Chapter 26

After a series of fiddling, Li Mu finally managed to connect his new laptop to the internet at home.

Fortunately, when he bought the computer, he had already had someone install some essential software, otherwise, with this internet speed, it would take half an hour just to download QQ.

Li Mu was very concerned about the current download volume and user feedback of Stone Age Overlord, so he opened a few BBS forums and found that the administrator of the first BBS had deliberately pinned a post and put up a banner ad, announcing that the forum's first post to exceed 30,000 replies had been born.

As for the download volume, it was 230,000, which was quite terrifying.

Across several websites, the total download volume reached over 400,000.

Li Mu felt it was almost there; the future growth rate would no longer be explosive. He didn't know how many active users Stone Age had, but based on the data announced by all internet companies, which tended to exaggerate, if they claimed a peak of 200,000 concurrent users, after a discount, the active users would be around 300,000 to 500,000 at most.

Then he opened his private QQ.

On his private QQ, Zhao Kang had left a message: "Holy shit, I went to the internet cafe today to check the download volume, and it broke 400,000!"

Seeing that Zhao Kang was online, Li Mu asked, "Are you still at the internet cafe?"

"Yeah, where did you go?"

"I'm at home."

"You have a computer at home now?"

"Just went out and made some money."

"Damn, you're awesome."

Li Mu asked, "Did you log into the forum today and set up the proxy as I told you?"

"I didn't log in, just opened the forum to check."

"That's good." Li Mu thought for a moment and sent another message: "Come to my place tomorrow morning."

"Sure, I'll come to see your new computer."

Thinking about how Stone Age Overlord was now dominating the Stone Age cheating market, Li Mu opened his alternate QQ account to see who was contacting him.

As soon as he logged in, countless verification requests popped up.

Just Sun Peng from Abe Cheats alone had sent dozens of messages, and dozens of others wanted to be regional agents for his cheats.

Li Mu ignored them all, preparing to wait out the Abe Cheats people.

At that moment, his parents came home from work, and Li Mu quickly got up. He still had one more hurdle to clear—explaining the laptop and the remaining 60,000 yuan in his bag to his parents.

...

Li Mu's father extinguished his third cigarette in the ashtray and asked with a look of disbelief, "Son, you said you wrote a song and sold it for 80,000 yuan, right?"

"Right." Li Mu nodded, pointing to his laptop and the 60,000 yuan in cash for the fifth time: "It's all here."

"I still can't believe it..." Li Mu's father said, reaching for another cigarette.

At this moment, Li Mu's mother suddenly said, "I don't believe you, but I do!"

She recalled five years ago, saying, "When you were in the second year of junior high, I took you to the department store, and you insisted on buying a guitar. I thought, does my son have a musical talent? Anyway, the guitar wasn't too expensive, so I bought it for you. At that time, I felt that my son definitely had a talent for music!"

Li Mu felt a bit embarrassed.

Back then, he wanted a guitar because he had just started listening to rock music. Dou Wei, Ding Wu, Gao Qi, and even Zhang Chu and He Yong were his idols at that time, so he pestered his mother to buy the guitar.

Li Mu's father said thoughtfully, "Oh, it's been five years!"

"Right," Li Mu's mother said. "Didn't you see on TV, that Flower Band? They're probably not even as old as our son, and they write their own songs and are already stars!"

"You're right," Li Mu's father said, his mind finally catching up. "Son, what song did you write? Sing it for us?"

Li Mu quickly waved his hands, "The song was sold for someone to use in a competition. You should be able to see it on TV in a while."

Li Mu didn't have the courage to sing a song like "Li Bai" in front of his parents, or rather, with his parents staring at him, he couldn't sing most of his songs.

Li Mu's father understood that Li Mu might feel uncomfortable and nodded, then he looked up at Li Mu, "Son, with so much money, you need to be careful with it. Don't waste it, okay?"

Li Mu's mother immediately chimed in, "Right, I'll deposit it in the bank for you to use for college!"

