5
Game Activation
After leaving the memory, Jiang Qi still felt somewhat dazed.
He had returned to the Murder Mystery Game store, still sitting on the sofa. Liu Lan was seamlessly continuing her thoughts on the script beside him, and he was still holding the large card with the written memory in his hand.
Jiang Qi looked down and saw that the last line clearly read, “I saved up for so long back then, he’s definitely going to love it.”
A supernatural event?
Or was his system manifesting?
Jiang Qi coughed lightly, interrupting Liu Lan’s endless stream of script impressions, and said, “I think I left my power bank upstairs earlier. I’m going up to get it.”
“Oh.” Liu Lan paused for a moment, then nodded. It wasn’t until Jiang Qi had already gone upstairs that she realized something seemed off.
“Strange, did Jiang Qi have a power bank with him when he came? He didn’t even bring a bag…”
Jiang Qi went upstairs and walked straight into the European-style room nearest to the staircase. He turned on the light, closed the door, and swiftly opened the system panel.
As he opened the system panel, a cheerful system notification sound—one he had never heard before—rang in his ears.
“Congratulations, Player Jiang Qi, for completing the tutorial. The game has now been officially activated. You have received the tutorial reward [Character Card] ×1. Please check your card pack and refer to the game guide on the main interface.”
“You have discovered a main quest. Please check the quest log!”
Tutorial?
Quest panel?
Jiang Qi opened the system panel, and several new sections immediately caught his attention.
Player Name: Jiang Qi
Age: 23
Occupation: Acting Manager of Galaxy Theater Club
Owned Stores: Milk 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 (Activated) [Click to view store details]
Held Cards: [Character Card] ×1 [Click to view card details]
Main Quest [Click to view details]
Game Guide [Click to view game guide]
Cards?
Store details?
These were all new features that had never appeared before. Jiang Qi followed the order and first clicked on the store details.
【Galaxy Theater Club】
Awareness: 0 (This is literally the worst store I’ve ever seen!)
Satisfaction: 0 (You don’t even have a single loyal customer!)
Store Evaluation: On the verge of closing down
Jiang Qi: …
Jiang Qi silently clicked on the card details. There were three categories: Quest Cards, Building Cards, and Special Cards. The Building Cards and Special Cards sections were empty, and only the Character Cards section could be opened.
【Character Card: John Survival】(Summonable)
Star Rating: ★
Skills: Cleaning (Having worked as a cleaner for forty years, John Survival can clean every corner spotlessly)
True-to-Self Performance (Everyone is good at playing themselves, though it can be a bit dull)
Card Details: An eccentric old man who worked as a cleaner his entire life. He enjoys living in affluent neighborhoods, has extremely low material desires, and seems to have many secrets.
(Friendly reminder: Only three cards can be placed in each card slot. Please choose carefully and work hard to upgrade your cards.)
Isn’t this Old John?
Hesitating for a few seconds over the option to summon, Jiang Qi decided to temporarily exit the card interface. He would check what the main quest was before deciding whether to summon or not.
Main Quest:
Quest Progress: Satisfaction (0/1)
Quest Reward: 500 yuan.
500 yuan!
Jiang Qi’s eyes welled up with tears.
It was truly touching. Nowadays, systems that straightforwardly hand out money without any fuss are rare. Is this the legendary conscience-driven game?
The impoverished Jiang Qi, with a heart full of excitement, opened the game guide.
Game Guide:
This game is a card game. Failed quests will not incur any penalties. Players should focus primarily on cards, with quests as supplementary objectives, and strive to collect cards.
Cards can be upgraded to a maximum of three stars. Players should work hard to level up their cards.
This game offers extremely high freedom. Players are encouraged to explore on their own.
All interpretations belong to the game.
Jiang Qi: ???
You call this a game guide???
Jiang Qi decided to retract his earlier positive assessment of the game.
Since the guide provided no useful information, Jiang Qi had no choice but to summon the cards and explore on his own. Returning to the card interface, he tapped the “Summon” option on the right side of the Character Card, selected “Yes” when prompted, and once again heard the cheerful system notification sound.
