Chapter 769: The pirates piss their pants!
Translator: Legge Editor: - -
Many netizens already knew about it.
"Something bad has happened! Plants vs Zombies has been cracked and pirated!"
"I can't play. It's always crashing to the desktop!"
"There should be a fully cracked version in a few days."
"Plants vs. Zombies is in danger! Those software pirates are very ruthless people!"
"We should have guessed. The video game company that made Plants vs Zombies is just a small, unknown company that has limited technology and is inexperienced. Their anti-piracy techniques are definitely not comparable to those big companies. So it wasn't surprising when that step of purchasing a serial code to continue playing Plants vs Zombies got cracked so quickly. The encryption technique of Plants vs Zombies must be at the most basic level! If it were the other, bigger companies, they'd have ensured that their game wouldn't be pirated for the next three months!"
"It's too late to say anything now!"
"That's right, since the pirated version is already out, we can't expect this version of Plants vs Zombies to be able to make much money anymore! At most it can only earn some reputation!"
...
Outside.
Zhang Ye found a spot with no one around and leaned on a rather clean wall in the corridor. Then he took out his cell phone and browsed through the names, finally pressing the name "Dong Zhiqiang."
Du, du. Two rings later, the call connected.
Dong Zhiqiang laughed heartily on the other end of the call: "A rare guest, Teacher Zhang. What made you suddenly think of me that you would give me a call?"
"Director Dong, are you busy right now?" Zhang Ye laughed too.
Dong Zhiqiang replied: "Kinda. There haven't been too many major cases in recent days."
Zhang Ye asked: "Is everyone doing well?"
"Everyone is fine. They're still talking about you when they're free, especially Fan Yingyun." Dong Zhiqiang asked: "Why? Is there a reason you're looking for me?"
Dong Zhiqiang—Director of the National Internet Surveillance Bureau's First Department. Previously, in order to help Zhang Ye avoid custody, Rao Aimin asked her junior to help him get attached to the Internet Surveillance Bureau's First Department to work for a short period of time. He even experienced the Sino-Korean hacker war together with them, so their relationship was really quite good and they still kept in contact with each other. However, they were still in the dark about the role Zhang Ye played in the Sino-Korean hacker war. Fan Yingyun also known as "Big Saber Bro" or "Fan" worked in this department too. With several levels of relationships, nobody considered each other as outsiders anymore.
Zhang Ye said: "I wouldn't come to you if I didn't have something to ask of you. Hai, actually, I should have paid you a visit personally, but because the issue is quite urgent, I had to call you instead."
"There's no need to be so polite with me. If there's anything you need help with, just say it," Dong Zhiqiang said without hesitation.
Zhang Ye said: "It's like this. Didn't I create a game called Plants vs. Zombies recently?"
Dong Zhiqiang happily replied: "I know about it, of course. The entire team is playing it in the office every single day. Since there is not much work to handle now anyways, I turn a blind eye and let it slide."
"There's already a pirated version of the game out."
"This fast?"
"Yes, so I hoping to ask for your help. Can you strike a blow at the pirates?"
"Ah?"
"The software pirates these days are too rampant, so there should be a serious crackdown on them!"
"You've worked with our Internet Surveillance Bureau before, so you should know that this area doesn't fall under our jurisdiction. Frankly, ours is the serious crime unit for network security. We're all dealing with international network crimes, cyber-financial crimes, and national security defense," Dong Zhiqiang said, a little bemused by this. "For pirated games…"
Zhang Ye refuted him, claiming: "Don't you look down on piracy. This is a very severe issue and will cause harmful effects to the safety of the people. Do you know how rampant the pirates are now? Whether it is games, movies, or novels, no industry can prevent piracy from happening. Because of piracy, the economic losses every year are in the valuations of billions or tens of billions of yuan. Meanwhile, how much money can a cyber-financial crime involve? If it's tens of millions of yuan, it will be labeled as a major case, right? But what about piracy? It costs several billion in losses! So this is a major case for sure! It's an earth-shatteringly major case!"
Dong Zhiqiang: "…"
Earth-shatteringly major case? What?!
"Do you know how many families and people's lives have been destroyed because of piracy? Do you how many people became homeless because of piracy? My heart is grieving, Director Dong! This really makes me heartbroken! This kind of crime should not be tolerated as it is not only a loss of personal earnings but a loss of earnings for the country as well! Faced with this sort of behavior, we must have zero tolerance for them! We must strike them with a hard blow! We absolutely must not show any mercy to them! I volunteer myself to lead from the front and be the vanguard. We will make an example out of the piracy of Plants vs. Zombies first!"
