Chapter 47 Forum

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.

"Maco's first online reading venue is now open~"

A contrived sweet female voice cooed, with the webpage flashing images of various scantily clad young ladies.

Li Ang wasn't browsing some colorful 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 in 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 crawl software sniffing analysis, 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 Games free of charge.

Among this intelligence was the URL of the players' forum.

Maintaining such a deep web forum demanded considerable human, material, and financial resources. Li Ang also guessed that there was likely a push from the Special Affairs Bureau behind the establishment of the players' forum.

It might be that right now, there were agents from the Special Affairs Bureau or foreign intelligence agencies lurking in the forum, specifically collecting the 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! With solid tips inside.]"

"[New thoughts 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! Carrying Rabies virus, buy at your own risk! Limited quantity, first come first serve. Payment in Bitcoin, Game Currency, or cash!]"

"[Am I the only one who always gets B Rank or C Rank in tasks...Noobs ask for guidance]"

"[It seems my little niece has become a noob player, what should I, a level 4, do?]"

A myriad of posts kept emerging, with quite a high refresh rate, and many more were lurking without actively posting.

The number of players was 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 store, while Bitcoin, with its anonymizing properties... naturally, could be exchanged for cash in real life.

The Special Affairs Bureau's official site (disguised as a mundane and unassuming small fertilizer company website) quoted a price of 1 Game Coin = 10,000 in cash,

while the black market on the forum marked up the price of Game Currency by 10% to 20% over the official rate.

This was normal; the Slaughter Game had been open for seven months, and organizations like financial consortiums and foreign intelligence agencies, having access to more information resources than the average person, had definitely started their planning.

Money was meaningless to them; instead, Game Currency, a vital resource in Slaughter Games, could bring them closer to possessing supernatural powers and offer them a higher chance of continuing to hold the upper echelons in the coming wave of the era.

Li Ang believed that if it wasn't for fear of a market crash, those consortiums left with nothing but money would probably offer up to 200,000 or even 500,000 for a single unit of Game Currency...

I mean, shouldn't a "Jade Pendant" that can protect an ordinary person from a fatal attack sell for eighteen 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 billion US dollars, right?

Even the "Ripple Breathing Method" in Li Ang's skill bar, which can delay aging, if auctioned at Sotheby's, would sell for at least a hundred billion dollars...

In the face of death, everyone is equal. Living life to the fullest, how can one not perish? There's no such thing as an undying principle.

For the apex elite and wealthy, they can mobilize resources unthinkable to the average person, but in the face of the inevitable Grim Reaper, the powerful are as defenseless as beggars.

To live a long and safe life, to forever bask in luxury, and to never "get off the ride," tycoons are willing to pay everything.

Money, conscience, and even humanity...

"Ah, when I think about it, I seem to have missed a few hundred little targets," sighed Li Ang, pondering how much the "Ripple Breathing Method" might sell for. "However, in a world rampant with supernatural phenomena, where the Ripple Breathing Method can actually harm Spiritual Bodies, it's priceless."

After a bout of self-consolation, Li Ang left the bedroom and 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,

"Doo doo, doo doo"

"So wei so wei so wei"

"Wudang's King, paying respects to the great Tianshi,"

"Sexy lady~"

Li Ang's eyelid twitched.

Three days after the task ended, Li Ang worried that Chai Cuiqiao couldn't adapt to modern society. So he took out "An In-depth Explanation of All Aspects of Modern Society for Otherworldly Beauties Falling from the Sky -- Revised Edition," which he wrote in junior high from his storage box.

Back then, Li Ang, already bored enough to enter his chuunibyou stage, carefully formatted it like a thesis, detailing 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 you not learn something good?" Li Ang said with a headache. "You're glued to the phone all day, either scrolling through TikTok and Weibo or playing games like Honor of Kings and PUBG. Where's the demeanor of a wealthy young mistress from a distinguished family?"

"Oh."

Chai Cuiqiao obediently turned off 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, charging seven times back and forth, leaving the enemy to drop their weapons and armor and flee in disarray," the 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 Changban Slope isn't easy to deal with. She is the top courtesan of the Happy Red Court, and after calming her heart, she entangled Zhao Yun, making him retreat step by step."

??? What the heck are you listening to?

Li Ang frowned, ignoring Chai Cuiqiao's desperate pleas for her phone, and snatched it away. "I'm going out for a bit. You stay here and watch the house."