Suddenly, He Could Enter the Game!

(Parallel universe, fictional world, no real place names. Real countries exist? Don't project yourself into it!)

Reality could be a beautiful, gentle young woman who let you experience everything wonderful, or a fat, fierce shrew who pressed down on you until you could barely breathe. It all depended on how much money you had in savings.

The scorching August sun made people restless.

Youcheng County.

A godforsaken place where the average salary was 3,000 or 4,000 yuan and the average home price was 12,000 yuan per square meter.

In the small fruit and vegetable shop, Qin Lin plastered on a smile and handed the vegetables to a middle-aged woman. "Here you go, ma'am. Thanks for stopping by. Come again!"

After seeing the customer off, he spotted a few irritating flies and had no choice but to grab a flyswatter and chase them away.

After a fierce battle, he struck down several corpses.

Qin Lin sat back down at the register, picked up his phone, and opened a newly released nostalgic game called Story of Seasons.

It was a farming and life-simulation game with a high degree of freedom that didn't require much skill. It was just the thing to pass the time for someone watching a shop.

A year had passed since graduation, and he still hadn't amounted to anything. He had majored in tourism management but was selling fruit and vegetables, yet reality never seemed to leave him much choice.

His family had been poor for three generations. A few years ago, his grandfather fell ill, and before he passed away, Qin Lin's father had worked from dawn to dusk at this shop to cover his medical bills and household expenses.

Then it was as if Heaven had decided to play a joke on their family. After his grandfather died, his father was diagnosed with cancer, too, worn down by years of exhausting work.

His mother could barely keep the little fruit and vegetable shop going. Even after selling the house and borrowing hundreds of thousands of yuan from everyone she could, swallowing her pride, she still couldn't save Qin Lin's father.

His mother's health had also suffered from all the strain. Her test results weren't good, and she needed someone to look after her.

So, even though he'd had the chance to stay at a big company after graduation, he'd had no choice but to come back and care for his mother, take over the little shop, and inherit the family's debts as well.

If most people started at zero, he was starting hundreds of thousands of yuan in the hole.

There was no fairness in life.

He had thought about keeping an eye on the shop while looking for opportunities, but as a fresh graduate, he lacked both work experience and capital.

The shop's income barely covered expenses, his mother's nutritional needs, and a little debt repayment each month. His bank balance was less than 4,500 yuan.

He couldn't even afford to go to the hospital if he caught a cold.

After all, he couldn't pull off what people on Mouyin did, making 100,000 or even a million yuan a month from a 30-square-meter fruit shop. That was a magical place where everyone supposedly had a hundred million yuan.

Until his mother's health improved enough that she no longer needed someone to care for her, he was stuck in this little shop, just trying to get by.

He sighed and guided his Game Character out of the house. Before him lay six plots of land planted with watermelons. He had only just started playing, so he'd unlocked only those six plots.

He weeded and watered them!

After a little while, the watermelons in all six plots were ready to harvest. Time always flowed differently in the game. Watermelons that took months to ripen in real life could mature in a little over ten hours in the game.

Each plot yielded around fifteen to twenty watermelons.

Qin Lin was just about to guide the Game Character to harvest them when his phone suddenly crackled with electricity, leaving his whole body numb in an instant.

A short circuit?

Qin Lin's first instinct was to curse.

This wasn't even a Samsung phone. How could it give him such a powerful shock?

"Ding! Special game channel activating. Locking onto Story of Seasons. Please wait..."

"???" Qin Lin patted his head.

Could getting shocked make him hallucinate?

"Ding! Special game channel connected. Story of Seasons linked. Host, would you like to enter the game for the first time?"

At the same time, a fantastical image appeared in Qin Lin's mind. It showed a ranch, with ripe watermelons lying in all six plots.

Was this the game screen from Story of Seasons?

The Game Character was still standing in front of the watermelon patch, exactly where he'd been when Qin Lin was about to make him harvest the crop.

Even more incredibly, when Qin Lin focused on it, the Game Character walked forward and picked a watermelon.

Could he play the game with his mind?

