Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 300: 298: This Counts as a Work Injury!

Translator: 549690339

As a part-time paparazzo, Deng Xin didn’t have much fame or experience.

But that didn’t stop him from realizing that he had just taken some of the most valuable photos of his career.

At the same time, for the first time in his career, he had taken photos that might be a bit too hot to handle.

Delete them and pretend they were never taken?

No way!

But how to proceed was a problem.

There are laws in Daxia that protect the image of the royal family, but they mainly prohibit the spreading of rumors and defamation of royal family members.

But even if they weren’t royal family members, ordinary Daxia residents should not be defamed either!

The special treatment for the royal family is just that the fines for them are a bit higher than for ordinary people.

— Of course, that’s assuming there were no particularly negative social impacts.

Besides, this is not a rumor at all. The photos were almost conclusive evidence, okay?!

Deng Xin reasoned, “There’s no law that says you can’t take pictures of the royal family members.”

It just doesn’t make sense.

Even if I were a passerby and saw the celebrity An Rongyi, can’t I take a picture?

The princess accidentally appeared in the shot, that was just a coincidence!

A rew montns ago, didn’t someone take a pnoto or Lincoln at a reumon party where he scolded NetDragon, and the princess happened to appear in the shot?

And nothing happened to them!

After mentally preparing himself, he began contacting the media to sell the photos and make a quick buck.

He had no concerns about not being able to sell the photos—the long-lost singer An Rongyi!

Who could resist?

As for the gathering of the princess and An Rongyi, the best case was it could become breaking news and make a lot of money.

In the worst case, big media outlets would have some unwritten rules he did not know of and would not want to report on the princess’ news.

Then he would only be able to sell to medium and small media outlets, and the earnings would decrease significantly.

But either way, it would definitely be the biggest payday he had ever received as a paparazzo!

“Super scoop: Singer An Rongyi and a very important figure secretly meet in the middle of the night, with photos and videos, name your price!”

Undercurrents brewing, the dawn of the second day arrived.

Shuihua got up earlier than usual.

Last night during the live stream, Pay-To-Win Lord Wind Chaser promised to send out the rewards overnight without sleeping, winning yet another wave of goodwill from the players.

So Shuihua logged into the virtual world early in the morning to cash in on the invitation, lest it lose its value over time.

When Shuihua opened her mailbox, she found two emails lying there.

One was naturally from Wind Chaser, titled “Lottery Prize” and had no content…

The other one was from—I Bowl Bowl].

In the attachment, there was an invitation as well.

Vivian had returned the invitation Shuihua had given her.

Vivian’s email had a lot more content:

[Shuihua sister:

Thank you for your encouragement. I talked to my mom about it.

Mom said not to worry about grades, and that it’s okay to be left behind for a year.

But I still want to keep up with my classmates, so I’m going to study hard and not play games much in the future.

I’ll play with you when my grades improve! Thank you, sister, and don’t play games all day either—keep fighting for the college entrance examination!

Also, my mom said that the gift you gave me is very, very expensive and asked me to return it to you.]

Shuihua looked at Vivian’s letter and fell silent for a moment.

Through this simple letter, she felt the admirable character of Vivian’s mother.

However, saying things like “don’t play games all day, fight for the college entrance exam” must have been taught by Vivian’s mom!

Vivian was only in third grade, what kind of concept could she have about the college entrance exam?!

It must be her mom’s doing!

Shuihua stubbornly shook her head, ‘You make a good point, but I want to play games.”

After saying that, she sent both invitations to Lance, and added, “Don’t say your sister doesn’t take you along to get rich, hurry up and sell them! One of them is your reward!”

After finishing all this. Shilihna finallv logged off to have breakfast-

After having breakfast and arriving at the school, finishing the morning self-study, and the end of the first class, Lincoln rubbed his sleepy eyes and crawled out of bed.

The reason for daring to get up so late was naturally because he didn’t have to go to work today.

Last night after coming back, he worked overtime to build the first Game Cabin prototype.

However, this thing was different from the previous headband, and Lincoln dared not just lie down and test it…

Both the Mirage and the focus headband caught neural signals and only fed back information after successful matching.

As long as they could efficiently capture signals and successfully match, it already meant there was no problem with the equipment.

The whole process was very safe.

But the Game Cabin was different.

It was created based on bioelectric muscle stimulation technology, and once inside, it needed electricity to function!

Although the power could not be high enough to electrocute or incapacitate someone, it was not a level that was hardly harmful to humans like microcurrents.

This device needed continuous muscle stimulation.

In a way, testing this thing could be linked to human experimentation.

In the end, Lincoln had no choice but to send a message to Lorin for help after a long hiatus.

Then there was another round of explanations.

As a result, Lincoln didn’t have to work the next day. Feeling heavy-hearted, he sent a notice in the studio group chat. Then cheerfully, he told Mavis that he was going to sleep in.

He stretched lazily, got up, and washed up.

As Mavis was also brushing her teeth and washing her face, she changed the “morning briefing” time to when Lincoln was eating.

Of course, if something important happened, Mavis wouldn’t stick to the rules.