Li Mu's father quickly said, "What are you meddling for? The money is his, let him decide. He's grown up and can make his own decisions, as long as he doesn't do anything illegal or wasteful."

Li Mu's father had always been quite open-minded, making Li Mu's mother feel a bit embarrassed.

"You're right, the money should be his decision."

Li Mu immediately smiled, "If it's my decision, then fine."

Li Mu said, picking up 10,000 yuan in cash and handing it to his parents, "The remaining 50,000 is for you two to use as you see fit, and this 10,000 is for me."

"You still need to go to college, save the money for that!"

"No worries, I'll earn more for college."

Li Mu's parents stared at him as if he were a monster, not understanding why their son had suddenly become so confident.

However, the 60,000 yuan on the table was real and had a strong visual impact.

Li Mu's parents exchanged a glance, and his mother said, "Okay, I'll take the money."

...

The next morning, Zhao Kang came to Li Mu's house and specifically looked at the new computer, showing some envy but not asking where Li Mu got the money to buy it.

Li Mu didn't want him to misunderstand that he was already making money from Stone Age Overlord, so he said, "When Stone Age Overlord is sold, I'll buy you one too."

Zhao Kang quickly waved his hands, "That's too expensive, I can't accept it."

Zhao Kang said seriously, "Stone Age Overlord is the result of your hard work. I just helped post online. What I did isn't even worth a tenth of a laptop."

Li Mu patted his shoulder and said seriously, "I won't sell Stone Age Overlord for less than 500,000 yuan. I won't give you more, but I guarantee you'll make 50,000 yuan from this deal."

"50,000..." Zhao Kang stared at Li Mu, dumbfounded.

Li Mu also looked at Zhao Kang.

He wanted to know if Zhao Kang's surprise was due to joy or dissatisfaction. The former was fine, but the latter would be a bit difficult to handle.

Li Mu indeed considered Zhao Kang a brother, but as a brother, he hoped to keep Zhao Kang by his side for a long time, as a trusted right-hand man. Therefore, he needed to be clear if Zhao Kang would change in ways he didn't want when faced with a large sum of money.

If it was just 50,000 yuan, it was indeed a lot, but the ratio between them was extremely disproportionate, possibly nine to one or even ten to one.

Li Mu had a plan in mind. If Zhao Kang was dissatisfied with the split, the 50,000 yuan would be used to cover his tuition for a three-year college program, at least preventing him from repeating the mistakes of his past life. However, similar collaborations would not happen again.

However, Li Mu didn't expect that Zhao Kang's expression was indeed somewhat dissatisfied, but the reason for his dissatisfaction was...

"Li Mu, what do you mean? Pity me?"

Li Mu frowned, "What are you talking about?"

Zhao Kang said resentfully, "I know what I did. It's just a bit of trivial work. You could hire a bunch of people to do it for 20 yuan a day. Why should I get 50,000 yuan?"

Li Mu smiled, "I said it to help you earn enough for your tuition."

"You're talking about one year's tuition, which is probably 6,000 to 7,000 yuan." Zhao Kang looked a bit awkward, "And I thought the job you mentioned would take the whole summer, but we only worked for a few days..."

Li Mu smiled slightly. It seemed this brother from his past life could be trusted.

"This time, you didn't have much to do, but you will in the future," Li Mu said. "After selling Stone Age Overlord and before developing the next cheat, I'll give you two tasks."

"Which two?"

"Promotion and expanding distribution channels."

"Distribution?" Zhao Kang recalled Li Mu's analogy of the cheat as a摇头丸 (shaking pill) and asked curiously, "Are you going to sell it yourself?"

Li Mu nodded, "Stone Age doesn't have a long lifespan, and we don't have the initial capital to expand channels. But after selling Stone Age Overlord, we will have the capital."

"Then the nightclub, I mean, the game company won't screw us over?"

"They will," Li Mu smiled. "That's why I've always said this business can only last two years. As long as we can smoothly withdraw before they act, we'll be fine."