Chapter 79 The final piece of the puzzle

In the live broadcast room, Pei Jiahang was wearing a thin apron, revealing his muscular biceps, and chatting and interacting with the audience while cooking in the kitchen.

When the controversy first started, only a few viewers were venting their frustrations on the team's official account. However, it gradually escalated into a 24/7 harassment of the team owner and players via phone and text messages.

His team owner was an old man in his sixties who was so angry about those phone calls that he was hospitalized several times and had to take blood pressure medication for half a year.

Faced with such a huge public outcry, especially being denounced alongside those involved in gambling, no one could withstand it.

Pei Jiahang was utterly annoyed.

He had also asked other contestants in the compilation and learned that they had encountered similar treatment to him.

One player got carried away by losing the game and swore a few times, which was then edited into a compilation clip by a marketing account. The video bloggers used a joking tone to satirize the messy and disorganized background of the rented apartment during the live stream.

The series of videos drew ridicule and anger from viewers, with some even questioning whether the contestant had been using illegal drugs for a long time based on his gaunt and emaciated appearance at the time.

The audience's anger spread equally to everyone; the contestant's entire family's ID cards were exposed and posted online, and he was receiving extremely abusive phone calls at four in the morning.

People are naturally drawn to sensational news, and during that period, each related video clip garnered at least 100,000 views.

Against this backdrop, Pei Jiahang was put on the loan market by his boss and forced to move to the hard tank position.

Both of them knew the truth, and they were both silently waiting for the contract to expire.

Pei Jiahang didn't resent his boss. After all, the old man was getting on in years and his health wasn't good, so it was normal that he couldn't withstand this level of public pressure.

However, he also knew in his heart that even if the contract expired, most of the top team owners would be unwilling to bring in a player with a dark history who was very likely to cause trouble.

Because of the forced live streams he did when he was short of money in his early years, his career took a sharp 90-degree turn and went downhill from which there was no way to recover.

It may sound a bit ridiculous, but that's the reality he's facing.

He decided to go all the way and restarted his live stream from the team's base.

Since the situation is already so bad, I might as well make a fortune by generating negative publicity.

Strangely enough, quite a few people sent him gifts after he started the live stream, and the situation he had expected—being verbally abused—did not occur.

Pei Jiahang was happily adding salt to the pot, his prominent muscles bulging, when he suddenly saw a luxurious gift effect float across the screen that lasted for more than twenty seconds.

"Thank you, Mr. Fang Zhuo, for the superyacht!"

After reflexively shouting his words of thanks, his expression suddenly paused for a moment.

His brain finally belatedly followed his mouth, and as he looked at the VIP comment floating across the screen, he wondered if he was hallucinating from staying up all night.

Wait, isn't this the owner of that super popular esports team that everyone knows about lately?

To avoid seeing the messy, abusive messages in his private chat, Pei Jiahang had kept his private messages closed. He had to specifically check them to see Fang's messages.

[Come to your team tomorrow morning at 10 AM to discuss the transfer. Get ready.]

As expected of the CEO, such a concise notification.

Having heard that this team was well-funded, Pei Jiahang lay in bed after the live stream ended and watched the replay of the JR team's final match from earlier that day.

He knew that JR team had extravagant financial resources, but he didn't expect it to be this extravagant. The tournament organizers were practically licking his boots, wishing they could spit on his face.

Pei Jiahang happily rolled over.

Awesome! Boss Zhipin finally hired him. His luck has been so good lately, it's like he could buy a lottery ticket.

Early the next morning, Pei Jiahang specially wore the same T-shirt as Giant Technology, a baseball cap with JR team merchandise, and even changed into a sports watch made by Yuanchuang Factory. He was full of loyalty and was even more attentive than the organizers of the sixth division finals.

He had informed his team's boss well in advance that Mr. Fang was coming. The old man had dark circles under his eyes, clearly too excited to sleep all night.

The old man even specially commissioned a banner outside the base overnight and placed the newly arrived new energy mechs in the display case in the training room.

When Fang Zhuo arrived at the base, he saw the earnest eyes of the old man and the child.

He sat on the sofa and got straight to the point with the manager of the opposing team:

"I see that Air Canada's official website currently shows an annual salary of 26 million. Has this salary been updated recently?"

The old man hurriedly replied, "No, no."

Before meeting the boss in person, Fang Zhuo thought the other party's ability to withstand pressure was rather low. But after meeting him, everything suddenly made sense.

The boss looked to be at least sixty or seventy years old. He walked with a cane and his face was full of the heavy weariness that is unique to the elderly. He looked like someone would faint if someone pointed at him and cursed at him to his face.

Seeing Pei Jiahang's expectant gaze, Fang Zhuo used his empathy ability again.

In his recollection, Fang Zhuo briefly reviewed Pei Jiahang's family's early struggles with debt and noticed that the boss hadn't skimped on his treatment; rather, he was forced into this situation by public opinion.

