The blood-red haze before his eyes gradually faded, and the gray-white walls of the rental apartment came into view.
Shaking his head to clear away the chaotic thoughts in his mind, Zhou Ming opened The Sims Task Panel:
Task Map: "Zhang Ergou's Counterattack Life" Game Character: Zhang Ergou Game Status: Ended Property: 1 (You own a ramshackle thatched hut) Status: 0 (Bottom tier, the very bottom) Reputation: 2 (You were once somewhat well-known) Partner: 0 (A lifetime of solitude is your fate) Descendants: 0 (You left behind nothing but a mound of yellow earth) Lifespan: 18 (Your lifespan exceeded that of 28% of the villagers) Achievements Earned: 21 Game Rating: F (Other than wasting away your life in this game, you achieved nothing worth mentioning) Highest Achievement: 21 (Reach 500 points to unlock the next stage)
"Damn it, 21 points? I spent 18 years in there and only got 21 Achievement Points? Excluding the lifespan category, I only got 3 actual achievement points?"
System, were you screwing with me?
Zhou Ming cursed loudly, instantly feeling cheated. At first, he had been full of confidence, thinking he would steamroll his way through the game, only for reality to slap him hard across the face.
This game was nowhere near as fun as he had imagined.
"Come to think of it, how did I die just now? Why did those people want to kill me?"
Coming back to his senses, Zhou Ming sank into his memories. Near the end of the game, everything had been going smoothly, and he had been on the verge of gaining a massive number of achievement points. Yet disaster had suddenly struck. Who had I offended?
"The host may view the game replay," the system reminded him.
Zhou Ming immediately tapped the replay button on the screen. In the pitch-black night, among a group of shadows, he saw two familiar faces. One was covered in flesh, with a distinct scar across his forehead. The other had a pointed mouth and monkey-like cheeks, was short in stature, and had the ferocious gleam of a hungry wolf in his eyes.
"Li Hu, Sun Dafu?"
Zhou Ming knew both men. Li Hu was the head guard of Village Chief Li Shou Zheng's household, while Sun Dafu was Li Shou Zheng's outer-courtyard steward. Both were prominent figures in Niu Family Village. Every autumn and year-end, these two were the most ruthless when it came to collecting rent and forcing debt repayment for Li Shou Zheng. Their reputation in Niu Family Village was enough to stop children from crying at night.
"Village Chief Li Shou Zheng wanted to kill me?"
Zhou Ming instantly understood who the real culprit behind his death was. Without Li Shou Zheng's orders, Li Hu and Sun Dafu would never have come to kill him for no reason.
"But... I had no grudge against Li Shou Zheng, and I never owed his family any land rent or debts. Why did he want me dead?"
Zhou Ming could not make sense of it. From the very beginning of the game, he had kept an extremely low profile in how he conducted himself. How had he suddenly brought about a deadly disaster?
"Could it be..."
With a jolt, Zhou Ming suddenly realized that after the new agricultural planting method he had spent five years developing succeeded in the later stages of the game, the first to suffer would naturally be Village Chief Li Shou Zheng's family, which lived off collecting land rent.
If the tenant farmers in the village could all support several family members from the output of just a few meager acres, like Zhou Ming had, what reason would those poor tenants have to keep renting Li Shou Zheng's land?
With fewer tenant farmers, income would naturally decrease. Fewer people would have to sell their sons and daughters to repay debts as well, and the good days of Village Chief Li Shou Zheng's landlord family would be gone forever.
He had touched the interests of the great landlord class. That was the fundamental reason he had brought this fatal disaster upon himself.
Thinking of this, Zhou Ming could not help complaining, "System, there's simply no way to get high achievements on this map, is there? There are no resources for inventions and creations. If I farm too well, I offend the interests of the great landlords and bring a deadly disaster upon myself. Every path is hard to follow through. Tell me, how am I supposed to play this?"
