Playing a Game and Achieving Financial Freedom

The business of gaming helmets is massive.

It involves numerous upstream and downstream industries.

Thus, aside from his own factory assembly lines churning out products, Cao Cheng also outsourced many components to third-party manufacturers.

Initially, the output and defect-free rate fell short of Young Master Cao's expectations.

However, after continuous improvements and accumulated experience, the manufacturers barely managed to produce parts that met his standards.

This boosted the production volume of gaming helmets.

Yet,

Young Master Cao still held pre-sales every ten days, releasing 500,000 units each time.

That amounted to 1.5 million units per month.

It might seem like a lot,

but it was far from overwhelming his production lines.

Especially since Young Master Cao had stockpiled a considerable inventory in advance.

The reason for this release strategy was that every lottery draw triggered a massive surge of emotional engagement.

Whether players won or lost, their emotions skyrocketed.

This went on for nearly two months.

Three million gaming helmets were snatched up instantly with each pre-sale.

By the end of two months, the 3,000 pre-sold gaming pods had also sold out.

Currently, the resale price of gaming helmets has stabilized at around 520,000, with minimal fluctuations.

In contrast, the price increase for gaming pods was far less dramatic.

After all, these weren’t something the average person could afford. With an official price tag of over five million, scalpers had only driven it up to just over seven million.

It might sound like a lot,

but compared to gaming helmets, the difference was staggering.

The official price of a gaming helmet was 28,800…

Now, after the price surge, it had increased by 1,700%!

Meanwhile, the gaming pod, despite rising by nearly two million, had only seen a maximum increase of 30% in value.

That was the gap.

And precisely because of this gap, most scalpers focused on hoarding helmets, with few bothering with the pods.

Gaming pods tied up capital and inventory while yielding lower profits than helmets.

Not to mention, helmets were easier to resell due to their relatively lower price.

This dynamic only fueled further price hikes for gaming helmets.

Some things just depend on whether there’s hype behind them.

……

Of course,

over these two months,

many players had already honed their skills.

On short-video platforms, countless users posted clips of themselves practicing swordsmanship, wielding blades, or twirling staffs—leaving those without helmets green with envy.

After all, most people weren’t wealthy, and even if they had connections, few could afford a scalped helmet priced at over 500,000.

All they could do was wait for official pre-sales, where the price was still under 30,000.

Additionally, many short-video creators rode the wave of this game’s popularity, gaining hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers overnight.

They livestreamed in-game content daily,

especially within Great Wuxia.

This Great Wuxia truly resembled an entirely new world.

And an overwhelmingly vast one at that.

No one knew exactly how many cities existed in this world.

Since many areas required gradual exploration without a system-provided map,

players’ knowledge was limited to the villages they spawned in and their immediate surroundings.

Even if they asked the village elders, few knew much about distant cities.

At best, they might have heard of the nearest small town.

This was incredibly frustrating.

Moreover, NPCs seemed to possess their own emotions—just because you asked someone a question didn’t mean they’d answer truthfully.

Some NPCs even deceived players, swindling money or even lives.

This clever design left many players utterly disheartened.

……

After two months of exploration,

players compared notes in the real world and realized they had spawned in entirely different locations.

Only a handful shared the same starting village.

Considering there were millions of players,

the sheer scale of this world became evident.

Furthermore,

the dynasties players found themselves in varied—some in the prosperous Song, others under the tyrannical Yuan, or the impoverished Ming.

There was also the lofty Tang…

and the war-torn Sui.

That’s right.

The game’s world was built around historical dynasties as its backdrop.

At first, it felt strange, almost like everyone was playing a single-player game, completely isolated—especially early on when few players shared the same village, reinforcing the solo experience.

But eventually, someone made a discovery…

“No, no!”

“This isn’t single-player, folks! It’s a massive historical mashup—all these dynasties mashed together. Today, I…”

A content creator named Hu Lai posted a video that finally made everything click.

He had encountered an official, passed a minor test through sheer luck, and earned a chance to apprentice under a master.

After days of effort—bringing homemade beggar’s chicken and hand-brewed glutinous rice wine—

he finally extracted some answers.

This world was divided into Nine Provinces.

Each province seemed to host its own independent dynasty.

For example, Sui bordered Tang.

Though they appeared adjacent, they were locked in perpetual conflict. Yet the territories were so vast, and populations so enormous,

that each province housed hundreds of millions.

In other words, a single dynasty governed populations in the hundreds of millions—far larger than their historical counterparts.

With nine dynasties crammed together, players could spawn in any of them.

Thus,

across the Nine Provinces, the total population reached billions—surpassing even the most populous nations on Earth.

In fact, it exceeded the entire global population.

That’s how massive the game’s map was.

This also explained why, even with millions of players, it was rare to encounter someone from the same starting village.

“I was so confused—if it’s single-player, how come some people share villages and can interact? You can even add friends if you know their ID. Clearly not single-player. Now I get it… the map’s just too damn big.”

“Holy crap, it’s that huge? That’s insane. Yesterday, I asked my village chief where the imperial capital was, and guess what? He had no clue! Just a vague direction, no idea how far…”

“Damn, what a masterpiece.”

“My cousin was in the first wave of players. He’s now running a small general store in Chang’an, the Tang capital. Says he’s pulling in around a guan a day—that’s over a thousand copper coins in pure profit.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“That’s insane! A general store makes that much?”

“One copper coin equals one yuan, so he’s earning a thousand yuan daily just by playing?”

“I need to find a city and open a store too.”

“Pfft, you guys are such cowards. It’s just a game—you can’t even die. Be bold! My crew leader’s a ‘gentleman of the night’—robbing the rich to help the poor. Wanna know his best haul? Over ten taels of gold in one night.”

“……”

“……”

“Ten taels of gold? I haven’t even seen gold! But based on exchange rates in my local town, that’s like 10,000 copper coins.”

“Ten grand a day? That’s terrifying.”

“People are achieving financial freedom just by gaming?”