“Go straight, turn right at the end of the road, then arrive at your destination.”
“GPS continues navigating for you.”
“GPS signal is weak.”
‘You have arrived at your destination.’
The last sentence wasn’t spoken aloud—it was text floating in the air.
Galaxy Theater Club.
Jiang Qi stared at the destination at the road’s end, his expression uncontrollably cracking.
He knew it—his sister had never been reliable even once.
This Murder Mystery Game store, hidden in an alley of the old town with intermittent GPS signals that made it impossible to find even with navigation, was what his own sister Jiang Bing had described as a heavily invested, promising Murder Mystery Game store located in a bustling street, central urban area, CBD district.
Along Jiang Qi’s journey here, he hadn’t seen any skyscrapers or prosperous commercial areas—only breakfast shops, Halal beef noodle restaurants, stir-fry fast food joints, Hunan rice noodle shops, spicy hot pot stalls, skewer stands, pancake shops, fruit stalls, Mianyang rice noodle shops, and countless greasy spoons with signs so crooked the characters were illegible.
This was clearly an old town snack and takeout street!
If not for a system that could do nothing but give directions, Jiang Qi would probably have stuffed himself full without ever finding the destination.
Just as Jiang Qi stood at the store entrance questioning his life choices, his sister Jiang Bing happened to call.
“Hello.”
“Jiang Qi, have you reached my store? The navigation didn’t lead you wrong, did it?”
“I’m here, but this place seems a bit different from what you described yesterday…”
“Great that you’re there! I’m already at the airport now, boarding in half an hour. I have another call coming soon, so I’ll make this quick.”
“This store cost me a lot of effort. You know I’ve opened twelve stores before—I have plenty of experience. I had high hopes for this one too. If I didn’t have urgent business requiring me to be away for six months, I really wouldn’t want to leave.”
“Since you just graduated and haven’t decided what to do, why not help me manage the store for half a year? You’re good at this anyway. Mom and Dad keep saying you stay home all day without going out or making friends—running a Murder Mystery Game store is great for socializing! And since you just graduated without a job or income, I won’t make you work for free. Keep whatever profit the store makes these months as pocket money. If you really like it, I’ll give you the store, and I’ll open another branch elsewhere.”
“I’m sending you the landlord’s WeChat now. If there are any issues with the property, just contact him. The rent is paid every six months with four months remaining—no pressure, do your best!”
“I remember what you said last night was…”
“Oops, my other call is coming through! Gotta go, message me on WeChat if you need anything. Beep… beep… beepbeepbeep…”
Jiang Qi: …
Didn’t she say she still had half an hour before boarding?
Silently looking up at Galaxy Theater Club wedged between Wang’s Pancake Shop and Everyday Fried Skewers, Jiang Qi sighed deeply, found a quiet corner, and tapped the exclamation mark floating in the upper right corner of his vision to open the system panel.
Since first being tricked by Jiang Bing into helping manage her store during the summer after high school graduation, Jiang Qi had obtained a system whose purpose remained unclear to him.
Player Name: Jiang Qi
Age: 23
Occupation: Freelancer
Owned Stores: Bubble Tea Shop (Closed), Fried Chicken Shop (Closed), Skewer Shop (Closed), Flower Shop (Closed), Childcare Center (Closed), Snack Shop (Closed), Convenience Store (Closed)
Murder Mystery Game Store (Locating, Not Yet Confirmed)
This system was activated the moment Jiang Qi stepped into the bubble tea shop after being tricked by Jiang Bing into managing her failing store (as unpaid labor). Aside from helping Jiang Qi locate the stores he owned, it had no other functions.
The system interface was extremely simple—only text in Song font, with no graphics. It was clear the game hadn’t hired any artists. In the four years since Jiang Qi obtained the system, this barebones, unfinished product hadn’t changed at all. The only updates were additions to the “Owned Stores” list each time he took over another one of Jiang Bing’s shops. It was truly a counterfeit system.