Like now, while she was brushing her teeth, Mavis’s eyes suddenly widened. She quickly brushed her teeth a couple of times, rinsed her mouth and wiped her face with agility. It took her less than five seconds to finish the whole process.

She then turned to Lincoln, “Master, one of our important employees is on the hot search list!”

“Employee?” Lincoln was surprised, spat out the foam in his mouth quickly, and without even rinsing, he hurriedly asked, “Fred got caught in an anti-vice operation?”

“Huh?” Mavis first widened her eyes in surprise, then suddenly grinned mischievously.

Laughing, she said, “Nope! It’s intern Camille! By the way, master, I recorded you talking bad about Fred!”

“Princess?” Lincoln didn’t care about Mavis grasping his handle, asking about the really important issue, “What happened?”

Mavis didn’t linger, giggled, and directly showed a Spiritual Rhinoceros post:

‘Bombshell! Singer An Rongyi has a secret meeting with Princess Victoria, suspected of paving the way for the princess to enter the entertainment industry…’

There were more words behind it, but Lincoln only glanced at them briefly and didn’t bother to read them, as they were pure nonsense.

He then clicked on the photos and gifs below. The person taking the photo was at a distance and did not use professional equipment. The dim lights outside the cafe were not bright either, resulting in the photos not being very clear. However, with the clear answer in mind, it was not difficult to recognize who the person in the lens was.

This post was released precisely at 8:30. It had been only over 20 minutes, and it rocketed straight to the hot searches list, with its popularity off the charts!

What’s more, the comment section had exploded. There were only more than 3,000 likes, but the number of comments exceeded 180,000!

Netizens’ opinions were divided. Some firmly disbelieved it:

“Fake! It’s all fake!”

“Nonsense! Absolute nonsense! Impossible!”

“Is it possible that they simply know each other and have some private ties?”

“Princess has never shown any inclination to enter the entertainment industry and has always avoided appearing in non-public places, as you all know!”

“Do not believe in rumors, do not spread them! By the way, here’s a hot piece of knowledge: spreading rumors will get you in jail!”

Some were skeptical:

“I don’t believe it emotionally, but I’m skeptical rationally.”

“There should be a statement coming out soon, right? Let’s wait for the official news.”

“Princess will graduate in a year, maybe she’s just curious and wants to know more?”

Some even wished it was true:

“Double kitchen fans rejoice!”

“Princess, An Rongyi, my two favorites actually met privately! I love this wonderful world!”

“If the princess really enters the entertainment industry, wouldn’t it be a good thing? That way, we can see her more often!”

“The entertainment industry is not a good place, right? I strongly appeal for the amendment of the relevant royal family restrictions, allowing the princess to enter the entertainment industry with the protection of her royal identity!” “I am in full support with both hands and feet!”

The more the comment section argued, the more intense it got. It was like a fight was about to break out.

Lincoln glanced at it a few times and then closed the comment section.

Because the argument among the netizens was actually not important at all.

Such a matter was not difficult to solve, as long as they revealed their real relationship and let the netizens know that An Rongyi had taught the princess to sing.

What Lincoln was thinking about was: this kind of random speculation and even slander based on a single photo was extremely malicious.

—The insinuation of a secret meeting, paving the way, and the long string of baseless, flawed “speculations” behind it were simply leading netizens to think about the abuse of royal power for personal gain.

The reason was simple, mostly not out of malice, but simply because — writing it this way generated more buzz.

Take a look at the heated quarrel in the comment section, and their goal had obviously been achieved.

The more serious issue was that the topic had made it to the hot search list, and countless media outlets that only chased traffic were joining in, making the impact spread rapidly.

It must be dealt with promptly.

The princess had asked for An Rongyi’s help to hold a concert in the game as a Cloud Dream intern.

This ought to be considered a work-related injury!

“1.2 million followers, ‘Star News’, right? It doesn’t sound like a serious media outlet.”

“Alright!” Mavis didn’t need Lincoln’s order, updating the blacklist, preserving evidence, and calculating the indirect social impact they caused with agility.

Although Princess had her own legal team, Mavis could retain more accurate evidence and help fine them more severely.

At the same time, Lincoln remembered something else: the “counter-attack technology” he had left behind in his mind earlier.

This technology was designed specifically to counter Al. It was a technology that could only deceive Al, but absolutely not humans.

With counter-attack technology in place, sometimes a single pixel change would make a pig be recognized as a large airplane by Al.

Nowadays, not only mobile phones but most cameras also have built-in intelligent focus systems. In the face of advanced counter-attack technology, they are all lost.

If the princess wore clothes processed with this technology, the phone shooting would not be able to recognize it and would not have focus.

Then it might not be possible to see the princess in the photo and avoid these troubles in the first place.

However, Lincoln hesitated a bit. This technology was different from the uprising counter- attack technology on the market.

Civilian counter-attack technology mostly focuses on image processing and misleading Al, and attacks on the physical world are still in the exploration stage.

But his technology was already quite mature, and its casual release would cause massive destruction.

However, the princess’s identity was naturally unsuitable for confidential work.

Sending it out meant that the countdown to exposure had begun.

Once exposed, Fred would most likely come to him again for help and ask him to do this and that.

He didn’t have time for that, did he?