Chapter 39
When Cen Xun received the good news call from Tong Ming, he was struggling to start halfway up the slope.
Cen Xun held the steering wheel with one hand, answered the call, and stepped firmly on the clutch. A muffled voice came out from under the mask: "What's the matter?"
Tong Ming said cheerfully on the other end of the phone, "Brother, your water army tactics are working. A ton of new players have arrived today. A rough look shows there are nearly 10,000 of them. It's hilarious! All the players have come to us. I guess those domain masters are all dumbfounded now."
Cen Xun's feet were almost sore from stepping on the stage, and he said coldly, "I understand. Just keep an eye on the place and don't cause any trouble. I'm hanging up."
Tong Ming hurriedly said, "Hey, don't hang up! Ask your coach to hold your phone for you."
Cen Xun refused: "No, the coach's hand is broken."
Tong Ming was puzzled: "How come your coach's hand suddenly broke? Did you break it?"
"How could it be that I hit him?" Cen Xun said unhappily, "He chopped it himself. He said he was worried that I would be tired from learning to drive, so he wanted to fill my stomach. I confiscated it."
Tong Ming: “”
Brother, what on earth have you done to this driving school?
After a light cough, Tong Ming continued to inquire about Cen Xun's driving practice progress: "Brother, how is your driving training going?"
Cen Xun immediately put his phone on speakerphone, put it aside, and cautiously released the clutch: "Still starting halfway up the slope."
Tong Ming said in a surprised tone, "Is it difficult? No way, no way, can this really stump you?"
Cen Xun calmly reminded him, "My body is 29% damaged."
So sometimes, he can't accurately control his body to perform some fine movements.
Tong Ming understood his implication and paused before saying, "Oh, I almost forgot. Didn't you learn automatic transmission? That's easier."
Cen Xun: "This driving school doesn't have automatic transmission."
As he was speaking, Cen Xun released the brake with his right foot, the car body shook violently, and then it stalled.
Cen Xun took a deep breath with restraint and laughed angrily.
The one-eyed and one-armed coach sat nearby, not daring to utter a word, for fear that he might say something wrong and offend this ancestor.
After Cen Xun left yesterday, he tremblingly relayed Cen Xun's last few words to the Domain Lord.
He originally thought that the Domain Lord would definitely ban Cen Xun from coming to the school today, but he never expected that the Domain Lord was actually threatened by Cen Xun!
In the end, not only did they not turn Cen Xun away, they even opened up a special driving route for Cen Xun to practice.
It's outrageous!
He was the most unlucky one. No one dared to teach Cen Xun, so what should he do? He could only continue to take over.
Now One-Eye really wants to ask for help. Is there anyone who can save him? He really can’t teach how to drive this car!
The bitterness was buried in his heart, unknown to anyone. The one-eyed coach spoke carefully, pointing out Cen Xun's small mistake: "You released the clutch too quickly. When you released the brake, you should have kept the clutch steady."
Cen Xun was silent for a moment, then asked Tong Ming on the other end of the phone, "Are you sure there's a drive-by escape scene in Jingdu Business District?"
Tong Ming swore, "There must be a driving scene! I swear I saw the steering wheel!"
Cen Xun: "It must be a solo mission?"
Tong Ming still swore: "That's right, because the car can only accommodate one person!"
"Cen Xun stopped talking, put the car in neutral with an expressionless face, and turned the key to restart the ignition.
After practicing driving for a whole morning, Cen Xun had lost the desire to learn driving.
As he passed the waiting area, the players who had been following him for a while hesitantly called out to him, "Hello, are you Teacher Cen?"
The players were a little hesitant to recognize Cen Xun because Cen Xun thought the training car was dirty, so he wrapped himself up tightly today. Not only was his entire face covered by a mask and sunglasses, but he also wore a pair of ice silk sleeves on his arms, the standard attire of a training driver.
So down-to-earth, so down-to-earth that they dared not recognize him.
Cen Xun turned around upon hearing the voice, took off his sunglasses and looked at them, then asked again, "Are you students from Nightmare University?"
