Chapter 89: “Our brotherly love is constant.”

The young man was leaning back in the expensive Chesterfield sofa.

The long, brown leather coat was cinched at the waist with a belt, revealing his waistline.

His fingers, tightly wrapped in black gloves, rubbed against the document a couple of times and paused when they caught a certain keyword.

The man in a suit opposite him instantly tensed up: “Mr. Zu… is something wrong?”

“Hm?”

The company's pantry was filled with the rich aroma of coffee.

Zu Qisheng said with a smile, “It's not a big problem. Are you in a hurry to place a bet now, Mr. Sui?”

He pushed up the gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose and said in a refined manner, “I don't recommend you to invest right now, but the game has just started. It's harmless if you want to test the waters.”

Mr. Sui was stunned for a moment.

Even though they had met many times, he still found it difficult to make eye contact with Zu Qisheng.

Zu Qisheng's facial features were quite defined, but not as sharp as men of the same age.

He could be considered handsome, but his eyes were very eye-catching.

When he spoke, he liked to stare at people.

His scarlet pupils, which were behind the gold-rimmed glasses, had a smile in them.

Coupled with his reserved manner and mask-like gentleness, making eye contact with him would always make one's mind go blank.

This was human nature.

In a short period of time, one was unable to withstand an objectively impactful shock.

After coming to his senses, Mr. Sui cautiously averted his gaze and tentatively said: “Then… I'll bet two hundred thousand on the positive side first?”

“Do you really not need to buy some finance-related props?”

In the sea of consciousness, the system was worried.

The Third Economic Law, the prequel to The Rules of the Virtual Financial Street Game Are Mine to Use.

The main novel constructed a game world independent of reality, called the Financial Street.

The Financial Street would invite people who were destitute in reality to become players and join a survival game called "Game of War" (GOW).

Every new player in GOW would have 10,000 initial funds.

Every week, the player would be forced to participate in a two-person or multi-person game.

The game was randomly selected by the Financial Street, and the participating players had to submit 10,000 funds as a deposit.

After the game result was out, the winner would get back his own deposit and take half of the loser's deposit.

Ten thousand funds would become fifteen thousand.

The highlight of GOW, which distinguished it from other similar infinite flow survival novels, was not the game, but the entire ecosystem.

Apart from the mandatory game deposit, the Financial Street also provided services that could be invested in gambling, betting, or asset trading.

That is to say, there was more than one way to earn funds besides winning the game.

You could also bet on the wins and losses of other players.

I may not be good at the game, but I am very good at judging people.

If you were lucky enough, even if you lost ten thousand in every game, a big gamble could make you a fortune.

But no matter what channel you used to earn funds, once your funds were negative, the player would be forced into bankruptcy and die immediately.

The Financial Street was by invitation only.

If you didn't agree, you didn't have to join.

There were so many people because its returns were proportional to its risks.

Every three months, the top three players in the asset ranking could choose to leave GOW.

The exchange rate between the funds held and the currency of the region in the real world was 1:1, without any fees.

Players could leave with all their assets.

This was commonly known as getting rich overnight.

The protagonist, Meng Yu'an, was an official of a special investigation agency in the real world.

He was a decadent and unmotivated middle-aged man, unmarried and childless.

He muddled along among a group of elites every day, destitute and inconspicuous.

The disappearance of people and the intermittent large-scale currency circulation had made the agency target the Financial Street several times.

They had been trying to send people to make contact, using loopholes to get people in, but they had all gone in and never returned.

Once, Meng Yu'an's best friend also disappeared during the investigation.

He took the initiative to ask to join the investigation.

His colleagues didn't believe he could complete the mission, until he entered the Financial Street.

Meng Yu'an was completely familiar with the rules here, even more so than the players who had been here for many years.

Games, betting, the small tricks commonly used by large enterprises.

Meng Yu'an knew them like the back of his hand.

It turned out that he was an old player who had left here, but because of the restrictions of the Financial Street’s Third Economic Law, he could not reveal anything related to it in the real world.

The following was the story of an old player leading his new teammates to slaughter their way through the Financial Street.

