Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

The instant his face touched the cold ceramic floor, he greatly regretted not satisfying his wife’s preference and choosing wooden flooring instead.

5 minutes later, Quentin, adorned with a pair of silver handcuffs, was shoved into a box truck and taken away for interrogation.

1 hour later, Quentin arrived at the interrogation room.

From complete denial to spilling all the beans in pursuit of leniency, it took only three minutes in between.

1 and a half hours later, while waiting for their lawyer to go through the procedures, Quentin saw Richard and Wesley — the main culprits naturally had to enjoy the privileges of “priority interrogation” and “repeated interrogation.”

Regarding crimes that endanger national security, lawyers are not allowed to meet with their clients as they please; they need to obtain approval from the case handling department — in this case, the Xiajing National Security Bureau, which is currently interrogating them.

As for whether their lawyer could actually get approval to meet them…

That’s another matter entirely.

And now, they had no choice but to stay here, waiting for something uncertain — to be precise, something with little hope.

Quentin looked at the two people in the room. He was familiar with Wesley, who had swindled him quite a bit.

The other one looked somewhat familiar, probably NetDragon Boss Richard.

The reason for the uncertainty was that this person looked so different from the spirited, confident young man in the video —

His eyes were lifeless, his hair unkempt, his lips pale, and his limbs trembling, looking just like a terminal patient.

The good news was: The phantom pain in Richard’s ass seemed to be cured, and he was now sitting stably in the chair.

Quentin looked at Wesley and pointed at Richard to confirm, “Your boss?”

Wesley glanced at Quentin and, without bothering to engage, replied weakly with a single word, “Yes.”

Quentin then walked towards Richard, who had no reaction, as if he had completely lost his perception of the outside world.

But Quentin had no sympathy for him. He had inexplicably been implicated in such a serious crime, and it was all due to this stupid boss who had a screw loose in his head!

Bending down, with handcuffed hands, he struggled to take off his crocodile leather shoes and, without any hesitation, violently swung them at Richard’s face!

“Slap!”

With a crisp sound, Richard was struck by the shoe and stumbled back. Half of his face swelled up, and it hurt like hell. This instantly pulled him out of his personal world.

Quentin showed no signs of stopping. Raising his shoe, he continued to swing with all his might.

Richard hurriedly lifted his arms to block.

But being hit by a sturdy shoe swung with the full force of an adult man, even if it hits the arm, it still hurts to the bone!

“Ah! Stop! You madman!” Richard cried out in pain.

Quentin ignored him and merely exerted all his strength to keep swinging down.

“Wesley!!” Richard shouted for help while crying out in pain.

Wesley at the side glanced over and stood up, but did not come forward, instead moving farther away.

He sat down in a different position, acting as if he hadn’t seen anything.

“Ah! Ah~ah~~ah——” Richard was in so much pain, he yelled frantically, “Someone, come quick! There’s a madman here!!!”

Finally, two police officers rushed in, pulled Quentin away, and handcuffed him to the iron armrest of the chair, warning, “Behave yourself! Don’t cause trouble!”

Across from him, half of Richard’s face was swollen with a clear shape of the shoe sole. His suit and sleeves were covered in shoe prints, and even his head had been hit hard with dust all over his hair.

Richard lowered his arms, glared at Wesley angrily, and then asked Quentin furiously, “Are you insane? He came up with the idea, and you hit me?!”

Quentin said contemptuously, “I’ve seen enough of your kind, with more dirty tricks up your sleeves than anyone else! Even now, you’re still relentless, and you’re pretending to be innocent here?”

Richard was so angry that his lips trembled. He felt so wronged!

It was Wesley’s idea!

Just as he wanted to say something more, the door opened again, and a uniformed staff member walked in, “Your lawyers’ requests for visitation have not been approved. The next application will be in three days. You can now be transferred to the detention center.”

The three people in the room immediately lost their appetite for bickering and were led away like walking corpses to the detention center for criminal detention.

Meanwhile, the NetDragon R&D Center was sealed off directly and would only be considered for reopening after a thorough investigation.

The assembly line, all the decrypted information, and all the technicians involved were confiscated and arrested at the first opportunity.

*

The impact of this incident kept expanding rapidly.

So much so that when Lincoln met Wu Di in the virtual world during the midday break, the first thing Wu Di said was not “When will the game Chang’an be launched?”, but rather —

“Boss Lin, did you get NetDragon raided? Awesome!”

“What nonsense are you talking about?!” Lincoln immediately retorted, “Their boss brought it upon himself! What’s it got to do with me? I’m the victim! The entire Cloud Dream is the victim!”

“Oh? Really?” Wu Di was astonished, “But everyone on the Internet is saying that you’re vengeful and ruthless.”

Lincoln furrowed his brows, “What does that even mean? Am I not an Internet philanthropist? What are they trying to imply?”

This was not him boasting; just look at what he had done: the Ancient Architecture Recording and Protection Foundation, generous subsidies for brain-controlled prosthetic limbs, and at least one Journey Plan donated to a special education school every week…

Praising himself as a great person, Lincoln felt justified.

“Yes, yes, on Spiritual Rhinoceros, there’s a popular post listing your charity work on one side and your public tirades on the other, concluding that you have a ‘compassionate heart and thunderous methods.’ I even upvoted and shared it, haha.”