Seeing those beautiful eyes, the players were able to confirm his identity.
One player replied sheepishly: "No, we're not yet, but we're planning to sign up tomorrow."
Cen Xun seemed very satisfied. He took out a few bad luck charms from his pocket and distributed them to them like flyers. At the end, he nodded to them and said, "I hope to see you at Nightmare University tomorrow."
The players who received the F-level items were flattered.
The players in the forum are not lying, the professors at Nightmare University really do give out props!
They watched Cen Xun's figure disappear in shock, and were stunned for a long time.
Outside the driving school, Cen Xun got into Tong Ming's car. While taking off his sleeves, he listened to Tong Ming's report on the situation at school:
"Today, a total of 11,086 new players joined. The first batch of public beta players numbered 100,000. This means that one-tenth of the public beta players are now in our Nightmare University."
Tong Ming smiled and said, "It's unclear how many players have died yet, but it's foreseeable that once these 10,000 players return alive to reality, it will definitely bring us even greater publicity."
Cen Xun casually threw the ice sleeves out the window and thought, "Nightmare University can only accommodate about 30,000 players at most. In other words, if we accept at most 20,000 new players, Nightmare University will be full."
Cen Xun took off his sunglasses, tilted his head to look out the window, and squinted his eyes slightly: "But I don't want to let the other domain masters take advantage of the remaining players."
"Wow, do you have a way to eat up all the remaining players?" Tong Ming became interested: "Brother, what are you going to do?"
"It's not possible to swallow them all. That's not realistic." Cen Xun curled his lips, "But there is a way that can allow us to swallow a small number of players."
Cen Xun looked at Tong Ming and asked, "Do you remember when you were working on the Media Academy quest line, you proposed adding an Easter egg segment to the quest?"
As soon as he said that, Tong Ming suddenly remembered: "Of course I remember, I added clues about Qianmu TV to the mission of the Media College. What's wrong? What does the method you mentioned have to do with the Easter egg?"
"It does matter. Now your Easter egg comes in handy."
Cen Xun said slowly, "I'm planning to open a new internship branch. Students from the School of Media can use the Easter egg clues to go to Qianmu TV for internships. If the internship is successful, the students will be awarded credits. If the internship fails, the students will be converted into points."
Although Tong Ming had always known that Cen Xun was ahead of the times, he hadn't expected him to be this far ahead of the times. He couldn't help but let out a surprised gasp, "Huh?"
Cen Xun seemed oblivious to the wickedness of his idea. He crossed his arms and said thoughtfully, "Nightmare University's mortality rate must be low enough to stand out from the crowd of dungeons. But if students die at your Thousand Eyes TV station, what does that have to do with Nightmare University?"
""
Tong Ming couldn't find any words to refute.
Damn it! He clearly knows Cen Xun's treacherous nature very well, but why does he still feel a chill down his spine every time he hears Cen Xun come up with evil ideas?
At this time, Tong Ming was very glad that he made a wise choice at that time, surrendered to Cen Xun in time, unified the front, and did not become Cen Xun's enemy.
Otherwise, he probably wouldn't even know how he was killed.
Tong Ming took a deep breath and managed to regain his train of thought: "I understand. What you mean is that you want to divert players to Qianmu TV and use Qianmu TV to absorb a small number of players?"
Cen Xun nodded. "Qianmu TV and Nightmare University are two independent dungeons, so you can appropriately increase the death rate over there to increase point income while eliminating a group of players and replacing them with new ones."
Tong Ming followed his train of thought and began to ponder: "If we open an internship branch, Qianmu TV will have to add another quest line. I think giving them the identities of tourists and regular employees is not appropriate. Let's just give them the status of interns."
Tong Ming snapped his fingers. "Let's make it so that interns in the adversarial missions are immune to monster attacks, but their main mission is to kill tourists and regular employees."
Cen Xun highly praised this: "Excellent! Making players kill each other constantly tests their humanity and conscience, causing them to gradually fall into a dark abyss. This fits the aesthetics of killing very well."
