An Unexpected Bonus

The second day of the preliminary rounds ended uneventfully, and Hua Ling Heavy Industry's journey also came to an end—but Sister Guozi's Moon God Cup wasn't over yet. She paid out an insurance claim to Hua Ling, which can be considered as her breaking the deal.

As you leave the small shop at the west end of the street, even the children buying Tanghulu by the roadside know that this woman looks very sad.

The pedestrian street was packed with people. It was the height of summer on August 1st, and the Moon God Cup, the most lucrative tournament of the year, had just started when the first deal fell through.

Because the match between Hua Ling and Fairy Tale Kingdom started very early, Sharks Chili finished work around 11:00 AM. It seized the opportunity and quickly called the gunsmith to rescue the person.

--If the Fairy Tale Kingdom wants to go further, it definitely needs to find a suitable replacement, and Sharp Shooter Guozi is a suitable candidate.

The other team members packed their bags and went to the hotel to rest. Watching game videos in a small room was the best training, allowing them to understand their opponents' tactics in advance. If they could see the composition of the elements through the computer screen, that would be an incredible achievement.

At this moment, Jiang Xueming returned wearing a Garfield headgear and a mascot costume, waiting for the coach to arrive at the teahouse next to the military surplus store.

Wearing children's clothes and duck shoes, Shasha ran "quack quack" all the way into the teahouse, attracting the attention of many people. However, there were many hybrid monsters in this place, Shasha was not a rare or special character. The guests just smiled, glanced at him a few more times, and then turned back to continue watching the competition.

When it saw the gunsmith's hood, it was momentarily stunned.

Are you cosplaying?

Jiang Xueming said in a low voice, "I've contacted the organizing committee and asked them to help conceal my identity."

Shasha asked, "Did it work?"

Jiang Xueming: "I changed into a mascot costume, but I'm too scared to take off the hood—I'm considering calling over my pinky finger so I can switch to a female character account."

Shasha quickly said, "That won't do! You can't!"

If the Big Sister goes on vacation and the gunsmith quits, what will happen to the team members' equipment during the live-fire competition? The second half of the competition, including the stick fighting and gun drills, will not only test the athletes but also the logistics.

"What are the leader's instructions now?" Jiang Xueming abandoned the idea of changing his number. "To talk to the Sharp Shooter Guozi, right?"

Shasha immediately said, "That's right! At my age, I definitely can't reach an agreement with people about money—after thinking about it for a long time, I think you're more suitable. Do you know Sister Guozi?"

To say we know each other would be an understatement.

However, during the Moon God Cup finals, Xue Ming served as a referee for six seasons and a small arms consultant for four seasons—this was also an extra source of income for the anonymous player.

Xue Ming had a vague impression of this young woman, but not much. Like the patrons at the club's front desk, she came and went, and only a few regulars could exchange a few words with her, making them seem more familiar.

In other words, Sister Guozi usually doesn't make it to the second half of the final day. In the world's top psychic dueling competitions, she is a lower-middle-tier contestant.

"I have a vague recollection," Jiang Xueming answered truthfully. "Her real name seems to be... let me think."

In the final stage of the Moon God Cup, each team has at least eight members, and more than 300 athletes have their own real names and player IDs. It is indeed a difficult task for the referees to remember all the names.

The gunsmith happened to remember this little girl.

"--Her Chinese name is Zhao Tingting, and her Japanese name seems to be Fujiwara Tamami. Her team is Lanyang Heavy Industry, Laiyang Foreign Trade Weapons Processing Factory."

Shasha asked, "Is it the one that sells steel pipes to be used as rocket launchers?"

The gunsmith nodded in agreement. "Yes, that's right."

Shasha clapped her hands excitedly and said, "If you know me, that makes things much easier!"

"Leave this to me." The gunsmith pried open the mouth of the Garfield mask and poured a pot of tea inside, like instant noodles.

The sight of the display left Shasha speechless with astonishment, her expression instantly turning into (⊙A⊙)-- She suddenly began to doubt the basic Homo sapiens qualities of gunsmiths; are all fishermen this fierce when drinking tea?

"They're gone."

The gunsmith left those words behind, and the chubby Garfield squeezed past the tea drinkers, jumped down from the second floor, and went to find substitutes for the students.

Next to the military supplies market, at two stalls, is the unique human resources market that is the venue for the Moon God Cup competition.

The participating teams come here every day to select new teammates.

--During the competition, there will definitely be situations where team members are replaced at the last minute. The preliminary selection rules are very lenient, with no restrictions on the identity of the participants. The receptionist at the registration point only asked Qi Ji to reissue an ID card.

Because of this, personnel turnover within the team will become very frequent.

During the preliminary stage, many teams that suffered defeats were demoralized, and it was common for players to leave. Some even disbanded on the spot. These hastily assembled mercenaries carried the shameful mark of defeat. The coaching staff of each team would go to the second-hand market to find treasures and sign these defeated players as substitutes.

Many powerful psionicists come to areas with lower combat intensity to "smurf" and "level up" because this personnel change system is convenient enough to allow them to make some pocket money and run away immediately, quickly returning to their own clubs to continue the competition.

According to the industry ecosystem, those who can get big orders are all team-based operations. For example Snow Mastiff Battle Group that used to roam around the Albert Research Station. Their area is sparsely populated and is not included in the Moon God Cup competition. Local officers, soldiers and young people also do not have the opportunity to participate in the Moon God Cup.