“Hello, are you Jiang Qi, Boss Jiang Bing’s brother?” A crisp female voice interrupted Jiang Qi’s silent cursing of his useless system.
A girl with light makeup—though her mascara had smudged onto her eyelids, leaving dark patches at the corners of her eyes—had appeared behind him unnoticed. Her features were quite delicate.
“Who are you?”
“I’m a summer part-timer at your sister’s store. My name is Liu Lan. You can call me Lanlan, Little Boss.” Liu Lan grinned. “Bing just called saying you’d arrived at the storefront. I waited inside for two minutes but you never showed, so I came out to find you. Our store isn’t on this side—it’s over there. The sign isn’t very visible, and the navigation pin is inaccurate. I figured you couldn’t find it, so I came to get you.”
Definitely a part-timer. Ms. Jiang Bing, who had “cost-cutting” engraved in her DNA, loved hiring cheap college students for temporary work.
Jiang Qi had been one himself—even cheaper than the average student intern, receiving empty promises instead of pay, and sometimes even having to cover expenses out of pocket.
Jiang Qi quickly closed the system panel while Liu Lan turned away and nodded. “Thank you. It really was hard to find.”
Checking his phone, Jiang Qi confirmed it was only June 17th. Most colleges wouldn’t be on break yet, so he asked, “Your school lets out pretty early, huh? It’s not even July.”
“I live nearby. I’m a broadcasting major at the normal university here, so it’s convenient to work. Classes aren’t officially over, but I have no more lectures. I can come every day during summer break, and on regular days whenever I’m free. Bing set my summer pay at a 1,000-yuan base salary plus commissions, with four days off monthly. Right now, I’m the only Game Master at the store. Another part-timer won’t be back until next week after their break. Hope you’ll go easy on me, Little Boss!”
Liu Lan seemed familiar with the nearby restaurant owners. Passing a noodle shop, she shouted to the proprietor, “Boss, don’t forget to deliver a bowl of beef noodles tonight—extra scallions, no cilantro!”
“What about your usual base salary?” Jiang Qi asked.
“Usual? There’s no base salary normally, just commissions.” Liu Lan saw nothing odd about this. “Bing is really nice. She said since I have no classes now, it’s basically the same as summer work, so she started paying me the summer rate from the day before yesterday.”
Jiang Qi looked at the wage earner before him, who had been prematurely exploited by capitalism even before stepping into society:…
If he remembered correctly, last night Jiang Bing had told him that the Murder Mystery Game Store’s business hours were from 2 PM to late night daily, with no fixed closing time.
He could only say, “Sis, as expected of you.”
As Jiang Bing’s one and only biological younger brother, Jiang Qi knew his capitalist sister all too well.
A graduate of a prestigious art academy, her main job was as an illustrator, while her secondary occupation was running stores. From her freshman year until now, she had opened twelve stores of various sizes – from bubble tea shops, fried chicken joints, and skewer stalls to print shops, clothing stores, and florists. The sheer range and variety would make anyone exclaim that she must have too much money to burn.
The common characteristic of these stores was their short lifespan and low costs, lasting anywhere from one week to one year at most. Jiang Bing’s first store was a stationery shop opened seven years ago when Jiang Qi was still in high school. Located on Aquatic Products Street using their family’s own storefront with no rent, it closed after just one week. Jiang Qi still hasn’t used up all the leftover stationery from that failed venture.
Back then, Jiang Qi thought his sister would face reality, realize she wasn’t cut out for business, and stop before it was too late. Little did he expect Ms. Jiang Bing would become more courageous with each failure, losing more money each time, using her main job’s income to fund her side businesses, truly achieving clean sleeves but empty pockets.