Tong Ming and his friends were bragging to each other: "Haha, that's natural, but it's still not as insidious and vicious as you, Fourth Brother!"
Cen Xun's expression gradually turned expressionless: "I'll just take it as a compliment."
Oh no, it seems like the flattery hit the horse's leg. Tong Ming felt ashamed. In order to change the subject, Tong Ming said nonchalantly: "By the way, brother, are you still tanned today?"
Cen Xun glanced at his sunburned arms and the back of his hands and said calmly, "It seems to be getting better."
The sunlight at Antu Driving School was so strong that Cen Xun only remembered to wear sunglasses yesterday. When he went back to take a shower, he found that his skin was tanned.
Only at this time could Cen Xun remember that he was still using a human body, and humans could get tanned.
Cen Xun didn't say anything, but when he went to the driving school the next day, he covered himself completely.
Tong Ming was quite confused by this: "Brother, you are going to discard this human body anyway, so it doesn't matter if it's a little darker. We weirdos don't consider white as beautiful."
Cen Xun: "Then don't let me change clothes."
Tong Ming complained bitterly: "My dear brother, that has nothing to do with skin! Ugly clothes are ugly clothes, even if they are worn by a strange monster!"
"I don't care what you think, I care what I think." Cen Xun ignored what he said and lowered his head to type on his phone.
Tong Ming vaguely caught a glimpse of a black and white spot on the lock screen of his mobile phone. The color flashed by so quickly that Tong Ming couldn't see it clearly.
What is this thing? It’s hidden so tightly that I seem to smell a hint of gossip.
Unfortunately, there is no chance to get to the bottom of this now, as they have already returned to Nightmare University.
As soon as the car entered the campus, it was obvious that Nightmare University was different from the past.
There are obviously more students on campus. The university, which was not very popular before, has suddenly become lively. If you ignore the bloody incidents that occur from time to time, it looks just like an ordinary university.
Cen Xun propped his head up with one hand, squinting his eyes as he looked out the window. "Perhaps we should design a special symbol to distinguish students from each department."
Tong Ming smiled and said, "I agree. We should indeed give students an identity certificate. Distinguishing between departments is secondary. The most important thing is that we can use it to quickly identify followers from other strange domains and prevent enemies from infiltrating."
Cen Xun turned to look at him: "Can followers sneak into other strange domains?"
"Yes, you can think of these followers as undercover agents, spies, or secret agents," Tong Ming shrugged. "They can do a lot of things, such as stealing secrets from other strange domains, destroying the cores of other strange domains, and assassinating followers from other strange domains. Through these methods, they help their domain masters annex strange domains."
Cen Xun asked with great interest, "Has any Territory Lord sent out spies already?"
Tong Ming said helplessly, "Yes, but very few. After all, the public beta has just begun. Everyone is broke and busy killing players to earn points. Do you think everyone can be as far-sighted as you?"
"Those who send out spies nowadays are generally those domain lords who have a lot of followers and don't mind sending some of them out."
Tong Ming gave an example: "For example, the 'Queen Ant' has a whopping 200,000 followers, although most of them can't even reach the Purple Clothes level. Even if she releases 10,000 of these followers, it won't have much of an impact."
Now that he was talking about the invasion of followers, Cen Xun began to think about the spy war: "Nightmare will definitely continue to annex the Ghostly Territory in the future. Should I also send out a few spies?"
Tong Ming also started to worry. Logically speaking, the sooner the spy war was fought, the better, but the problem was that they simply didn't have the manpower right now.
In order to infiltrate the enemy, the spy followers they send out must be both smart and strong enough. Now all the followers of Nightmare University are used to maintain the operation of the copy, so where are the extra people to send as spies?
Tong Ming then shook his head regretfully: "No, the faculty and staff need to run the dungeon, and the students' IQ is not high enough, so there is no suitable candidate at all."
Cen Xun was silent for a moment, then slowly spoke: "It's not that we don't have a candidate."