“Ding, congratulations to player Jiang Qi for summoning the one-star Character Card [John Survival]. The character has appeared near the shop. Please search for them on your own.”
Jiang Qi: ???
I have to find the summoned card myself?
Jiang Qi felt that if words could float above his head, they would all be question marks right now.
Delays could lead to complications. Without overthinking, Jiang Qi quickly ran downstairs, dashed out of the shop under Liu Lan’s bewildered gaze, and began searching everywhere for Old John.
The alleyways were a maze of interconnected paths, extremely complex. After circling around for a while, Jiang Qi finally found Old John standing in front of a ramen shop. Dressed in a slightly oversized black suit, he looked quite proper and appeared to be in his fifties.
Not only did Jiang Qi find Old John, but after confirming that they could communicate in Chinese without issues, he also joined him for a bowl of beef ramen at the ramen shop, which cost 7 yuan.
Old John wasn’t very skilled with chopsticks. The two sticks seemed to be at war in his hands, and he could only pick up one noodle at a time. The meal progressed extremely slowly. By the time Jiang Qi had finished his bowl and even drank the soup, Old John had only managed a few noodles.
Jiang Qi glanced around, noticing the shop owner sitting at the entrance watching videos. Confident that no one nearby could overhear their conversation, he felt reassured enough to ask, “How should I address you?”
“Just call me Old John,” he replied slowly.
Seeing that Old John was quite cooperative, Jiang Qi skipped the pleasantries and got straight to the point: “How much do you know about the Cards?”
Since the game guide left him to explore on his own, he had no choice but to seek answers from the Character Card itself.
Old John lowered his head, struggling to pick up the noodles in his bowl without success, and said, “Very little.”
“About the Cards, I only know that three-star Cards do not occupy card slots.”
Jiang Qi suddenly understood and nodded. No wonder the game encouraged players to level up their cards.
“What are the conditions for upgrading stars?”
Old John thought for a moment and said, “It should be reputation points.”
“People’s affection for us, admiration, respect, or even fear can all be converted into reputation points. Once the conditions are met, the stars will naturally upgrade.”
Jiang Qi tried asking Old John a few more questions about Cards, but he couldn’t answer any of them.
Old John responded while slowly eating his noodles, not missing a single bite.
Unable to get any information about the game itself, Jiang Qi could only ask Old John about his personal matters.
Old John was merely a background character in the script, primarily serving to highlight the protagonist’s tragic childhood. Much of his information was vague, and his name didn’t even appear in the script—Jiang Qi only learned it from the Cards.
“This might be a bit presumptuous, but why haven’t you worked all these years?”
Old John swallowed a mouthful of noodles: “Don’t know.”
Jiang Qi: ?
“It wasn’t written in the script.”
Jiang Qi had to change the question: “Then why didn’t you seek treatment?”
“Don’t know. It wasn’t written in the script.”
Jiang Qi: “…”
After several dozen minutes of questioning, Jiang Qi finally understood what was going on.
As a supporting character in the story, all of Old John’s appearances served the protagonist. The causes, consequences, and behavioral logic were all glossed over, which was fine in a story that had little to do with Old John.
But now that Old John had become a person summoned by the Cards, he still only possessed the original settings given to him by the story.
If it was written, he had it; if it wasn’t, it was blank.
His past, his relatives, his personality, everything about him was bestowed upon him by the author of the original story. Everything he experienced in the story, his behavioral logic—if the author wrote it, it existed; if not, he didn’t know why.
What Old John knew depended entirely on what the author had written.
If the author had set Old John to build rockets, no matter how unreasonable, Old John would build rockets.
Jiang Qi decided to go back later and study the script carefully, figuring out Old John’s habits and skills to make it easier to research how to upgrade his star rating.
As Old John took his last bite of noodles, Jiang Qi asked his final question: “Is there anything you want right now?”
Even if Old John was a character from the script, he was now a living person and should have emotions, desires, joys, sorrows, and things he wanted to do.
“Yes,” Old John said decisively.
“I want to live in the affluent neighborhood.”
Jiang Qi: ???
I want that too!