To put it mildly, Chu Yi truly lived up to his name. This move of his was still operating on a completely different dimension.
The system had racked its brain to the point of breaking, yet it never imagined that the fee schedule would include something like a “Protective Shield Daily Maintenance Fee.”
The crucial part was that, despite how utterly exploitative he was being, Xue Xiaobai was still nodding, bowing, and beaming with gratitude as if he had just witnessed some divine miracle.
He was literally helping count the money after getting sold down the river!
“Yes! Absolutely! Thank you so much, Store Manager!”
A single crystal core could be exchanged for 10 points. As long as he worked a little harder, he could pull in a decent daily income. Coupled with the fact that the protective shield blocked mutant attacks and provided a massive guarantee of safety, it was an absolute win no matter how you sliced it!
Xue Xiaobai had it all figured out.
With a Tier-1 mutant, someone as powerful as the Store Manager could squash it with a mere wave of his hand.
Yet the Store Manager chose to leave this opportunity to him, allowing him to hunt in secret from inside the protective shield—how could that possibly be viewed as anything less than a great philanthropist?
An Xue Xiaobai, swimming in such deep gratitude, conveniently forgot a single detail.
Namely, the crystal cores he harvested by killing mutants would ultimately end up right back in Chu Yi’s hands anyway.
No matter what, the Store Manager never lost a dime.
With his safety secured, Xue Xiaobai grew exceptionally nimble at slaying mutants, quickly dispatching the three Tier-1 mutants lurking around the perimeter.
Carefully digging out the crystal cores, he brought every single one straight to Chu Yi.
“You had 7 points remaining in your card yesterday. Today you’re depositing 130 points, minus the 100 room fee, 20 breathing fee, 5 protective shield maintenance fee, and the daily per-person restroom usage fee of 1 point—making it 2 points for both of you. That totals 127 points, which has already been swiped off. Your current remaining balance is 10 points.”
Chu Yi calculated the figures with crystal clarity, hammered out several lines of text on the register machine, and dispensed an itemized receipt via one-click transfer, shoving it straight into Xue Xiaobai’s hands.
“Do you have any misunderstandings regarding our fee structure?”
Xue Xiaobai shook his head.
He had peeked inside the restroom yesterday; it was impeccably clean.
However, because he hadn’t asked the Store Manager about the specific usage rules, he hadn’t dared to use it. When he was bursting to pee last night, he had to sneak off to the patch of small woods nearby to handle business.
Hearing now that a mere 1 point per person per day was deducted as a usage fee, he actually felt a wave of relief.
“Thank you, Store Manager.”
“Mm, your room is still 101. Take your mother in to rest.” Watching the pair head toward the hallway, Chu Yi spoke up once more. “Right, to celebrate the new store opening, we have a 0.99% off grand opening discount. Book a 10-day stay in one go, and you save 10 points. Introduce a new guest to the hotel, and for every 1 person referred, you receive a 100-minus-1 discount coupon. This promotion lasts for the next three days only.”
Hearing this, the system jolted awake like a patient experiencing a near-death Lazarus effect.
[Host, isn’t a 100-minus-1 deduction coupon a bit too stingy? Running a promotion where you knock off 10 points, or even 20 points, would make the discount margin much more substantial, giving guests actual motivation to drag people in. Plus, we could extend the promotional window a bit…]
Chu Yi acted as though he heard nothing at all.
If he weren’t currently short on customers, he wouldn’t even bother running a 100-minus-1 campaign. Was that even a discount? It was practically robbery straight out of his own pocket!
System: […]
Meanwhile, upon hearing this, the young man across the desk had stars in his eyes.
Referring a single person saved 1 point; referring 10 people saved 10 points! The more you worked, the more you earned!
The one thing Panlong Base was never short of was people!
As long as they came over and laid eyes on a hotel this incredible, everyone would be rushing to check in!
How could anyone not call this an absolute windfall?!
“Got it! Yes, sir!” he replied repeatedly, steadying his mother as they headed toward their room.
