Hong Kong films: From street thugs to Hong Kong financial tycoons

Chapter 117 A Subtle and Silent Infiltration: The Electronic Virus in the Arcade

Hong Kong, late November.

After several consecutive autumn rains, the temperature finally dropped to a level where a light woolen coat was needed.

The sea breeze in Victoria Harbour no longer carries that unsettling heat and humidity, but instead carries a refreshing coolness that can clear your mind.

A full month has passed since that shocking ten-second silent pop-up ad that stunned the world.

Over the past month, the Pan-Asia Capital Alliance has been like a camel that has been drained of its blood, its massive body withering away at an unbelievable rate.

Those once arrogant traditional martial arts film directors now even try to hide their baseball caps under their noses when they go to a tea restaurant to eat a pineapple bun, for fear of being recognized and pointed at.

At the very heart of this storm, in Central, at the Yiu Shing Bank headquarters building, is the chairman's office on the top floor.

The central air conditioning quietly blew out warm air. Lin Yao did not sit in the large boss's chair that symbolized power, but instead half-reclined in the high-end custom-made leather sofa in front of the floor-to-ceiling window.

He held a thick copy of "Das Kapital" in his hand, and beside him was a glass of amber-colored Louis XIII wine. Chopin's Nocturne was slowly playing from the record player.

This extreme sense of relaxation stands in stark contrast to the restlessness and anxiety of the outside world, where people are fighting tooth and nail for resources.

"Knock knock knock".

There was a gentle knock on the solid wood double door of the office.

"Enter."

Lin Yao turned a page of the book without even looking up.

Chen Zheng pushed open the door and entered, carrying an extremely thick stack of documents.

His current aura has completely shed the naivety of his former underling; every gesture exudes the composure and authority of a steward of a multi-billion dollar business empire.

But in front of Lin Yao, he was still the executor who kept the lowest possible posture.

"Boss, this is the progress report on global channel distribution from last week."

Chen Zheng gently placed the document on the coffee table next to Lin Yao, his tone carrying a hint of barely suppressed excitement.

"As you instructed, we directly transferred one billion US dollars from our offshore accounts."

Chen Zheng swallowed hard. Whenever such astronomical figures were mentioned, his heart would still race.

"We didn't use this billion yuan for traditional newspaper or television advertising. Instead, we directly bought out all the core window display spaces at Toys "R" Us in North America, Walmart, and several major European supermarket chains during Christmas and Chinese New Year."

"Those prime locations that originally belonged to Transformers and Barbie dolls have all been snapped up by Yaosheng Capital with sheer money!"

Lin Yao picked up his wine glass and swirled it gently: "Those foreign capitalists just obediently gave up their positions like that?"

"Of course they're not happy about it."

Chen Zheng sneered and pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses.

"Hasbro and Mattel, those toy giants, initially tried to use industry barriers to strangle us. But we gave them way too much."

"We tripled their quote, and paid in full cash. In capitalist society, whoever pays the most is the boss. Their industry barriers are nothing compared to the green-clad Franklin."

"well done."

Lin Yao took a sip of the foreign liquor, the rich liquid flowing down his throat with a slightly burning pleasure.

"However, boss—"

Chen Zheng hesitated for a moment before pointing to a photograph of the scene in the document.

"We spent so much money to book the shop window, but according to your strict orders, all the goods we delivered were completely covered with black velvet."

"There was only an electronic countdown sign outside, showing how many days were left until the arrival of the Eastern myth."

Chen Zheng gave a wry smile: "Retailers across Europe and America are going crazy right now. They stare at those shop windows covered with black cloth every day, wondering what kind of medicine they're selling inside."

"Many curious children peer through the glass every day, and some media outlets have even speculated that we might be exhibiting some kind of alien specimen inside."

"Hahaha!"

Lin Yao put down his wine glass and couldn't help but laugh out loud. He closed the book in his hand and sat up straight.

"Old Chen, this is called scarcity marketing. We've already survived for more than half a year, so what's a couple more months?"

Lin Yao's eyes were deep, as if he could see through the weaknesses of human nature.

"If we put out those Erlang Shen figurines with cyberpunk martial arts bases and perfectly bionic joints before the movie is released, they would just be exquisitely crafted toys at best."

"Kids will just think, 'Wow, that's cool,' but they'll never develop that kind of fanatical belief that they absolutely have to buy it."

Lin Yao stood up, walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, and looked down at the bustling city.

"So, we have to wait."

"Wait until the first day of the Lunar New Year, until that two-hour-long GG movie that cost billions to produce completely shatters their worldview in the cinema."