Tong Ming's mouth twitched: "I vaguely feel that you are going to come up with some unbelievable ideas again."
"Although we can't send out regular followers," Cen Xun leaned close to the car window, staring at the players coming and going outside. The reflective glass reflected the corners of his lips that turned up, "But don't we have temporary followers?"
Since the player has become a student of Nightmare University, why is the player not considered a follower of Cen Xun?
Tong Ming's mouth twitched even more: "No way, brother, you really dare to think about it."
Cen Xun tapped the car window with his fingertips: "Don't be afraid to think, let's open up a little bit."
"As the saying goes, when there is a big reward, there will always be brave men."
Cen Xun's thoughts were completely opened up: "Yes, I can use credits to lure players and ask them to help me search for clues in other strange domains. If they succeed, I will give them extra credits. If they fail, I can replace them with a new group of players."
"Rounding it off, the players are free spies. No, they might even give me points." Cen Xun turned to look at Tong Ming and smiled slightly. "Sixth Brother, what do you think?"
Tong Ming was still silent for a while, then gave a thumbs-up: "6."
The car stopped in front of the teachers' apartment building. Cen Xun unbuckled his seatbelt as he said, "But it's too early to start the spy program now. The players are still too weak at this stage. We have to wait until they're fattened up and leveled up before we can send them out."
Tong Ming followed him out of the car and asked, "So, regarding the department logo plan, will it be implemented starting today?"
Cen Xun paused, then stood on the steps and said, "Please notify everyone that all deans will hold a meeting in the administration building at midnight tonight."
He walked up a few steps, then suddenly seemed to remember something and turned around and said, "Oh, right, call Qin Shiyuan and Rong Tianchang as well. I want to understand the situation of the online transaction."
The Nightmare University, which had been operating smoothly for a day, stepped into the night, and the nightmare time quietly pointed to midnight.
When the time completely turned to 00:00, the ranking page of the nightmare system was instantly refreshed.
Nine Heavens, which ranked first on the list, dropped to 92, Ark of the World, which ranked second, dropped to 96, Time Photo Studio, which ranked third, dropped to 94, Crazy Mechanical City, which ranked fourth, dropped to 103, and 4148 Mini Games, which ranked fifth, dropped to 81.
Horror game players are a very savvy group. When they are not sure whether a game's mortality rate is really 100%, the wisest move is not to play it to death but to simply not play it.
At this point, the top five on the list have all fallen to the bottom due to Cen Xun's vicious business warfare.
"Nightmare University's ranking today: 26."
Cen Xun closed the system panel and said to the deans below, "In order to ensure that the death rate can beat other strange domains and create a competitive advantage, we are taking the route of small profits but quick turnover. We expect that the remaining players will continue to flow back to Nightmare University in the next few days. All deans must be prepared to welcome them."
There was only a white overhead light above the table in the conference room, so the faces of each dean were shrouded in darkness and appeared a little blurry.
"Of course," Cen Xun said with a smile from the main seat. "Once our competitors realize this, they'll definitely drastically lower their death rate. The Propaganda Department should remember to monitor public opinion trends and promptly deploy trolls to the player forums. We must completely discredit their dungeon and deter players from playing it again."
Tong Ming coughed heavily beside him and said, "I understand."
Due to lack of staff, Tong Ming is now in charge of not only the editorial department, but also the publicity department. As the affairs of Nightmare University gradually increase, even Tong Ming feels a little overwhelmed.
Tong Ming once tactfully suggested to Cen Xun that Nightmare University could recruit some more monsters, but Cen Xun just said that now was not the time.
At this time, Cen Xun talked about the departmental symbols. The deans discussed it for a while and finally decided to use badges of different shapes to distinguish the departments.
The badge of each college is designed individually by the dean and is tied to the student's identity.
Cen Xun assigned the tasks, and Dean Li reported, "Principal, it seems the students have developed some kind of strategy to pass the levels, which has made their tasks much easier. Do we need to increase the difficulty?"