Initially, his claims were somewhat true, but the longer he went on, the more unreliable his argument became.
Dong Zhiqiang also knew about Zhang Ye's eloquence as they were already old acquaintances, so he immediately interrupted: "Alright, Teacher Zhang, I understand what you're getting at. Why not? Since there aren't many major cases to handle for the next few days anyways, I'll get the employees to handle this matter. Since it's for you, they'll surely be diligent in handling it."
Zhang Ye replied: "Alrighty then. Thank you, Director Dong."
Dong Zhiqiang laughed: "You are a brother of our Internet Surveillance Bureau's First Department, so why are you being so courteous with me? Just treat everyone to a meal after it's settled."
"That's for sure." Zhang Ye stated: "You all can pick the place."
Since Director Dong agreed, Zhang Ye knew that there would definitely be no problem. The Internet Surveillance Bureau was well known for its reputation, and Zhang Ye knew that only he had such a privilege to seek help from them. If it were other people, there would be no chance that they could get help like this. Even it was just a simple task, a serious crime unit like the Internet Surveillance Bureau would not be bothered to handle cases like online piracy.
When he returned to the room, everyone started questioning him.
"How'd it go, Teacher Zhang?"
"Can you really get our game's piracy under control?"
"Has it been settled?"
Zhang Ye said noncommittally, "It's should be settled soon. Let's just wait for the news."
...
That afternoon.
At 4 PM.
A district police station in the suburbs of Beijing suddenly received an order from their higher-ups to cooperate with the Internet Surveillance Bureau's First Department to arrest a criminal suspect in their area of jurisdiction. As for the exact details of the case, the higher-ups did not specify it to them.
Internet Surveillance Bureau's First Department?
That serious crime unit in the National Internet Surveillance Bureau?
The same Internet Surveillance Bureau's First Department that had uncovered the transnational internet criminal network, involving five deaths and over a billion yuan worth of funds some time ago?
The district police station suddenly went on guard, as though they were facing with a formidable enemy!
Everyone became nervous and were put on high alert!
"Hurry! We've been dispatched! Don't inform the local police post; our district police station will handle it directly! We have to ensure that the information does not leak! Everyone, hand over your cell phones and all communication devices! Contact the Armed Police Force immediately and ask them to deploy 10…no…deploy 20 armed police officers! Remember! Everyone is to wear their bulletproof vest! Be careful and protect yourselves! I repeat, collect your arms and put on your bulletproof vest! Be careful and protect yourselves! We have a major case on hand! Everyone, let's move out!"
With a command from the captain of the district police station, a wide net was cast immediately!
...
At 5 PM in the afternoon.
Inside a house in the suburbs of Beijing.
When Zhang Guangwen was surrounded by more than thirty armed police officers, he was left staring down the barrels of all those guns in tears!
He pissed his pants!
He truly pissed his pants!
The captain of the district police station asked coldly, "What is your name?!"
Zhang Guangwen trembled and said, "Zhang…Zhang Guangwen!"
The captain of district police station shouted, "Put your hands behind your head and squat down!"
Zhang Guangwen didn't know what to do and kept flailing his arms about. "Policeman Bro, Policeman Uncle, what is…what is this…"
Seeing him still moving about with his hands touching his pocket at times and looking like he was reaching for a "weapon," all the police officers brought up their guns in alarm and shouted, "Don't move! Do not move! We're warning you! Put your hands behind your head immediately! Otherwise we will shoot!"
There was a policeman holding an unknown equipment sweeping through the room nervously. He seemed to be sweeping the place for explosives!
Zhang Guangwen began to cry. He acknowledged that he was not a good person, but he couldn't be considered an evil person either. The most he did was to dabble around with technology, cracking some games when he had nothing to do and selling them to the pirates to make some money. He swore that he had never committed any heinous crimes before! The present situation in front of him had nearly scared the shit out of him. More than thirty armed police officers wearing bulletproof vests had come to arrest me?
I am done for!
This is going to end with a death sentence!
And it's not even going to be a normal death sentence! This is going to be an execution with me getting shot several times until I die!
My life is over!!
Zhang Guangwen's eyes rolled backwards and he fainted.
At this moment, a call from the Municipal Public Security Bureau arrived.
The head of the Municipal Public Security Bureau asked: "Have you arrested the person yet?"
