Rise

“Net Cafe Battle Bonanza?” Lin Feng scratched his head. “I didn’t think we’d be playing in a tournament the moment we started. And we have to go around to different internet cafes, challenging them? That sounds like a pain, especially when it’s so cold outside. Why can’t they all just come to us? That’ll be so much easier, and it’ll be more fun that way!”

Zeng Rui, An Xin, and the others all nodded in agreement.

Qian Lu looked confused at first, and then shocked. Lin Feng watched as the expressions raced across Qian Lu’s face. Eventually Qian Lu composed himself and yelped. “Nononono! You guys don’t have to go anywhere! All you have to do is stay here and defend our precious NetCow Cafe!” He shook his head frantically to underscore his statement. Then he took a deep breath and calmed down enough to explain the situation to everyone. “You see, there are several prizes available in the Battle Bonanza. The main prize, and the biggest one, is the Conqueror Award. This is given out to the team who goes out to battle other internet cafe teams and dominates all of them. But there is another prize, and that’s the one that I have my eye on, the Immovable Mt. Tai Award! As the name implies, the award is given out for defense. The internet cafe that successfully defends itself from challengers wins. There’s no need for you guys to go anywhere for us to win the Immovable Mt. Tai award. All you guys have to do is stay here and make sure that none of the roaming teams win! You just need to stay here, don’t go anywhere!”

“Oh, got it!” Lin Feng said. His eyes lit up. “That makes things way easier! Whenever one of them comes to pick a fight with us, we’ll just crush them! It’s that simple, right guys?”

Zeng Rui noticed something shifty in Qian Lu’s eyes during the whole talk about the defense award. He thought through all of the information, and realized that there was indeed something fishy going on. He glared at Qian Lu with an expression of doubt. “Hm… If my guess is on the mark here, a lot of the other internet cafes signed up for the Conqueror Award, correct?”

Qian Lu nodded and smiled. ‘Correct you are, sir! The last time I checked, I believe there were 28 other internet cafes that signed up to compete for the Conqueror Award. But there may be more now.”

Zeng Rui did some quick math in his head and then said, “Alright. Let’s assume that some of the people who signed up dropped out because they couldn’t put a team together. We can also assume that a few more people also signed up after you saw the list. From that, the safe number to go with is 24 teams who are competing for the Conqueror Award. Now if that number holds, that’s 24 matches for us to play. And you’re paying us ¥500 for every match we win, as per the deal we just agreed to. That brings us to the question at the heart of this. Even if we win the Immovable Mt. Tai Award, how exactly are you planning on making a return on this investment in us?”

Zeng Rui’s quick and analytical mind had pierced through the fog that Qian Lu was trying to blow, and hit the problem at the very core. There was no possible way that the prize money for an internet cafe tournament could possibly exceed a five figure number. If Lin Feng’s team won every single one of their matches, the amount of money to be made was astronomical. Combined with the base stipend, they could easily make ¥25,000. Or more. Numbers like that meant that not only would Qian Lu not make a return on this investment, he’d be taking a loss.

Zhang Hao wasn’t as quick as Zeng Rui. But he was no slouch when it came to money. He figured out what Zeng Rui was hinting towards and also jumped into the conversation, “Yeah! What’s up with that? I thought a small humble business owner like you couldn’t afford to take a loss?”