Then Qin Lin noticed a special prompt above the image: Enter?

"Yes!"

Recalling the earlier prompts, Qin Lin found the whole thing unbelievable, but he tried selecting it anyway.

A strange pulling sensation swept over him, and in the blink of an eye, the scene before him changed.

A lush, green watermelon patch stretched out before him.

The air carried the fresh, distinctive fragrance of watermelon. He was also holding one in his arms, as if he'd taken the place of the Game Character.

"This isn't a hallucination?" Qin Lin stared in disbelief. The watermelon in his hands felt incredibly real, and a piece of information floated above it:

[Seedless Watermelon: Quality 1]

[Note: Though this isn't a special variety of watermelon, it's a game product, and it tastes better than ordinary watermelons.

Deliciousness +1, Sweetness +1, Texture +1.]

The crops grown in Story of Seasons had different quality levels. Naturally, higher-quality produce tasted better and sold for more.

But these notes were different from what he'd seen in the game. There were even attribute bonuses.

Qin Lin set down the watermelon in his hands and picked a few more. Information appeared for each one, with the same notes and the same Deliciousness +1 and Sweetness +1 attributes.

He looked around again at the windmill, the storeroom, the fences...

Everything was just as it had appeared on the game screen.

The only difference was that the land before him was truly vast and filled with watermelons, not a handful of tiny square plots like in the game. Even the crops weren't represented by numbers.

He checked the time on his phone. After he'd entered, the game's time flow had returned to normal, too.

Then Qin Lin remembered something and hurriedly looked at the image in his mind.

He was afraid he might not be able to get back. His mother would be worried sick!

But the scene in his mind had changed. It now showed the fruit and vegetable shop, and the prompt had changed as well: Exit?

So he could apparently come and go freely.

Qin Lin silently thought, Exit. That strange pulling sensation came again, and he returned to the shop, still holding a watermelon.

To confirm it was real, he grabbed a knife, set the watermelon on a chopping board, and cut it in half. The red flesh was exposed, but there wasn't a single seed in sight.

It was a real watermelon!

Qin Lin picked up one half and cut it into several wedges. He was about to try one, but worried it might make him sick. After all, this watermelon had appeared out of nowhere.

He walked to the shop entrance and saw a dirty black dog wandering around a trash can.

This was Market Street, where it was easy to find food, so stray dogs showed up often. The relevant departments would catch one, and before long another would take its place.

It was all because too many people raised dogs on a whim despite not having the means to care for them.

Qin Lin tossed over a wedge of watermelon. The black dog immediately pounced on it and pinned it beneath a paw. It instinctively glanced around, and only when it saw nothing amiss did it lower its head and gobble it down.

After waiting a while and seeing that nothing happened to the black dog, Qin Lin picked up a wedge and tried it himself.

He took a bite, and his eyes lit up.

He understood the note about the watermelon much better now.

It was incredibly sweet, delicious and juicy, with a high sugar content and a wonderfully refreshing texture.

This watermelon was definitely far tastier than the ones he normally stocked.

Was that what the Deliciousness +1, Sweetness +1, and Texture +1 attributes did?

He worked in the business, so he knew that you'd be lucky to find a few watermelons of this quality in a hundred. Every watermelon in the game was like this.

After finishing one wedge, Qin Lin was still savoring the taste, so he picked up another and started eating.

Watermelons didn't have much profit in them. Even though the price had risen to two yuan per half-kilo, after accounting for the farmers' costs, labor, shipping, and the wholesalers' markup, the wholesale price for a small shop like his was already 1.5 yuan per half-kilo. There was barely any profit left.

But what if these watermelons cost him nothing? What if every sale was pure profit?

Thinking of all the watermelons in the farm, Qin Lin's eyes shone even brighter.

If one watermelon weighed ten jin and sold for two yuan per jin, that was twenty yuan. Ten watermelons would bring in 200 yuan in pure profit.

All he had to do was sell twenty a day, and he'd make 12,000 yuan a month. That was more than he earned from selling fruit and vegetables all month after working himself to the bone.

