I Don't Agree to the Terms

"Master, this is the financial report for this quarter." The butler handed over the report to Gu Shanhai with a somewhat unnatural expression.

Gu Shanhai could tell—it must be the unattractive numbers in the report that caused the butler's discomfort.

Flipping through it, he found that compared to the previous quarter, income had plummeted by nearly a hundredfold.

There was no loss, but it was indeed much less profit than before.

The reason was obvious; it was the result of the extreme discount promotions by Jile Technology, where they lost money with every set of the 0.1 discount Joy Package sold.

Fortunately, Jile Technology had aggressively entered the fields of healthcare, industry, agriculture, and so on, making a fortune and preventing any cash flow issues.

"Not bad, I thought we would incur losses this quarter," Gu Shanhai was quite satisfied with the income. With the release of the 0.1 discount Joy Package, not only was there no loss, but there was even a profit to be had, which was simply incredible.

"Master, should we cancel this package? Continuing this way will significantly decrease our profits," the butler advised.

In the industry, many people were ridiculing Jile Technology as fools, wondering what they were trying to achieve.

Of course, as a consequence, their stock prices soared, and other companies and powers kept trying to suppress Jile Technology by generating negative opinions on the internet.

Accusations of privacy theft, illegal human modifications, and inciting various confrontations were aimed to tarnish Jile Technology's reputation.

Unfortunately, even hiring the Navy for a smear campaign made no impact. No matter how badly you disparage them online, people didn't care; what mattered was the utility.

As for cyberbullying, anyone daring to take on a company that made its name through computers was asking for trouble. Moreover, Jile Technology had support behind it.

They would take legal action against all troublemakers with a simple lawsuit.

Jile Technology had a complete team of lawyers, computer experts, and a security team. Even if you used the identity card of an eighty-year-old to disguise yourself, or had no identity card at all, they would still find you and send a subpoena.

They didn't resort to slander; instead, they directly prosecuted for endangering computer network security and industrial espionage, aiming to put them behind bars.

As for losing a legal battle, Jile Technology wasn't worried. If they lost in a certain region, they would withdraw their branch from that area.

They'd directly use economic influence to suppress that region.

Jile Technology paid a lot of taxes and greased the palms of every official. If you sided with those people against them, they would not indulge you.

Now, Jile Technology monopolized many fields, fully capable of saying, "If this place won't have me, I'll take my business elsewhere."

They relied on swaying the local officials indirectly with the momentum of the situation.

These messages had already been subtly communicated in social gatherings; those who helped were praised, dealing with a few powerless individuals. They could spend a decade in prison without any impact.

If you didn't help and turned your back on them, don't blame Jile Technology for lacking sentimentality. When the time came, and it affected an entire region's officeholders from promotions to retirements, life could become difficult. Use some connections, and those who didn't give face could be invited for a "tea."

After all, greed was rampart throughout the Navia Empire—if you weren't willing, others would be.

At first, Gu Shanhai wanted Jile Technology to be more discreet and not so arrogant, but then the appetite of the officials in various regions grew so large that Jile Technology had to assert themselves.

"No need to cancel, intensify the promotion, and bring in more buyers," Gu Shanhai declared, furthering his control over the world's people through such means.

He now held an unimaginable number of Divine Contracts.

Did you really think Gu Shanhai was being generous for free?

Once you bought, under the Divine Contract, you could never escape his control for life.

These people were just numbers in digital life, providing an endless cycle of death and rebirth, supplying Gu Shanhai with sufficient Secondary Ghost Energy Aura.

Everything comes with a price, and since what Gu Shanhai offered was almost free, the cost was naturally greater.

"But Master, if this continues, the 'life' economy will collapse. Not long ago, the automatic idle system built into the brain chip caused huge problems for the entire game ecosystem. Should we disable it?" The butler also spoke with some resignation.

"Why disable it? Just set up a currency exchange system that allows game currency to be exchanged for real currency," Gu Shanhai's words shocked the butler.

This was no longer about spending money; it was throwing money away. At least with spending, you can keep warm, but throwing money away has no value.

"Don't worry, start a financial scheme and throw the game currency into it; there will be people willing to take over for us." Gu Shanhai chuckled, planning to turn game currency into something akin to Bitcoin or some other virtual asset.

The value of money is a concept assigned by people, so with a few maneuvers, Gu Shanhai could totally control it, especially since there were takers, there was no worry.

As for who the buyers were, it was clearly the larger corporations and individual investors.

The specifics of these operations were carried out by the Four Sacred Beasts System, and Gu Shanhai was only aware of the general details without delving deeper.

He had always focused on perfecting digital life and research into life downscaling, not bothering with these trivial matters.

Hearing this, the butler's expression also relaxed.