"Wait until they develop a fanatical worship for those gods on screen who fly through the air and deliver brutal, realistic blows!"

"At that time, we'll tear down the black cloth covering those shop windows again."

Lin Yao suddenly turned around, opened his arms, like a dictator about to embrace the world.

"At that time, what they see will no longer be plastic toys, but the embodiment of their beliefs. They will frantically empty their parents' wallets and buy up all the stock in our factory!"

The rhythm, the strategy—every move was precisely aimed at the vital artery of business logic.

Chen Zheng got goosebumps all over. He finally understood that in his boss's eyes, selling movie tickets was just an extra bonus.

This vast network stretching to retail outlets worldwide is the real super sickle used to harvest global wealth!

"I understand, boss. I will have the security company send more people to watch those shop windows 24 hours a day. We will make sure that not a single word gets out before the first day of the Lunar New Year."

Chen Zheng nodded solemnly.

"Great, keep things stable on the retail side. Let's go, I'll take you somewhere."

Lin Yao straightened his loungewear and walked out of the office.

"Where to?"

"Go and inspect our other Trojan horse."

A mysterious smile appeared on Lin Yao's lips.

"Fake figurines alone won't empty those young people's pocket money; we need to find them something more exciting to have fun."

Ten minutes later, at the headquarters of Yao Sheng Bank, on the third basement level, in a top-secret security area.

This place was originally a bank's old vault. After more than half a year of renovation, it has now become Yaosheng Technology's core interactive entertainment R&D laboratory.

"Authentication successful."

Accompanied by a cold, electronic synthesized voice, the heavy alloy explosion-proof door slowly opened, and a unique pine scent mixed with the aroma of heated electronic components wafted out.

The laboratory is extremely spacious, with tangled cables and various testing instruments scattered everywhere.

Dozens of programmers and hardware engineers, dressed in white lab coats and with disheveled hair, were gathered around a row of machines in the center of the room.

They were having a heated discussion.

"Boss!"

Upon seeing Lin Yao enter, the lab's director, Lao Xu, a brilliant Chinese architect whom Lin Yao had poached from Silicon Valley for an exorbitant price, quickly came to greet him.

Old Xu had even darker dark circles under his eyes than Lu Qiu, but he was as energetic as if he had been injected with chicken blood.

"Old Xu, is it finished yet?"

Lin Yao, with his hands in his pockets, asked slowly.

"It's done, boss! It's an absolute groundbreaking masterpiece!"

Old Xu's voice trembled with excitement. He suddenly waved his hand to clear the view behind him.

Under the spotlights in the center of the venue, an arcade machine with an extremely exaggerated design and a heavy industrial cyberpunk style stood quietly.

It wasn't one of those cheap arcade machines from 1987, made of rough wooden planks nailed together and covered with cheap stickers.

Its outer shell is made of pure black brushed metal with sharp lines, making it look like a miniature space capsule.

The front display screen is even more outrageously equipped with an extremely expensive imported high-brightness flat-screen CRT.

On the control panel, the joystick is not made of plastic, but of aerospace-grade aluminum alloy with a cold luster, and the six buttons next to it use extremely high-end mechanical microswitches.

"Old Chen, go give it a try."

Lin Yao gestured with his lips.

Chen Zheng walked forward with a puzzled look on his face. Although he didn't play games much, he knew that the most popular games in arcades these days were games like Contra or Double Dragon, where the screen was full of large, blocky pixels.

What's so special about this machine?

Chen Zheng gripped the aluminum alloy joystick and felt it was extremely stable, even with a subtle damping sensation.

"Insert coin, press start."

Old Xu reminded him, and Chen Zheng pressed the Start button that was flashing red.

"A booming sound accompanied by a deep, thunderous roar emanating from the machine's internal subwoofer, and the previously black screen instantly lit up."

Without any pixelated mosaics or rough 2D textures, a ten-second-long, extremely smooth, high-definition CG opening animation appeared directly on the screen.

Erlang Shen Yang Jian, wielding a three-pointed double-edged sword, clashed fiercely with Nezha, the Third Prince, above the sea of ​​clouds. The sparks from the clash of weapons were so realistic that they almost seemed to leap off the screen.

"Holy crap?!"

Chen Zheng had never sworn in his life, but at this moment he completely lost his temper.

"Is this playing videotapes on an arcade machine?"

"Mr. Chen, this isn't a videotape; it's real-time rendered compressed sprite sheet technology!"

Old Xu proudly pushed up his glasses.

"The core motherboard of this arcade machine is equipped with a simplified version of our Loongson underlying system."

