Chapter 18

"Brat, what have you been up to these past two days? How many points do you think you scored?"

The next morning, before leaving home, Li Mu received a call from Chen Wan. Facing her question, Li Mu smiled and replied, "Report to Sister Wan, I haven't been busy these past two days. I've just been playing around. I estimate I scored over 620 points."

"Wow!" Chen Wan exclaimed in amazement, "Really that good?"

"Absolutely genuine."

"How much did you estimate for English?"

"About 140 points."

"Tch, I don't believe you." Chen Wan's tone was somewhat playful, and Li Mu could almost imagine her cute, deliberately playful expression.

Chen Wan indeed didn't believe him. Before the English exam, Li Mu had been hit by her, which must have affected him to some extent. If he could still score around 140 points, this guy must be really amazing!

"Fine, don't believe me." Li Mu pretended to be annoyed, "If you don't believe me, I won't tell you. I have something to do and I'm about to go out."

"Hey, no way!" Chen Wan hurriedly said, "If you dare hang up on me, I won't let you off."

Li Mu was helpless, "What do you want, Sister?"

"What do I want? I don't want anything." Chen Wan said with a smile, then asked, "Are Uncle and Aunt at work?"

"Uh-huh." Li Mu responded, "What's up? Do you want to come to my place?"

"Who wants to go to your place!" Chen Wan spat out, "I'll come to pick you up later. Let's go out and play!"

Li Mu's mind was still on the CD burner that Er Bin had promised him. He quickly asked, "Where do you want to go, Sister? I was about to go to the internet cafe. Do you want to come along? I'll treat you."

"I don't want to go to the internet cafe. I have something to do in the provincial capital. Let's drive there, and you can come with me." Chen Wan added, "I've been practicing driving hard these past two days, and my skills have improved significantly."

Although the highway network in 2001 was already quite extensive, most of the completed sections were main lines. The highway from Haizhou to the provincial capital wouldn't be built until 2004. Although the distance to the provincial capital was less than 200 kilometers, the train only took two and a half hours, but the bus was unpredictable.

"Forget it, Sister, the provincial capital is too far..."

Chen Wan's voice immediately became sweet, and she started to plead with the boy who was three years younger than her, "Please, Li Mu, I have something to do in the provincial capital, but train tickets are hard to get, and I'm a bit scared to drive by myself. If you come with me, I'll feel more confident. Otherwise, I won't dare to go alone..."

Li Mu hesitated. He really didn't want to go to the provincial capital at this time, but he had personally experienced Chen Wan's driving skills. If she really went alone, he wouldn't be able to rest easy.

In his previous life, Li Mu only bought a domestic FAW Besturn B50 in 2010. Although the car wasn't expensive, he had six years of actual driving experience, which was definitely better than Chen Wan's. He could guide her, and if necessary, he could drive for her. At that time, drunk driving wasn't a criminal offense, and no one checked, and almost all traffic lights didn't have cameras. It was a relatively lax period for traffic management.

Looking at the time, it was just past nine. Er Bin must have already arrived at the internet cafe and probably brought the CD burner. Installing the drivers and burning the data would take no more than half an hour.

So Li Mu gritted his teeth and agreed, "Alright, but when are we coming back?"

Chen Wan cheered, "If we can't come back today, we'll come back tomorrow, depending on how things go."

"But you have to come with me to the internet cafe first. I have something to do."

"Okay, I'll be at your neighborhood entrance right away. Come out in five minutes."

After hanging up, Li Mu quickly called Zhao Kang, telling him he had to go out and wouldn't be at the internet cafe in the afternoon. He would contact him when he returned.

Then Li Mu quickly packed a bag with a change of clothes. It was too hot, and if they had to stay overnight in the provincial capital, he would need a change of clothes. He left a note at home, not daring to tell his parents where he was going, just saying he was going to a classmate's house for the evening. If he told them he was going to the provincial capital with Chen Wan, they would definitely worry.

Leaving the neighborhood, Chen Wan poked her head out of an old Audi A6, waving at Li Mu, "Xiao Mu, over here!"

Li Mu was surprised. He approached and first checked the car's rear, seeing that it was a 2.8-liter engine, which was likely the top-of-the-line domestic A6.

Opening the passenger door and sitting in, Li Mu looked at the almost new interior and teased Chen Wan, "Sister Wan, was this the car you hit me with that day?"

"No, this car was out that day. I was driving a Passat..."

Li Mu nodded. Rich girl, even a Passat cost about 200,000 yuan in those days, and a top-of-the-line 2.8-liter A6 would cost around 600,000 yuan. It seemed he wasn't wrong to call Chen Wan a rich, beautiful girl.

Chen Wan was wearing a Nike sportswear set, shorts, and a T-shirt, probably for driving convenience. But looking at her long, white legs through the gearshift was indeed a pleasure.