The moment Mother Xue stepped inside room 101, she was stunned speechless by the spotless floors and pristine bedding.
A place this wonderful probably required the status of an inner-city Esper just to be qualified to live in!
And a paradise like this only cost a mere ten Tier-1 crystal cores!
“Good child, the Store Manager is truly a great person!” She gripped Xue Xiaobai’s arm tightly. “He must have opened a place like this with the intention of saving more people! Since we’re lucky enough to be among the first batch of guests, we should help the Store Manager spread the word!”
No sooner had she finished speaking than she spotted a certain look in her son’s eyes and immediately understood: “You rascal!”
Mother Xue’s tone turned sharply stern. “You wouldn’t be thinking that if too many people come, we won’t have a place to stay anymore, would you?”
At this, Xue Xiaobai looked suitably ashamed.
Upon hearing Chu Yi’s promotional terms just now, he had indeed felt a flicker of temptation.
Yet upon calming down to think about it, if the crowds surged, poor folk like them might genuinely lose their spot…
“I’m sorry… Mom. You know how badly I want you to get better. Haven’t you noticed? Ever since we stepped foot into this place, you haven’t coughed a single time!”
Mother Xue blinked in surprise. She opened her mouth, finding no words to reply.
It was true; that was an absolute fact.
After entering the hotel, even her breathing had grown noticeably lighter.
This place was simply that miraculous.
If the big shots back at the base ever caught wind of it, low-class people like them would likely never get another chance to check in.
Even so…
“The Store Manager is a good person. We can’t return kindness with treachery.” Mother Xue stroked Xue Xiaobai’s head.
His nutrition hadn’t kept up; at 16 years of age, the young man barely stood over five feet two inches, and his hair was withered, yellow, and fine.
“Xiaobai, do you remember Big Brother Bei? His younger sister is in the late stages of waste-dust disease. He’s risked life and limb alongside the Espers, acting as bait to lure mutants away, yet the medicine he buys isn’t even enough to treat her condition,” Mother Xue said, sorrow bleeding into her eyes. “People like that—we have far too many of them in the outer district, far, far too many.”
“Child, when you head back to Panlong Base tomorrow, see if you can bring them over. The Store Manager has treated us very well, and we mustn’t let his heart go cold.”
With tears welling in his eyes, Xue Xiaobai nodded repeatedly.
“Mom, get some rest.” He helped his mother onto the bed, repackaged his gear, and picked up his knives. “I noticed earlier that other mutants were still wandering this way. I’m going out to see if I can take down a few more.”
With that, he left the room.
Chu Yi wasn’t particularly surprised when he saw him heading out.
The kid was poor; he naturally had to figure out ways to rake in more cash so he could keep paying tribute.
As it happened, thanks to the three corpses outside—particularly Liu Dao’s, which had been charred black by fire—the scent had attracted quite a few mutants.
Peering out from the front desk, a rough estimate counted over a dozen of them.
Most were Tier-1s, with a handful of Tier-2s boasting larger builds and sharper claws.
Beneath the moonlight, Xue Xiaobai hunted them tirelessly, taking down one after another.
Finally, just before midnight, he managed to slaughter twelve Tier-1 mutants and two Tier-2 mutants.
Following that, using Liu Dao’s keys to start up the pickup truck, he hauled the mutant carcasses far away to avoid drawing in larger packs of their kind.
Having wrapped up all of this, he returned inside the shop. Chu Yi was nowhere to be found at the front desk.
He had probably turned in for the night.
Xue Xiaobai glanced at the crystal core-to-points conversion table.
Tier-2 cores could be exchanged for 50 points; just two of them were enough to cover a night’s stay.
As long as he kept grinding away, securing a long-term stay might not be out of the question after all!
Fuelled by this thought, a surge of motivation hit him. He tiptoed quietly back into his room, curled up at the foot of the bed, and drifted off to a sound sleep.
Morning broke.
Having sipped warm milk before bed and enjoyed a high-end massage session, Chu Yi woke up feeling thoroughly refreshed.
