Chapter 198 Calculating Accounts

Bai Shi Jinglun was indeed meticulously calculating his daily expenses, including costs for visiting relatives and friends during festivals. Wu Ye started to feel annoyed, thinking these two were making fun of him. But seeing Bai Shi Jinglun's earnestness, he began to wonder, "Could this guy be serious?"

At that moment, Bai Shi Jinglun looked up and asked Gu Fei, "What's the current bank interest rate?"

"How would I know..." Gu Fei rolled his eyes.

Wu Ye couldn't help but chime in, "For current accounts, it's 0.36."

"That's so low..." Bai Shi Jinglun mumbled.

"Fixed deposits are a bit higher," Wu Ye said.

"Oh? How much?"

"It depends on the type. A lump-sum deposit for a fixed term is higher. For five years, it's about 3.6. A deposit by installments will be slightly less, about 2.52 for five years. But they're all much higher than current accounts," Wu Ye explained.

"Five years, that's so long?"

"The term varies, but the longer the term, the higher the interest rate. The minimum term for a lump-sum deposit seems to be three months, with an interest rate of about 1.71." Wu Ye seemed very knowledgeable about banking, rattling off the rates like a treasure. Bai Shi Jinglun admired him greatly. Gu Fei couldn't help but interject, "Who puts money in the bank for interest these days? Everyone's buying stocks and funds."

"Isn't that risky?"

"With prices rising so fast, if money doesn't make money, it'll only get less and less," Gu Fei said. Just from their views on money, it was clear that the Gu family's wealth and the Bai family's poverty were not without reason.

"I still think putting it in the bank is the safest," Bai Shi Jinglun said.

"Look," Gu Fei said patiently, trying to help him understand, "You're spending about ten thousand yuan a month on food, clothing, housing, and transportation. What about ten years from now? Will ten thousand yuan a month still be enough to cover those expenses? Think back to ten years ago, twenty years ago, how much was your family's monthly income!"

"Ten years ago... it seems about the same; twenty years ago..." Bai Shi Jinglun's expression changed slightly. The difference over ten years felt like a natural increase, but the gap over twenty years was shocking.

"I definitely can't calculate it like that!" Bai Shi Jinglun exclaimed.

"That's right!"

"I should calculate it based on fifty thousand yuan per month. I have to consider twenty years from now!!" Bai Shi Jinglun scribbled on the paper, starting over.

"Damn it!!!" Gu Fei hadn't expected this guy to be so fixated on bank interest. He could only give Wu Ye a helpless smile.

By this point, Wu Ye truly believed that Bai Shi Jinglun was serious. This guy actually wanted enough income to earn fifty thousand yuan in interest from the bank every month. He wondered which interest rate he was using. Wu Ye craned his neck to peek at the calculations and discovered that the guy was actually using the pathetic 0.36 interest rate for current accounts. Wu Ye felt like the world had suddenly gone dark. Fifty thousand yuan in interest per month meant six hundred thousand a year... at a 0.36 interest rate, that would require...

"Uh, 166,666,666.66 yuan... it's not a clean division..." Bai Shi Jinglun's long division on the paper finally yielded the result.

Ao Huang and Za Cao, because their boss had snatched the deal, weren't very enthusiastic about the project anymore. Hearing Bai Shi Jinglun's outrageous demand, they chuckled to themselves, eager to see how Wu Ye would communicate with him.

"Hmm, that's for a current account. Let me calculate using the fixed deposit rate," Bai Shi Jinglun said.

"What's there to calculate? A five-year fixed deposit is 3.6. Drop a zero, and sixteen million yuan is enough," Gu Fei said.

"But I need money for daily expenses. I can't deposit it all as a fixed deposit. Hmm, let me calculate some more."

"What are you calculating? Deposit sixteen million yuan as a fixed deposit and keep a few million for daily expenses," Gu Fei said.

