Su Shu: “????”
Although she had not been in this world for long, due to the irreversible environmental damage caused by early technological development, the current government authorities paid extreme attention to environmental protection—
During the strictest period, there was even a saying regarding the protection of greenery, flowers, and plants in wetland parks: “If you step on my head today, I will grow on your grave tomorrow.”
Therefore, up until now, almost no one dared to extend their evil hands toward non-edible plants. How could there be an act of setting fire to a mountain to burn it down in this game?
Could it be that everyone had been holding it in for too long, so they ran into the game to exact revenge on society?
Su Shu stroked her chin. No wonder every department at the academy offered specialized psychology courses.
When she logged off yesterday, she was next to the warehouse in the Novice Village. After logging in, she organized her backpack and divided yesterday’s gold coins from selling ground squirrels into two portions. One portion was put into the warehouse as a future equipment fund, and the other was listed directly on the game’s official trading platform.
The 1:2 game currency ratio Su Shu had seen in the part-time job information earlier was the rate for offline transactions. However, since Su Shu had just entered the game and could not find a reliable buyer yet, she simply used the game’s official trading platform. In fact, the gold coin ratio on the game trading platform was a bit lower—1 Alliance Coin to 1.8 Gold Coins—and the platform deducted a transaction fee. When calculated, the money Su Shu received was about the same as a private transaction.
Almost the moment Su Shu listed the game currency, a trading platform sprite delivered a letter to her in the game; her gold coins had been sold.
She sold 3,000 gold coins, netting approximately 1,500 Alliance Coins after deducting the handling fee.
It was almost enough for her to eat the set meal in the cafeteria for a week.
Su Shu stuffed the sprite’s letter into her bag and fell into deep thought—
According to this income level, if she wasn’t in a hurry to level up and stayed in the Novice Village every day selling ground squirrels…
It didn’t seem like a bad idea.
Su Shu pinched the bridge of her nose and walked straight toward the wheat field.
——However, there was no longer a wheat field.
The previously golden, undulating waves of wheat now only left behind pitch-black, scorched earth.
On the scorched earth, many newcomers dressed in rags like her were carrying hoes, sweating profusely on the blackened fields, working on who knows what.
Su Shu: ???
Did the game update the map in the middle of last night? Did the quests update?
Then what about her grand enterprise of selling ground squirrels?!
Su Shu grabbed a newcomer and was just about to ask when a sprite pounced directly at her face—
Su Shu caught the sprite with a backhand, and a piece of letter paper appeared in her hand.
Qing Qing Liu Se Xin: You’re finally online!!! Do you know you’re famous, dear!!! Let me tell you, you must absolutely not continue selling ground squirrels, or you’ll be ganked! Is your ID hidden? Hide it quickly!
Su Shu: “…”
Although she didn’t understand why Qing Qing Liu Se Xin would send her a message like this, Su Shu had always been sensible and tactful.
She stuffed Qing Qing Liu Se Xin’s letter into her pack, let go of the person she was holding as smoothly as flowing water, and offered an apologetic smile to the young man she had grabbed, who looked utterly bewildered: “Sorry, I mistook you for someone else.”
The young man rolled his eyes at her and walked away with his hoe on his shoulder.
Su Shu looked left and right, noticing that the Village Chief, who used to only pace in front of his own door, was now pacing angrily by the edge of the field.
Coincidentally, a question mark hovered over the Village Chief’s head, indicating she could accept a quest, so Su Shu walked over.
Su Shu asked the Village Chief: “What happened to this wheat field?”
The Village Chief bristled with rage: “Some hooligans came out of nowhere last night! They set fire to the entire wheat field just to catch ground squirrels!”
Su Shu was startled. Although she knew her initial method wasn’t very subtle, she didn’t expect someone to figure it out after just one night.
And listening to the Village Chief’s tone…
Su Shu’s face turned a bit stiff.
The Village Chief widened his eyes and said fiercely: “And some fools didn’t know how to put out the fire after setting it, burning down the hilltop next to the wheat field as well! The fire spread, and the entire village almost went up in flames with it!”
Su Shu: “…”
No wonder the slogan “Set fire to the mountain, sit in jail until the floor rots” was everywhere as soon as she logged in.
A chill ran down Su Shu’s back, and she couldn’t help asking: “Was the culprit caught?”
The Village Chief said: “Of course! We caught those fire-starting brats red-handed!”
Su Shu’s tense back relaxed, and she comforted the Village Chief: “That’s good then.”