Stepping out of his room, he spotted Xue Xiaobai waiting patiently by the front desk.
“Store Manager, I’m here to top up.” Looking somewhat sheepish, he poured a pile of crystal cores out of a pouch—early this morning, he had already eliminated another six Tier-1 mutants loitering around the protective shield.
Chu Yi handled the settlement for him.
[Xue Xiaobai · Remaining Card Balance: 290 points]
“Points are uniformly deducted at 5:00 PM every afternoon. Check out before that time, or the system will automatically deduct fees to extend your stay into the next day, and the same goes for other fees. If you don’t need to hunt mutants within the hotel perimeter anymore, you can come to me to cancel the automatic deduction.”
Truth be told, Chu Yi found this whole process rather tedious.
He really ought to redeem an automated payment kiosk.
琐碎 (Trivial) chores like this shouldn’t constantly require his direct attention.
However… an automated billing and card-issuing machine in the mall cost a cool 300 points all by itself.
If he bought it, his standard of living would take a massive nose-dive.
Right as this thought crossed his mind, the system popped up a notification.
[Customer Xue Xiaobai has deposited 18 Tier-1 crystal cores and 2 Tier-2 crystal cores, totaling 280 points. The host’s earnings amount to 196 points, which have all been deposited into the mall according to your wishes.]
[Your current mall balance is: 428]
With customers scarce, incoming revenues remained modest.
Yet Chu Yi couldn’t be bothered to venture outside to drum up business.
For one, stepping outside the hotel reduced him to an ordinary mortal with zero combat strength.
For another, he simply despised thankless legwork.
“If you’re heading out, you’d better make sure you’re back before 5:00 PM. Otherwise, once the time passes, it’ll automatically deduct 127 points for your total daily fees—I’ve already explained the overall fee structure to you. Do you have any questions about this?”
Xue Xiaobai shook his head and replied, “I can accept it. Thank you, Store Manager. I’m heading out.”
Chu Yi watched him depart, refocusing his attention on the system mall balance.
Things were still undeniably stretched a bit thin.
On the bright side, the second novice task—the one requiring three guests to check into the hotel—had ticked up by one person following Xue Xiaobai’s second check-in.
Now he only needed two more guests to complete it.
Musing on this, Chu Yi rose from his seat and walked toward the left hallway.
“Help me reconfigure the layout: shift the public restroom on the right side outward to carve out space inside. I want to add another guest room.”
With that, he opened the mall and selected the [Hotel Services] category.
[Add a basic room: 100 points]
A basic room shared the specs of the others: a mere 10 square meters, a 1-square-meter bathroom, and still categorized as an ultra-compact single room lacking an in-suite toilet.
Chu Yi purchased one unit.
In no time at all, the hotel completed its remodeling, adding room 104 to the first-floor layout.
With the remaining 328 mall currency, he immediately purchased an automated payment kiosk, placing it against the wall near the front entrance.
Having wrapped that up, Chu Yi trotted back to the front desk and resumed his seat.
Instead of idling away his time, he opened the system-displayed map to review the surrounding topography.
Hmm… The hotel was established right in front of the wasteland wilderness’s mangrove patch.
Heading roughly 130 to 140 kilometers south brought you to a medium-sized settlement: Panlong Base.
That was precisely where Xue Xiaobai and the others hailed from.
Some 300-plus kilometers to the east lay a small-scale settlement named Black Wind Base.
Other large-scale bases were situated quite a distance away.
At least, Chu Yi had to zoom out the map repeatedly before finally spotting one tucked away in a distant corner.
Aside from those, about 200 kilometers north behind the mangrove patch sat a red marker, seemingly some kind of mutant breeding nest, plastered with a dense cluster of red dots.
Though it posed no immediate threat right now, there was no telling when a mutant riot might erupt in the future.
After all, these creatures assaulted city walls every few days, leaving humanity at their wits’ end.
It looked like, for the sake of the hotel’s safety, he would have to deal with that sooner rather than later.
For now, though, it was back to waiting for the next sucker to take the bait.