His first game had ended in a crushing defeat. The 500 Achievement Points he had initially thought would be easy to obtain now seemed like an insurmountable mountain. For a moment, Zhou Ming even felt that this The Sims system that had fallen from the sky was as useless as chicken ribs.
With 21 Achievement Points, he could not even afford the cheapest skill-type item in the system shop, Elementary Farming Skill. What was the point of playing this game?
"Host, the starting difficulty of The Sims beginner map is the lowest among all maps. As long as you find the correct method of counterattack, Zhang Ergou's Counterattack Life will not be particularly difficult for you."
"Is that true, System?"
"Absolutely. As long as the host finds the correct path," the system said with certainty.
Fine, I'll trust you one more time.
Putting away his dejection and calming himself down, Zhou Ming began to summarize the reasons for his failure in the first game.
First and foremost, Zhou Ming realized that he had been severely underprepared.
Not to mention important technologies like glassmaking and steelmaking, he had entered the game without even memorizing the most basic chemical equations for making cement and mixing gunpowder. Inventions and creations had been nearly impossible to even talk about.
Furthermore, when it came to farming, Zhou Ming had only possessed half-baked knowledge. His research into new agricultural planting methods had nearly starved him to death. It was only after he found a little direction in the later years that things improved slightly. If he had read professional books about agricultural planting techniques before entering the game, he definitely would not have taken so many detours.
Finally, and most importantly, a common man was innocent, but possessing a treasure made him guilty. After developing farming techniques ahead of that era, he could not be too eager to share them. He had to proceed gradually and first ensure his personal safety was absolutely secure...
Early the next morning, Zhou Ming did not enter the game again. Instead, he went to the library in the city center.
After spending one hundred yuan on a library card, Zhou Ming found several professional books on steelmaking and farming among the towering bookshelves and immediately began studying them seriously. Whenever he saw something of significant value, he would even take out the paper and pen he carried with him and furiously jot down notes in his notebook.
For several days in a row, Zhou Ming remained in this intense state of study, forgetting to eat and sleep. When tired, he would sleep for a while with his head on the desk. When hungry, he would take out bread from his backpack and chew a few bites, then gulp down some of the plain boiled water he had brought with him. His diligence even drew the attention of some regular library visitors.
"Sister Xiangxiang, that boy looks so strange. Since we came here, he's only looked at the book in his hands. He hasn't raised his head even once."
Across from Zhou Ming, a petite girl muttered to the quiet woman beside her, whose long hair fell over her shoulders and whose skin was as smooth as jade. Sister Xiangxiang had the aura of a national goddess. More than half the men around them were pretending to read while secretly watching Sister Xiangxiang. Yet that man across from them acted as if they were air. It was infuriating.
Keep pretending. Go on, keep pretending.
The quiet woman, who had been absorbed in a philosophy book, slightly raised her phoenix eyes after hearing the petite girl's words. From the corner of her eye, she happened to see Zhou Ming writing furiously in his notebook: Sulfur + charcoal + saltpeter, when ignited in a 1:2:3 mass ratio, undergoes an explosive reaction, producing the chemical reaction equation for potassium sulfide, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide...
Seeing Zhou Ming suddenly wave his arms around in excitement, the quiet woman smiled charmingly, revealing a breathtakingly beautiful face. She shook her head and said to the petite girl beside her, "He really is a strange person. Xiao Fei, don't mind them. You'll be taking the postgraduate entrance exam soon, so keep reading our books."
"Okay~" The petite girl pouted, glared at Zhou Ming across from her, and returned her gaze to the study materials in front of her.
About a week passed. Having finished charging himself up, Zhou Ming took a deep breath and opened the Game Panel with a trace of anticipation.
"This time, I've memorized every knowledge point I need! Neither inventions and creations nor farming and animal husbandry can stump me now. This time, I'll definitely get more than 500 Achievement Points!"
"Beep~"
"Player is entering the game..."
Before you continue