Chapter 272: Chapter 152: A Battle Between Men, No Retreat

’And here I thought it wasn’t coming.’

But this time, I got a direct reward of 38 million!

Such an explosive reward surprised even Xu Yun. He hadn’t expected the system to give him so much.

’Maybe it was delayed because the reward amount was so large?’

His balance was now 49 million. Xu Yun stared at the number, feeling a strong urge to round it up to an even 50 million.

He had never deliberately farmed money before because he felt it was unnecessary.

The system wanted him to enjoy life and do what he truly wanted, not to become a heartless money-farming machine.

Farming for the sake of farming, rather than acting on a whim, might even be judged as invalid by the system, yielding no reward.

So he always preferred to let things happen naturally.

But today, he’d make an exception. He really wanted to get his savings up to 50 million!

’Damn this OCD.’

Xu Yun thought for a moment about how to spend the money.

’That’s it, the novel.’

He picked up his phone, went to Chen Xin’s novel, and topped up his account with 500,000 at once.

Then, he gifted Chen Xin five Golden Alliances in a row!

It was the end of the month, so he figured he’d help Chen Xin climb a few charts for fun and make her happy.

She had worked hard helping out with his mom’s birthday party, after all.

As a result, five banners announcing the gifts to Chen Xin’s novel scrolled across the entire platform. This drew in countless readers, who scrambled to open the prize boxes and left comments like, "6666666," "Badass," and "The whale is back."

This single move shot Chen Xin to the top of every chart, from monthly tickets to sales.

In an instant, Xu Yun’s ID, "Angry Brother," once again became a hot topic on the platform.

In reader and author chat groups alike, people were frantically taking screenshots and speculating about his true identity.

Meanwhile, authors who knew Chen Xin were constantly tagging her in the group chat, their messages dripping with envy and jealousy.

The same thing was happening in her reader group.

Except they weren’t tagging the author, but "Angry Brother" himself.

Because he was in the chat group.

Chen Xin, however, had no idea what was going on.

She had muted all her group chats and set her phone aside, completely absorbed in writing.

A novel with less than ten thousand average subscribers had suddenly shot to the top, forcefully knocking down a certain top-tier author who had been spending to secure the number one spot for the month.

This was a huge loss of face for him.

Which of these top-tier authors on the platform didn’t earn millions, or even tens of millions, in royalties a year?

Besides, they had their own whales to back them up, so of course they’d want to spend money to reclaim the spot.

The money wasn’t the issue. It was a matter of face.

So, just a few minutes after Chen Xin’s book hit the top spot, it was knocked down again. At the big-shot author’s behest, one of his whales had gifted three consecutive Golden Alliances.

Xu Yun saw this. ’Is someone actually trying to compete with me?’

He gifted another two Golden Alliances, putting Chen Xin back in the top spot.

But less than a minute later, another one of the rival’s whales dropped three more Golden Alliances, and he reclaimed the number one position.

"Alright, now this is interesting," Xu Yun chuckled.

’So they want to have a spending war with me, huh?’

’I may not be the richest person out there, but I’m definitely the most willing to spend!’

Back when he was just a wage slave, he had witnessed battles between two titans fighting over the top spot on the monthly ticket chart.

A single battle could cost one or two million.

Back then, he was just a spectator, envying how these rich people threw money around like it was nothing. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

Now, he himself was the main character of the drama.

Xu Yun didn’t hold back. He was curious to see just how much money the other party was willing to burn.

As one of the platform’s super-readers, he had his own dedicated customer service representative.

After contacting them through the user backend, Xu Yun had them open a high-volume deposit channel and immediately topped up his account with two million.

But he didn’t gift it all at once. Like a fisherman toying with his catch, he gifted them slowly, each time outbidding his opponent by just one Golden Alliance.

His opponents, a team of three taking turns, had already gifted no fewer than fifteen Golden Alliances!

But Xu Yun still had them pinned down, unable to get ahead.

This pay-to-win spectacle of the century drew an ever-growing crowd of spectators and commentators.

Everyone was watching to see who would come out on top.

In the other author’s group chat, his three hardcore whale readers were all business owners. But after spending 1.5 million and seeing that their opponent showed no signs of backing down, they were starting to hesitate.

Seeing this, the big-shot author was determined not to lose face by being defeated by a newcomer.

He had no choice but to enter the fray himself, funding an alt account to send his own gifts.

To make a statement, he immediately gifted five Golden Alliances.

When Xu Yun saw this, he just smiled. Seeing he still had 700,000 left in his account, he immediately followed up with seven more Golden Alliances.

The other author hadn’t even held the top spot for ten seconds before Xu Yun knocked him down again.

’How infuriating.’

The top-tier author couldn’t believe how aggressive his opponent was.

’This Hua Zhu person... they write novels about uber-rich protagonists, but they can’t actually be one in real life, can they?’

When spending reached this level, no one believed it was just a reader anymore. Everyone assumed the author, Hua Zhu, was funding their own book.

The big-shot author realized that continuing this spending war would only lead to a lose-lose situation.

He couldn’t understand why this other author was so dead-set on snatching the top spot from him.

He needed the number-one ranking as an achievement to help him secure a Platinum contract next year.

’You’re a total flop! What the hell is the point of you getting number one?!’

’We’re all spending real money here!’

After some hesitation, the big-shot author contacted his editor-in-chief, hoping to have him talk to the other author’s editor.