Finally, Suho leaned forward, voice dangerously calm:

"Tell me. What's going on with Horny Princess Online?"

Fen Su exhaled loudly, relief flooding his face. "Ah! So you do know."

Zhao Wenbo shot him a look like, Shut up, idiot.

Fen Su pressed on anyway. "We were going to notify you once the player numbers stabilized. Y'know, surprise you with good news."

Suho's eyebrow twitched. Surprise me? On settlement day? Are you people trying to kill me?

He leaned back in his chair, giving Fen Su a look that could sour milk. "Last I checked, I didn't authorize any 'update' or 'reform.'"

Fen Su straightened his back like a soldier. "Mr. Kim, when you left in silence last time, that was the instruction."

Suho blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Yes," Fen Su said with deep sincerity. "Your silence was profound. It meant, "Don't ask me for direction." Find it yourself. And we did!"

Suho pinched the bridge of his nose. Fantastic. Now silence means leadership. I'm basically a Zen master against my will.

Fen Su, oblivious, kept talking. "You'd already guided us once—remember the equipment drop rates? You lured in the rich whales and tricked them into hiring studios. Brilliant. All we did was follow the trail of your genius!"

Suho almost choked. Genius? That was an accident. I was trying to tank the thing, not save it.

Still, Fen Su looked proud enough to put the speech on his LinkedIn.

Suho turned his gaze to Jin Wu. The man smiled serenely, hands folded. Of course. The quiet one, the snake in the grass.

"And the reforms," Suho asked icily, "who pushed them?"

Fen Su rattled off without hesitation. Director Jin suggested adjusting drop rates. Zhao Wenbo pitched the new classes and world boss. I just… oiled the gears."

Suho's brain stalled. Wait. Zhao Wenbo? That yawn-on-legs kid? He's dangerous now? Great, I'm raising villains in my own basement.

For a long beat, Suho just stared at Zhao Wenbo. The kid shuffled awkwardly, smiling like he'd been caught shoplifting gum.

And then Jin Wu finally spoke, smooth as butter:

"Mr. Kim, let's not overlook the true heroes. Every employee worked overtime at home for weeks. No weekends, no rest. All to revive Horny Princess."

Suho's mouth twitched. "...They what?"

"Oh yes," Jin Wu said warmly. "Voluntary overtime. Passionate. Inspired."

"Behind my back."

"Yes."

Suho let the silence hang. The three men shifted nervously under his stare. Finally, he snapped, "How many times have I said no overtime?"

Fen Su practically tripped over his words. "They—they volunteered! We didn't force them."

Suho jabbed a finger in the air. "You knew. You let it happen. That's the problem."

They all froze like kids caught stealing cookies.

Suho sighed. "Fine. Calculate every hour, and pay them double overtime. But let's be clear—this is not encouragement. This is compensation. Got it?"

The trio nodded furiously.

Inside, Suho groaned. Great. Not only are they sabotaging me by succeeding, but I'm now paying them to do it.

Fen Su perked up again. "Actually, Mr. Kim, there's even better news—revenue jumped in the last two days. The game's brought in… over 200,000 dollars."

Suho blinked. Slowly leaned back in his chair. Then let out a noise halfway between a laugh and a death rattle. "...How much?"

"Two hundred thousand," Fen Su said proudly, like he'd just announced his kid graduated from Harvard.

Suho stared at the ceiling like maybe God would explain why his punishment in life was success.

Perfect. Absolutely perfect. The one game I needed to fail has turned into a cash cow with a sword fetish.

The system dinged in his head:

[The game is already profitable. Shutdown unavailable unless losses continue for three months.]

Suho closed his eyes. "I should've just let you idiots kill it months ago."

But he had a fallback. Fine. If I can't shut it down, I'll outspend it. Expansion. Factory growth. Deposits. Burn it all.

He stood, straightened his suit, and gave them all a forced, dead-eyed smile. "Good work. Keep it up."

As soon as he left, Fen Su whispered reverently, "Did you see that? His smile! We did good!"

Zhao Wenbo frowned. "That looked more like despair."

Jin Wu smirked at the imaginary camera like Jim Halpert: "Yeah. And it was beautiful."

Kim Suho leaned back in his office chair like a man trying to decide whether to cry, laugh, or stage a coup against fate.

The system's cold prompt still lingered in his head: profits from the game account count as system funds. No loopholes, no wiggle room, no accidental tax dodge.

"Of course," Suho muttered, staring at the ceiling like it had personally betrayed him. "Of course this dog system thought of everything. Can't even sneak a penny under the rug."

Shen Rou peeked over the edge of the desk, worried. "Mr. Kim?"

"Nothing," he said too quickly, waving her off. His smile was thin and brittle. "Just thinking about… cucumbers."

Meanwhile, Fen Su and his two lieutenants stood nervously across from him like kids waiting for their teacher to grade an essay. The tension could've snapped a mop in half.

"From now on," Suho finally said, his voice cool, "profits are reported to me every day. Every. Day."

Fen Su nodded so fast his neck cracked. "Of course, Mr. Kim!" He thought Suho was just being diligent. The truth—that Suho was desperately trying to spend money faster than his company earned it—would've made his head explode.

Suho pushed himself out of the chair, strolled over, and patted Fen Su's shoulder. The gesture looked supportive, but the subtext screamed, "Screw this up and I will set the office plants on fire."