"You want to go to the internet cafe first, right?"

"Right!"

"Okay."

Chen Wan drove Li Mu to the internet cafe. Before getting out, Li Mu said to her, "Wait in the car, I'll be back in about half an hour."

"Okay." Chen Wan checked the time, "If you can finish in half an hour, we can still make it to Jinling for lunch."

Li Mu nodded and entered the internet cafe. It wasn't very crowded. Er Bin saw him and took out a gift bag from behind the counter, handing it to Li Mu, "CD burner and three blank discs."

Li Mu opened it and took a look, "Thanks, Brother Er Bin!"

"You're welcome."

"I'll go upstairs."

In the private room, Li Mu took out the CD burner from the gift bag. It was an HP CD-Writer series, one of the best on the market at the time, along with three blank CD-ROMs. However, the data Li Mu needed to burn was less than 100MB, so one disc was enough.

He downloaded the official drivers and burning software, and it took about twenty minutes to recognize the CD burner. Fortunately, the burning speed was fast, and the data was done in a few minutes.

Since he had three discs, Li Mu decided to burn three copies to prevent data loss.

After burning, Li Mu cleared all the data from the computer.

He didn't have much money left, and with the data done, Li Mu didn't plan to rent a computer anymore. He said goodbye to Er Bin, who didn't care and refused to take the money Li Mu offered, pushing him out the door.

Seeing that he still had about 200 yuan left, Li Mu went to the nearby convenience store and bought two packs of hard Zhonghua cigarettes. He threw them to Er Bin and ran away without caring about his protests.

Back in Chen Wan's car, Li Mu asked, "How do we get to the provincial capital? Do you know the way?"

"Yes." Chen Wan nodded, "We'll go west out of the city on the national highway. Follow the national highway, and we'll reach the outskirts of Jinling. From there, it's easy to find."

"Okay." Seeing her confidence, Li Mu fastened his seatbelt and waved, "Alright, let's go."

...

As Chen Wan drove straight to Jinling, Sun Peng in a residential area in Beijing's Zhongguancun was almost on the verge of a breakdown.

From yesterday to this morning, he had added Li Mu's QQ over twenty times, but all the friend requests went unanswered. Meanwhile, "Stone Age Overlord" had already exploded among the "Stone Age" player base!

The download statistics from various websites exceeded 300,000, which basically surpassed the peak concurrent online numbers of "Stone Age." This also indicated that most of the highly active players and a significant portion of the more active players had already downloaded "Stone Age Overlord."

Sun Peng continuously received feedback from major distributors, and it was now almost certain that all the internet cafe distributors seemed to have united, notifying provincial agents to compensate users. This was essentially a polite way of telling provincial agents that they wouldn't be paid in July, and if they didn't have a new hack that could surpass "Stone Age Overlord," they wouldn't continue selling the Abe hack, as it wouldn't sell anyway.

Compensation was acceptable; Sun Peng could endure not making any money in July, but he couldn't tolerate the complete loss of revenue.

If "Stone Age Overlord" continued to impact the market, the Abe hack would be dead in a week at most.

This person, with a username that exuded such intense hostility, seemed determined to fight to the death. It was easy for him to use "Stone Age Overlord" to ruin Sun Peng, and the strength of his group was indeed far inferior to his.

Once the Abe hack lost its market, he could mimic Sun Peng's model and build a distribution network, leaving Sun Peng with no chance of recovery.

Not only was Sun Peng anxious, but the other two partners and even the other developers were also worried.

A monthly revenue of 200,000 to 300,000 yuan, calculated at 200,000 yuan, after deducting all expenses and employee salaries, the three of them could share over 100,000 yuan, with Sun Peng, as the major shareholder, taking 60,000 to 70,000 yuan. In 2001, 60,000 to 70,000 yuan could buy a small apartment in a third-tier city or a two-bedroom in a fifth-tier city like Haizhou.

Seeing these revenues about to be lost, Sun Peng was desperate.

"We need to contact this 'Fight to the Death' guy." Sun Peng smoked five cigarettes in a row and said to the people around him, "He might not have a complete sales network yet. To make money from 'Stone Age Overlord,' he still needs to put in a lot of effort. If we can establish contact with him, we can offer our sales channels as an attraction and also emphasize that the lifespan of 'Stone Age' is not long. If we can convince him to collaborate with us on 'Stone Age Overlord,' we still have a chance. Otherwise, we'll have to disband."

Jia Bei, who was more ruthless, smacked his lips and suddenly remembered something, "The Game Kingdom forum is in Beijing, and it's one of the forums where 'Stone Age Overlord' was uploaded. I'll try to find the administrator, give them some benefits, and get the IP address of the uploader's registration and login!"