Asked you to write a book, not to confess your criminal record!

Brother Hao's legs had completely given out, and he collapsed onto the hard floor, his face turning pale green, his lips white, as if he had just narrowly escaped death.

Hou wasn't faring much better.

He staggered into Brother Hao's room like a refugee seeking asylum, the two of them sharing a sense of life-or-death dependency.

As for the other people in the studio.

They had already fled swiftly not long after Lucas and Yu Qin had left.

Who would dare stay in this studio anymore?

"Brother Hao, I told you we needed to change locations, but you wouldn't believe me!" Hou said, frightened yet regretful.

Brother Hao took several deep breaths, slightly recovering his composure, and looked at Hou, "You think if we changed places, they wouldn't be able to find us?"

Hou pouted and glanced around the studio.

At that moment, the place was deserted.

The vast studio was empty except for the two of them, bright sunlight pouring through the windows, illuminating the dust particles in its beams.

But the brighter the sunlight, the darker the corners of the studio seemed.

A breeze blew in.

The autumn wind was chilly, causing Hou to shiver and get goosebumps, "Brother Hao, do you think we've gotten involved with something unclean?"

"Are you getting superstitious now!"

Brother Hao, submissive in front of people like Leo and Lucas, held absolute authority in front of Hou, where he was the boss.

So, he stood up again, smacking Hou on the forehead.

But as the autumn breeze brushed over him, he also rubbed the goosebumps on his arms, feeling a bit uneasy.

"Brother Hao, I'm not being superstitious!"

Hou cautiously glanced at the door, seeing no one, he said, "Everything was fine, just doing a bit of piracy, making quite a bit of money. But in the last half month, two groups have come after us with weapons in hand—there must be something dirty we're involved in!"

Brother Hao, still somewhat weak, pondered, "Cough! Luckily, with my quick wits, I managed to handle it smoothly."

"Uh..."

Hou tugged at the corner of his mouth, "Brother Hao, let's move somewhere else, this place has bad feng shui."

Another smack from Brother Hao to Hou's forehead, "What nonsense about feng shui, no superstition allowed, you're scaring yourself!"

"So, do we still stay here?" Hou's face turned the color of bitter gourd.

Brother Hao considered, "Definitely not here anymore."

"Good, I'm going to pack up now, and then find a new place." Hou immediately set to work, ready to act.

"Wait a minute!"

Brother Hao stopped Hou, "Before that, let's get rid of the dirty stuff!"

"Ah?" Hou gaped, shocked, "Brother Hao, I'm not the expert here, that's a job for a master!"

Smack!

Another slap from Brother Hao, he took great authority in his voice, said sternly, "I'm talking about Mr. Lin's books!"

Hou: "Ah?"

Brother Hao explained, "Clearly, all our misfortune, the root of all these evils, comes from those books by Mr. Lin. If we hadn't pirated his books, none of this would have happened!"

Hou, dumbfounded, mused, "Seems like it."

If Fries Novel hadn't pirated "Arms Tycoon," hadn't advertised using that book, Leo wouldn't have seen it, Leo wouldn't have come, Lucas wouldn't have followed.

So, the root cause was Mr. Lin's books!

"What are you waiting for, pull them all from the shelves now!" Brother Hao urged.

"But we just paid a huge royalty to Sailing Novel, wouldn't pulling them now cause a big loss?"

"Just consider it losing money to avoid disaster!"

"This..."

"What's more important, money or life?"

"Life!"

Immediately, Hou operated the backend management system of Fries Novel, swiftly removing all of Lin Chuan's novels without hesitation!

When done, Hou asked, "Brother Hao, whose books are we going to pirate now?"

Brother Hao thought about the twists of the recent times and made a decision, "We're not going to pirate anymore, we're going legit with a genuine novel website!"

"A legit site can't beat the earnings of pirating?" Hou queried.

In his understanding,

pirating novels involved just setting up a few programs, data scraping with bots, then uploading to scam user clicks and visits, once the traffic was high, advertisers would come knocking, and money would roll in.

"Pirating from two more authors like Mr. Lin, and sooner or later our lives will be ruined by piracy," Brother Hao solemnly said.

Hou pursed his lips.

Every time he thought of Mr. Lin's works as something filthy, the name 'Mr. Lin' involuntarily made him flinch, best not to mess with it.

"So, how do we go about legit novels?" Hou asked.

Brother Hao sat deep in thought for a long while.

Suddenly!

Brother Hao stood up, looking at Hou, "Your Chinese is pretty good, right?"

Hou frowned, "I only worked there for a few years."

"Reading Chinese novels shouldn't be a problem, right?"

Brother Hao asked.

Hou cautiously answered, "Shouldn't be a problem."

Brother Hao then said, "This time, we're starting a major legit novel website, not just targeting Southeast Asia, but all of Asia!"

"Isn't that a bit too ambitious?" Hou grimaced.

"Cough, just puffing ourselves up a bit, but the novel market in Southeast Asia really isn't that big, not many authors writing either. We've got to include Chinese novels, targeting both Chinese readers and, through translation, Southeast Asia readers!"

Brother Hao began to dream of his grand plans!

"Brother Hao, genius!" Illumination dawned on Hou, seeing the idea as killing two birds with one stone, highly feasible!