In the office.
Vice Captain Wang's voice rose and fell as he said, "Your boyfriend already explained the situation to us. We'll let it slide this time. You can go, and take your things with you. Just be more careful when you set up your stall in the future. Don't be so blatant about it."
"Boy... boyfriend?" Lu Xiaobei looked utterly confused.
"And you're still denying it."
I hurriedly gathered up the little trinkets scattered on the floor and held them in my arms. "Brother Wang, we'll be leaving then."
"Go on."
Vice Captain Wang lit a cigarette, crossed one leg over the other, and looked thoroughly pleased with himself.
Outside, the autumn wind blew, sending fallen plane tree leaves rolling across the ground. It reminded me of Nanjing City.
"Ding Han, you were so fawning just now..."
Lu Xiaobei shot me a glance. "It doesn't matter if a man is poor, but he has to have backbone. You understand?"
"You've got some nerve saying that."
I glared at her. "Do you know what I paid to bail you out? A pack of Ruan Zhong!"
"Huh?"
Lu Xiaobei lowered her head, looking a little embarrassed. But then she seemed to remember something and looked up at me. "Who told you to say you were my boyfriend?"
"I never said that."
I looked down at the road beneath my feet. "He guessed it. I couldn't exactly explain too much. In that situation, anything I said would've been unnecessary and might've ruined the bribery atmosphere I created with that pack of Ruan Zhong."
As I spoke, I handed her the bundle. "How much did all this stuff cost you wholesale?"
"Over five hundred."
"..."
I felt rather helpless. The merchandise had only cost a little over five hundred, yet I had spent more than three hundred in hard cash!
"Ding Han..."
Lu Xiaobei's momentum weakened considerably. "I'm hungry..."
"Then let's eat. Your treat!"
"There's a beef hot pot restaurant across the street. I've wanted to try it for ages, but no one ever came with me. How about... I treat you this time? Consider it thanks for going to the city management office to bail me out today..."
"Sure, let's go!"
At the Hot Pot Restaurant, we ordered some beef along with other ingredients for the pot. Lu Xiaobei also ordered a few bottles of Heineken beer.
It had been a long time since I had eaten anything so delicious, so naturally I dug in without restraint. Beer and hot pot were a perfect match, and before I knew it, I had drunk a little too much.
After the third bottle of Heineken went down, my face started to go numb, and my whole body felt hazy.
Holy crap, I had forgotten something important!
The Intestinal Fortification skill had a side effect: poor alcohol tolerance!
But I never could have imagined that my tolerance would be this terrible. Just three bottles of beer and I was already about to collapse!
"Lu Xiaobei..."
I frowned and held on desperately for five seconds before collapsing onto the table with a thud and falling asleep. I vaguely heard Lu Xiaobei laughing beside me. "What kind of drinking capacity is that? Are you trying to make me laugh myself to death, Ding Han? Wahahahaha~~~"
My mind was a complete blur.
When I woke up and opened my eyes, I found myself facing a somewhat familiar ceiling. The chandelier was unique and beautiful. After taking another look, I realized I was lying in Lu Xiaobei's bed.
"Damn..."
I jolted upright.
It was already three in the morning. I grabbed the phone on the table and rushed downstairs, where I found Lu Xiaobei sitting in the internet cafe attendant's chair, propping up her chin with one pale arm. Her little head kept drooping, and she was nearly asleep.
"Hey!"
I silently approached from behind and startled her.
Lu Xiaobei was timid, so she jumped right out of her chair. When she saw it was me, she immediately punched me in a huff. "Are you trying to get yourself killed? You scared me to death..."
I took the punch without issue. My defense had already reached 54 points, while Lu Xiaobei was merely an ordinary person in Star Abyss World, so it did not hurt at all.
"You're covering my shift?" I asked.
"Mm, what else would I be doing?"
Lu Xiaobei suddenly curled her lips into a wicked smile. "Oh my, speaking of which, your alcohol tolerance really is..."
She pursed her red lips. "I've lived for over half my life, and this is the first time I've ever seen someone who drinks like that."
"Even the strongest man has weaknesses no one knows about. Is that so strange?"
I rolled my eyes. "All right, go get some sleep. I've slept enough. I can handle things here."
"After you startled me, I'm not sleepy at all."
Lu Xiaobei dragged another chair over, crossed her dazzlingly pale legs, and sat beside me. "I'll keep you company during the shift, so you don't get sleepy and get complaints from customers."
"Fine."
I looked toward the shelves. "I'm hungry. I want a bowl of noodles, with an extra sausage."
"Were you a starving ghost in your last life?"
Lu Xiaobei said speechlessly, "Eat if you want to eat. Why did you have to specifically tell me?"
"I'd feel embarrassed taking a sausage when you weren't here..."
"Oh my, Ding Han, your skin is that thin?"
After finishing the noodles, I felt as though I had come back to life.
I looked at Lu Xiaobei beside me and asked, "Are you setting up your stall again tomorrow?"
"Mm."
She nodded seriously. "There's basically no photography business at the inn lately, so I can only rely on setting up a stall to make money. Every little bit counts. Besides, if I don't set up a stall, wouldn't that pack of Ruan Zhong you spent go to waste?"
"Even if you set up a stall, you might not make two hundred yuan a day. It's not a long-term solution."
I pondered for a moment. "Actually, we should put more effort into our internet cafe. This is the easiest place to make money."
"What do you suggest?" Lu Xiaobei asked.