The Village Chief looked at her suspiciously: “Why are you so concerned? Could you be one that got away?”
Su Shu widened her eyes: “How could it be me?”
The Village Chief suddenly thrust his head right up to Su Shu’s face, scrutinizing her for a long while before saying: “As long as it’s not you. Let me tell you, little girl: set fire to the mountain, sit in jail until the floor rots!”
Su—the actual culprit—Shu hurriedly nodded to show her determination: “Yes, yes, yes, yes! I firmly refuse to do such illegal and law-breaking things!”
Only then did the Village Chief pull his head back: “How about this, I see you have nothing to do right now. It’s almost noon, the village crops are burned, and everyone is still hungry. Go to that hilltop and catch 20 little yellow chicks for me to serve as lunch for everyone.”
[System Notification] Player Huai Shuo has successfully accepted the quest “Help the Village Chief Catch Little Yellow Chicks”, completion progress 0/20.
Su Shu stood in place without moving: “Where is the hilltop? Do I need to buy anything to bring along?”
She had figured it out yesterday—when these NPCs gave quests, they really only gave the quests and wouldn’t say a single extra word. If she wanted to get more information, she truly had to bargain with the NPCs herself.
An impatient look appeared on the Village Chief’s face: “The hilltop is right at the edge of the wheat field, a bit far from the village. When you leave, you can buy some supplies so you don’t kick the bucket on the way.”
Without waiting for Su Shu to speak again, he pushed and shoved Su Shu toward the village: “Supplies are sold in the general store and the pharmacy in the village, go check it out yourself.”
With that, Su Shu received a notification and accepted a new side quest—
[System Notification] Player Huai Shuo has triggered the side quest “Touring Dao Hua Village”, completion progress 0/5.
Only then did Su Shu leave satisfied.
Yesterday, after logging off and before sleeping, Su Shu used her optical computer to look up beginner guides for the Novice Village of Meng Hui Jiang Hu. The vast majority of people replied that they only triggered the beginner guidance side quest after dying.
Su Shu thought about it: why would newcomers die? It was nothing more than being unable to defeat monsters, but how cruel could monsters in a Novice Village be?
To be stabbed to death like that was mostly due to insufficient supplies.
One should know that for students of the military academy, one of the key points in both theory classes and practical combat training was the word “supplies”.
Su Shu walked back into the village. Perhaps influenced by the Village Chief’s phrase “setting fire to the Novice Village” earlier, Su Shu indeed felt a different sense of bustling life in the village.
Meanwhile, the newcomers in the village all had sorrowful faces.
Su Shu scratched her head, set the quest aside for now, pulled out the control panel, and logged onto the forum again.
Upon entering the forum, Su Shu didn’t even need to search; the top five hot posts on the first page were all related to the “Novice Village”, and her in-game ID, the two characters “Huai Shuo”, followed prominently right behind.
——Ten years of Dao Xiang Village changed in a single day, what kind of sacred origin does Huai Shuo have to force the trash planners to change the quests?
——Newbie who just joined asking the big bosses for a guide!!! How long do we have to dig soil and farm in the Novice Village?!
——Huai Shuo, you piece of trash! You made this grandpa plant trees now!! Plant trees!!!! Under the 12 PM sun! Plant trees!! Are you and the dog planners in cahoots to fake online time?!
——Excuse me, how long is the jail time for setting fire to a mountain? Does logging off count toward the jail time? I’m so bored in the dark room, coordinates 199.183, is anyone coming to find me – -.
——My girlfriend just decided to join the game to keep me company and now she’s in jail?! Offering a heavy bounty for Huai Shuo’s coordinates, 800 gold per kill!
——Why did I think that profiteer named Huai Shuo would lower the price today? Why didn’t I cherish the opportunity to whack ground squirrels yesterday? Why did I come to dig graves today?!
——Ahhhhhhh who on earth is Huai Shuo, why didn’t any of you take a screenshot of her face yesterday!?
——What were you guys thinking? Were the ground squirrels not cute enough or was the Village Chief not kindly enough? Why set a fire?
Su Shu: “…”
She finally knew why Qing Qing Liu Se Xin said she was famous.
She didn’t even need to click into the posts; Su Shu knew what changes had occurred in the Novice Village just from the titles. As half the culprit, Su Shu felt her delicate body and decided to keep her cover tight and lie low.
Tsk, as a law-abiding good citizen, she had never set fire to a mountain, alright?
Su Shu returned to the game. The Novice Village was still in a state of bustling construction, and no one paid attention to her dazing in place.
