Chapter 98: Remain Humble in Victory, Undaunted in Defeat

“President Chen, did you catch a cold?”

Shen Rou looked at Chen Mo sneezing and asked with some concern.

“It’s nothing, maybe the air conditioning in the car was too cold.”

Chen Mo waved his hand and walked into the company.

Back in his office,

Chen Mo turned on his computer and logged into Tianlong.

He hadn’t touched the game in a few days—now he wanted to see what had become of it.

As soon as he entered the game,

Right upon spawning at the beginner’s area, he saw two figures rushing past him, heading straight toward the wild zones.

“This…”

Chen Mo was momentarily stunned. In the past, you couldn’t even run into a single person here. But now, the moment he logged in, two players had already darted by?

Could things have changed this fast?

He glanced at the public chat channel in the bottom-left corner.

What was once a dead-silent chat box was now overflowing with messages that scrolled so fast he couldn’t even read one before it was buried by the next.

Curious, he clicked into the public chat.

> “Tianhuo Studio buying Dragon Slayer sets—10,000 per piece, fair and honest!”

> “Max-level pro offering leveling services, 30 yuan per day.”

> “Rhino herd in North City—team leader online 24/7 farming mobs. You can AFK follow and get randomized loot. Entry fee: 40 yuan per day. Two spots left!”

> “……”

Looking at these bullet messages,

Chen Mo’s face turned dark.

This wasn’t the ghost town it used to be.

He closed the chat window

and steered his character into the wild zones.

Out there, the scene was even livelier—players were everywhere, running around, either farming monsters or heading off to do so.

Seeing this,

Chen Mo fully accepted that the game had truly turned a profit.

But thankfully,

All these people were here to farm gear for resale—they weren’t playing for fun.

Once the gear buyers stopped buying, the game would likely slide back into losses.

So he couldn’t afford to make any more moves.

Chen Mo thought this to himself, then logged out of the game altogether.

Looking at the Tianlong game icon,

He ultimately chose to uninstall it.

Why keep playing? If he stayed in any longer, his 8 million might go up in smoke!

“President Chen, here’s your water.”

Shen Rou walked over with a glass and just happened to see Chen Mo uninstall the game.

She couldn’t help feeling a bit emotional.

She had occasionally seen President Chen playing games before and assumed he was just killing time and relaxing.

But after visiting Cangxue Games today, she realized—President Chen wasn’t playing games.

He was trying to turn a failing game into a profitable one.

And he succeeded.

Yet even with that success, he didn’t gloat.

He simply and calmly uninstalled the game.

Remain humble in victory, undaunted in defeat.

Just that alone—she couldn’t even compare.

Clearly, there were still many areas where she needed to grow.

Chen Mo casually accepted the glass Shen Rou handed him and took a sip.

“Huh?”

“This isn’t coffee—what did you make this time?”

He looked up at Shen Rou in confusion.

“President Chen, I didn’t make coffee. It’s cold medicine—it can help prevent colds.”

Shen Rou hurried to explain.

She had seen him sneeze earlier and worried he was catching a cold, so she prepared some cold remedy instead.

“Oh, thank you.”

Chen Mo smiled and expressed his gratitude. He didn’t feel sick, but since it was just for prevention, there was no harm in drinking it.

Looking at the few thousand yuan left in system funds, he finally relaxed.

Tianlong had been a close call.

Now, only the Business Department was giving him a bit of a headache. Those three newcomers had been landing more and more orders lately.

He needed to figure out a way to curb them.

Otherwise, if they kept landing ten-thousand or twenty-thousand yuan orders every few days—

Each one didn’t seem like much, but together, it could add up to quite a sum.

But what could he do?

He couldn’t outright forbid them from running operations—it’d be a violation of the rules.

Chen Mo fell deep into thought.

……

Industrial Park Office Building

In the park manager’s office,

Li Maode wore a troubled expression as he faced the middle-aged man before him.

“You said you’d rent for five years. That’s the only reason I gave you that discounted price. Now it’s only been two years and you want out—what do you expect me to do? That’s a massive space—you’ve at least got to give me time to find someone else to rent it.”

“Brother Li, you know the situation. It’s not that I want to leave—the factory’s been struggling for the past two years. That two-story, 1,000 square meter space costs 600,000 a year in rent!”

“But the factory isn’t even profitable anymore. Even if I wanted to stay, I couldn’t afford the rent!”

The middle-aged man had a miserable look on his face.

Two years ago, he was full of ambition and rented a nearly 2,000-square-meter space with dreams of expansion.

But with the economy slumping these past years,

the factory barely made money, and the rent became an unbearable burden.

He had no choice but to terminate the lease.

Li Maode looked at the man’s haggard face and let out a long sigh.

He’d been park manager for many years and had seen this sort of thing countless times.

This guy was still lucky—some business owners had lost everything, down to their underwear.

“Here’s what I can do,” Li Maode said, “I’ll charge you one more month’s rent. If I find a new tenant within the month, I’ll refund your entire deposit.”

“But if I can’t find one, I’ll only be able to give you part of it back.”

That was the best he could offer.

Technically, by contract, the deposit was non-refundable.

“Alright… I’ll leave it to you, then.”

The middle-aged man hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

……

Afternoon

Several large trucks slowly pulled up outside the workshop, their trailers stacked neatly with garment-making machines.

“Brother Jiang, you handle directing the team—have them unload the new machines into the workshop and move the old ones out. Get them lined up outside.”

“I already contacted a company to recycle the old machines. We can probably get around 100,000 yuan for them. But we’ll need President Chen’s approval.”

Li Shen hopped off the truck and spoke to Jiang Cheng.

“Got it. Leave this part to me.”

Jiang Cheng nodded and began directing a forklift driver to carefully unload the equipment.

……

Office

Li Shen knocked and stepped inside.

“All the equipment’s been acquired?”

Chen Mo looked up and asked.

Li Shen nodded, taking the seat across from him with Chen Mo’s gesture.

“Yes, President Chen. All the machines are accounted for. The floor scrubbers and network cables are also in place.”

“But there are two things I need to report.”

“What are they?”

Chen Mo looked up at him.

“Oh, the first is about the old machines we’re replacing…”