Currently, the main story was still being serialized.

The prequel characters that Chu Zu was responsible for were a pair of biological brothers five years apart, one named Zu Qisheng and the other Zu Qian.

The older brother, Zu Qisheng, was a famous consultant on the Financial Street.

He was good at playing games, but he wasn't keen on it.

Winning or losing didn't matter.

Even in a multi-person game, there was an upper limit to the funds that could be obtained after winning, but it was different for betting.

The income from winning several games in a row was not as much as his one-time bet.

The initial capital earned from betting was like a snowball.

Before long, the wealth he had was astonishing.

The younger brother, Zu Qian, was a game fanatic.

The Financial Street had a mandatory one-game-a-week requirement.

He could soak in the game for seven days a week.

When he ran out of funds, he would go to his older brother to borrow some and continue to play.

He wasn't bad, just loved to play, especially watching the pale-faced look of his opponents after they lost.

If it were just that, the two of them wouldn't be worthy of the evaluation of "madmen" ; they had changed the entire rules of the Financial Street.

The original "Economic Law" of the Financial Street was very simple, just simply restricting the transactions between players, as well as the upper and lower limits of betting.

The older brother, Zu Qisheng, revised the economic law into the "Second Economic Law" and adjusted the betting.

The most intuitive change was the cancellation of the upper limit on bets.

The Financial Street was a crazy amusement park.

Originally, the upper limit on bets in the betting was also a limit on the upper limit of the player's losses.

Now, bets could be infinitely high.

Countless players went bankrupt and died after going all in.

Blood gathered in pools under the giant gold coin, which was the landmark building of the Financial Street.

The younger brother, Zu Qian, then revised the economic law into the "Third Economic Law," which was commonly used in the main story.

The third law stipulated that those who left this place had to mortgage their lives.

If a player who had left revealed any information related to the Financial Street, they would be immediately dealt with as "bankrupt."

At that time, the Financial Street already had an undercover agent arranged by a special investigation agency in the real world, and the protagonist, Meng Yu'an, was also among them.

The younger brother of the Zu family had noticed this, but he didn't want anyone to destroy Financial Street.

He was keen on games and wanted more people to come here to play against him.

Finally, in one of the younger brothers of the Zu family's games, Meng Yu'an and the older brother of the Zu family met in a bet.

The older brother bet on his younger brother losing.

The players followed his bet and accumulated the stakes to an astronomical price.

Meng Yu'an went all in and bet all his money on his younger brother winning.

The younger brother won.

Meng Yu'an profited, and the players went bankrupt because they had followed the wrong bet.

Too many had died, which caused his ranking to rise in a straight line, thus becoming the only agency personnel to leave the Financial Street.

To be precise, the two brothers and the protagonist didn't have much of a deep relationship.

The prequel was mainly to perfect the entire worldview and to give the protagonist, Meng Yu'an, an inner drive to return to the Financial Street.

The problem was here.

The readers didn't think that the two brothers had any deep relationship with Meng Yu'an after reading the prequel.

The ending was so bad that it said:

Meng Yu'an didn't know what the Financial Street would become, but he would return here sooner or later.

He just needed some rest, some peace away from greed and madness.

The third economic law had given rise to a casualness of desire.

For Meng Yu'an, the intentional malice of the Zu brothers had made him unable to sleep at night.

Even if it were for them, Meng Yu'an would return here.

The readers thought this was very neurotic.

These two brothers were neurotic enough.

How could the protagonist, who was not brain-damaged in the main story, also get sick?

For them?

Are you okay?

Are you very familiar with them?

But if you connected it to the still-serialized main text, the readers could barely accept the setting of Meng Yu'an returning for the two brothers.

Because in the main story, he had taken over the forces of the two brothers in the Financial Street by relying on his "complete understanding" of the deceased two brothers.

This was a big thrill, along with the subsequent plot of slaughtering his way through the Financial Street.

The two brothers were long dead in the main text.

As long as you didn't look at the garbage character development and the garbage plot of the prequel, and ignored Meng Yu'an's ghost-like wallowing, the readers could continue to subscribe.

