Chapter 4 - Don’t be a swindler in your next life
As soon as these two megaphones were blasted, the world grew much livelier. Some people ate melon seeds as they spectated the show, while others scolded “Don’t Frown” for being shameless.
[Megaphone] Regardless of Lovesickness: From today on, there will be a server-wide reward for Don’t Frown: kill her once and you’ll get 100 gold, kill her ten times, and you’ll get 1,200 gold. Come find me with your screenshots to get your money. ]
Wow.
Jing Huan marvelled while doing his dailies in the safe area, so rich.
The game scenes of “Nine Chivalrous Heroes” were divided into three types of areas: arena, combat area, and safe area.
In the arena, you could initiate PK against any person or team in the arena, and deaths wouldn’t result in any losses. It was a scene for learning through duels.
Every wild map and several small towns were combat areas. On these maps, you could initiate a compulsory PK against any person or team. Death would cost you money and experience.
For safe areas, as the name implies, you would not be attacked as long as you stayed in the map belonging to the safe area.
Nine Chivalrous Heroes had nine big cities, only three of which were safe areas. Instances, scenes that gave a ton of experience, and active NPCs were almost all in wild maps.
If he wanted to avoid fighting, then he couldn’t even gain experience anymore.
One hundred gold for killing him once, that was equivalent to one hundred yuan. For many players, this was considered money falling into their laps from the sky. Jing Huan could guess how lively the world channel must be right now even with his eyes closed.
Any other person may have chosen to repost this account onto the marketplace and buy another account. After all, this character was now being hunted down server-wide, and the following week would probably be anything but peaceful.
But Jing Huan wouldn’t.
He had bought this account with money in cold hard cash, and he hadn’t done anything against his own conscience, so why should he let himself go through all that trouble again because of those damn grudges?
Besides, he was killed back to the rebirth checkpoint right after he logged in; he still remembered this debt that he must settle with that group.
Jing Huan casually set up a stall in front of a grocery store. He cleaned up some of the inexpensive junk in the account, then minimised the game interface and opened up the marketplace again.
He wasn’t in a hurry to buy equipment, but as the situation stood now, it was impossible for him not to upgrade his attributes.
Jing Huan came from a rather well-to-do family. Every month, all the money his family gave him here and there added up to more than 30,000 yuan. Also, almost all of his shoes and clothes were bought by Liang Ran, so he usually didn’t spend much, and he had saved up a considerable amount in the past two to three years.
So he had quite a bit of confidence when it came to buying equipment.
After browsing the marketplace, he opened the game interface and was shocked by the scene inside.
His stall was crowded with people, and there were so many of them that his game interface was somewhat laggy.
[Current] Youth Chasing The Wind: Guess what she’s doing now?
[Current] Peachy Fate: Probably looking at guild information to pick her next target. I’d suggest to all guilds to take good care of your guild leader, otherwise she might even cheat them out of their underwear next time.
[Current] Is Gege Big: I’m standing in line, holding a queue number for killing Don’t Frown.
[Current] The Wind is Freer than Me: I don’t have enough money to insert gems recently, brothers, could you guys not fight with me over this?
Players chatted energetically on the current channel, and dialog boxes filled the game interface. Jing Huan leisurely watched them for a while.
[Current] Peachy Fate: Anyway, I really want to hear Don’t Frown’s voice. I heard that it’s particularly coquettish and even sounds like a loli.
[Current] Youth Chasing The Wind: Are you for real? But then again, you can’t deceive men if you don’t have a nice voice.
[Current] Don’t Ask when I’ll Return: Come come, I’ll be the banker, let’s bet if Don’t Frown will sell her account within a week. The odds are yes: 0.3, no: 3.6.
[Current] Is Gege Big: What kind of devilish odds is 0.3? Isn’t that too little! I buy ‘yes’, 500 gold.
[Current] Xiao Tianjing: I bet ‘no’, 1000 gold.
Suddenly, all the boxes that had been popping up disappeared.
A few seconds later.
[Current] Youth Chasing the Wind: ??
[Current] Don’t Ask when I’ll Return: ???