A few million for daily expenses... what kind of tone was that! Wu Ye was at a loss for words. He'd held back from commenting when the guy calculated living expenses earlier. Ten thousand yuan a month for daily expenses? What kind of daily life was that? Was he blatantly trying to rip them off? Wu Ye felt a little annoyed, but he didn't know that Bai Shi Jinglun was being honest. Martial artists really did have such high daily expenses. And ten thousand yuan was just Bai Shi Jinglun's figure, as someone from a poor background. If Gu Fei were calculating, with private doctors, massage therapists, nutritionists, and so on, it would be ten times that amount.

"Hmm, so I think twenty million yuan, hmm, that should be enough," Bai Shi Jinglun said.

At this point, Gu Fei, who came from a wealthy family, started to show off, nitpicking, "Ten thousand yuan is just a very ordinary daily life. If you want to improve yourself, money is an essential and solid backing."

Wu Ye finally couldn't bear it any longer and weakly said, "Brother, he just calculated fifty thousand yuan a month, not ten thousand."

"It's called fifty thousand yuan now. In ten or twenty years, it'll be the same as ten thousand yuan. Our bodies need more money to maintain as we get older. Look at my old man's energy. Do you think he gets it from eating coarse grains every day? Nutrition is all about balance. If you don't pay attention to it when you're young, your unhealthy diet will severely affect your physical condition in a few years. My old man's daily expenses are even higher than mine now."

"Aren't you teaching at a school right now? How do you pay attention to what you eat?" Bai Shi Jinglun asked.

"I have a diet prescribed by a nutritionist. I follow the diet. Am I supposed to eat street food?" Gu Fei said.

Bai Shi Jinglun was filled with shame. He'd just eaten a bowl of knife-cut noodles on the street after logging off. He immediately said, "Can I borrow your diet to take a look sometime?"

"Looking is fine, but don't just eat whatever's on it. It's specifically tailored to my physical condition, and it's not always the same diet. I get regular checkups, and the diet changes depending on my physical condition," Gu Fei said.

Even Wu Ye was intimidated by these words. He couldn't tell where Gu Fei came from, but he felt like a first-class animal receiving state protection, like a panda or something.

Bai Shi Jinglun felt a little depressed after hearing so much. They were both martial artists, but the difference was too great. He was already inferior in innate talent, and then the other guy had a diet prescribed by a nutritionist while he ate knife-cut noodles on the street, maybe adding some meat if he was in a good mood. How could he compare to him? No wonder he couldn't beat him. It wasn't unfair at all.

However, Gu Fei's high demands made Bai Shi Jinglun a little discouraged. He looked at the page full of calculations and said, "According to you, this little bit of money really is just a drop in the bucket."

Gu Fei realized he'd gone a little too far. He'd only wanted Bai Shi Jinglun to have some money to focus on martial arts so he wouldn't have to run around being a bodyguard or instructor. How had he started using himself as a benchmark? He quickly changed his tone, "Uh, that's all in the future. Right now, you can earn a lot of money, so you don't have to run around being a bodyguard, right?"

"That's right!" Bai Shi Jinglun suddenly realized. He patted the paper and said, "Then twenty million yuan, is that okay?"

"Yes, okay!!" Gu Fei nodded, afraid to say anything more that might discourage Bai Shi Jinglun again.

The two of them were directly discussing and finalizing the price in front of the person they were negotiating with, making it unclear whether there was any room for negotiation. Wu Ye remained silent and bewildered. After the two of them finalized the price, they both looked at him.

"What is it?" Wu Ye asked, surprised that they were looking at him.

Gu Fei was surprised, "Didn't you tell us to name a price? We've discussed it and agreed on twenty million."

"You two..." Wu Ye sighed. He felt like all his previous complaints had been useless. They had completely disregarded his presence and calculated the price right in front of him. Shaking his head, Wu Ye said, "You two have been calculating all along, and I've been listening. I think you two might be mistaken about something. How much this brother needs for living expenses is completely unrelated to how much we can pay you for this deal. If we're going to calculate, shouldn't we be calculating how much money this deal can actually make?"

"He calculated it!" Bai Shi Jinglun pointed at Za Cao, "One hundred and forty-eight million."