Thus, all the scolding comments were directed at the two brothers.

“I was having a good meal, and Meng Yu'an suddenly brought a bonus and said, here comes the dessert. I took a look, and it was a chocolate-filled chocolate. I took a bite, and damn it, why is it made of shit?”

“I say big Zu is a dog capitalist, no one objects, right?”

“No, what’s the point of little Zu’s existence? Does the Financial Street lack a madman like him? On what grounds did he change the third economic law? On the grounds of his dog capitalist older brother?”

“The best script for the prequel is the powerless rage of big Zu after he bet on a loss. To see the thrill, jump to the last chapter. Don't flip to the very end, otherwise you will see the classic golden sentence: even if it were for them.”

“Although everyone often makes jokes about to go all in, how could this bastard author take it seriously? In the main story,to go all in is a life-and-death matter. In the prequel,to go all in is as simple as breathing.”

“Wow, so many people have died. What a heavy Financial Street. Idiot. Big and little Zu are both. I don’t scold Meng Yu'an because he showed me the moment of big Zu’s breakdown.”

When Chu Zu first got the materials, he saw that it was only about 200,000 words and thought that the prequel wouldn't be too difficult.

But the system said that the 200,000 words were all settings.

The prequel was less than 50,000 words.

It was a good thing that the word count was small, otherwise the readers would have scolded it along with the main text a long time ago.

Chu Zu was silent for a while.

He didn't quite understand how the author could condense the basic settings of the entire series into 50,000 words and also develop the plot.

He soon figured it out.

It was precisely because there was no plot to speak of, and it was all simplified settings, that big and little Zu would be so "neurotic."

Chu Zu really wanted to ask the little yellow chicken seriously:

“Do you know the difference between ‘going crazy’ and ‘an incomplete character design that looks like a brain disease outbreak’?”

After thinking about it, he thought that these words would be a blow to the system's enthusiasm and would easily make the little yellow chicken fall into a short-term slump.

Big and little Zu were not difficult to change.

The problems were just those.

The two brothers’ character designs were too tool-like and very flat, and did not match the protagonist’s investment.

These two did not do anything human.

After causing trouble, they created a more difficult economic law.

At present, their motives were only "to seek huge profits" and "to make more people fall into a predicament."

There was nothing else.

Enrich the character design, enrich the motives, and that's it.

So Chu Zu still didn't say anything that would make the little yellow chicken sad.

After entering, there was no key plot.

Big Zu, Zu Qisheng was doing a simple consultation: helping the boss analyze the wins and losses of the game, and having him bet to win funds.

Chu Zu had not yet come into contact with the game.

He couldn't tell anything just by looking at the materials provided by Mr. Sui.

He had skipped through the 200,000 words of settings.

Refreshing novels would not add too many real financial things.

The audience was very narrow, and the readers would easily get distracted as they read.

More of it was an introduction to the rules related to the game.

The system suggested buying some props that could fool the boss.

Chu Zu thought for a moment: “No need to waste credit points.”

“I’ll figure out the operation of the Financial Street first. It’s better to experience a complex worldview personally to understand it better.”

Zu Qisheng’s gaze moved to the document, and then he made eye contact with Mr. Sui again.

It was just a glance, but besides the simple impact of his appearance, Mr. Sui also immediately felt an inexplicable pressure of being valued.

Instinct made him retract his previous words.

His appearance was actually the least worth mentioning thing about Zu Qisheng.

After all, this gentleman in front of him was the most senior consultant on Financial Street.

With his deconstruction of the game and analysis of the players' personalities, he was a guest consultant for the three major enterprises.

To this day, no one could compare to his status.

Mr. Sui was now very optimistic about a bet.

He had investigated the information of both players through his own channels.

He wanted to go to the exchange and sell all his "real estate" and bet on this one time.

For insurance, he had asked someone to contact Zu Qisheng.

But Zu Qisheng seemed to have some reservations.

“Then I’ll wait for your proposal first.”

Mr. Sui enthusiastically took out a briefcase and opened a small crack.

