YA Ch25: The Eyes

Seeing Lu Yu’s stance, it didn’t look like just gouging eyes, more like going to smash the place.

Yang Chen hurriedly tried to dissuade him, “It’s not necessary. We’re civilized people.”

“It is necessary,” Lu Yu instructed the PR department to make emergency preparations, called Xiao Jiang to go with him, and then shook the hand he was holding. He said to Ming Yan, “You’d better not come, to avoid getting hurt. I’ll be back soon.”

The others wanted to persuade more, but Ming Yan thoughtfully looked at him. “You want to make a scene and use it for publicity?”

Lu Yu immediately grinned. “Exactly. They bought trending ads today to provoke me, so they should be prepared for me to use this to promote myself.”

Plagiarism, power outages, gouging eyes—what great news hooks, enough to dominate trending topics for a few days before the live stream.

He needed money now, so he had to take advantage of every money-saving opportunity.

“But won’t such publicity damage our company’s image?” The advertising director was somewhat conflicted.

“It won’t, it will only affect Lu Yu’s personal image,” Analyst Lin quickly made a model analysis, listing a bunch of data trends and internet sentiment monitoring graphs that everyone couldn’t understand. “Currently, our live stream lacks attention. Drawing the audience to watch the live stream is the priority. Once the live stream is up, the focus will shift back to the product, and our image will still be advanced, high-end, and unique.”

Modifying novel characters’ parameters with the simulator—this near-fantasy technology is the world’s most cutting-edge, and the impact it will have on the audience can instantly change public perception.

“My conclusion is, go gouge.” Lin made the final summary.

Lu Yu twitched his mouth. This guy was blunt, not even offering a suggestion but directly stating a conclusion. Luckily, Lu Yu didn’t mind employees being eccentric.

With data and theory support, each department quickly got busy. Only Lao Yang stood in place, dazedly tugging at his few remaining hairs.

Worried about Lu Yu getting into trouble, Ming Yan followed along, explaining a bit about this Wetlands Onion on the way.

Lu Yu had some impression of this person. He used to be called Little Green Onion. When “The Fish King” became popular, this guy wrote a similar story that annoyed Lu Yu a lot. Unexpectedly, ten years later, this guy shamelessly even changed his pen name.

“Next time, he might as well change his surname to Ming and be my grandson.” Lu Yu laughed in anger.

“…” Ming Yan wanted to correct him, saying that since your surname was Lu, his grandson should also be Lu. But he felt that saying this would be used against him, so he just glared at Lu Yu and continued talking about Chaoxi Mill.

This company originally made brainless mobile games, which were just templates with a storyline to make money before shutting down. Later, with the rise of smart assistants, they wanted to make smart assistant games, but the technical requirements were too high. Failing to make template games, they turned to smart assistants, still using their old method. All their smart assistants used one template, with just a name and a couple of personality lines, quickly released to make money before moving on to the next one.

Lu Yu listened quietly and finally managed to say, “He’s quite a talent.”

No matter how times change, this boss could always find a way to make quick money. Although there are certain risks, like an angry original creator coming to gouge his eyes out.

When they arrived at the other company’s building, the media contacted by the PR department had already arrived.

Lu Yu got out of the car and greeted everyone. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m here to make a scene today. Please feel free to record and, if there’s time, conduct some interviews later.”

The journalists were excited and asked, “President Lu, who are you going after and why?”

Lu Yu smiled mysteriously and said, “You’ll find out soon enough.”

The PR director thoughtfully prepared gifts for the media, putting them in their cars and briefly explaining the precautions, sweating profusely. “We’re not here to make a scene, we’re here to seek justice.”

These were all media outlets with good relations with Chenyu’s PR department, so they understood. Yes, they were here to seek justice.

Lu Yu told Ming Yan to stay in the car. “You better not come and embarrass yourself. Our company needs a high-end image for at least one executive.”

Ming Yan reluctantly agreed. “Don’t be impulsive.”

He indeed shouldn’t go. If his father saw him on TV smashing things at someone else’s company and got upset, it would be counterproductive.

Lu Yu left the PR director behind and only took Xiao Jiang, followed by a group of journalists with equipment, and marched in grandly.

Chao Mill, a tech company with little technological content, didn’t need large servers and was not big. They rented half a floor in a mixed-use office building.

Lu Yu swaggered into the lobby, grabbed the all-purpose card from the security guard, and handed it to Xiao Jiang to swipe the turnstile. “We know the floor, no need to escort us.”

He then walked straight in, and the journalists quickly followed.

The security guard stared blankly at them. When Xiao Jiang also went in, he snapped out of it. “What are you doing?”

Xiao Jiang pocketed the card. “We have an appointment for an interview.”

The security guard hurriedly shouted, “Interviews need to register too! Hey, my card!” By the time he ran over to stop them, the group was already in the elevator, doors closed, heading straight to the 12th floor.

There were two companies on the 12th floor, facing each other. One company had a retractable banner poster in front, featuring Qi Hongyu in red. The door was wide open, welcoming guests, and the reception desk had a golden toad squatting on a pile of copper coins with a gold coin in its mouth.

