Chapter 25: The Game Goes Viral

It was more than ten hours later when the plane finally touched down at LGA Airport in New York, USA. Huang Feiyang and his entourage were immediately whisked away by a waiting motorcade. By the time they arrived at Wall Street, it was already late at night local time.

Standing by the window of his hotel suite, gazing out at the night view of Wall Street, a look of profound reflection crossed Huang Feiyang’s eyes. Who could have imagined that in just ten days, this place would be the epicenter of a world-shaking event? Following that, the US stock market would experience a lightning-fast crash, which would subsequently drag down stock markets across the globe.

Play the savior? Huang Feiyang had no such interest. Besides, even if he were to speak out, would anyone believe him? Moreover, how would he explain his foresight? The best-case scenario would be being hauled off for human dissection, while the worst-case would be becoming the perfect scapegoat. Therefore, Huang Feiyang was not about to do anything so reckless.

On this same day, *The Legend of Mir* (Legend) officially launched its public beta in China. Within a single day, registered users surpassed the one-million mark, and the number of concurrent users exceeded two hundred thousand. Furthermore, these figures were continuing to soar.

It was a hit! Without a shadow of a doubt, just as it had been in his past life, the game became a nationwide sensation overnight—and even more explosive than before. Of course, this had a lot to do with the marketing efforts of Future Network, which had invested heavily in advertising during this period. Under Huang Feiyang’s instructions, George had already hired numerous cybersecurity experts and even a few hackers. Their task was to identify game vulnerabilities, maintain security, and hunt down cheaters. As someone who had been reborn, Huang Feiyang knew all too well the devastating impact of hacks on a game, which was exactly why he chose to take precautions early. As for the issue of gaming studios, Huang had no intention of cracking down on them. To a certain extent, these studios actually promoted the prosperity of the game. It was a double-edged sword: used well, it offered many benefits. Besides, he needed the hype—if playing the game could lead to profit, wouldn't that attract even more players?

In Guangzhou, on one of the floors of a large office building, the team at Future Network erupted in cheers. "Hahaha! Our game is a success!" one exclaimed. "But how are we going to monetize it?" another asked. "Management says there's no rush! Let's focus on attracting more players first!"

As the saying goes, one man’s joy is another’s sorrow. The massive success of *Legend* left some domestic game companies unable to find a reason to smile. They felt as though the wolf was at the door. Never before had a game been this popular; a million sign-ups in a day? Was this even fair to the competition?

In a high-tech industrial park in Shanghai, a company team was seething with frustration. They had been on the verge of successfully securing the agency rights for the game, only for Future Network to swoop in and snatch it from under their noses. If that were all, it would be one thing, but it now appeared the game was far more successful than they had anticipated. "Let's just hurry up and develop the game we have in our own pipeline," the young man at the head of the table said calmly, taking a deep breath. "Understood," the team replied.

When Huang Feiyang woke up the next morning, the sun was already high. Since it was Sunday, he had no intention of heading to the brokerage or futures firms. Instead, he wandered around the vicinity of Wall Street. A large group of bodyguards and lawyers followed at a discreet distance, blending into the crowd, so he drew no attention to himself. As he strolled, Huang pondered a question: Was there any hope of securing financing for ASML? If not, should he take advantage of the coming crisis to poach a lithography machine R&D team? If he recalled correctly, ASML’s capital chain had been a bit tight during these years. With this in mind, a bold idea began to form in his mind—perhaps he could poach teams from more than just that one company.

This year was an opportunity; the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis was also an opportunity. Thinking of this, a look of anticipation appeared on Huang Feiyang’s face. At the same time, he was quite interested in several other high-tech companies. After September, and starting in November, the world would experience a sharp downturn. Once that happened, as long as he had enough capital, wouldn't the opportunities be endless? It would become particularly easy to invest in certain internet technology companies. After all, the dot-com bubble had just burst, and now with the global economic downturn, the internet industry was having a hard time.

In the afternoon, upon returning to the hotel and checking his encrypted emails, Huang Feiyang was in high spirits. In less than two days, the registered user count for *Legend* had passed three million, and the peak concurrent users had broken the 400,000 mark? "As expected of a game that swept the nation in my past life," Huang Feiyang remarked with deep emotion after reading the report George had sent. Although the game was as explosive as expected, he was in no hurry to cash out. He understood there was still significant room for growth. Millions of registrations? Hundreds of thousands online? This was far from its true potential. As a person who had been reborn, Huang Feiyang knew very well that this game would remain a phenomenon for years to come. Even decades later, its mobile version would still be generating impressive revenue. That alone spoke volumes. So, what was the rush?

In fact, just as Huang Feiyang had anticipated, *Legend* was becoming increasingly popular in China. With it being Sunday, more and more people at internet cafes across the country were being drawn to the game, and a growing number of new players were registering accounts. Speaking of which, one must mention Penguin. To expand their dominance, Future Network allowed users to log in directly using their Penguin accounts. As a result, new registrations for Penguin also saw a surge over the past two days. The team at Penguin was secretly thrilled, and for the first time, they became interested in developing games of their own. Could Penguin develop more types of games in the future? Not just simple mini-games like those in the Penguin Space, but something more? They had already held multiple meetings to discuss this.