Three days later, Li Ang sat solemnly in front of his computer desk, his glasses reflecting a mottled and brilliant light as he browsed through web pages.
"Macau's first online casino is now open~"
A contrived, sugary-sweet female voice cooed as the webpage flashed images of various scantily clad young ladies.
Li Ang wasn't browsing some risqué website. To be precise, this was a deep web forum established under the guise of such sites to facilitate communication among Slaughter Game players.
The forum was located on the deep web, beyond the reach of standard search engines—one had to enter the URL directly and undergo multiple redirects to arrive at the site.
Moreover, the forum's URL automatically added a Tor browser package for visitors, helping to protect against traffic filtering and automated web crawler sniffing analysis, thus achieving anonymous external connections and hidden services.
In other words, even Slaughter Game players with no IT skills could visit the forum securely and without surveillance from home.
The night he completed the "Lonely Mountain Cold Temple" task, Xing Hechou transferred Li Ang 900 Game Currency through a player-friend connection and sincerely invited him to join the Special Affairs Bureau.
After reflecting for a moment, Li Ang gently declined but promised to maintain a good relationship with the Special Affairs Bureau and keep the information exchange going. In return, Xing Hechou shared some relevant intelligence about the Slaughter Game free of charge.
Among this intelligence was the URL for this player forum.
Maintaining such a deep web forum demanded considerable human, material, and financial resources. Li Ang also guessed that the Special Affairs Bureau was likely behind the establishment of the player forum.
It was possible that agents from the Special Affairs Bureau or foreign intelligence agencies were lurking on the forum right now, specifically collecting intelligence revealed by the players.
The forum had many sections, including strategy guides, a black market, and even miscellaneous web discussions.
"[Current known types of Spiritual Bodies and analysis of their special abilities]"
"[How to achieve an Apex level clearance rating! Solid tips inside!]"
"[New ideas on attribute point distribution for players below Lv5]"
"[Buying Fighting skills at high prices, no quality or level restrictions! Payment in Bitcoin or Game Coin! Higher than the official buyback price!!]"
"[Selling Advanced Werewolf Teeth! All grown from my own body! Carry Rabies virus, buy at your own risk! Limited quantity, first come, first served. Payment in Bitcoin, Game Coin, or cash!]"
"[Am I the only one who always gets a B Rank or C Rank on tasks? ...A noob asks for guidance.]"
"[It seems my sister-in-law (wife's younger sister) has become a noob player. What should I, a Lv4, do?]"
A myriad of posts kept emerging with a high refresh rate, and many more users were lurking, reading posts without actively contributing.
The number of players is quite substantial...
Li Ang briefly skimmed the forum and then closed the webpage.
Transactions on the forum were commonly settled in Game Currency or Bitcoin. Game Currency could be directly used to exchange for items in the game store, while Bitcoin, with its anonymizing properties, could naturally be exchanged for cash in real life.
The Special Affairs Bureau's official site (disguised as a mundane and unassuming small fertilizer company website) set the exchange rate for Game Currency at 1 Game Coin = 10,000 in cash, while on the forum's black market, the price for Game Coin was 10% to 20% higher than this official rate.
This was normal. The Slaughter Game had been active for seven months, and organizations like financial consortiums and foreign intelligence agencies, which had access to more information resources and channels than the average person, had definitely entered the scene and started planning.
Money was meaningless to them. Instead, Game Currency, a vital resource in the Slaughter Game, could bring them closer to possessing supernatural powers and offer them a higher chance of maintaining their position in the upper echelons during the coming wave of the new era.
Li Ang believed that if it weren't for the fear of a market crash, those consortiums with nothing but money would probably offer up to 200,000 or even 500,000 for a single unit of Game Currency...
For instance, shouldn't a "Jade Pendant" that can protect an ordinary person from a fatal attack sell for a good ten or twenty million without an issue?
And those "Small Healing Potions" that rarely appear in the game store, able to cure most diseases including cancer, could easily fetch several hundred million US dollars, right?
Even the "Ripple Breathing Method" in Li Ang's skill bar, which can delay aging, if auctioned at Sotheby's Auction, would sell for at least ten billion US dollars...
In the face of death, all are equal. Having enjoyed life to its fullest, how could one expect immortality? Such a principle does not exist.
For the apex elite and wealthy, they could mobilize resources unthinkable to the average person, but in the face of the inevitable Grim Reaper, the powerful were as defenseless as beggars.
To live a long and safe life, to forever bask in luxury, and to never "get off the ride," these tycoons were willing to pay anything.
Money, conscience, and even humanity...
"Sigh. When I think about it, I seem to have missed out on a few hundred 'small goals'," Li Ang mused, then sighed, considering how much the "Ripple Breathing Method" might fetch. "Still, in a real world where supernatural phenomena run rampant, the Ripple Breathing Method, which can actually harm Spiritual Bodies, is invaluable and effectively not on the market."
After a bout of self-consolation, Li Ang left the bedroom. He saw Chai Cuiqiao lying on the sofa in a breezy shirt, legs crossed, wildly scrolling through TikTok on Li Ang's smartphone and giggling foolishly. Sounds emanated from the phone:
"DOO DOO, DOO DOO."
"SOO WEY SOO WEY SOO WEY."
"Wudang's Wang Ye, paying respects to the Old Heavenly Master!"
"Sexy lady~"
The corner of Li Ang's eye twitched.
Three days ago, right after the task ended, Li Ang had worried that Chai Cuiqiao wouldn't be able to adapt to modern society. So, from his storage box, he had taken out "An In-depth Explanation of All Aspects of Modern Society for Otherworldly Beauties Who Fall From the Sky -- Revised Edition," which he had written in junior high.
Back then, Li Ang, already bored enough to enter his chuunibyou stage, had carefully formatted it like a thesis. He detailed various aspects of everyday life in modern society, just in case he ever encountered a beauty from another world and needed to help her adapt to Modern Earth quickly.
Unexpectedly, Chai Cuiqiao adapted to modern society way too quickly.
"Can't you pick up some better habits?" Li Ang said, his head aching. "You're glued to your phone all day, either scrolling TikTok and Weibo or playing games like Honor of Kings and PUBG. What happened to the dignified air of a young lady from a prominent family?"
"Oh."
Chai Cuiqiao obediently closed TikTok and opened a podcast app to listen.
"...Then Zhao Yun, with his white horse and silver spear, fought bravely against numerous generals, displaying valor and might at the Battle of Changban. He charged back and forth seven times, leaving the enemy to drop their weapons and armor and flee in disarray," a crisp female voice spoke softly from the podcast.
"Listening to 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms'?" Li Ang nodded. "That's acceptable."
The podcast continued, "...But this Changban Slope was no pushover. She was the top courtesan of the Happy Red Court. After calming herself, she entangled Zhao Yun through various means, causing him to retreat step by step."
??? What the heck are you listening to?
His face darkened. Ignoring Chai Cuiqiao's desperate pleas for her phone, Li Ang snatched it away. "I'm going out for a bit. You stay here and watch the house."