[The assassin can’t be Brother Ni: Awesome, right? If it weren’t for the game time being up, I really wouldn’t want to wake up, just let me sleep forever in ancestral memory synchronization, amen.]
[Brother Dao: I saw screenshots of you guys eating pancakes in the game, was it just a cutscene or what?]
[Potato with No Neck: It wasn’t a cutscene. We actually tasted the pancakes, they were spicy, sweet, and salty. The beer had flavor too, but it didn’t have the intoxicating effect of alcohol. A whole bottle and not even a slight buzz.]
[Wildman Punch: Speaking of this, we have to mention how the NPCs gave us food to eat, but they didn’t eat any themselves. So moving, he treats me like a brother!]
[West Lake Seafood Tycoon: Brother, indeed a brother. He even taught us how to use guns. No more talk, from now on I’ll follow him through thick and thin, without a hint of hesitation.]
[Potato with No Neck: Burn yellow paper to swear brotherhood +1]
Lin Miao looked at this group of players praising him, laughing as he drove.
That diary was just a story he made up in half an hour, deliberately left by the side of the modification pod, not expecting it to be found so quickly.
The effect was just too good. Players generally don’t doubt the text they find in the game world unless there’s conflicting information. And Lin Miao’s story, aside from some technical absurdities, is entirely the kind of thing those companies would do. As players delve deeper into this world, the credibility of the story he created increases.
In fact, those companies can do even worse.
The issue with the alcohol actually stems from players’ dulled senses, much like how they can watch Night Wanderer corpses melt in modification pods without feeling anything. Players’ consciousness selectively receives information filtered by the system. Not just alcohol, even if you intravenously injected them with massive amounts of illegal drugs, at most you’d kill them, but hoping they’d feel anything is wishful thinking, including future conversations with NPCs; they’d only find the NPCs overly intelligent.
There are even Easter eggs if players try certain things.
Voices of doubt are rare because Lin Miao’s entry in the official index under "Characters" has already lit up, and the tycoon’s introduction is pretty accurate. Also, in the "Gangs" section, the Night Wanderers’ entry is lit, and a pistol named "Freedom" appears in "Equipment", though the description is sparse, many entries still need players to explore themselves.
The number of reservations and new user names on the forum is increasing, seemingly on the verge of surpassing five hundred within days.
In this era of information explosion, the speed at which information spreads can be described as exponential growth.
However, while browsing the forum, a post caught Lin Miao’s attention.
Among a bunch of posts, its content was quite unremarkable — just a picture of a small town. The content showed the edge of the Evil Land Plain, with only some iron pipes and solar panel arrays inside.
[I am High Nut: What are these iron pipes about the thickness of a person?]
[Brother Dao: They should be oil pipelines. It’s these things that are used to transport oil or gasoline from far away places, but due to distance, there are above-ground checkpoints along the way. Because of this, often oil thieves target them, puncturing the pipeline walls during oil transportation to steal oil.]
[I am High Nut: I’m guessing the oil thieves you’re talking about are mold.]
There’s indeed an abandoned gas station in the town, so there are oil pipelines, but they’re long abandoned. Not only are the valves closed, but the transport routes have been rerouted long ago. Those are just empty iron pipes, and the oil depot underneath the gas station has been empty for a long time.
But for some reason, Lin Miao suddenly remembered overhearing two Night Wanderers chatting on the roadside today at noon.
Hundreds of thousands worth of a convoy of Chun Er...
Chun Er is a new energy formulated by an Italian biotechnical company during the energy crisis of the late 20th century, derived from specially fermented high-energy liquid wheat. Flammable and explosive, if not for oil’s irreplaceable chemical properties, it might have kicked oil off its pedestal. Peizhuo Petrochemical, holding a massive share in biotechnology, thus started the second corporate war with Soviet Petrochemical, and biotechnology itself became one of the world’s giant enterprises.
And Night City... must be using Chun Er, plus it’s not locally produced, mostly transported from Texas via pipelines.
So, are the Night Wanderers planning to act as oil thieves when Peizhuo Petrochemical opens the valves this time?
Lin Miao thought it was quite possible.
A job worth hundreds of thousands... saying he’s not tempted is a lie, but the problem is, he can’t afford to provoke the Night Wanderers now. Though merely a second-rate gang, it all depends on comparison; after all, they have a few hundred members, and they’re under the massive Chaotic Blade Association. Lin Miao currently is just one big cat with four small cats. But to give up? He’s not willing.
He really needs money right now.
The office is currently in its investment phase, producing no real value. Even if four players work themselves to death, their market value creation per day basically equals zero.
"Damn it, fortune favors the bold, the timid starve. Let’s do it!"
He slapped the steering wheel, startling the car in front with a honk. The driver stuck his head out, shouting curses, but Lin Miao ignored him and sped past.
Thinking it over, Lin Miao felt this deal was essential. At worst, he’d bleed a bit once, wait till the office is built, recruit a batch of players, and dump all the remaining money in.
Moreover, if he can’t handle the Night Wanderers, how can he mix in the Evil Land?
As long as he can control the situation, he can arm players with gear looted from Night Wanderers, using war to sustain war.
After all, they’re indestructible cannon fodder, and as long as sufficient corpses can be recovered, Lin Miao wouldn’t feel any heartbreak.
Players get dungeons to grind and game experiences; he gains Chun Er, along with the Wanderers’ equipment and vehicles, raking in a fortune.