Chapter 618 - Trip of Death to East Africa

Huang Sibo sighed. “Alright, Boss Pei. I’ll pack for the journey when I get back.”

All of a sudden, Pei Qian noticed a problem. “Hold on.”

Huang Sibo could not help but feel surprised. “Eh? Boss Pei, have you changed your mind?”

Pei Qian shook his head. “No. You still must go, but I should send someone to accompany you on the journey. Of course, the company will pay for all of your expenses, and you will be paid your salary!”

Pei Qian thought, when one person went overseas, he would only be able to spend one person’s share of the money.

However, if two went, he would be able to spend double, wouldn’t he?

Before this, Li Yada and Bao Xu were able to go overseas together without the Systems stopping them. There was a bigger avenue for spending money now. Although it wasn’t big, Pei Qian would never give it up!

The System didn’t stop him anyway. All those who were placed second for the Best Employee Award would now get to go on a trip as well, and they would be forced to bring a partner. That would allow Pei Qian to deal with two people at once and experience double the happiness.

Wasn’t that great?

Huang Sibo was stunned. “Send someone to accompany me on the journey?”

Pei Qian smiled and nodded. “That’s right. For example, you could choose Zhu Xiaoce.”

That would ensure that the quality of the Sloth Apartments’ advertisement would drop significantly. Wouldn’t I be safe, then?

Huang Sibo became conflicted.

He definitely couldn’t choose Zhu Xiaoce because the advertisement wasn’t done. They wouldn’t be able to shoulder the responsibility for delaying Boss Pei’s plan for the Sloth Apartments!

Still, Huang Sibo felt too embarrassed to ask anyone else to go with him. They all had work to do!

All of Huang Sibo’s friends in Tengda Corporation were now people in charge of their own departments. All of them had important matters to tend to. If they went on a holiday with him, they would have to make arrangements for their work in advance. That would be very troublesome.

It didn’t seem like a good idea to disrupt anyone’s work. Putting himself in others’ shoes, Huang Sibo decided not to cause anyone any trouble.

This problem wouldn’t arise for ordinary employees, but Huang Sibo was not that close to them. It did not seem appropriate to invite them on a trip with him.

What’s more, some might feel unhappy if he invited an ordinary employee along. On what basis could that person go on a paid holiday without achieving any results? It wouldn’t be fair!

Thus, he had to look for someone like that:

A good friend who was quite close to him…

Someone who wasn’t in charge of his own department nor anything too important…

Someone with a certain level of skill, so that nobody would find it unfair that he’s going on a paid holiday…

That would be the perfect solution.

Huang Sibo immediately scanned his surroundings. All of a sudden, his eyes lit up. He had found someone who matched the criteria perfectly!

“Brother Bao! Do you want to go on the trip with me?” Huang Sibo sincerely extended the invitation to him.

Everyone turned to look at Bao Xu.

Bao Xu’s head was lowered as he intensely played games on his mobile phone. It was only when he felt the gazes piercing into his skin that Bao Xu looked up at everyone else in confusion.

“What’s the matter?”

When Bao Xu saw the selection end and that all three winners had no relation to the games department, he completely relaxed. He didn’t plan to watch the prize presentation. Instead, he happily played on his cell phone.

At that moment, everyone was looking straight at him, causing an ominous feeling to rise up in his gut.

Huang Sibo earnestly repeated himself.

“What… did you say?” Bao Xu was in utter disbelief.

Huang Sibo smiled. “Brother Bao, come and play with me. You’re not in charge of anything serious anyway, and you’re very familiar with your work. I think you’re the best candidate!

“We’re also good friends who haven’t caught up with each other in a while. Let’s take this chance to have a good chat! How about this? To express my sincerity, I’ll let you set the itinerary! I’ll follow wherever you go, and I won’t complain no matter how tiring it is!”

Bao Xu’s expression turned from confusion to shock and then from shock to helplessness.

Still, there was a hint of hope in the helplessness, which came from Boss Pei. Only Boss Pei could save him now.

Bao Xu quickly made his plea. “Boss Pei! This time is different from Li Yada’s! Huang Sibo absolutely can travel on his own. I don’t have to follow him!”

Pei Qian patted Bao Xu’s shoulder sympathetically. “I know. However, Huang Sibo’s choice is completely legitimate. I can’t say anything about it.”

Pei Qian was comforting Bao Xu on the surface, but his expression clearly said: ‘you can’t blame me now because it has nothing to do with me. Huang Sibo was the one who chose you by name!’

Everyone applauded to celebrate.

Indeed, a Best Employee Selection ceremony where Brother Bao did not have to go overseas would be incomplete! They had felt like something was missing before, but the gap was filled now! For some reason, they all felt complete!

Bao Xu remained silent for a long time. With his expression somber, he said, “Boss Pei, I want to go to the Great Rift Valley, Sahara Desert, and Mount Kilimanjaro in East Africa this time!”

Pei Qian was elated. “Of course!”

You actually chose those places on your own? That’s awesome! That’s exactly what I was thinking!

Huang Sibo’s smile froze on his face as question marks filled his mind.

?

The Great Rift Valley, the Sahara Desert, and Mount Kilimanjaro? Are those places where normal people would go to have fun? Why would Bao Xu want to go and play there?

