In his personal game space, Shen Qingcheng’s body slowly formed from blue light spots, coalescing in his room.
The first thing Shen Qingcheng did after regaining consciousness was to open his terminal to check the rewards he had obtained: 15 survival points, 1 rest coupon.
Looking at the two pitiful numbers, he felt regret for the first time.
Why did he choose another way to clear just because he disliked the trouble of cracking the storyline?
If he was going to choose it, then he might as well just do it, but then he’d ended up getting bored again, and followed along with Lu Qi, collecting clues from everywhere?
Shen Qingcheng regretted it endlessly.
After the test copy, he had had 11 survival points left. In the last copy, he had bought two sets of furniture, with an original price of 100 points, and paid only 90 points. With 11 survival points left, plus the 15 points of this reward, his entire assets were only a tight 36 survival points!
What could he buy with 36 survival points?
After buying the set of engraving tools he had favored and put into the shopping cart, his balance was 0.
The original price of the set of carving tools was 40 survival points, which ended up as exactly 36 after his 10% discount.
Shen Qingcheng placed the order angrily, looking at his balance of 0. Not a drop left!
If he kept on going like this, when would he be able to stuff a whole room with annoying work before his death? No, in the future he’d be angry with whoever didn’t let him explore the storyline.
How could it be annoying to solve storylines? He, Shen Qingcheng, liked listening to stories and solving puzzles the most.
After repeating this silently many times to brainwash himself, Shen Qingcheng calmly opened the rest coupon to check the details.
This was Shen Qingcheng’s first time getting extra drops after clearing the copy. Before, Chen Ge had only mentioned it once, when he introduced the game to him.
【 Rest Coupon: After use, players will get extra time to stay in the game space. Note: Can be stacked. 】
【 Acquisition Method: Drops after customs clearance. 】
Each player had a period to rest and make adjustments to their game space after finishing a copy. The purpose of a rest coupon was to add another two days to this period. That was to say, this time Shen Qingcheng could enter another copy after 6 days.
Shen Qingcheng suddenly remembered Lu Qi had taken the initiative to add him as a friend after the last copy ended.
The friend request he received had been sent 5 days ago, and after 5 days, when he had come out of the copy, Lu Qi was still in the game space.
It turns out that Lu Qi had used a rest coupon?
He wasn’t sure, so he sent a message to ask.
After asking, he glanced at Chen Ge’s information–Chen Ge was still in a copy.
After a while, Lu Qi gave him an affirmative reply: “En.”
Shen Qingcheng: “Is the drop rate of rest coupons high? How many do you have in total?”
Lu Qi: “It’s passable, I have 5 left.”
5×2=10
10+4=14Didn’t that mean that Lu Qi could take a 14-day break at any time if he wanted to? He was really worthy of being number one on the leaderboard!
Immediately after remembering the number of survival points on the leaderboard, five figures, Shen Qingcheng wilted again.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Five figures, compared to the 0 in his own account… he suddenly hated the rich.
Aera ktfc Vtfc Hlcumtfcu kjr gfagfjalcu lcab j vfqgfrrlnf rajaf, Oe Hl rfca jcbatfg wfrrjuf:
“Tbe mjc erf atf gfra mbeqbcr, yea vbc’a rajmx abb wjcs.”
Ktlr Vtfc Hlcumtfcu ecvfgrabbv–pera ilxf j raevfca rxlqqlcu qgjmalmf defralbcr raevfcar obg bcf vjs, qjrrlcu atf mbqlfr kjr rlwlijg; rajslcu jkjs ogbw vjcufgber fcnlgbcwfcar obg abb ibcu kbeiv mtlq jkjs ja atf jifgacfrr atja tf tjv meialnjafv.
He slumped on the sofa, “I want to go to your personal space.”
Lu Qi waited for two minutes before replying, “Do you want to go to the Player Heart Exchange? Players can get rid of any props they don’t need there.”
Shen Qingcheng suddenly sat up straight. So there was such a place? “I want to go! Of course!”
The two agreed to meet in the game hall.