This old man looks quite pitiful; he's already so old, yet he still has to suffer from organized cyberbullying.

"According to industry standards, the transfer fee is seventy to eighteen million. After the contract is signed, the money will be transferred to your account in full."

After finishing his conversation with the opposing team's owner, Fang Zhuo then turned to Pei Jiahang:

"Your annual salary will be the same as the other JR players. We just got promoted to the main league, and now everyone's annual salary has been raised to 40 million a year. Do you have any objections to this salary?"

Pei Jiahang quickly waved his hand: "I have no objections at all, it's perfect."

He had already accepted his fate and planned to apply for a behind-the-scenes training position with some major teams after the season ended, where he would at most earn a million-dollar annual salary. Unexpectedly, things took an unexpected turn, and the offer from President Fang was even higher than his original annual salary.

The information position has always been a marginal position in the game. Currently, the highest-paid information position player is the son of a second-generation enterprise owner from the YXG team, which is the result of a partial exchange of interests between the YXG team owner and the Bai family enterprise.

Once his 40 million annual salary is released, he will absolutely crush any player in the same position on the official website.

Pei Jiahang and the old man exchanged a glance, and Pei saw in the other's eyes the same surprise he had seen in himself.

The old man is 65 years old this year. This mecha team has been in business for more than 20 years. He has negotiated with dozens of team managers during the transfer period, but this is the first time he has seen someone so straightforward.

Generally speaking, it's extremely rare for a company to be willing to pay a penalty to poach a player; such situations only occur with newcomers whose salaries don't match their actual value.

This was the first time he had ever seen someone pay over 70 million yuan in breach of contract fees to poach an established player, especially one who was shrouded in controversy.

It's the end of the season now, and the transfer window is only three months away. If we delay for another three months, we won't have to pay this fee. The owner doesn't care about this amount of money at all; he only cares about how to poach the player as quickly as possible.

When will he be able to be this willful just once...?

Unlike the former team owner's faint sigh, Pei Jiahang at this moment practically wanted to do a Yangko dance to celebrate.

Unexpectedly, he became the final piece of the puzzle for the complete JR team.

He's gotten a bit stuck in that pattern; he even wanted to go live on the spot and dance for his fans.

Even if he gets criticized by the audience after returning to his original position, so what? He will soon enjoy a different cafeteria meal every day, guidance from the most famous coach in the entire Star Alliance, and the most complete training equipment.

After signing his name on the contract with a large pen, Pei Jiahang pulled out his pre-prepared suitcase, his excitement resembling that of the first gorilla to emerge from its cave millions of years ago.

Fang Zhuo was quietly checking the system pop-up window—

[Investment Target Number Seven: Pei Jiahang]

[Intelligence: 51][Stamina: 93][Appearance: 65][Emotional Intelligence: 72][Loyalty: 92]

[Recommended Careers: Mech pilot and related training industries, entertainment industries such as live streaming]

[Skill Talents: 91]

[Initial valuation: 2,160,000]

After settling Pei Jiahang into his accommodation, Fang Zhuo returned to the hotel to open the ten blind boxes he had received the day before.

[Activated high-difficulty plane reward subsidy. Congratulations, host, you have obtained one SSR quality team healer and one SSR quality mech exclusive training ground.]

[Congratulations on obtaining the SR-quality skill: Burning]

[Skill Note: Consumes three days of remaining survival time. Enjoys increased speed and stamina for half an hour, followed by a level 1 Pain debuff.]

[Friendly reminder: This skill can be stacked]

[Obtained SR-quality items: Mech Repair Room *1, Employee Card *1]

This was the luckiest he'd ever been since opening a blind box. In addition to two SSR and two SR quality rewards, the system also gave him a villa, a starship, and some random stamina pills and painkillers.

Piloting his newly acquired interstellar spaceship, Fang Zhuo hovered in mid-air above the mecha training area provided by the system.

Like the asteroid sent by the entertainment industry dimension, this training ground is also a separate planet.

It quietly orbits around star 6C, and is marked as planet 6C-1 on the map.

Fang Zhuo can freely edit the terrain and specific scenes on the planet for the contestants to use for targeted training.

The entire planet was divided into four large training grounds, each a one-to-one replica of the actual competition venues. While other top teams were still converting factories into training rooms, he had already used an entire planet.

After circling the planet twice, he placed the mech repair room in the open space between the training grounds.

After doing all this, a new message suddenly popped up on the terminal.

In the league's official investigation group, which had been silent for several weeks, a staff member specifically tagged him:

[Mr. Fang, thank you for your complaint. The investigation into the fairness issue of the aptitude test you raised is currently in the evidence collection stage.]

The league officials have contacted the Star Covenant government headquarters regarding this issue, and the investigation is currently classified as confidential by the Star Covenant.

Please do not disclose the specific details of this complaint to any third party until the final investigation is completed.