This wasn’t the first time Jiang Qi had to clean up his sister’s mess. As a recent college graduate who failed his postgraduate entrance exam, now torn between retaking the exam or job hunting, Jiang Qi had plenty of free time. Since his high school graduation summer vacation, he had taken over (working for free) numerous failing stores for Jiang Bing during various long holidays. He had mastered various snack-making techniques and methods of store failure, accumulating rich work experience at a young age.
It was evident that Ms. Jiang Bing hadn’t learned any of capitalism’s money-making skills over the years, but she had mastered the art of exploiting workers perfectly.
Given that Jiang Qi himself possessed a completely useless system, he had reason to suspect Jiang Bing had a system that earned money specifically from store failures. Otherwise, it was hard to understand why she remained so enthusiastic about opening stores after so many failures.
And they were getting bigger and more expensive each time.
Jiang Qi followed Liu Lan into the store.
The first floor was decently decorated. What caught the eye immediately was the reception desk and bar counter. Behind the reception desk stood two enormous wooden script shelves, estimated to hold hundreds of scripts, with the empty spaces filled with several delicate trinkets. On the bar counter sat two figurines Jiang Qi didn’t recognize, several glass cups that looked quite premium, and a half-finished glass of juice. The first floor wasn’t overly decorated – a sofa and tea table set for receiving guests, a refrigerator in the corner, light green wallpaper, a chandelier that slightly clashed with the wall design, spider plants by the windows, a full-length mirror leaning against the wall, star-shaped lights hanging along the window frames. The natural lighting inside was good, creating an overall bright and tasteful atmosphere.
Much better than Jiang Qi had imagined. It was clear Jiang Bing had put considerable thought into the decoration, far superior to her previous stores where slapping on some wallpaper counted as renovation.
“Sis Bing said you haven’t played Murder Mystery Games before, Little Boss, so she asked me to help you mind the store during this period. We have a group booked for next Monday evening to play the Exclusive Edition Sis Bing just purchased last week. The script arrived yesterday – I’ve already studied it thoroughly. There’s a male Game Master role that needs to be performed, and I was considering cutting that segment entirely. But since you’re here now, Little Boss, why don’t you take a look at that part? We can rehearse it together and see if you can perform it.”
“No need to call me Little Boss, just call me Jiang Qi.” Jiang Qi didn’t mind role-playing. He had been in the drama club during university, though he rarely got to play human characters – most of his roles were plants, flowers, or roadside rocks.
Jiang Qi had never experienced Murder Mystery Games before. All his knowledge came from the emergency store manager training Jiang Bing gave him last night.
Scripts are categorized into three types by price: Boxed Edition, City Limited Edition, and Exclusive Edition.
The scripts on the shelves were mostly ordinary Boxed Editions with no purchase restrictions – you could buy as many as you wanted.
City Limited Editions were typically limited to three copies per city, though some exceptional publishers would pull off the tricky move of releasing twelve copies per city. These were usually fought over in big cities but readily available in smaller places like Xun City where Jiang Qi was located.
Exclusive Editions were, as the name suggested, exclusively available to one store only.
The Game Master was the host who guided players through the Murder Mystery Game. Each script contained different character books, with every character having their own story and tasks. When all these individual stories were connected, they formed the complete script. After receiving their scripts, players needed to role-play their assigned characters. Scripts came in various types, broadly categorized into Detective/Mystery Scripts, Emotional Scripts, Comedy Scripts, and Horror Scripts.
As an enthusiast of detective novels and crime dramas, Jiang Bing’s Murder Mystery Game Store naturally specialized in Detective/Mystery Scripts, which made up a staggering 80% of their inventory. The remaining 20% were all Comedy Scripts – there wasn’t a single Emotional or Horror Script in the store.
With such capricious operation, it was no wonder this store was on the verge of closure.
Jiang Qi examined the scripts on the shelves, matching them with what Jiang Bing had explained last night. As he looked through them, he noticed one script Jiang Bing hadn’t mentioned.
“Mask Club.”
With its black cover, it didn’t stand out at all among the array of dark-colored scripts.
“What kind of script is that?”