Su Shu rejoiced in her foresight once again. Out of habit when she first entered the game, she had set her ID to hidden, otherwise she really would have had to liquidate her inventory and switch games.
Lamenting while walking, Su Shu headed toward the village general store.
Her progress for the side quest Touring Dao Hua Village was 0/5, and the Village Chief’s words earlier had already told her to go to the general store. If her memory from checking the map earlier was correct, there were exactly five shops in the village.
The pharmacy, general store, blacksmith shop, snack stall, and courier station.
Yesterday, after turning in the ground squirrels, the weapons given to her by the Village Chief—that stick and rope—were automatically reclaimed by the system. The hidden message behind those two tools was actually that players needed handy tools to do quests.
Su Shu’s level was currently insufficient and she hadn’t changed classes yet, so…
The current chick-catching quest should be time allotted for players to experience different weapons and classes.
The weapons at the Novice Village blacksmith shop were not expensive. Regardless of the weapon, the uniform price was 20 copper coins, and the attributes were all +2 Strength and Intelligence, and +10 Physical Attack and Magic Attack. They were well within the budget of novice players who could only rely on whacking ground squirrels to pick up money in the early stage. While novice players couldn’t buy them all, they could always buy three or four types to try out.
Su Shu originally intended to take the route of knowing both oneself and the enemy to win every battle, planning to buy one of every weapon to try out. But to her surprise, the game Meng Hui Jiang Hu had been operating for over ten years, featuring over a hundred character classes inside the game, with some classes having different weapons based on gender—
Under such circumstances, even if Su Shu had the money to buy all weapons back, her backpack didn’t have that much space.
Furthermore, unlike keyboard games, what affected player controls in holographic games, besides the players’ own qualities and character attributes, were details that seemed trivial but could potentially determine victory or defeat—
For instance, weight capacity.
Su Shu had only picked four tools she found handy, yet she already felt her movement was not as nimble as before.
No wonder when she looked at statistics earlier, the number of players choosing long-range magic attack in this game far exceeded those choosing short-range physical attack. Thinking about it, physical types carrying a sack of weapons would suffer a disadvantage in close combat.
While pondering, Su Shu entered the general store again. The general store sold clothes and accessories. Since Su Shu hadn’t changed classes, there was nothing much to choose from, so she casually bought a set of clothes, a hat, and shoes before stepping out. Accessories were also available at the general store, but despite being small, accessories still counted toward weight capacity.
Su Shu didn’t like wearing those things on her hands or body, and the additional attributes on accessories were useless to her as a newcomer right now, so she didn’t buy them.
Su Shu also went to buy a few items at the pharmacy and the snack stall.
High-grade health potions and mana potions in this game required players to craft them personally, so most potions in the pharmacy were expensive and useless. However, as a novice who hadn’t learned life skills yet, Su Shu bought some to keep in her pack just in case.
As for the snack stall…
Su Shu hadn’t stayed long in the game yesterday, and coming from a military academy, although her major wasn’t directly on the front line, her physical fitness was certainly not bad, so she didn’t feel any bodily discomfort—
However, logically speaking, since a holographic game was holographic, feelings of hunger would also exist.
——In fact, when the game was initially designed, the planners originally hoped to reflect even human physiology like using the toilet into the game. As a result, after receiving too many complaints during the closed beta testing and being dubbed “Public Toilet Jiang Hu”, the planners finally shed tears and gave up on this bold and wild idea.
Su Shu: “…”
In life, one must lose something to gain something.
She believed that if such an insane setting truly existed, she would definitely not step foot into this game.
Su Shu finally went to the courier station.
The courier station was the place to collect mail, and Su Shu had strolled near the entrance before.
The NPC at the courier station was a gorgeous young lady wearing a white feather dress.
Fair-skinned, beautiful, with long legs, she sat behind the counter with her legs crossed, looking at Su Shu out of the corner of her eyes.
She wore a posture that suggested if one rested, all matters under heaven rested, and if you have nothing to do, get lost.
Su Shu: “…”
However, NPCs involved in commissions generally wouldn’t greet her on their own initiative, so Su Shu still spoke with a smile: “Hello.”
The young lady glanced at Su Shu: “Coo!”
Su Shu: “…”
Why must such a pretty young lady dress herself up in the direction of a homing pigeon?
Then, under Su Shu’s puzzled gaze, the pigeon-young-lady waved her hand—
Countless letters appeared out of thin air and crashed down upon Su Shu head and shoulders!