"You run the new project alone," Suho added. "Nobody else touches it. No advisors, no 'helpful' suggestions. You use your first draft exactly as it is."

"Understood," Fen Su said, chest swelling with misplaced pride.

Suho turned and swept out of the office, Shen Rou following dutifully. He thought, grimly, I trust Fen Su. His track record for losing money is immaculate. Foolproof. The Picasso of financial sinkholes.

Out in the parking lot, Son Choku had the van ready. Suho stared at the clock. Three p.m. Shen Rou tilted her head. "Back to the Steel Cup T-Shirt Factory?"

"It's after work," Suho deadpanned.

"…It's three," she said gently.

"Exactly," Suho replied, and got into the van.

On the ride, he sighed like a man carrying the weight of ten thousand dollars in unwanted profit. Expanding the workshop—that was the only way. Bigger space, more machines, more workers. A glorious bonfire of money.

But he remembered the sales team. Wu Yu and Cai Jing—too good, too consistent. They were ticking time bombs of productivity. If they came back from training before the system settlement, they could ruin everything.

"No," Suho whispered to himself. "Better to… extend their training. Let them stay in exile."

He dialed Lee Wonho. The man answered like a dog hearing the can opener. "Mr. Kim! Orders?"

"Yeah. Contact the machine tool factory. Tell them twenty days isn't enough. Programming automated machines requires finesse. Extend the training."

Wonho hesitated. "They'll probably refuse. That's their set program."

"Tell them we'll pay extra. Make them name a price," Suho said, his voice casual, like bribing machine trainers was just Tuesday.

An hour later, the callback came. "They'll do it. One hundred dollars per person, per day."

"Done," Suho said instantly. "Add ten more days."

He hung up, grinning at the math. Ten people × ten days × $100 = $10,000. Peanuts compared to his grand plan, but still: money out, peace of mind in.

Meanwhile, in the machine tool factory dorms, Wu Yu sneezed so violently he startled the guy on the top bunk.

"Are you okay, Brother Yu? You caught a cold?"

Wu Yu rubbed his nose, stuffed tissues into the overflowing wastebasket, and waved it off. "It's fine. The dorm leaks when it rains. Probably the draft."

He flopped back on his bunk. He didn't know Suho had just extended his training sentence. He thought he had four days left until freedom. Instead, he was about to learn what it felt like to serve a ten-day sentence in vocational purgatory.

Wu Yu closed his eyes and muttered to himself: "When I get back… I'm going to run more business than anyone. Just watch me."

Somewhere, Suho sneezed again.

"God help me," Suho groaned, "the universe is allergic to my happiness."

The recharge confirmation window popped up with a little chime that sounded way too cheerful for a hundred-thousand-dollar purchase.

Du Ziteng didn't even flinch. He tapped "confirm" the way most people would order fries.

His screen flickered, a digital fortune raining down in gold confetti. His avatar, Teng Wang, was instantly decked out like he'd just robbed a fantasy Vegas casino.

In guild chat, the Lingyan Pavilion members lost their collective minds.

"Prince Teng dropped a hundred grand just now. Hundred. Grand."

"Bruh, my mom would ground me for spending ten dollars."

"Forget grounding you—my mom would sell me for less than that."

Du Ziteng typed only two words: "Status restored."

Back in his suite, he leaned back in his chair, sipping wine like he'd just bought a new continent. For him, the spending wasn't extravagance—it was a declaration of war.

Meanwhile, Wu Yu and his dormmates were still waging their own war against drafty windows and cafeteria soup that tasted like wet socks.

The guy on the top bunk threw his blanket over his head. "I can't believe my mom cried when I told her I was 'training at a big company.' If she saw this place, she'd cry for real."

Wu Yu sniffled. His tissue box was almost empty. "At least your mom thinks you're doing something important. Mine just said, 'Don't embarrass us, and don't catch a cold.' Too late for both."

The youngest trainee raised his phone again, showing off another video from Steel Cup. This time it was footage of braised pork, glistening like a TV commercial. "They sent me this during dinner. They even zoomed in. I swear they're bullying us."

Wu Yu put his head in his hands. "I used to think missing home was about family. Now I realize… it's about air conditioning."

The room groaned in agreement.

Across town, Jiang Jiu's tiny rental apartment was chaos: noodles everywhere, empty soda cans stacked like a modern art piece, and his computer fan screaming for mercy.

"Left rotation! Left rotation!" he barked into the mic. His guildmates scrambled on-screen as the Black-Armored Turtle stomped and roared.

"Huzi, if you can't switch aggro right now, I swear I'll—" He stopped himself, coughing. "Okay, good job, you actually did it. Miracles do happen."

When the final blow landed, the world announcement flashed across the screen again. This time, Jiang Jiu didn't even smile. He was too busy barking at his squad like a caffeine-fueled drill sergeant.

"Loot distribution in five seconds, people. And no crying this time. Brother Hao doesn't want to hear it."

Back in his presidential suite, Du Ziteng was scrolling the power rankings again.

"Xue Luo, huh?" he muttered, staring at the name sitting in first place. "Full dragon-slayer set already? Either you're my old rival in disguise, or you're new blood with too much luck. Either way… I'm coming for you."

His reflection in the dark screen looked back at him, smug as ever.

"Lingyan Pavilion rises again. Write it down."

He stretched, cracked his knuckles, and smirked. "And if anyone doubts me? Well…" He clicked the recharge button again. "Let's see if they can outspend me."

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