Bundles of currency could be vaguely seen inside.

“This is the deposit. Please accept it, Mr. Zu. The after-the-fact split will be according to your rules.”

He remembered his assistant’s suggestion, stretched out his finger, and changed his words, “I’ll add another two percent. I will definitely not let you suffer a loss.”

“We’ll stick to what we agreed on before.” Zu Qisheng stood up, his tall figure casting a shadow on the coffee table.

He picked up the briefcase, “I will have little Zu send the proposal as soon as possible. Thank you for your trust.”

Holding a huge sum of money, Chu Zu left the building.

He still hadn't figured out the game and the betting.

He would just drag the person along for now.

Although the original work had made Zu Qisheng look quite impressive, on the Financial Street, one failure was equal to smashing one's own signboard, and the possible revenge that followed was endless.

Here, funds were everything.

Zu Qisheng’s character design had not yet been finalized.

Chu Zu had to finalize it as soon as possible.

If there were any adjustments needed later, he would make them.

He would finish Mr. Sui’s order first.

He walked on the street.

Although the Financial Street was called a "street," it was actually the general name for the entire world.

On the surface, there was no difference between this place and an ordinary city in the real world.

There were complete public facilities, hospitals, schools, public transportation, and services were provided by NPCs.

The three towering office buildings represented the three major enterprises, which were actually just the guilds that would be joined when playing the game.

After joining, players could obtain public game information in the enterprise and learn which popular players had a very high winning rate recently, which was convenient for placing bets.

Chu Zu raised his head slightly.

A huge gold coin was suspended in the center of the office building.

On the long display screen in the center of the gold coin, there was a string of constantly increasing numbers.

Just as he was looking, a miserable cry suddenly came from the tree-lined path on the long street where Chu Zu was, about five meters away from him.

He looked over and saw a man with an extremely pained expression clutching his bleeding left arm.

The woman next to him was nervous:

“How much did you sell it for?”

“Three hundred.”

The man’s face was pale, and his voice was trembling uncontrollably.

“How can it be only three hundred? Is the exchange wrong? You sold your whole arm for only three hundred?! It’s not even enough to stop the bleeding at the hospital!”

“Shut up.”

The man roared, the veins on his forehead bulging, “The next game is in only three days. I can’t come up with the ten thousand deposit. Help me with the betting! I can only rely on this three hundred to take a gamble!”

The woman hesitated: “How about I go to the exchange to see what I can sell.”

“What else can you sell? You can’t even get ten thousand for selling yourself whole!”

Chu Zu asked the system in the sea of consciousness: “Exchange?”

Mr. Sui’s document had also mentioned the exchange.

He wanted to sell everything outside of his liquid funds to place a bet.

The little yellow chicken knew that the host hadn't read much of the settings and immediately explained.

“The exchange accepts the sale of anything, and the price is determined by the Financial Street’s valuation. Once a transaction begins, it cannot be revoked. All transactions take effect immediately, and the sold items cannot be redeemed.”

“Where is it?”

“There’s an entrance in the bracelet you’re wearing on your left hand.”

Chu Zu raised his hand.

The black glove covered the bracelet.

He was holding a huge sum of money in his other hand.

In front of him was a gambler who was desperate for money.

He didn't dare to put down the briefcase and could only raise his hand and bite the glove to pull it down.

“Why are they looking at me so strangely?”

Chu Zu caught a glimpse of the man and woman.

The two of them had stopped arguing and were staring at him blankly.

The man’s arm was even still bleeding.

“You’re not really going to rob me on the street, are you?”

System: “You are very good-looking this time.”

“The author married a female author when he was writing big and little Zu. He was inspired and tried to add the element of beauty, strength, and tragedy to a male-oriented novel.”

“Generally speaking, beauty, strength, and tragedy place more emphasis on the latter two, but after appreciating a large number of his wife’s works, he was deeply moved and gave you a face that is difficult to describe as good-looking.”

“So there were also many readers who made wild remarks after seeing the appearance description of big and little Zu, saying that if the two brothers were changed into two sisters, there would be no problem.”