[Current] Peachy Fate: Oh my God, you can really withstand pressure, I can tell that you’re someone who can do great things at first glance. I’d advise you to join the Tencent LoL Pro League and solo the top.
[Current] Xiao Tianjing: You’re flattering me. I won’t leave the safe area for now, so don’t surround me anymore. It’s really disturbing my business.
[Current] Never Give Up: … What business?
[Current] Xiao Tianjing: You can click on my stall to see: there are reinforcement stones, metamorphosis cards, and decomposition talismen. I have everything.
[Current] Don’t Ask when I’ll Return: No but, aren’t these all too expensive? It’s even more expensive than the ones sold by merchants!
[Current] Xiao Tianjing: Buy them if you want, get lost if you don’t.
[Current] Don’t Ask when I’ll Return: …
Jing Huan sneered. Just as he was about to type, he saw a sentence come out of the crowd&#k2014;&#k2014;
[Current] Peachy Fate: Brothers and sisters transfer battlefields quick! Immortal Mengmeng posted in the forum to diss Yearning For!!
One stone stirred up a thousand waves.
Before Jing Huan could react, he saw the people around him disappear one by one. In an instant, he was the only one left at the entrance to the grocery store.
His line of sight shifted and stayed on the name “Immortal Mengmeng”, his gaze ice-cold.
Some time ago, it was this Immortal Mengmeng who kept on blaring megaphones on the world channel, which forced Liang Ran to quit the game and go abroad.
He kept his stall and flew to the forum NPC.
Jing Huan was not a gossip lover. If this were a few years back, he would never have thought that he would visit the Holy Land for catfights twice in one day.
Immortal Mengmeng’s post is called “Yearning For, I misjudged you”.
When he opened it to take a look, a bunch of melodramatic words were packed densely together; there were at least 3000 words, yet there weren’t many that had any substance.
It talked about what happened between her and Yearning For. She said Yearning For’s real age did not match the age he claimed he was in the game. She was the one who bought airline tickets and booked hotels, and she was even the one who paid for their meals and sightseeing expenses when they were together. Yearning For had also used the excuse of his credit card maxing out to get her to help him pay.
The most important thing was — right after the two of them just met face-to-face, Yearning For started ignoring her in game and even blacklisted her WeChat and phone number.
The classic fuck and run!
The opinions under the post were both diverse and muddled.
1L: Why do I think that the poster isn’t that credible? Yearning For shouldn’t be reluctant to pay for a mere airplane and hotel bookings, right?
3L: I think it’s pretty fake too…
5L: The ones in front, don’t BB if you don’t know anything about it okay? //pats Mengmeng
6L: Cheerleader, are you sick? If she didn’t want anyone to talk about it, then why would she have uploaded this post?
32L: I think what the original post said is true, Yearning For is quite slaggy. Almost all my sisters have been teased by him before, and he wouldn’t even spare married women.
39L: Didn’t Yearning For have an affair recently? With Ran Xin.
76L: It’s so great to be rich, I want to be a slag guy too.
88L: Isn’t he just a typical fuckboy?!
Yearning For was a slag man of course, otherwise he wouldn’t have wooed Liang Ran so fervently even though he had a girlfriend.
Jing Huan felt bored after scrolling halfway through the comments and just closed the forum. He planned to take advantage of the time when everyone was eating melons to go to the wild map NPC to accept a quest.
Upgrading one’s character attributes not only required money, but also a lot of experience to raise the upper limit of equipment attributes. It was not enough to rely solely on the daily quests done in the safe area.
As soon as he reached the quest envoy, he saw a shiny object in the upper right corner of the game interface.
It was the grandiose sfx of a divine artifact. After seeing it clearly, Jing Huan couldn’t help but feel a bit shocked– after all, a few years ago in his server, a divine artifact was only something that could be seen on the official website introduction. Nine Chivalrous Heroes had been in operation for more than five years then, but not even one player had managed to forge it.
If you want to forge a divine artifact, you would have to kill the God of War, fork out the forging materials required, and have the luck to make it in one shot.