"Our internet cafe has too few computers, and their performance is poor. Customers playing Legend and Miracle often experience lag, so getting a batch of better computers is the top priority."
I pointed toward the storage room. "I looked inside. It's quite spacious. Once we clean it up and repaint the walls, we can fit at least seven computers in there. That would expand Feiyang Internet Cafe to thirty computers, and we wouldn't be too far behind the other three places in terms of machine count. What do you think?"
"That could work, but... where would we get new computers?" Lu Xiaobei's eyes widened, and she looked extremely excited.
"We can ask around and see whether any internet cafes are going out of business and planning to sell their computers. Then we can take a look."
"Okay, I'll ask around tomorrow!"
Lu Xiaobei looked full of energy.
Just then, a ringtone sounded. I had unexpectedly triggered another daily mission!
[You have triggered the daily mission Expand the Scale (B-rank). Mission objective: Help Lu Xiaobei increase the internet cafe's number of computers from 23 to 30. Mission reward: A large amount of Experience Points, with a certain chance of obtaining a special reward!]
A B-rank mission. Not bad at all!
I was quietly delighted. "All right. Once you find out where old computers are being sold tomorrow, I'll go check them out with you. Go upstairs and sleep. You've got a lot to do tomorrow."
"Okay."
Lu Xiaobei finally stopped being stubborn and turned to go upstairs to sleep.
Early the next morning.
Before Zhao Yihang came to take over the shift, Lu Xiaobei had already returned from outside carrying two breakfasts. "I've already asked around. There's an internet cafe over on Binjiang Road that's going out of business, and the owner is selling the computers cheaply. I don't know much about computers, so you definitely need to come with me. I've already contacted him. Shall we leave now? I bought breakfast for you."
"Sure. We'll go once Zhao Yihang gets here."
Not long after, Zhao Yihang took over the shift, while Lu Xiaobei and I took a pedicab to Huaihai Road.
The autumn wind howled, and I was still wearing a T-shirt. Honestly, it was a little cold.
Fortunately, the buns and soy milk were still hot, and warmth spread through my stomach after I ate them.
The owner of the bankrupt internet cafe was a fat man with a bitter expression. He said another family business had suffered huge losses, leaving him no choice but to transfer the internet cafe.
I checked the computer specifications and said, "Boss, how much are you planning to sell these machines for?"
"To be honest, I hired someone to build them when I bought them. Each machine cost more than three thousand. They've only been used for a little over a year, so selling them for fifteen hundred each is still fair."
Lu Xiaobei glanced at me without saying anything, seemingly leaving the bargaining entirely to me.
"Then you got taken for a bit of a ride back then."
I said seriously, "The graphics cards and motherboards on these machines are indeed decent enough, but the memory is too small. They can run Legend, but Miracle will probably lag. That's likely why your internet cafe's business hasn't been very good. To be honest, we genuinely want them, but fifteen hundred is too much. Internet cafe business isn't easy these days either. We can offer at most twelve hundred each. That's our sincere price. If you can accept it, great. If not, forget it."
"Twelve hundred is too low, isn't it?"
The owner looked pained.
Lu Xiaobei, meanwhile, looked nervous.
After some bargaining with the down-and-out owner, we eventually settled on thirteen hundred each, which was also the limit Lu Xiaobei could afford.
Afterward, Lu Xiaobei took out a stack of cash and hired a small truck to transport the seven computers back to Feiyang Internet Cafe.
We had lunch at the noodle shop beside the internet cafe, and of course, Lu Xiaobei treated again.
By then, workers had already cleaned out the storage room and were repainting the walls. Once the painting was done, they could run the cables inside.
"These seven computers alone still aren't enough."
I looked up at her. "Their memory is too low. What I mean is, we should add a memory stick to each computer. The best Kingston 512MB DDR II 533 currently on the market will do."
"Is it expensive?" Lu Xiaobei asked cautiously.
"A new one costs about five hundred each, but we don't need to buy new ones. We can just look for used ones in the secondhand market. I'll go with you. I'll choose them, and you'll pay. Once these seven computers get new memory sticks, they'll be able to smoothly run every game currently on the market, even some single-player games with high memory requirements."
I smiled faintly. "After that, we can divide the place into zones and make the seven computers in the storage room a VIP area. They'll cost two yuan per hour. People looking for a sense of superiority definitely won't miss it."
"We can even raise the price?"
Lu Xiaobei's eyes lit up.
"Of course!"
I nodded with a smile. "Once our internet cafe expands and grows bigger and stronger, we'll need to divide the computers by performance into an Exclusive Zone, VIP Zone, and Premium Zone. This kind of tiering will stir up people's competitive instincts. Those with money will naturally flock to it."
"Okay, I'll listen to you!"
Lu Xiaobei nodded with a smile.
"Also, don't wander around outside all day. Quite a few customers come here to use the internet because they're attracted to a pretty owner like you. You need to walk around downstairs every day."
"Oh..."
In the blink of an eye, three days passed. Lu Xiaobei and I made a trip to the secondhand market and picked up seven 512MB memory sticks for two hundred yuan each. Once we installed them, the seven computers in the storage room immediately became the best-performing machines in the entire internet cafe!
The moment we powered them on, a ding-dong ringtone sounded in my ear.
[Congratulations, you have completed the daily mission Expand the Scale (B-rank). Reward obtained: Character Experience +60,000. You have also received an additional special reward: Instance Crystal · Red Sand Plunder (Rare ★★)!]
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