The captain of the district police station answered: "Yes, we have caught him. We are searching for weapons or bombs in his house at the moment!"
The head of the Municipal Public Security Bureau was stunned. "What weapons? What bombs?"
The captain of district police station was also stunned. "Isn't this person a wanted international criminal? This bunch of fugitives can do anything and it would not surprise me if there were weapons in his house!"
The head of the Municipal Public Security Bureau said: "What weapons are you talking about? He's just a person who cracked and pirated some games. The Internet Surveillance Bureau's First Department wanted to give the pirates a warning. That's why I issued an order for you all to arrest and interrogate him!"
Ah?
They are software pirates of games??
Fuck, why didn't you say so earlier?! We even put on our bulletproof vests for this!
The officers of the district police station vomited blood at this all at once. "...%%^^%###@! !!"
Didn't the National Internet Surveillance Bureau's First Department only specialize in major or serious crime cases? When did they responsible for arresting pirates? When did they become so "close" to the citizens?!
...
Meanwhile.
On the Internet, the pirated Plants vs. Zombies download resources suddenly and completely disappeared within the hour. Not even a trace of it could be found anymore, as though it had never appeared to begin with. There were even four pirated game download websites that had been shut down and were totally inaccessible now! Several other pirated game download websites were still accessible for now. All the other games were still available online, except for the cracked version of Plants vs. Zombies, whose game resources had all been deleted and the game discussion board was also shut down and deleted!
It was like a land beset by war!
The pirate websites were facing a monstrosity of an enemy and even the managers of the websites were scared shitless after the Public Security Bureau or Internet Surveillance Bureau paid them a "visit"! Since they were in this business to earn their living, they couldn't have not heard of the famous Internet Surveillance Bureau. They did not know whose foot they had stepped on that warranted such a mighty organization like theirs to be alerted! Later, when the pirates knew they were being investigated regarding the piracy of Plants vs. Zombies, the choice of these pirates and pirated games hosting websites was clear: Delete all related resources—they could not afford to offend such a serious organization as the Internet Surveillance Bureau!
This was an organization involved with major international crime! If the pirates offended them, they might just get framed for some major international crime which they could not possibly bear the accusation of!
Hence, their networks were cleaned out!
Except for the insiders, no one knew what was going on!
Some of the netizens were still wondering!
"What the hell is happening?"
"Why are the pirated sources of Plants vs. Zombies all gone?"
"Fuck, how absurd it is! They really are all gone. Even the pirated resources of Plants vs Zombies hidden in my cloud storage host can't be found anymore!"
"Is this a crackdown on piracy?"
"That can't be. Why can I still find other pirated games then?"
"That's right. Why is it that only the pirated version of Plants vs Zombies is gone?"
"Holy shit! Even the pirates are selective on the games they pirate? Maybe they saw that Plants vs. Zombies could take up the difficult task of propping up and reviving the dreams of our domestically made video games, so they have all collectively removed the pirated resources of Plants vs. Zombies? Because they want to support domestically made video games?"
"My eyes are getting teary!"
"Previously, I was prejudiced against pirates, but today, this matter has made me change my opinion of them! Their hard work behind the scenes without asking for returns has seriously touched many people! I thank you on behalf of Teacher Zhang Ye! You guys are the best! You guys are the heroes behind the scenes, the conscience of the industry!"
The piracy issue was solved!
The number of downloads for Plants vs. Zombies continued to increase rapidly again!
9 million downloads…
9.5 million downloads…
What followed next was Zhang Ye's rise in popularity. A few days ago, after Zhang Ye's period of being placed in cold storage had started, his popularity had been stagnating for a while and had even showed signs of declining. But after the release of Plants vs. Zombies that became popular throughout the country, Zhang Ye's popularity curve on the celebrity rankings immediately reversed, with the curve turning around and going upwards as his popularity rose steadily!
He moved up another spot in the B-list rankings again!
He surpassed a B-list movie star and was now occupying a spot firmly in the middle of the B-list!
Moreover, under the continued popularity of Plants vs. Zombies, even though his popularity did not explode by a lot, it at least guaranteed that Zhang Ye's popularity would not fall in the coming couple of months. Taking advantage of the inertia of the game's popularity, Zhang Ye's popularity would be able to maintain an overall upward trend. Since he had been put in cold storage by Central TV Department 1, he had finally found a temporary solution for his source of popularity. All this made it extremely worthwhile and not in vain for Zhang Ye to have taken the world-famous game from his previous world and brought it into this world!