Chapter Eighty: Old Liao’s Remarkable Foresight

Not mentioning Wang Dachui was fine, but as soon as he came up, Huang Yunshuo suddenly remembered Wuxia’s low-grade Eternal Crystal—the item he had promised to give her. If he stood up Wang Dachui, not only could he forget about getting his equipment forged, but the only reason Wang wouldn’t smash his head in with a hammer would be sheer humanitarian concern.

“Oh my god!”

The more he thought about it, the more restless he became. Huang Yunshuo was so anxious he nearly jumped out of his seat. He wolfed down his dinner and rushed back to his room, not caring whether an hour had passed, and logged into the game immediately.

In the darkened stream room, Old Liao, late as always due to guild business, wore an expression like he’d just eaten something foul.

“Damn it, why didn’t I catch the earlier stream?”

He was beside himself, venting furiously on the barrage.

For god’s sake, that bastard, Nightly Radiance, has killed players from Tang Smoke and Clouds nearly a thousand times recently! If she isn’t kicked out of the newbie village today, he felt like he might as well die.

“Barrage alone isn’t enough—I can’t help but send gifts to vent!”

[Old Liao the Mastermind has sent the streamer ‘Assault Ship’ x1!]
[Old Liao the Mastermind has sent the streamer ‘Assault Ship’ x2!]
[Old Liao the Mastermind has sent the streamer ‘Assault Ship’ x3!]
[Old Liao the Mastermind has sent the streamer ‘Assault Ship’ x4!]
[Old Liao the Mastermind has sent the streamer ‘Assault Ship’ x5!]
...
[Old Liao the Mastermind has sent the streamer ‘Assault Ship’ x18!]
...
[Old Liao the Mastermind has sent the streamer ‘Assault Ship’ x63!]
...
[Old Liao the Mastermind has sent the streamer ‘Assault Ship’ x100!]

“This guy’s nuts! Who the hell is he?”

“One hundred Assault Ships—what do those correspond to again? Oh right, 1314 credit points, same as the yacht!”

“Only 02825 can pull off shenanigans like this on a black-screen stream!”

“Brother, don’t lose your head. If you’re going to send gifts, at least wait until the damned streamer shows up!”

“Randomly firing Assault Ships in a black-screen stream, say no more, that’s real swagger! Hey, rich guy, need some leg-hair charms?”

...

Since the stream was currently closed, Old Liao had no idea how many people were spamming the barrage.

But there were at least several thousand—channels 1 and 2 were exploding. If not for his sharp eyes, he wouldn’t even be able to catch the barrage’s contents.

“Feels kind of good, actually.”

A little calmer now, Old Liao felt a faint sense of satisfaction. Though he’d impulsively splurged 130,000 credit points on gifts, it was nothing. The vice president had given him a full hundred million for event funds, and his little outburst could easily be chalked up as normal PR!

[Old Liao the Mastermind has sent the streamer ‘Plane’ x1!] Message: How can I contact the streamer?
[Old Liao the Mastermind has sent the streamer ‘Plane’ x2!] Message: I’m really anxious!

Apparently, the big spender was desperate to find that idiot kid. Everyone started offering suggestions.

Finally, Old Liao spotted a barrage message saying that some mods in the contributor leaderboard were real-life friends of the streamer, and his mind clicked.

“Slender Waist, Long Legs, Canvas Shoes”—Song Na was currently leveling up in the Little White Goose area.

Around her were no fewer than five hundred Brotherhood players. With her aura effects, her health topped 160, and with the healing buff scroll helping out, she was fighting heroically. Joining the rush, she snagged the last hit on a Little White Goose and was feeling exhilarated.

Suddenly, a player named Old Liao the Mastermind opened a private chat with her.

“Hello! Are you friends with the streamer, the idiot?” Old Liao asked.

“Looking for my Brother Huang?”

Song Na paused, remembering Huang Yunshuo had set private chat restrictions.

“What’s the matter? If it’s not important, just forget it,” Song Na said.

“It’s important, very important!” Old Liao exclaimed. “Extremely important—this concerns millions, no, tens of millions in transactions. Wouldn’t you say that's important?”

“Tens of millions... in some shady deal?” Song Na was puzzled, then privately messaged Huang Yunshuo.

Huang Yunshuo quickly added Old Liao as a friend and sent over a few question marks: “???”

“Hello, I’m one of the managers from Tang Smoke and Clouds Guild. I have something very important to discuss with you!”

After scanning the basic info of this new friend, Old Liao relaxed.

Definitely a top-tier player, clearly the streamer; it made sense he knew Nightly Radiance.

“So that’s it... You want me to tell Nightly Radiance to leave the newbie village, right?” Huang Yunshuo exchanged a few words with Old Liao and suddenly understood.

Tang Smoke and Clouds had been utterly humiliated this time.

Just a random newbie village had over two hundred players; their entire guild membership must be in the hundreds of millions. Such a massive guild, yet they were repeatedly slaughtered in the newbie village, and had no way to stop it!

Worst of all, this whole fiasco was being publicized everywhere.

Top spot on the Bloody Leaderboard—six thousand points! Even spending a day slaughtering six thousand pigs would be exhausting!

No wonder the incident caused such an uproar. Tang Smoke and Clouds were desperate to recruit top players, and their anxiety was understandable.

Huang Yunshuo first clicked on Nightly Radiance’s name on the Bloody Leaderboard and found that adding her as a friend required paying one million credit points.

“Damn, a million...”

After thinking briefly, Huang Yunshuo decided to pay and add her.

Within three seconds, Nightly Radiance accepted the friend request, refunded the million credit points, and sent a message with a smiling emoji: “Hello, streamer.”

“Whew.”

Not greedy for my money—excellent, excellent. I like this girl.

Huang Yunshuo nodded with satisfaction. Since Nightly Radiance could be contacted anytime, there was no problem; now he could properly negotiate with Old Liao the Mastermind.

“Honestly, Old Liao, Tang Smoke and Clouds doesn’t need to be so anxious. Radiance can’t possibly stay in the newbie village forever. Wait a few more hours and she’ll likely move on. After all, whether it’s the Grand Arena flag capture or the Time-Space Adventure instance, you have to be in town to participate.”

“And soon it’ll be Monster Siege. She can’t avoid leaving the newbie village to join in, right?” Huang Yunshuo asked.

Old Liao gave a bitter laugh. “Imagine your guild getting humiliated like this all the time—try seeing it from our perspective!”

“Alright.”

Huang Yunshuo nodded. “Let me ask directly—how much are you willing to pay to settle this? Clearly, Tang Smoke and Clouds did something to piss off the girl, and my words alone won’t sway her.”

Old Liao perked up, sensing the juicy negotiation ahead!