Around the platform, various ranking boards hung in the sea of stars. The top name on the rookie king list was still “Alluring Beauty”, indicating that the game had not yet brought in a new batch of players after Shen Qingcheng’s group.
At the top of the other rankings–number of customs clearances, survival point consumption, and wealth–was “God 7”.
It was the first time Shen Qingcheng and Lu Qi had met in the game space.
Players looked different in the copies and the game space: the game space showed their real appearance, while the copies were fine-tuned every time.
Shen Qingcheng silently observed the man walking towards him; he was a little different, but still recognizable at a glance.
Lu Qi was still very tall, with wide shoulders, a narrow waist, and long legs. He wore a short-sleeved black shirt and a pair of camo pants. His facial features were well-defined, his browbone sculpted, the bridge of his nose high, and pursed lips, giving him an air of tranquility and reliability.
The man walked in front of him and lowered his eyes slightly, “Shen Meiren?”
Feeling a little short, Shen Qingcheng asked, “How tall are you?”
The tone and way of speaking were undoubtedly Shen Meiren. Lu Qi quickly scanned the person in front of him, taking in his appearance and height, “189.”
Wow, that was 4 cm taller than him.
Shen Qingcheng folded his arms and circled the man. After appraising him, he nodded and concluded, “I look better.”
Lu Qi’s fingertips moved, but he didn’t speak.
The Player Heart Exchange wasn’t on that platform, so Lu Qi took him to another larger platform through the teleportation point.
Lu Qi paid the teleportation fee of 1 survival point for Shen Qingcheng.
Shen Qingcheng always felt that Lu Qi’s reaction after learning he was penniless was very complex, as if he had expected it, but also as if he was a little surprised?
Combining those two feelings: although he knew he was poor, he hadn’t expected him to be so poor?
Shen Qingcheng: “…”
Lu Qi pinched his brows with a headache; Shen Meiren’s gaze was so straightforward that he couldn’t ignore it, but he didn’t know what he had arranged for him again.
“What are you thinking about?”
Shen Qingcheng: “Although I knew you were poor, I didn’t expect you to be so poor.”
Lu Qi understood in seconds, “I didn’t say you were poor, I just didn’t expect you to be so good at spending.”
He could admit that he could really spend, but Shen Qingcheng retorted, “All workers are from the moonlight clan!”
The implication was that he wasn’t the only one who spent!
The two wandered around the Player Heart Exchange for a while to get familiar with the environment, and left after more and more players began coming around.
Shen Qingcheng had a preliminary understanding of this player’s exchange of hearts.
In a nutshell, the Player Heart Exchange was a place where players could come to an agreement that let them get eliminate unused items.
Because the props that could be exchanged for currently were definitely different from the out-of-date ones mixed in later.
For the higher-quality props, it was a waste to leave them in the past. It was better to sell them to new players at a discount. It was also a way for old players to recover blood.
In the game space, survival points and props could be transferred back and forth.
The hustle and bustle behind them was getting further and further away. Lu Qi: “You aren’t planning to change your props?”
Shen Qingcheng: “No money.”
Lu Qi: “I have some used ones.”
Shen Qingcheng: “Huh? You didn’t swap them?”
Lu Qi: “En.”
Shen Qingcheng looked at the man, “Right, you have money, and you don’t need to recover blood. So do you have peach wood props?”
Lu Qi: “No.”
Shen Qingcheng: “I want to go to your personal space.”
Lu Qi: “? Are those two related?”
Shen Qingcheng said confidently, “It doesn’t matter, but I want to go to your personal space.”
Lu Qi walked around him, to the front.
What undisplayable things were hidden in his space? He followed reluctantly.
Lu Qi: “In front is the entertainment area. The buildings inside are built by player teams to exchange props. As long as you can give survival points, they can provide any service.”
Shen Qingcheng, who was interrupted, remembered what He Wei and Gao Shulin said in the copy, “Including physiological needs?”
Lu Qi paused in his footsteps, and then answered in a lower voice, “En.”
Shen Qingcheng had asked purely out of curiosity, and he was no longer interested when he knew the answer.