Bao Xu sniggered.

Brother Huang, we may be good friends, but you’ve done me in this time so don’t blame me for hitting back! If you start this off, what kind of culture would you be creating?

What if everyone who places second for Best Employee picks me to accompany them from now on? Wouldn’t I perish?

I can only punish you to display my prowess!

Anyone who dares to ask me, Bao Xu, to go with them on a trip had better be prepared to be tortured at the Great Rift Valley, the Sahara Desert, and Mount Kilimanjaro in East Africa!

As the saying went, he had to nip the problem in the bud. Although Bao Xu did not really want to go to those places, he had to endure it for a month so he wouldn’t suffer in the future!

…

…

August 16th, Tuesday…

In the afternoon, the team members gathered for a meal. As they ate, they discussed recent developments. The ZZ Cup Performance Competition had been going on for three days. Both teams had already won a total of six hundred thousand yuan.

They couldn’t help it because they had prepared too many tricks. The audience was completely won over, and they were winning all the points in the competition.

Both teams had won the maximum rewards, so that they did not have to endure extra training over the past few days.

After splitting the prizes with the club, the teams took three hundred thousand yuan. In other words, each member had won ten thousand yuan for every day of the competition.

They were earning at an exciting rate! They had to continue the show this afternoon, and none of them could wait any longer.

As Huang Wang watched the news, his eyes lit up. “Everyone, share this news piece in your chat groups. GOG’s international servers have made big moves!”

Everyone immediately clicked the link that Huang Wang had shared to get more details. When they were done, they all sucked in a deep breath.

That was a major move by Boss Pei!

An entire street in Times Square was featuring GOG’s advertisements. At a certain time each day, all the screens would display GOG’s poster. It was very awe-inspiring!

The advertising screens in Times Square worked on a rotation basis. Each advertisement would be displayed for a few seconds at a time. Ye Zhizhou had purposely chosen the same interval for every screen, so that GOG’s posters would all appear at the same time at regular intervals, thus creating an impressive scene.

GOG’s mobile version was being aggressively pushed in the overseas mobile application stores. Since IOI didn’t have a mobile version, GOG was unstoppable in dominating the market.

GOG’s advertisements could also be seen on major video websites overseas. They were in subway stations, bus stations, and stop signs.

The craziest thing was that GOG had even sponsored all the veteran esports clubs overseas, so that they were all wearing GOG’s logo on their uniforms!

The clubs that had set up IOI teams were placed in an awkward position. Each time their teams streamed live, they would be running advertisements for GOG through their uniforms; thus creating a very illusive entertainment effect.

All the advertising material had constructed a singular image for GOG: Multifaceted Man, a new hero!

That had taken the world by storm some twenty years ago, but it had slowly disappeared from most people’s sights and minds. When it appeared again on such a large-scale, many foreign gamers exclaimed in surprise and felt so close to GOG.

At the same time, GOG sold its heroes’ skins for a very low price overseas, putting it in stark contrast with IOI.

There was another piece of huge news. A global invitational competition would take place next month. One could say that it would be the biggest competition GOG would organize this year, and the championship prize would be a million US dollars!

Of course, other teams would win prizes based on their ranking as well, but they wouldn’t win that much.

The officials promised to sell some skins especially for the competition in the weeks leading up to it. All the income earned within three months of the competition would be re-invested into the competition to supplement the prizes!

That figure would surpass the boundaries that any esports competition had put in place thus far.

There were rumors that Finger Games was considering organizing a global competition as well, but the total value of its prizes would only add up to a hundred thousand US dollars. That was one-tenth that of GOG’s.

Of course, Finger Games had not responded to any of the rumors. It was still unknown when and where IOI’s first global competition would be and how much the total value of its prizes would be.

Huang Wang exclaimed, “I feel like GOG is going to spread to the rest of the world soon. A million US dollars! It’ll be streamed around the globe, too. I really want to take part in it.”

No one said anything in response because everyone wanted to go as well.

Which esports athlete wouldn’t want to stand on the world stage and enjoy the moment when they held up their championship trophy?

Yet, everyone knew full well that the DGE Club had conflicting interests and would not be allowed to take part. Those were the rules.

Old Zhou comforted him. “Don’t think about it anymore. Boss Pei must have another plan for us. We should just focus on training.”

Huang Wang sounded sorrowful. “But Boss Pei has not visited us in a long time, and he’s so busy. Could he have forgotten about our club…?”

The moment Huang Wang finished speaking, they heard footsteps coming from outside.

Zhang Yuan turned around and shouted in surprise. “Boss Pei? What are you doing here?”

The team members turned at once. Indeed, it was Boss Pei!

Pei Qian smiled. “I heard that you’re taking part in a competition on live-stream, and so I came to take a look.”

More accurately put, he was there to check how deep their knives were in his back. He had to prepare to defend himself. However, Boss Pei’s words carried a whole other meaning to the team members.

“Boss Pei hasn’t forgotten about us. He still cares about our situation!”

“He even made time to watch our competition despite his busy schedule!”

“We have to put on a good show for Boss Pei during the Performance Competition in the afternoon!”

All the team members were filled with renewed motivation!