Chu Zu said coolly:

“The readers actually didn't scold Meng Yu'an for being a gay?”

The system said euphemistically:

“Because if Meng Yu'an were a gay, then everyone in the Financial Street, regardless of gender, would be a gay right?”

“No wonder when I was talking to Mr. Sui, he would get distracted from time to time.”

Chu Zu said, “Although I haven't looked in the mirror yet, I think there are only two descriptions for this kind of face that can make people dazed.”

System: “?”

“Either it’s something indescribable like Cthulhu, which makes people lose their minds after seeing it. Or it’s like Hikta. I've never seen anyone more beautiful than her.”

System: “...”

The system was in great pain: “Please, you’re making me feel a little sick…”

Chu Zu grunted and looked at the bracelet.

The bracelet was very thin and close to the skin.

When the wearer looked at it, a semi-transparent option that only he could see appeared in front of his eyes.

At the top was the exchange, in the middle was the game center, and at the bottom was the investment center.

The Financial Street called game betting "investment."

Without having to touch it, when he thought "exchange," the option appeared in a dark color as if it had been selected.

The next second, Chu Zu came to a gray room.

The room extended infinitely in his vision.

In front of him was a setting similar to a consultation desk.

A strong beam of light shone on the consultation, making the NPC standing behind it also look pale.

The NPC had a very common face, one that you would forget at a glance.

He smiled when he saw Chu Zu and made a formulaic sound.

“Hello, welcome! Are you here today to have an item's value appraised or to make a formal transaction?”

Chu Zu: “Appraise value.”

Trader: “We have experienced appraisers who will comprehensively evaluate your item based on its market value, brand, condition, and many other aspects to ensure that you are given a fair price.”

Trader: “What item would you like to inquire about?”

Chu Zu: “This face of mine.”

System: “?”

The system said in a panic:

“No! A face is still very important. Why don’t we just take what we can get! We can’t be shameless!”

Chu Zu comforted it and said: “I’m just asking, to see how much it’s worth.”

The trader did not make any move.

He was quiet on the spot for three or four seconds, and then he spoke.

“Currently, based on the market conditions, the purchase price we can offer for this item is 300,000. This is an assessment based on the current market demand and the specific condition of the item.”

The little yellow chicken was dumbfounded:

“That person’s arm was only three hundred.”

Chu Zu asked again: “How much can my left hand be sold for?”

This time, the trader's judgment time was shorter than before.

“Currently, based on the market conditions, the purchase price we can offer for this item is 400. This is an assessment based on the current market demand and the specific condition of the item.”

Chu Zu continued: “How much can the use of my left hand be sold for?”

The trader gave a different quote than before 130.

“Is there any difference?”

The system was a little confused.

“There is. Literally, selling my left hand means the whole hand is gone. If it’s the right of use, the hand should still be there, but I can’t use it, a bit like partial paralysis.”

After answering, Chu Zu immediately asked the trader.

“How much can my younger brother be sold for?”

The trader immediately answered:

“I’m sorry, you can only sell items that belong to you. Your younger brother, Zu Qian, is not within the scope of the transaction.”

Chu Zu thought for a while: “Then how much can my feelings for my younger brother be sold for?”

This time, the trader did not answer for a long time, as if the machine had malfunctioned and had crashed on the spot.

Little Yellow Chicken: “Can this kind of thing also be sold.In the original work, this was just a simple um a point of abuse?”

Many players would sell their own things to raise funds.

Some were greedy and wanted more gambling money.

Others had run out of things to sell for their own or others’ game deposits and sold themselves.

The protagonist Meng Yu'an's colleague was like that.

In order to raise the deposit for a friend he had met on the Financial Street, he sold himself.

But that friend did not use the funds as a game deposit.

He invested it in a bet and finally died of bankruptcy.

Chu Zu: “According to the instructions, anything that belongs to you can, in principle, be sold. Abstract concepts should also be able to be sold, but I don't know what the effect will be.”

Finally, the trader finished his assessment.

