Chapter 120: Settlement Begins

【System settlement beginning.】

【System settling…】

Chen Mo leaned back in his chair, listening to the voice of the system in his mind without any emotional fluctuations—because even before the settlement began, he had already expected the outcome.

And this outcome was simply beyond dispute. He didn’t even have the slightest room to resist.

Just an hour before the settlement, the revenue of Tianlong Game suddenly skyrocketed at an unbelievable rate.

In just one short hour, revenue surged by over 500,000 and was still climbing rapidly, not even giving him a chance to react.

【Host’s remaining system funds exceed threshold. Settlement will use Rule #2. Converting to personal funds now.】

【Due to host disrupting original settlement parameters before conclusion, the system awards an additional bonus: the host may now establish two new companies in separate industries.】

【Settlement complete. System funds replenished. Please check system panel.】

After a while—

Chen Mo slowly returned to his senses and let out a long sigh.

The 8 million reward slipped through his fingers, but thanks to the system update, he still managed to convert over 70,000 in personal assets. A small consolation prize.

He focused his consciousness into the system panel in his mind.

【Host: Chen Mo】

【System Funds: 15 million】

【Personal Assets: 】

【Settlement Cycle: 4 months (Countdown…)】

【Special Task: Spend system funds down to below 5 million within 2 months to receive a mysterious reward.】

Chen Mo reviewed it carefully. Under the current rules, if he wanted to convert system funds in full, he’d need to bring the balance down to below 150,000 at the time of settlement.

However, thanks to the new settlement tier added after the system update, even if he couldn’t get below that 150,000 threshold, he could still convert a significant amount—as long as he burned through as much of the system funds as possible. He could at least earn tens of thousands in personal assets without issue.

As for the third settlement rule—Chen Mo outright ignored it.

Under that one, he’d barely get a measly 7,000 or so. Not worth it.

So his goal this time: ensure Tier 2, aim for Tier 1.

Then there was the mysterious reward tied to the special task. He wondered what that might be.

Last time it had been ten classic songs, which honestly hadn’t been very useful for him.

Hopefully this time the reward would be better.

And now that the settlement was done, he could move forward with launching two more new industries. But this time, he’d be careful. No more charging in blindly like he did with Cangxue Games.

He had to choose industries guaranteed to lose money.

If he accidentally started two more profitable businesses, that would be a real headache.

Next up was the clothing factory. Once the holiday ended, he could begin transitioning it into a brand fashion company.

He had already done some research—running a fashion brand meant he’d need his own clothing designers. But he planned to focus on hiring inexperienced interns only.

Absolutely no experienced designers. If they accidentally created a viral product, it would spell disaster.

As for interns, no matter how talented they were, they lacked real-world experience. At least in the short term, there wouldn’t be any surprises.

Of course, someone like Wu Yu was an exception.

The factory space had already been rented, but it needed renovations.

That Wang Yang guy was pretty decent—he’d handled the last two renovations just fine, followed instructions, and didn’t cut corners.

So for this next round of renovation, Chen Mo decided to use him again. It’d save him a lot of trouble.

There was one more issue—once the new workshop was ready, they’d need to hire a whole batch of new workers.

But how many employees were needed for a 2,000-square-meter factory? How many machines? How should things be allocated? He decided to leave all that to Jiang Cheng and Li Shen to figure out.

That was all he needed to plan for the moment. Besides, the holiday started in just half a day. Any real actions would have to wait until after the break.

Of course, there was still one more important matter to investigate—

Why had Tianlong Game’s revenue suddenly surged by over 500,000 in the final hour before settlement?

That kind of spike in such a short time was not a good sign.

With that in mind, Chen Mo quickly gave Fang Chang a call.

…

Cangxue Games

Fang Chang was staring in a daze at the 100,000 yuan transfer record on his phone—it was timestamped 11:30 AM.

He’d been busy with the new game all morning and hadn’t really checked his text messages.

It wasn’t until the lunch break at noon that he finally noticed it.

He had heard around 9 AM that the boss, Chen Mo, was going to distribute project bonuses, but he never expected the transfers to happen this quickly.

And even more shocking—the bonus was 100,000 yuan.

That was insane.

His current monthly salary was 18,000 yuan. It had started at 15,000 and had been raised a few times since.

Now, in one project bonus alone, he’d received 100,000—that was nearly half a year’s salary in one go.

And he’d just confirmed with the finance team: the tax would be filed and paid by the company at the end of the month.

Which meant that full 100,000 had actually landed in his account.

Fang Chang’s mood right now—there was simply no way to describe it in words.

Just then, his phone suddenly rang.

Seeing it was a call from Chen Mo, he quickly picked up.

He heard Chen Mo’s voice through the phone:

“What’s going on with Tianlong’s backend? Why did the revenue suddenly spike so much? Do you know the reason?”

The revenue jumped again?

Fang Chang was stunned. He had only checked Tianlong’s backend once that morning and hadn’t paid it any more attention since.

“President Chen, I’m not sure what caused it. I’ll go ask Zhao Bowen—he’s been monitoring Tianlong closely. I’ll report back once I find out.”

“Alright.”

After the call ended, Fang Chang put his phone away and headed to find Zhao Bowen.

At the employee workroom—

It was already lunchtime, and several employees were eating at their desks.

Zhao Bowen was in the middle of discussing the sudden transfers with several team leaders. Wei Yan was there too.

“Brother Yan, maybe you should call President Chen. What’s up with this sudden transfer?”

“Yeah, it’s not even the usual payday. And I don’t get paid this much either.”

“The message says it’s a bonus, but I didn’t do anything special. Why’d I get such a large bonus?”

“…”

Hearing this conversation, Fang Chang suddenly remembered—when he heard this morning that President Chen planned to issue bonuses, he hadn’t thought they’d go out so quickly. So he hadn’t made any announcements to the team yet.

“Brother Fang, you’re here! You got a transfer too, right? What’s going on?” Zhao Bowen noticed Fang Chang at the door and quickly asked.