Cen Xun rejected the idea, saying, "There's no need. Students have their own dedicated forums, so it's inevitable that walkthroughs will appear. Raising the difficulty level won't help. We'll just need to slightly tweak a few of the clues."
"For example, keys stored in a secret compartment in the wall can be transferred to the floor tiles."
"But there's no need to change too much," Cen Xun said calmly. "Strategies can give players a sense of security, and low mortality rates can also give players a sense of security. Now that the game has just started, it's the golden stage for cultivating player trust. We can't backstab players at this time."
Dean Shi: "President, so you're saying we can increase the difficulty later, but not now?"
Cen Xun nodded slightly: "At least we have to wait until the first round of public testing is over."
The other deans also reported on the operation of the dungeon during the three days. Finally, Cen Xun proposed the idea of opening up an internship branch and gave several internship places to other colleges with corresponding majors.
The meeting lasted for more than an hour. After the other deans left, Cen Xun met Qin Shiyuan and Rong Tianchang in the principal's office.
These two people are the key figures in Cen Xun's company's plan. Rong Tianchang is responsible for building a mirror website, and Qin Shiyuan is responsible for providing Rong Tianchang with a safe and hidden trading environment.
The online transaction content of the mirror website is precisely the privacy of some big names in the real world.
Tong Ming gave Qin Shiyuan an all-seeing eye that had almost no power. Qin Shiyuan wore this all-seeing eye to attend the Chamber of Commerce banquet, and Tong Ming could see the private secrets of the rich through this all-seeing eye.
After obtaining these secrets, Tong Ming sold them at a high price through an online trading platform.
Some are business secrets, and some are leverage over opponents.
After only three days of selling, Tong Ming won over several big clients with his excellent intelligence capabilities.
In reality, there are naturally people with omniscience, but because these people have special abilities, they are often strictly supervised by the Administration. Those with strong abilities will be directly recruited into the Heresy Monitoring Bureau.
There are very few wild omniscient people like Tong Ming. Even though Tong Ming's origins are unknown, the wealthy are willing to continue cooperating with him.
Interests are an eternal topic in interpersonal communication.
But what Cen Xun wanted was much more than that.
"Once we gain control of the rifts within the Jingdu Business District, my puppet threads will be able to directly pass through the barrier between the nightmare world and the real world and control the humans in the real world."
Cen Xun's fingertips brushed over the financial report presented by Rong Tianchang, a smile playing on the corners of his lips: "Then there will be no need to discuss cooperation."
"These wealthy people will all be at my disposal."
Qin Shiyuan stood aside, unable to help but imagine such a future, and felt a chill down his spine.
If Cen Xun really controlled the rift and infiltrated his power into the real world, what would the real world become?
His fingers trembled slightly, and returning to his human perspective, Qin Shiyuan realized for the first time that he seemed to have done something wrong.
He was actually helping an ambitious monster take over his world.
"Boss Qin."
The smiling voice brought him back to his senses. Qin Shiyuan couldn't help but tremble slightly all over. He slowly raised his eyes and looked at the unusually beautiful face.
Cen Xun crossed his legs and looked at him meaningfully. "You seem a little uneasy. As the party to the contract, I'm a little worried. Do you need me to help Mr. Qin recall the consequences of violating the contract?"
Qin Shiyuan smiled bitterly and lowered his head respectfully: "No need, now that I have done it, I can't turn back."
"very good."
Cen Xun smiled slightly. Behind him, Tong Ming put his hands on the back of the chair, and the eyes that were staring at him were also slightly curved.
Qin Shiyuan swallowed hard, realizing with great clarity that he was betraying humanity.
After leaving the principal's office and walking in the corridor late at night, Qin Shiyuan stared at the shadows on the ground, a little dazed.
The nightmare world is like the shadow cast by sunlight on the real world. They were once independent of each other, but now, the nightmare world is infinitely approaching the real world itself.
What would happen if the two completely overlapped?
Qin Shiyuan didn't dare to think about it.
This is not something he should consider.
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