Chapter 67

Chapter 14: The First CS Master

After Lin Feng returned to Chu City, he was greeted with a grand yet simple celebration.

"Mr. Lin, congratulations on becoming a millionaire!" Liu Yingying and Su Xiaomei, along with others, simply decorated the office, bought a few bottles of champagne, and celebrated with all the company members.

"Thank you! Cheers!" Lin Feng smiled slightly, not showing too much joy. After all, when the cooperation agreement listed the two companies exchanging 5% of their shares, Lin Feng knew he would become a hundred times richer overnight.

A millionaire? Just a millionaire? — With Lin Feng owning 5% of Tencent's shares, and considering Tencent's future market value of 79 billion Hong Kong dollars in Hong Kong, Lin Feng's assets would be at least 3.95 billion Hong Kong dollars.

Lin Feng had become a billionaire overnight. Of course, all of this was still uncertain. At present, Lin Feng was still just a small businessman with over 200,000 funds and most of the company's assets.

After a lively celebration, everyone went out to have fun, while Lin Feng and Liu Yingying stayed behind to discuss the location of the fast-food restaurant — at this moment, Lin Feng deeply understood the saying that employees can rest, but the boss never can.

After careful discussion with Liu Yingying, Lin Feng determined five locations for the fast-food restaurants: one in the Lante District, one next to Chu City's best high school, Chu City Experimental High School, one next to the largest residential area, Chao Yang District, one in the only park in Chu City, and one near the bus station.

These five locations avoided the most prosperous commercial streets where McDonald's and KFC had their stores, thus avoiding direct competition. Moreover, these five places had a large flow of people. Since Lin Feng's fast-food restaurants were mainly priced affordably, they could better serve the general public and be more widely accepted.

For the five locations, except for the one in the Lante District which Lin Feng operated alone, the other four were jointly operated by relatives from both sides of his family, and the locations were divided based on where they lived. After everything was settled, Lin Feng allocated 100,000 funds to Liu Yingying to start the construction of the fast-food restaurant in the Lante District.

"By the way, now that you own 5% of Tencent's shares, you have a better chance of countering Xia Qianhe's counterattack. Congratulations again, I never thought you could take gold from a mine that everyone was eyeing without spending a penny. I admire you!" Liu Yingying poured a glass of red wine for both of them, deeply impressed by Lin Feng. Although she was a master's student in business administration at Peking University, she admitted she did not have Lin Feng's skills and courage.

"Hehe, it's also luck. Tencent has been developing rapidly recently, and there is a funding gap. To protect their shares, they rejected the funding proposals from IDG and Pacific Century CyberWorks. They were worried about the lack of profitable projects for the company. My proposal was like a timely snowball, and although they were reluctant to part with their shares, they had no choice but to agree. Besides, I also gave them 5% of 'DingDang Network's' shares." Lin Feng smiled faintly.

"By the way, I forgot to congratulate you; you now have a $100,000 net worth." Lin Feng also teased Liu Yingying.

"Hehe, it seems my investment was very wise!" Liu Yingying smiled, but then frowned and said, "However, I'm worried that when 'DingDang Network' grows, Tencent might get jealous and swallow your online trading platform."

Liu Yingying's concern was not unfounded. Business is about profit. Although Lin Feng and Ma Huateng were currently cooperating well, there was no guarantee they wouldn't "go to war" in the future. In business, there are no father-son relationships, and for profit, a person can do things they would never imagine doing.

"Don't worry, the contract is only for five years. We'll see what happens after five years." Although Lin Feng was somewhat worried, he knew this was the best choice for now. "We don't have the funds to support the development of 'DingDang Network,' so we can only rely on Tencent for now."

"Okay, that's the best we can do for now." Liu Yingying nodded and said no more.

Neither Lin Feng nor Liu Yingying knew that this decision would directly lead to all the changes that would happen in the future. At that moment, Ma Huateng, extremely excited by the potential market value of Tencent, did not expect that 'DingDang Network' would bring unimaginable trouble to his Tencent Network.

The next day, September 11, Monday, at the regular meeting, after listening to the work plans of each department for the week, Lin Feng instructed Liu Yingying to oversee all fast-food restaurant-related matters and then left. This week, besides quickly resolving the Deya Chemical problem, he had a more important issue to deal with: today was September 11.

Today, "Counter-Strike" (CS) was available for global download. Starting at 1 PM, the Valve development team made the public version available for free download. Lin Feng immediately used 'DingDang Network's' network resources to download the game.