There must be hundreds of watermelons in the game, and the land could be replanted again and again. The watermelons took just over ten hours to mature.

"Woof, woof!"

As Qin Lin was thinking, he heard a bark beside him. The black dog had sat down at the shop entrance, staring at the watermelon in his hand.

The dog was getting a little too comfortable, wasn't it?

Luckily, he was in a good mood. He picked up another wedge and tossed it to the black dog, then pulled down the shop's rolling shutter.

That way, people outside couldn't see what was happening inside.

He grabbed one of the baskets he used to bring in stock. With a thought, he entered the ranch again.

The watermelon patch still filled his view. Qin Lin didn't hesitate and started loading watermelons into the basket one by one.

He filled it with fifteen watermelons, then carried the basket back to the shop.

Looking at the basket piled high with watermelons, Qin Lin was practically trembling with excitement.

He was going to get rich.

He looked at the mental display again. On the game screen, one plot now showed zero watermelons. The vine had withered, and the system prompt said he could clear it and plant new seeds.

In the game, crops could only be harvested once. Unlike in real life, they didn't grow back after being picked.

Seeing the prompt gave Qin Lin an idea. He immediately used the game screen in his mind to control the Game Character and harvest the crops in the other plots.

In an instant, the crops in the other plots had all been harvested.

Qin Lin entered the game again. The other plots were empty, too, with only their lonely watermelon vines remaining.

He walked over to the storeroom beside the house. When he opened the door, he saw more than a hundred watermelons stored inside.

Couldn't he have just come in with the basket and loaded them up? He'd gone to all that trouble for nothing.

A sign stood in front of the pile of watermelons.

Seedless Watermelon: 90 (Quality 1)

So there were ninety watermelons in the pile. Judging by their size, they all weighed over ten jin, making the whole pile worth at least 1,700 yuan.

At the thought, Qin Lin returned to the shop, grabbed his basket, and entered the game again to fill it with watermelons.

He also discovered that as long as he touched the basket and thought about exiting the game, the basket of watermelons came back with him to the shop.

He spent some time hauling out the entire pile, stacking watermelons high in one corner of the shop.

Including the basket he'd brought out at the beginning, he now had 105 watermelons.

Once he was done, he looked at the display in his mind again. It had returned to the game screen. The plots were left with only the vines, and the prompt said he could clear them and plant new seeds.

He immediately cleared the watermelon vines and planted new seeds.

In a little over ten hours, another batch of watermelons would be ready.

Now he just had to sell them all.

Qin Lin raised the shop's rolling shutter again. The black dog was still lying by the entrance. It glanced up at him, shifted into a more comfortable position, and started licking its paw.

That dog still wasn't leaving?

He didn't have time to bother with it now. He put the basket of watermelons he'd just brought out on the fruit stand and looked at the price sign: two yuan per jin.

That was the price he normally sold them for, but at that price, his shop only sold a few watermelons a day.

Looking at the watermelons he'd brought out of the game, he changed the price to the wholesale rate of 1.5 yuan per jin. Since the watermelons had cost him nothing, lowering the price would make them easier to sell.

But things didn't go as he'd expected. By the time the afternoon was nearly over, he'd sold only a few watermelons. It wasn't that the watermelons were bad; there just weren't many people who both came to his shop and wanted to buy them.

Thinking it over, Qin Lin slapped his forehead. He'd been aiming at the wrong customers. Since he was already charging just 1.5 yuan per jin at the wholesale rate, there was no need to sell them one by one in the shop.

He immediately took out his phone and logged into a group chat on WeChat.

It was a group for the owners of fruit and vegetable shops in Youcheng County. He didn't know who had started it, but they'd said it was a way to stick together, share market information, and keep wholesalers from ripping them off.

Usually, other than a few people who loved chatting, there wasn't much conversation.

Qin Lin opened the chat and sent a message: My grandpa's second sister's grandson's uncle's son has grown a batch of seedless watermelons. They're sweet and juicy, available at wholesale prices for 1.5 yuan per jin, with delivery included. Anyone interested is welcome to come and try them.