Wu Ye smiled. He obviously already knew about this from Za Cao and had been prepared for it. He calmly said, "That's just a rough calculation. Without scientific market analysis and evaluation as evidence, it can only be used as a reference. We're actually taking on a lot of risks. We don't know what the game company's attitude is toward this efficiency leveling method. Imagine if we're halfway through the project and the game company takes some major action to eliminate the use of the efficiency leveling method. Wouldn't we lose everything?"

Hearing this, Gu Fei smiled, "Impossible. Unless the game company hires real people to play all the monsters, we'll have a way to develop an efficient leveling method targeting the monsters." Gu Fei wasn't just saying this off the top of his head. After discovering the efficiency leveling method, he had done some in-depth research on it. It wasn't just about kung fu. He'd also considered how the game company could prevent this phenomenon because Gu Fei really hoped that the monsters could be like real people with unpredictable routines. Then, would Gu Fei still need to find people to PK with? He'd be happy just fighting monsters every day.

He had also looked up a lot of information and asked some relevant people. He learned that while current technology couldn't completely simulate humans, it could at least create more complex attack routines. However, in the field of online games, it was necessary to consider the server's load-bearing capacity and the transmission capacity of network data. If every monster was upgraded to the limit, the massive and complex calculations would lead to a strange situation where the players wouldn't lag, but the monsters would.

Virtual reality technology and grid technology were not advanced enough, which meant that monsters in online games could only be this way. Single-player games could be stronger, but not by much. If you wanted the machines to be completely like humans, the people Gu Fei asked definitely told him, "Don't expect it in your lifetime."

Wu Ye was stunned by Gu Fei's confident words. He couldn't refute them, so he had to say, "Of course, that would be best. But what I said earlier was about the game company's attitude. If the game company has a negative attitude towards the efficiency leveling method, to be honest, a company of our size can't easily participate in this kind of thing anymore. So for us, this is like walking on the edge of a knife. Both sides are blades, and we'll get cut if we're not careful. The risk is really high."

Gu Fei scratched his head, "After all that, is twenty million yuan okay or not?"

"Too high," Wu Ye shook his head.

"Then you name a price," Gu Fei said.

Wu Ye gritted his teeth, "Two million yuan. I can make the decision right now. Even if it doesn't work out, our studio can afford to lose two million."

Ao Huang and Za Cao had to admire their boss. He'd directly cut a zero from the price. How much courage and thick skin did that take! That's what a businessman was. What they needed was profit. What was the point of having face? You lose if you care about face!

Bai Shi Jinglun was the type of person who cared a lot about face. Hearing the other party's earnest words, he realized that this could potentially be a losing deal, but they were still willing to pay him two million. In a moment of impulse, he almost nodded in agreement. Fortunately, Gu Fei was there to stop him from speaking. He coldly smiled at Wu Ye and said, "Two million yuan? Are you joking? Just the White Millstone deal we did ourselves made two million yuan. Aren't you claiming you want to promote it to all the leveling areas in the game? Two million?"

Wu Ye didn't change his expression. He asked in confusion, "We had people investigate the White Millstone leveling area. At the time, your students were divided into four groups, each with about ten thousand people, for a total of more than forty thousand people. Your fee was 99 gold coins per person. Even if you collected it all, that would be just over four million gold coins. The two million you're talking about, is that in-game gold coins?"

Gu Fei saw that the other party was also quick-witted and hadn't been misled. He nodded and said, "It's gold coins. According to your Yingqi exchange rate, that's 600,000 RMB. That's just one leveling area. Now you're using all the leveling areas in the game to exchange for 2 million? How many leveling areas are there in the entire game? I don't know much about games, but I think there must be thousands. If you calculate it that way, 20 million is already a low price. 2 million?"

Wu Ye still didn't feel embarrassed at all. He chuckled and said, "You can say it that way, but you can't calculate it that way, right?"

"I think you can calculate it that way," Gu Fei said. "We're just a small group of a dozen people, and we've already organized the teaching in one leveling area to such a scale. With your studio's capabilities, you wouldn't be inferior to us, would you?"

"Brother, don't you understand what I meant earlier? Our studio is known in the game, so we're not as free as you ordinary players. If the game company really comes out and tells us not to do this deal, then we really can't continue. But once we start running this project, we'll still have to pay our staff wages. If it's abandoned halfway, we'll lose money, right? And to be honest with you, the game company is very likely to ban this efficiency leveling method. If we didn't really see the huge potential value in it, we wouldn't dare to touch it!"