Five minutes later, the game was downloaded. Lin Feng immediately copied it to a hard drive and rushed to the Lante District, handing the game over to Luo Tao and others who had been waiting for a long time, instructing them to quickly translate it into Chinese. For each game CD, Lin Feng gave them 1 yuan in profit.

At the same time, to ensure that he could legally sell the simplified Chinese version in mainland China without being sued, Lin Feng contacted Minh Le, the father of CS, via email. After expressing his intentions, Minh Le readily signed an electronic authorization agreement.

The agreement stipulated that Lin Feng would be responsible for the sales of the simplified Chinese version of "Counter-Strike" in mainland China, with a profit split of 40% of the total profit going to the Valve development team, who would provide technical support to Lin Feng at any time. However, the Valve development team would not publicly acknowledge the legality of Lin Feng's sales, nor would they pursue him for unauthorized sales. In short, the Valve development team would act as if they did not know about this matter.

In fact, the reason Minh Le signed this agreement with Lin Feng was that he had heard about the rampant piracy market in mainland China and knew the power of pirate companies. "Counter-Strike" (CS) mainly made money by selling CD-keys and providing global online services. However, Minh Le knew that in China, it was impossible to make money by selling CD-keys, as "Counter-Strike" could be played on a local network without a CD-key. Therefore, it was better to let Lin Feng sell it, and Valve could also make some money in the process.

After signing the agreement, Lin Feng quickly found 10 people to enter the game and record it. Many people on 'DingDang Network' were leaving messages asking what type of game it was. Although Lin Feng had introduced it on the website, stating that it was developed by the same team as "Half-Life" and provided a detailed description, most players were still unfamiliar with it.

A real game recording was the best form of promotion.

After the other nine people became familiar with the interface and weapons, Lin Feng chose the classic "de_dust2" map.

In the first round, Lin Feng was a terrorist. After buying a Desert Eagle, he separated from the others and charged straight to the police headquarters from Area A. After a burst of gunfire, all the terrorists except Lin Feng were killed, and the police still had three members left. Lin Feng stood in the open area outside the door of Area B, waiting for the three police officers to arrive.

A gunshot rang out, and the police officer who just appeared was shot in the head by Lin Feng.

The remaining two police officers were stunned. Previously, when they encountered the terrorists, the bullets flew everywhere, making it an exciting and thrilling battle. Now, when the three of them went to surround Lin Feng, they hadn't even seen him, and one of them was already dead. This made the remaining two quite nervous.

The two police officers looked at each other, shouted, and rushed out from both sides.

"Bang!" Lin Feng blew on his finger contemptuously and killed the police officer on the left.

At this moment, the police officer on the right finally spotted Lin Feng. Excitement, tension, and anger surged in his mind. He pressed the left mouse button and fired wildly. When his bullets were exhausted, he turned red-eyed to reload and prepare to finish off Lin Feng, only to find that Lin Feng was standing unharmed in front of him.

"Bang!" A shot to the forehead, Lin Feng won 1v3.

In the second round, Lin Feng directly upgraded to the terrorist's AK-47, skillfully using double shots to take down the police. This round, he achieved a 1v5 personal sweep.

In the third round, Lin Feng changed his weapon to the AWP, taking out the police from a distance, still achieving a perfect 0-0.

In the fourth round, Lin Feng switched to a semi-automatic shotgun, equipped with smoke, flash, and grenades. In the smoky environment, the police officers, blinded, fell one by one with screams.

...

After 12 rounds, Lin Feng had killed 42 people and died 0 times. After thoroughly enjoying the thrill of being a "super master," he completed the perfect promotion. When Lin Feng uploaded the video through Tencent Network, it received over a million views in just one hour. 'DingDang Network' instantly gained 100,000 new registered users, and over 50,000 users placed orders and paid directly. This number continued to grow as the video spread.

Lin Feng inadvertently gained another title — CS God.

For a long time afterward, this video was regarded as a classic textbook by all CS game enthusiasts, who used it to hone their CS skills. The username "e.t-01" that Lin Feng casually chose became the most respected and the most skilled CS player in the hearts of domestic CS fans.

When this video unexpectedly leaked overseas, it also caught the attention of the world's top CS team at the time — the SK team. They proposed to challenge this "e.t-01," which caused a frenzy among domestic CS fans.

Even though in the future, domestic CS fans would see players like Lovert, Perfect, and TK, who far surpassed Lin Feng's level, in the hearts of all domestic CS fans, the first master would always be — e.t-01.

Of course, all of this was a future story. For now, the more successful the sales of "Counter-Strike" were, the more confident Lin Feng felt in countering Xia Qianhe's counterattack.