Lu Dongdong scanned it and determined it was gold-plated copper, officially priced at 1,000 yuan.

Lu Yu walked over, took out the wrench, and without a word, removed the gold coin from the toad’s mouth and started prying its eyes. The eyes were embedded, not easy to remove.

Xiao Jiang silently handed over a pointed screwdriver.

Lu Yu took it in surprise. “Is this also instructed by President Shen?”

Xiao Jiang adjusted his glasses. “This is part of my basic skills as a secretary.”

Lu Yu gave a thumbs up.

The receptionist screamed, “What are you doing?”

“Gouging the toad’s eyes,” Lu Yu answered politely while working.

When Lu Yu had the two eyeballs in his hand, playing with them like walnuts, Chaoxi Mill’s boss, Lu Chaoxi, finally ran out. Lu Chaoxi was a pot-bellied middle-aged man, wearing four or five large gold rings, his breath reeking of cigarettes. “Lu Yu, what are you doing?”

Lu Yu tossed the eyeballs up and down, speaking nonchalantly. “My company’s power was cut off last night. It seems like someone is afraid that our product launch will hinder the sales of some knock-off trash.”

He spoke slowly, allowing the cameras to capture everything clearly.

Lu Chaoxi’s expression remained unchanged. He touched the dismantled golden toad, as if seeing his wealth slipping away, and gritted his teeth. “What’s that got to do with me?”

Lu Yu pointed to his forehead with one finger. “I already had a headache with lawsuits. Then I saw someone plagiarizing Ming Yan’s drawing on the trending list. I’m very unhappy.”

With that, he stabbed the retractable banner at the entrance with the screwdriver, slicing the poster of Qi Hongyu in half, and it fell to the ground.

The employees of the opposite company peeked out to watch the commotion.

“I told you, constantly copying stuff isn’t good. Now they’ve met their match.”

“Shh, close the door quickly, before Lu Chaoxi sees us.”

“He already saw us.”

“…”

Lu Chaoxi’s face turned dark as he sneered. “Young man, you can’t just talk nonsense.”

He twisted the gold rings on his fingers, and an employee rushed out from the company, shouting with hands on hips, “You say it’s plagiarism, but we drew this a long time ago. If you don’t believe me, compare the times. Maybe Ming Yan copied our artist, and we haven’t sued you yet!”

Lu Yu got even angrier at these words, but Xiao Jiang tugged at him. “President Ming asked you not to be impulsive.”

Taking a deep breath, Lu Yu poked his finger in his ear. “Keep your dog on a leash, don’t let it bite the reporters.”

He then projected three images with his smart assistant.

“I don’t care when you drew it. Even if the original was a prehistoric cave painting, from the moment you modified it to look like Hua Wenyuan, that’s when it counts.”

On the way, Lu Dongdong had already found the original image. It was indeed earlier than Hua Wenyuan’s drawing but wasn’t in these colors or this pose. These underhanded tricks had bought an old image, recolored it red, and slightly adjusted the posture.

A leprous toad spewing filth, deliberately disgusting people.

The media zoomed in on the three images projected on the white wall: Hua Wenyuan’s image, the original image before modification, and the modified Qi Hongyu image with auxiliary lines. It was clear at a glance.

Finally, Lu Chaoxi’s expression changed. He had specifically chosen an old image to prevent Lu Yu from finding fault, planning to drag it out for a few months to make money. He didn’t expect Lu Yu to see through it so quickly.

Lu immediately changed his expression to a smile and pulled back the employee who was arguing.

“Oh, you see, it’s all done by my subordinates, I didn’t know about this at all…” he said to the cameras. Then he approached Lu Yu, gritting his teeth with a smile and whispering, “So what if your servers are broken and your high-end product can’t go online? I can make a small investment with high profits and run after one wave. If you have the guts, sue me and see if you can win.”

Lu Yu laughed, “Who said I was going to sue you? I’m just here to gouge out your eyeballs.”

The two looked like good buddies, very harmonious.

Lu Yu stuffed the gold coin back into Lu Chaoxi’s hand. “Here, your coin back. I never take people’s money. I’ll just take the eyeballs since you don’t need aesthetics for your plagiarized images.”

“You bring a bunch of people to smash my company, destroy my property, and think you can just walk away?” Lu Chaoxi squeezed the gold coin, a trace of viciousness in his eyes.

At this moment, the security guard brought the police upstairs.

Just a moment ago, Lu Chaoxi was snarling, but seeing the police, he immediately sat on the ground and began to complain tearfully, “Officer, you have to help me! This big company boss is bullying my small business, smashing my things! Arrest him!”

The media were thrilled, their cameras almost sparking from taking pictures.

Lu Yu immediately raised his hands to show innocence. “Officer, I just came to seek justice and accidentally gouged out his toad’s eyes. This toad is publicly priced at 1,000 yuan, and here’s the compensation.”

With that, Lu Yu pulled out a wad of cash.

Lu Chaoxi was so angry that he trembled, finally realizing, “Who are you insulting!”