"We performed extremely rigorous frame-by-frame dimensionality reduction and compression on the high-poly model animation of Chinese martial arts rendered by 100,000 computers in the Dapu computing power farm."

"It was stuffed into a specially made read-only memory with a capacity of several tens of megabytes."

"Entering the character selection screen!"

The animation ended, and eight extremely realistic portraits of mythological figures appeared on the screen.

Chen Zheng's palms were sweating. He subconsciously turned the joystick and selected Erlang Shen Yang Jian as his opponent, while the system's default opponent was...

Lei Zhenzi.

"Fight!"

With a system notification sound full of pressure, the battle began, and Chen Zheng tentatively pressed the heavy punch button.

"Bang!"

On the screen, Erlang Shen didn't awkwardly move his fist like in traditional fighting games. Instead, he naturally lowered his shoulders and elbows, unleashing a perfect Bajiquan punch.

At the very instant that Erlang Shen punched Lei Zhenzi's defensive shield.

"Buzz!"

Chen Zheng's right hand, which was holding the joystick, suddenly felt a strong vibration feedback. It turned out that a miniature vibration motor was installed inside the joystick, which transmitted the recoil in real time according to the physical impact force shown on the screen.

"This...this feel..."

Chen Zheng was completely stunned. The visceral impact of each punch, the inertial sliding caused by the shift in the center of gravity when a character moved, felt just like controlling a living person.

"Absolutely amazing! Absolutely amazing!"

Chen Zheng frantically shook the joystick and pressed several combination keys in a row.

On the screen, Erlang Shen performed an extremely beautiful and physically sound somersault, dodging Lei Zhenzi's lightning strike. Then, in mid-air, he used his waist and abdomen to deliver a powerful and heavy blow, slamming down on Mount Hua.

"boom!"

The low-frequency speakers inside the entire arcade machine resonated, making Chen Zheng's trouser legs tremble.

"Great, that was awesome!"

After completing a combo, Chen Zheng's forehead was already covered in sweat, but he was as excited as a young man in his early twenties, staring intently at the victory display of Erlang Shen on the screen, unwilling to let go of the joystick.

"Boss, what kind of game is this? The graphics, the controls—compared to this, all those Japanese arcade games on the market are just a pile of electronic junk!"

Chen Zheng turned his head and looked at Lin Yao with eyes full of fervor.

Lin Yao stepped forward and gently patted the black metal frame.

"This is called 'Primordial Era: King of Fighters'."

"Japanese game companies, such as Capcom or SNK, make fighting games by having artists draw 2D pixel art one by one and imagine the impact of the attacks from scratch."

Lin Yao lit a cigarette and took a deep breath.

"But we are different. We don't rely on imagination. Every move in this machine is based on real martial arts masters from Dapu Farm, and their actual movements are based on real data."

"We simply took the essential data from our ancestors and used cyber technology, a technology that allows for dimensional reduction, to put it into this iron box."

"We didn't try to steal any vague martial arts patents, but through the absolute crushing of hardware and algorithms, we made it impossible for anyone who played this machine to tolerate those fake, plastic-like game feel again."

Lin Yao exhaled a puff of bluish-gray smoke, his gaze piercing through the smoke as if he could already see the terrifying scene of this machine sweeping across the globe.

"Old Chen, arrange for the factory to operate this arcade production line 24/7, regardless of cost."

Chen Zheng was taken aback: "Boss, this machine is so expensive to manufacture, how much should we sell it for? Arcade owners these days are very stingy; they might not be willing to buy a machine that costs tens of thousands of yuan."

"Sell?"

Lin Yao laughed, a laugh that carried a kind of madness that seemed to trample global business rules underfoot.

"Who said I was going to sell?"

"All machines are being given away for free!"

"Free?!"

Chen Zheng and Lao Xu exclaimed in surprise at the same time. The hardware cost of each of these machines alone was several thousand US dollars. Giving them away for free was simply burning money.

"Yes, free distribution."

Lin Yao's tone was very soft, but everyone present could feel the overwhelming sense of oppression.

"On the first day of the Lunar New Year, not only will the movie be released, but I want these arcade machines to appear in prominent positions in all arcades and large shopping malls throughout Hong Kong, Asia, and even North America at the same time."

"I'll give the machines to those bosses for free, but Yaosheng Technology will take 70% of the revenue from the players' coins, and it will be settled automatically through the Loongson network module built into the machine."

Lin Yao pointed at the black cyber monster.

"This machine is the Trojan horse I've planted in every corner of the world."

"After watching the movie, kids will be crazy about experiencing the thrill of being a god in the game, and once they put their first coin into this machine—"

"Every penny they have belongs to the Lin family."