“Currently, based on the market conditions, the purchase price we can offer for this item is fifty-four million three hundred thousand. This is an assessment based on the current market demand and the specific condition of the item.”

System: “...”

System: “The Third Economic Law doesn’t seem to say that big Zu was very good to little Zu either. At most, when little Zu was about to go bankrupt from playing games, big Zu would lend him some, although he never paid it back. Was there really a brotherly bond? Or was it a deep and forbearing love, but there was a lot, a lot, a lot of it?”

Chu Zu was speechless: “Can you not keep thinking about deep and forbearing love?”

He said faintly, “It’s precisely because there isn’t much of a brotherly bond, almost none, that it’s so valuable.”

Chu Zu had a rough idea of the exchange’s rules.

Logically speaking, losing an arm and losing the use of an arm should have the same price.

But for a player, the former not only meant inconvenience in the future, but the price paid also included the possibility of endangering one’s life.

So the "current market demand" that the trader was talking about was actually the demand for the player himself.

At the same time, the price rule of the market was "the scarcer, the more precious," and the price would be higher.

Just like a blind box, the ones that would be an exorbitant price would always be the limited editions.

They had a small circulation in the market.

Even if people didn’t have a rigid demand for the item, its value would still remain high.

An arm was not worth much to a person.

Zu Qisheng’s face had brought him a lot of convenience, so its value was higher, but it was also limited to 300,000.

But his feelings for his younger brother, as the system said, it was not visible in the original work, and was almost pitifully little.

The scarcity led to a rise in price, and it could even be said that it had soared to an astronomical price.

Chu Zu tried it with a few other things, and the conclusion was the same as before.

The exchange’s judgment was actually very strange.

In their definition, if a person loved their family very much, that overflowing love was actually not worth much.

On the contrary, a selfish person would profit from abandoning a trivial feeling.

Chu Zu had an idea.

“Tell me.”

Chu Zu said slowly to the system, “A madman who sold the little brotherly love he had for his younger brother to accumulate initial capital, is he a little better than a dog capitalist who started gambling from the beginning?”

System: “...”

The system said dryly, “I-I don’t know but without that little bit of brotherly love, big Zu probably wouldn’t have been willing to lend little Zu money to continue to play.”

“He would.”

Chu Zu said, “Our brotherly love is constant. If I like him a little less, he will notice and like me a little more.”

“This conservation of love doesn’t seem to be useful?”

“If he likes me a little more, he will become very useful. Doesn’t he like to play games? It makes sense. It’s not that he likes to play games, but that he likes his older brother.”

System: “?”

“This time, I am ‘the unscrupulous and insane big Zu who will do anything to anyone, including himself’ and ‘big Zu’s mad dog little brother who constantly tests the boundaries of the game’.”

“I will not only sell big Zu’s little brotherly love for little Zu, but also sell more things that, in big Zu’s view, will not cause a serious impact if lost.”

“Little Zu is the same. If he wants to be a mad dog, then he will be a complete mad dog. He will sell all of his pitiful reason and patience.”

Chu Zu said, “Big Zu and little Zu don’t need to be two complete people. Sell everything that can be sold, and tie them tightly together. As long as they can be pieced together into ‘one person,’ it will be fine. This can also solve the problem of the readers thinking he is crazy in a very ordinary way.”

If it were in other missions, the little yellow chicken would have already jumped up and shouted no no no.

But this time, the host was taking over two characters at once.

He had the authority to make corrections, and although it was abstract and terrifying, it was reasonable.

How did it sound so reasonable?

Chu Zu summarized: “You have to be crazy to the point of being earth-shattering, so that when the readers think of it, they will only think of two madmen. The logic of a madman will have a lubricating and buffering effect on many rigid settings. As for the protagonist, Meng Yu'an.”

Little Yellow Chicken: “As for the protagonist, Meng Yu'an?”

“We can ignore him for now.”

Chu Zu said flatly, “In the end, he single-handedly suppressed the two madmen. He couldn’t forget it even if he wanted to. We'll talk about a more specific handling after we come into contact with him.”

The system silently took out the setting collection: “Okay.”

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