CHAPTER 83: $20,000 PER ITEM

Half a month of living like a caveman—no showers, no proper sleep, four hours of rest a day—and people dared to call it "good luck"?

Still, the drop was worth money. He dialed immediately.

"Brother Hao, I finally got one!"

"How many?" Chen Cong’s voice was cool.

"...One."

A long silence. Then: "Log in. Trade it to me."

Jiang Jiu beamed. "Yes, Brother Hao!"

Chen Cong logged into the game, equipping the precious new shoes Jiang Jiu delivered. The first new gear he’d seen in weeks.

His smugness dimmed quickly. He’d hired union grinders and even outsourced to Mei Youqian’s game studio. None of them had produced a thing.

Half a month—zero drops. Only Jiang Jiu, the self-abusing grinder, had managed one.

Something wasn’t right.

He dialed Mei Youqian.

"You called at the right time," Mei said bitterly. "Brother Hao, my studio can’t do it. We had everyone grinding five straight days—nothing. No income, no results. I split half the team to other projects just to survive."

"You can’t handle it? What’s the problem, money?"

"Not money. The drop rate’s insane. Too low. This isn’t sustainable."

Chen Cong scowled. So low even a studio gives up?

But quitting wasn’t in his vocabulary.

"Fine. Push ads in your groups, forums, anywhere. Let everyone know—I’ll pay $30,000 per piece of new equipment. The more people grinding, the better."

He ended the call and, with a sigh, transferred $50,000 straight to Jiang Jiu.

At least one idiot’s still lucky enough to deliver.

Mei hung up, then summoned his weary staff.

"From today, forget grinding yourselves. Spread the word instead. Contact classmates, guilds, whoever. Advertise. $20,000 per item—we can skim margin."

His employees groaned but nodded. The grind had broken them. Time to let someone else ruin their lives while they collected the commission.

Kim Suho’s day was already filled with enough headaches—lawyers, factories, games bleeding whales dry—yet somewhere across town, another piece of chaos was brewing.

Inside Youqian Studio, Mei Youqian slumped in his swivel chair like a man who had aged ten years overnight. His team had been hammering away at Horny Princess Online’s latest patch for half a month, farming wild monsters day and night. The goal: drop rates on the shiny new equipment. The reality: zero. Not a single helmet, shoe, or belt to show for it.

Now, with his employees threatening mutiny and Red Bull cans stacked like Jenga towers on their desks, Mei had no choice. He drafted a message, edited it five times, and blasted it across every channel he could find—gaming groups, studio forums, even a couple of dusty Tieba pages that smelled of 2012.

"New equipment wanted. Any drop. $20,000 minimum per piece. Contact immediately."

When he hit send, his face twisted like a man passing kidney stones. He had planned to finish this contract himself and earn the bragging rights, but the drop rate was criminal. He could only pray the wider community would cough something up.

"Damn it," he muttered. "Tianlong wasn’t like this before. Back then, it was lotteries—fun, flashy, stupidly addictive. But some genius planner turned it into a full-on whale feast. Rich kids dominated, poor kids quit, and the whales got bored without prey."

He rubbed his temples, remembering when the game had been alive—guild wars, late-night raids, forums on fire. Could this new reform actually bring it back? Or was this just the last death rattle of a fading empire?

Meanwhile, in a dingy rental house, Jiang Jiu shuffled out of the bathroom, steam rising off his freshly scrubbed hair. After two weeks of living like a gaming hermit, even he couldn’t stand his own smell anymore. He planned to sleep for once—really sleep, not four hours hunched over a keyboard—but then he saw the notification on his phone.

Transfer received: $50,000.

He froze, blinking at the digits. Brother Hao had promised $20,000 per piece of equipment, so why the hell was he getting fifty? Had the man fat-fingered the transfer?

Jiang Jiu messaged him in confusion, but the reply came fast and sharp:

"From now on, if you explode equipment first, I’ll pay $50,000 each."

He stared at the screen. His exhaustion evaporated like cheap liquor. Sleep? Forget sleep. Sleep was for people who didn’t have a golden goose sitting in their hard drive.

Cackling like a madman, he threw on a hoodie, dashed downstairs, and bought an entire crate of Red Bull from the supermarket. By the time he was back, the fridge was groaning under the weight of silver cans. He cracked one open, sat back at the computer, and whispered to himself:

"Alright, game. Let’s see who breaks first—you or me."

Back at the Steel Cup T-Shirt Factory, Kim Suho was in his office, leaning back in his chair, tapping a pen against his desk with the satisfied air of a man about to torch money in bulk.

This Friday, he’d decided, would be the employee sports meet. Why Friday? Because employees had weekends off, and no "welfare activity" should steal rest days. He was generous like that—or at least, that’s how he phrased it when Cho Rin looked at him with suspicious eyes.

"Cho Rin," he said, "find a gym to rent. Get banners, props, and matching sportswear. Don’t cut corners. And don’t be stingy with the budget."

"Yes, boss," she replied, scribbling furiously.

Suho leaned back with a smirk. Renting the gym was pocket change. The real fun—the real hemorrhage—would be in the prizes. Entertainment was just a cover. The true purpose of a sports meet was to burn money fast enough to make the system sweat.

He scrolled through an online shopping app, tossing items into his cart like a bored chaebol’s son:

15 phones,

15 tablets,

15 laptops,

10 smart washing machines,

10 refrigerators,

10 air conditioners,

10 flat-screen TVs.

Total: $380,000.

He frowned. "Too cheap."

The system capped him at $1 million per event. If he was going to spend, he would damn well spend. He doubled the quantities. The total shot up to $760,000. Now that felt closer to his vision of financial arson.

But how to distribute 170 prizes among 80 employees? Easy: invent a convoluted point system.

Every game event would have two rounds, with ten players each. First place got 10 points, last place got 1. At the end, employees could pick prizes based on total points. Two prizes each, no exceptions.

Perfect. Everyone wins something, everyone feels motivated, and Suho gets to watch his funds vanish like snow under a blowtorch.

And then it hit him.

"Wait... I’m an employee too."

He checked the system cautiously, half-expecting a red warning screen. Nothing. No violation.

His grin split wide. If he participated in a few easy events and scraped together a single pity point, he’d still walk away with two prizes. Even if he didn’t like them, his own rules allowed cash conversion. Two prizes at $5,000 each? That’s $10,000 straight into his account.

"I burn money for the company, and I get richer personally. Beautiful. Dogecoin system, you finally make sense."

Now he only had one problem left: what kind of "sports" should he design that would guarantee him a point without breaking a sweat?