He was about to walk forward to see what entertainment activities were available when his terminal suddenly received a message.
He opened it up.
“Shen-ge, I came out alive!”
“Shen-ge, where are you now? Can I find you in your personal space?”
【 Player Gargoyle is applying to enter your personal space. Yes/No? 】
Shen Qingcheng replied to Chen Ge first, and then said to Lu Qi: “Chen Ge came out of the copy to find me, I’m going see what’s up with him.”
Lu Qi closed his terminal, which had rung a few seconds late with a message from the person he had called to help Chen Ge, and nodded.
Shen Qingcheng clicked to return to his personal space, and Lu Qi’s figure in the hall soon followed suit.
“Shen-ge! I’m so happy to see you!” Chen Ge rushed off the sofa towards Shen Qingcheng with a bear hug.
Shen Qingcheng tapped a finger against his forehead, “Why did you call yourself Gargoyle?”
Chen Ge said “Ah,” dumbfoundedly, “It’s like in a fairy tale.”
Shen Qingcheng: “Huaxia?”
Chen Ge looked at him even more dazedly.
Shen Qingcheng: “…”
He let go and walked to the sofa to sit down, looking up to observe Chen Ge’s state: his eyes were full of energy, and he was as lively as a young calf.
“How was that copy?”
Chen Ge put aside the phrase he hadn’t understood just then, and sat down on the sofa as well, “It went well, Lin Zi-ge took me.”
“Let me tell you, Shen-ge, Lin Zi-ge was very curious about why God asked him to take me. I said it was for your favor, but he wouldn’t believe it, saying that God was not such a person!”
Shen Qingcheng interrupted him, “He knows Lu Qi very well?”
Chen Ge: “Probably, otherwise why would God ask him to take me?”
Shen Qingcheng: “You didn’t ask how they met?”
Chen Ge: “Is there any other possibility besides the game?”
Shen Qingcheng was about to cry stupidly by him, “You never thought that they might know each other in reality? Do you think Lu Qi is the type of person who takes the initiative to make friends?”
Chen Genanne, “But God took the initiative to add you as a friend.”
Shen Qingcheng: “…” It made sense, but it still felt strange.
Don’t ask, it was just intuition.
At the same time, Lu Qi’s personal space:
The decoration style of Lu Qi’s room was similar to that of Shen Qingcheng. They were both very simple, and only had the basic facilities.
However, Shen Qingcheng’s simplicity was because he has no money, and Lu Qi’s was because he was used to it.
In his room, there was a bogu shelf as high and wide as the wall, on which was placed all his unused props, all attack props.
At this moment, a baby-faced youth was standing in front of the bogu shelf.
The young man held up a strange little sword. This little sword was engraved with talismans on the front and back, and there were two patterns on the handle. “How come I can’t see what’s so special about this wooden sword?”
But an ordinary small sword wouldn’t appear on the bogu shelf.
The youth inspected it for a long time and found nothing, almost suspecting that his own level had regressed.
At this time, Lu Qi’s figure appeared in the room, and the young man immediately put down the sword and stood up straight, “Duizhang!”
Lu Qi nodded, “En.”
“Hey, duizhang.” The relaxed young man rushed to Lu Qi’s side with small steps.
He revealed the small sword from where it had been behind him, and smiled widely, “What is this small sword used for? I really can’t understand it, can you explain it to me?”
Hmmmmm…. So is gargoyle from shen meiren world or from other world?
Thank you for translating! Small comment, the use of 本人 in “I look better” may actually be referring to Lu Qi looking better “in person” compared to the altered appearance in the game world. I don’t have the raws for reference, but I thought that would make more sense given the context.
ok but I’m kinda confused cuz I kinda remembered that in another chapter near the beginning of the novel during the kindergarden arc someone commented “isn’t it a cheat for a tianshi to be participating in the horror game?” so what I have in mind is people from Xiao Mei’s world and people from Deqin is mixed into the horror games…
Remembered that too. We’ll just have to reset our knowledge of the world.
probably a mistake on the author’s side… probably a mistake… xD
Aww he kept the first gift Beauty gave him🩷