Many people couldn’t even get through the first obstacle. Jing Huan had killed the God of War once; he stayed at the computer table for eight hours straight without eating or drinking and exhausted all of his potions before he managed to kill it. In the end, he made equipment that was considered peak garbage amongst garbage. He was so angry that he couldn’t eat for a whole week.
He immediately closed the NPC’s dialog interface and darted straight to the bright black light, because the other party that was doing the same wild map task as him was helping the NPC weed at the moment. Jing Huan only needed to take two steps before he could see the other party’s in game character.
A figure seen from the back.
This male character was wearing the latest black ancient robe. His red hair highlighted his identity as a character from the devil tribe, and he wielded a pitch black sword in his hand. This appearance of his would be eye-catching no matter where he was seen.
Below his name was a title, just three words — God of War.
And below that was the character’s name.
Yearning For.
Yearning For?!
Jing Huan sat upright with a start, only to see Yearning For stand in place for a while before he suddenly squatted on the ground and began to weed.
Jing Huan marvelled — I mean, the forum has already hung you up like a clothes drying pole, yet you’re still in the mood to weed here?
Sure enough, he was a paragon of slag men; Jing Huan had to hand it to him for having such a steady mindset.
However, this was the opportunity Jing Huan had been waiting for. In fact, the first thing he had planned to do after buying this account was to add Yearning For as a friend.
It wasn’t too late to do that now. He clicked on Yearning For’s dialog box and clicked on the Add Friends option.
“The other party has temporarily turned off the function of adding friends, failed to add as a friend.”
Jing Huan was amused when he saw this. He had played Nine Chivalrous Heroes for more than six years, and this was the first time he knew that that game had this damn setting.
He clicked on the current channel and was just about to speak when a row of yellow characters suddenly popped up on the interface.
[Vigorous Little Mosquito Repellent initiated a compulsory PK with you. ]
Jing Huan reacted very quickly and immediately bounced away from the offensive skill that came at him from behind. The words that he hadn’t finished typing were also sent out when his hands slipped.
[Current] Xiao Tianjing: Gege z?
The man who attacked him paused and stopped his offensive.
[Current] Vigorous Little Mosquito Repellent: Gege’s here, Meimei should just accept her death right now!
… Where did this fool come from?
Jing Huan frowned; he charged his skills and was about to fight back when he suddenly remembered something at the last minute. His mouse slid to the right along with his idea that popped up and cancelled the casting.
[Current] Xiao Tianjing: Are you here to kill me, TVT?
[Current] Vigorous Little Mosquito Repellent: Obviously? Who doesn’t want to kill you now?
After that, Vigorous Little Mosquito Repellent threw another skill at him, and Jing Huan dodged again.
[Current] Xiao Tianjing: Yingyingying, all I did was buy an account, I didn’t do anything wrong. Why must you kill me?
Vigorous Little Mosquito Repellent watched her yingyingying while avoiding all his skills with ease and didn’t know what to say.
Vigorous Little Mosquito Repellent: Meimei, stop running. Even if I don’t kill you, others will, so don’t let our fertile water run into other people's fields.
[Current] Xiao Tianjing: I just charged 200 gold to my account, which is my pocket money for a week. I’ll lose it all if I die QAQ. Can you spare me this one time?
[Current] Vigorous Little Mosquito Repellent: No.
Jing Huan avoided his attacks while looking for someone, and during the time he spent being pestered by this fool, Yearning For had long gone on to some other corner to continue his weeding task.
He remembered that the task could only be completed after weeding thrice. The weeding he saw just now couldn’t have been the third time, right?
After twelve jumps, he finally found the man with the divine artifact in a corner.
Yearning For wasn’t weeding anymore but was engaged in some other task — killing monsters.
After thinking that he pretended to be pitiful enough, Jing Huan started typing.
[Current] Xiao Tianjing: God of War Gege save me TVT!
Yearning For casted spells to kill monsters and didn’t even turn to look.
[Current] Xiao Tianjing: Is God of War Gege there?
Vigorous Little Mosquito Repellent quickly rushed to the scene, and when he saw this, he couldn’t help but feel a little panicked — Yearning For wouldn’t snatch this 100 gold from him, right?
