeth ground together audibly. "He cut off our source of income—we can’t just let him get away with it. Forget about the hundreds of thousands in monthly profits he cost us—even for ten thousand, you could buy a life. Find him, dig him out, and force him to hand over the code. If he doesn’t, let him pay the price for smashing someone else’s rice bowl. Break both his hands and see how he writes code after that!"

"Are you out of your mind? So we stop making money—fine. But you want to drag all of us into jail?" Sun Peng’s eyelid twitched violently. This Jiabei was always cunning and treacherous. If he didn’t know a bit of programming, he’d just be another street thug, exuding the air of a hoodlum.

Noticing the shocked faces of the others around him, Jiabei realized that this bunch only knew how to code and lacked both courage and resolve. Not wanting to appear too extreme, he said, "I’m just venting. But since this guy refuses to back down or acknowledge us, shouldn’t we at least meet him and talk face to face? If he doesn’t know what’s good for him, we could try a little carrot and stick. We could at least scare him a bit, right? He might just be a tech nerd—his online name might sound ruthless, but in real life he could fold in an instant."

With that, the others all nodded. Intimidation and persuasion weren't bad ideas—if they could find him, they’d try to entice him first, and if that failed, resort to threats. With their livelihoods on the line, there was no harm in trying.

Sun Peng nodded, agreeing to Jiabei’s proposal.

Jiabei immediately took out his newly bought phone and made a call.

"Lao Wu, I need a favor. Can you check the account that posted ‘Primal Overlord’ on your forum? I want the registration IP and the recent login IPs."

On the other end, a man spoke quietly, "Xiao Bei, this isn’t something I can just do. It’s against forum policy."

Not something he could just do—meaning it would come at a price.

"Five hundred. It’s just a wave of your hand," Jiabei said without hesitation.

"Well…"

"One thousand!"

"Xiao Bei, listen to me—"

"Two thousand! Didn’t you always want to replace that old second-hand phone? Move your fingers and you’ll have a new one!"

"Alright, deal!" The other hesitated briefly and then agreed, voice firm. "Give me a bit, I’ll send it to you on QQ."

After hanging up, Jiabei’s face was dark with annoyance. "Damn it, two thousand for a few IPs. That bastard must know we’re desperate."

Sun Peng nodded, his tone still even. "Let’s just check. Two thousand isn’t much. The three of us are shareholders—we’ll split it by shares."

Five minutes later, Jiabei’s QQ received four IP addresses. They all crowded around to take a look, and immediately sensed something was wrong.

IP ranges have patterns. Anyone with a decent grasp of the internet can, at a glance, tell at least whether an IP is domestic or foreign.

Jiabei quickly ran a check with his tools, and sure enough—all four IPs were overseas: two in the US, one in Japan, and one in Korea.

Which meant from the very beginning, even at registration, the guy had used a proxy, and every login since had also been through a proxy.

They were programmers, not hackers. Even for a hacker, tracking the real IP from a proxy server would mean hacking the proxy itself and retrieving its logs—a high technical hurdle.

These four IP addresses instantly killed Jiabei’s plans to track the guy down and intimidate him.

"Damn, he’s really cautious!" Jiabei slumped, all his ruthlessness useless when he had no target to unleash it on.

Sun Peng sighed. "Looks like this is a fight to the finish. Brothers, let’s wait a few more days. If he still won’t contact us, we’ll break up."

Sun Peng had long resented Jiabei. Back when his own "Feather Plugin" was doing well, Jiabei had copied his plugin and released a free version to compete, then forced his way in to take a share. After they started working together, Sun Peng found out what kind of person he really was. At this point, if things really didn’t work out, splitting up might not be a bad thing. At least he’d be rid of this disaster.

Jiabei also knew that if "Primal Age" couldn’t continue, there’d be no point in working with Sun Peng. He could always develop plugins on his own. He’d originally teamed up because Sun Peng had a sales network, but now, in another week, that network would likely collapse. With no product and no market, who’d want to work with him? At that point, Jiabei could take his own team and go solo. If "Primal Age" didn’t work out, there would always be other suitable games.

...

"Big sister, don’t drive so slow—stop staying side-by-side with those big trucks, okay?"

On the national highway, Li Mu reminded Chen Wan beside him. She always got nervous around big trucks, afraid to speed up or overtake. But these days, national highways were in poor shape and full of big trucks—hauling coal, goods, or grain, all overloaded and piled high. Driving alongside them was an accident waiting to happen.

Chen Wan was anxious too. "It’s not like I want to, but I really don’t dare overtake them. They’re carrying so much, swaying back and forth—I’m scared something will fall and hit us."

Li Mu sighed. "At this pace, thirty kilometers an hour, we’ll get there by evening. And moving too slowly isn’t always safer. Every road has a reasonable speed range—too fast or too slow is both bad."

He’d seen plenty of cautious new drivers crawl along the fast lane of the highway at 60 or 70 kilometers an hour, thinking it was safer, when in reality it was far more dangerous.

"I honestly don’t dare. Just seeing those big trucks makes me nervous…" Chen Wan knew that at her current speed, it’d take at least six hours to get there. Her fair forehead was beaded with tiny, needle-thin drops of sweat.

Li Mu hesitated for a moment, then said, "Pull over, I’ll drive."

"You?" Chen Wan was surprised. "Do you have a license?"

"No," Li Mu replied matter-of-factly.

"Then why are you driving? Do you even know how?"

"I do."

"I don’t believe you!"

"Don’t believe me? This Audi A6 is a 2.8-liter, I don’t remember the exact horsepower, but I’m pretty sure it has a CVT transmission and all-wheel drive. As for how to drive it, it couldn’t be simpler—step on the brake and start the engine, put it in D, release the brake and press the gas to go. For reverse, shift to R. At red lights, neutral with the handbrake. Am I right?"

"You… you know a lot!" Chen Wan was dumbfounded. Some of what he said she knew was correct, some she didn’t even understand—what was a CVT? What was all-wheel drive? So she said firmly, "Even if you can drive, it’s still a no!"

"Then we’ll get there in the afternoon?"

"…"

After struggling for a few minutes, Chen Wan finally made up her mind, carefully pulled over, and said to Li Mu, "I’ll trust you this once. You have to be extra careful, understand?"

"Understood," Li Mu nodded. "I’ll definitely be more careful than you. You didn’t even use your turn signal when you pulled over."

"You…" Chen Wan was exasperated, pouting as she got out and switched to the passenger seat.

Li Mu climbed in, adjusted the seat, the rear and side mirrors, and the steering wheel. Chen Wan watched, inwardly shocked—he seemed to know the car better than she did, moving as if he’d done it countless times.

In truth, cars are largely similar. Though Li Mu hadn’t owned a good car in his previous life, he’d driven plenty through various opportunities.

After everything was set, Li Mu shifted into D, released the handbrake, checked the mirrors, and flicked on the left turn signal to merge back onto the road. Once driving, he quickly brought the speed up to about seventy kilometers per hour, and on good stretches, accelerated to eighty or even higher. Though he drove much faster than Chen Wan, he was far steadier—each overtaking maneuver was precise and decisive, every lane change perfectly timed.

Half an hour later, Chen Wan was completely convinced. "You drive so well—just take us straight to Jinling then."