Lincoln couldn’t help but want to cover his face. What the hell was all this stuff…

“Alright, all I can say is that this really isn’t my fault and it has little to do with me. It’s entirely NetDragon’s own doing. As for more specific details, wait for the police report. Time is limited, let’s talk about the main topic now.”

Lincoln tried to steer the conversation back on track. He sacrificed his precious lunch break, not to chat about gossip with Wu Di.

“[Virtual Chang’an], you’ve been there for a week, any thoughts?”

“Hmm…” Wu Di thought for a moment, and the first question he raised was, “Can we really not take off our pants? It’s an ancient background with brothels and entertainment venues, you’ve got it all set up, and you’re still charging money, but you insist on false advertising. It’s really annoying… ”

Lincoln knew there were many fans of taking off pants, but he didn’t expect someone to seriously discuss this with him with a straight face.

Feeling the thickness of Wu Di’s face, Lincoln could only sigh helplessly, “Producing, selling, and spreading obscene materials are illegal behaviors.”

“What about not charging money?” Wu Di asked further.

“Even spreading it for free is not allowed.”

“What if a player falls in love with an NPC and wants to have a relationship, get married, and live a married life with the NPC? Can that be done?” Wu Di insisted.

“…Why do you think you can have a relationship and get married with an NPC?” Lincoln asked back.

Wu Di thought for a moment, “Maybe it’s because… many NPCs seem too smart? During the game, I often subconsciously forget that the other party is an NPC.”

It seemed that the secondary artificial intelligence was even more effective than expected, and Lincoln was satisfied with this result.

However ——

“Here’s a problem: when the game is publicly sold, there will likely be tens of millions of players. The NPC girl you fall in love with, someone else might also fall in love with her. You can’t expect the NPC to belong only to you, right?”

“In that case, she would have to be in a relationship with everyone who likes her at the same time. In other words, while having intimate contact with you, she is also having intimate contact with hundreds of thousands of other players. Can you really accept that?”

“Ah??” Wu Di’s mouth widened, he hadn’t thought of such details, “This… I… ”

After hesitating for a long time, he stomped his foot and bit the bullet under Lincoln’s incredulous gaze, saying, “I can!”

“You can, my ass!” Lincoln couldn’t help but curse, “You want to have a relationship with a virtual character? You’re just lusting after their body! Ugh!”

Wu Di didn’t find it embarrassing and just shook his head in disappointment.

“Even if in the future, the virtual world allows opposite-sex interactions like this, it would only be between players,” Lincoln ruthlessly shattered his fantasies, “So let’s talk about something else, something more serious.”

Lincoln rushed to change the subject, partly because it was not convenient to talk about this aspect yet.

For example, the planned [Marriage Certification System]: as long as the process is completed and the relevant departments support it, the married couples will be allowed to have intimate relations in the virtual world once certified.

In all honesty, it would even be theoretically possible for couples.

Didn’t adult products catering to long-distance relationships sell openly and aboveboard for many years? In comparison, the “illusory experience” of the virtual world is even more like a dream, so there’s no reason it should not be allowed.

However, the problem is that once it’s open, it’ll be hard to determine if the two parties are “real couples” or just provide “half-hour relationships” for a fee.

Obviously, the latter is illegal.

In contrast, marriage relationships are much easier to determine, as the marriage certificate issued by the Civil Affairs Bureau is a readily available form of certification.

There is no such convenient certification for couples. Are they supposed to go to a department to get a “couple’s certificate”?

…

…

Hold on a second!

It doesn’t necessarily not work!

Lincoln suddenly had a brainstorm——

A couple’s relationship doesn’t need official certification, nor does it need notarization!

As long as users are adults and have entered into a relationship in the virtual world, Cloud Dream could lift the physical contact restrictions for them.

However, the lifting of these restrictions would only be valid between the two parties who entered into the relationship.

If they want to change the relationship partner, they will have to go through a “relationship termination” process. As long as the issues of time, process, and player protection are well-controlled, at least “half-hour relationships” can be completely banished.

This way, there shouldn’t be any problems, right?

It is neither illegal nor against social morals and customs, it’s just a bit advanced and open-minded.

Moreover, there are unexpected advantages: in this way, in the virtual world, physical infidelity becomes absolutely impossible!

Because the rules of the virtual world do not allow it.

If the person isn’t the one you’ve entered into a relationship or married, you can’t even take off their clothes, so even thinking of cheating is out of the question.

In this way, the couple or marital relationships established in the virtual world are even more powerful, to some extent, than those in reality!

If we think a bit more: if long-distance couples and spouses can see each other every day in the virtual world and maintain a stable physical relationship, the probability of a change of heart could be effectively reduced, right?

So this matter is greatly beneficial for maintaining stable emotional relationships!

When families are stable, society will be stable.

Therefore, Cloud Dream’s opening up of intimate relationship systems in the virtual world is needed for stable social development! It’s completely in line with social morals and customs and shows the courage to shoulder social responsibility!

“This reason is great, very positive energy! I’ll use this reason to convince Lorin later!”

As Lincoln chatted with Wu Di, he was filled with ideas and quickly decided to put this matter on the agenda.

By the way, he also subconsciously thought: once this matter is done and everyone gets used to it in time, if they take a small step forward and allow players to enter a one-on-one relationship with virtual characters, wouldn’t people stop making a fuss about it?