Gu Fei couldn't help but smile when he heard this. "Seeing how much you're willing to risk, I can imagine how big the profit is. We should ask for more, then. How about thirty million?"

"You..." Wu Ye was really getting angry. He almost cursed out loud, but he managed to restrain himself and continued with a smile, "Brother, you're joking, right? You're putting pressure on me! If I start with a debt of tens of millions, how can I do this deal..." As he spoke, Wu Ye glared at Ao Huang and Za Cao. These two guys had told him that they were two bumpkins who were easy to fool. Clearly, they were very difficult to deal with!

Ao Huang and Za Cao couldn't figure out how this guy had suddenly become so shrewd. Had they been wrong about him from the start? The three of them were muttering to themselves when Gu Fei suddenly said, "If none of this works, how about this? You give us two million yuan as a deposit first. Anyway, you can afford to lose that money, right? Then, we sign a profit-sharing agreement. We'll split the profits according to a certain percentage. How about that?"

Wu Ye was slightly stunned when he heard this. He frowned and said, "Like this... this seems like a safe way. I just don't know how much of the profit you want."

"Thirty percent."

"Thir... thirty percent..." Wu Ye looked shocked. "Brother, our studio has so many mouths to feed. This is such a big deal, and you two want to take thirty percent? Not only will the higher-ups not agree, but the brothers below will stab me in the back."

"Is that so?" Gu Fei smiled. "Then you tell me what's appropriate. If you offer me another price as shameless as the previous two million, I'll kill you right away." As he said this, Gu Fei drew his Dark Night Flowing Light sword. He hadn't had a good impression of these guys from the start. Now that they were dragging things out, he was getting annoyed. Bai Shi Jinglun felt the same way.

Wu Ye was dumbfounded. He had negotiated so many deals, but even though killing people in the game wasn't against the law, he had never seen anyone directly threaten someone with force. Moreover, dying in the game wasn't a big deal. The goal of their studio was to make money, not to level up. This kind of threat was actually useless. Wu Ye was completely confused by Gu Fei. He couldn't figure out what he was thinking. But what he was saying didn't sound like a joke. If he got killed, that wouldn't be a big deal, but the key was that it would mean breaking off negotiations, and the cooperation couldn't continue. Thinking of this, Wu Ye finally told the truth and held up two fingers. "Twenty percent! That's already a lot. If we can reach Za Cao's estimated 140 million, you two will have an income of 28 million. That's more than the 20 million you asked for earlier! Of course, our goal is to make it as big as possible. For our Yingqi Studio, there are no limits."

Gu Fei nodded. "Then we need to sign a formal agreement, right?"

"Of course. We're a legitimate business. Leave your offline contact information, and I'll contact you as soon as possible. Haha, with this game, it's much easier to negotiate. Before, if we needed to discuss business face-to-face, we had to travel or entertain. Now it's great. We can meet in the game and discuss everything. This deal worth over a hundred million was finalized in Yingqi Barbecue Restaurant in a parallel world. That's a great story!" Wu Ye said happily.

Bai Shi Jinglun had already written down his real name and contact information and handed it to him. Wu Ye took it and looked at Gu Fei. Gu Fei smiled. "He can sign. He's mainly in charge."

Online, everyone knew that the Qian Li Zui studio was developing efficiency leveling methods, but not many people knew who actually developed the methods. Wu Ye didn't know much about it either. Hearing Gu Fei say this, he assumed that Bai Shi Jinglun was the main person, so he didn't say anything else. He nodded and said, "Then I'll log off and draft the contract and send it to you immediately."

"Okay, okay." Bai Shi Jinglun reached out and shook hands with Wu Ye, also very happy.

Gu Fei watched from the side, but his heart couldn't help but skip a beat.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Following "Die Here, Die There" and "Hide Here, Hide There," another chapter in the "X Here, X There" series has finally been released. Hu Die is very gratified. On this momentous day, wave your hands and ask everyone for monthly votes. Please give me some face!