Although a hundred gold was just a drop in the ocean for Yearning For, if the other side wanted to kill Xiao Tianjing, wouldn’t it just be a matter of lifting a finger? It’s tantamount to giving it up ah!
Thinking of this, Vigorous Little Mosquito Repellent accelerated his speed at throwing his skills out. Jing Huan hopped and skipped around Yearning For, not getting the slightest injury and could even take some time out to type.
[Current] Xiao Tianjing: Please help me God of War Gege, I’ll give you the two hundred gold I have on me [crying] [crying]
[Current] Vigorous Little Mosquito Repellent: Fuck, you’ll only lose 50% of your money if I kill you! Isn’t this business of yours making losses?!
[Current] Xiao Tianjing: But I’ll lose experience too! Experience is more valuable than money (taps fingers together)
[Current] Vigorous Little Mosquito Repellent: Then give me your 200 gold, and I won’t kill you, wouldn’t that be okay?
[Current] Xiao Tianjing: I don’t want to, you big meanie!
[Current] Vigorous Little Mosquito Repellent: …
Jing Huan was annoyed from dodging for so long, but Yearning For still showed no signs of moving.
Did he not see it? That couldn’t be right, it was reasonable to say that he had chosen the perfect position for Yearning For to see the conversation between them.
He hesitated a bit, and his line of sight landed upon the group of wild monsters.
Vigorous Little Mosquito Repellent was tired from throwing skills out. He was just about to type and swear when he saw the delicate and slender female character roll on the ground, then finally release her first attack skill after running around for the past few minutes.
Just that the skill was not aimed at him.
A fine net flew straight to the right. It beautifully hit the wild monster that Yearning For had been hitting for two minutes, causing 79 damage, and the wild monster cried out before falling to the ground.
[Anonymous City] Player Xiao Tianjing succeeded in killing Obstructive Chivalrous Thief and found a rare treasure “Treasure Map” on it! ]
Jing Huan, “…”
This monster had a special limitation; no matter how high the player’s attack attribute is, he or she could only cause very little damage to it. That was why Yearning For had been staying here for the past two minutes.
As a result, it was killed by Jing Huan’s Celestial Snare that caused 79 damage.
And it had even dropped the most precious “Treasure Map” of this map. Most of the players who did this task came for this treasure.
And it was a binding item that was untradeable too, so one could only hunt for it.
At this moment, Yearning For finally responded. He took a small step forward before staying in place again.
[Current] Vigorous Little Mosquito Repellent: …
[Current] Vigorous Little Mosquito Repellent: To be honest, I think you’re even more horrible than I am.
Jing Huan regretted it. He should’ve sent this chatterbox back to the rebirth checkpoint just now.
[Current] Xiao Tianjing: Ahhhhhhh…
[Current] Xiao Tianjing: God of War TVT!
[Current] Xiao Tianjing: Gege, I didn’t mean to do that. I misaimed my skill TVT
No response.
Jing Huan uttered a tsk. What’s wrong with this man? He was already TVT-ing like this, yet he wouldn’t even say a word in return?
Seeing Vigorous Little Mosquito Repellent throw another skill at him, Jing Huan was just about to move when he saw a row of words pop up on the interface.
【Player Yearning For used a Binding Immortal Rope on you. 】
???
Jing Huan watched as he was confined to where he was standing by the Binding Immortal Rope. He had to endure Vigorous Little Mosquito Repellent’s big move and lost 20% of his HP.
[Current] Xiao Tianjing: ?
[Current] Xiao Tianjing: Ge?
Yearning For looked back, his long sword swinging lightly in his hand as he looked very cold and indifferent.
[Current] Yearning For: Don’t be a swindler in your next life.
After that, the man cast a spell in situ for three seconds and left the wild map.
?
?!
Jing Huan was in a daze for a few seconds before he started feeling angry——
Fuck?!
How is a scumbag guy like you qualified to scold me?!!
—
Juurensha: Omgggg all the TVTing was cute and hilarious.
Zryuu: Ah, the start of MC’s embarrassing moments that I can’t wait for ML to use against him in the future HAHAH