To ensure his brothers were well-fed and healthy, Hydra, the leader of the Snow Mastiffs, would send a group of the team's top fighters to other regions to take on freelance play.

However, this matter is not honorable in public either. It's like whoever has money and can buy a well-trained mercenary team can become the regional representative.

Guangling Zhixi and the militia organizations have taken over most of the power leveling market. These professional teams can usually lead regional corporate clubs to the second round of the city championship, saving the clubs' players energy during the long preliminary rounds. However, these teams that rely on cheats usually don't make it to the end. They've spent a lot of money, mostly to provide extra meals for the soldiers who are working hard to maintain order at the transit stations, which can be considered a form of charity.

While the rules regarding personnel changes are lenient, the Moon God Cup's tournament format imposes very severe penalties for match-fixing and the buying and selling of slots. These penalties go beyond mere bans and fall directly into the category of illegal and criminal activities.

The entire team can be replaced, including the coach and support staff, but the trademark and the club's main structure must never be changed. This is a rule set by Ming De, and its meaning is simple: competition is competition, and money is money.

This highly commercialized competition is closely related to almost every industry in every region. To perform on the final day stage, the team members' logos are displayed in front of 400 million viewers.

Even a factory that makes children's toys can suddenly become successful. Its team members carry its flag and arrive at the final stage, where the toy, watched by 400 million people, will soon become a viral sensation.

As for trivial matters like mercenary training services—

--On the final day of the competition, all the shortcuts they took before will be returned to the team members through various forms of pressure from the audience, public opinion, and media.

The guidelines for participants in the Moon God Cup state that participants are encouraged to conserve their energy, avoid unnecessary training, and strive to break through their limits and evolve during the competition.

This note also indirectly illustrates that hiring a substitute player is meaningless. Those who ultimately stand on the stage must endure wind and rain, traverse towering mountains and steep valleys, and face challenge after challenge. Only after experiencing hardships can they appreciate the preciousness of the journey.

On the other hand, for lone wolves like Sister Guozi to try and make money, the chances of failure are extremely high. When she received the invitation from Hua Ling, the boss told her a very interesting story—

--It was a tearful outburst, describing the company's background as appalling and the workers' wages as stingy and meager. In the end, she used her sense of righteousness and the sentiments of thousands of residents of the steel plant to gradually lure Sharp Shooter Guozi onto the pirate ship.

Until the end of the competition, Sister Guozi looked at her ID card again and again, and when faced with the insurance compensation in the contract, she exclaimed that she had been cheated!

"Yu Mei, Yu Mei! Yu Mei! You're so foolish!"

She hugged her knees, squatted next to a fast food restaurant in the human resources market, her voice almost hoarse from crying.

"You're so naive! Really! That boss is obviously just trying to scam insurance!"

"Why did you only remember this after we'd already paid the money!"

"There's not a single normal person on the team! I'll go to the Hedland Hotel and find a few people! They should be able to make it to the second round, right?"

"Replacing the attackers and sentries with two military dogs with six points of health each! They'd be much more effective!"

"Yu Mei! Yu Mei! You're so foolish!"

Her player card had a black badge of defeat on it, and several coaches from nearby teams hesitated to approach her—because the girl was crying so hard.

You can hear these assistants whispering among themselves, as well as the talent scouts sent by the head coach of Purple Crystal, the [Symphony Orchestra] mentioned last time, who specialize in searching for suitable players and craftsmen for the club.

"Hua Ling is really doing something inhumane."

"From the very first match, I could tell they were just trying to scam this girl out of her insurance money."

"The team has a mix of Chinese and Japanese players, and the coach doesn't really care. How can she lead them? She doesn't have the ability, you know?"

"I wonder how much money she lost."

This is part of the unhealthy ecosystem of the local competition area. Although the Madness Butterfly Sect has disappeared, the bad guys who operate in the gray area and try every means to make money will not disappear.

They didn't break the law or commit any crimes, so the law can't punish them, but what they did basically crossed the line of morality.

Fujiwara Tamami came to Forty-One District entirely out of compassion to offer assistance to Hua Ling Heavy Industries.

However, the teammates the club assigned to her were a huge problem; this lineup showed they never intended to play well from the start.

The young woman didn't think twice when signing the contract. If she were in the cutthroat world of the internet, she would be a straightforward girl who would be easily scammed by predatory lending schemes, part-time jobs that would lead to kidney damage, and internet celebrity training courses that would leave her unrecognizable.

Throughout the duel with the Fairy Tale Kingdom, the girl didn't talk about money at all; she was only very concerned about her player points.

Because she wasn't there for the money.

She thought about how there were so many people in the small town outside the Hua Ling Industrial Park who were hoping that the club could prove itself and go further with the honor of the regional enterprises, or at least show its prowess in the competition.

But she never expected that the business representative wasn't after the Moon God Cup bonus; he was just trying to swindle as many people as possible, specifically targeting naive and easily fooled victims like her.

Yu Mei was filled with regret. Her crying was initially full of energy, but she eventually got tired and slept on the table for a while. When she got up, she ate two large bowls of boxed lunches. Because the prices in Forty-One District were very low and the food was good, she ate with great joy. However, she was silly and happy for a few minutes because she thought that 24 Hui Stone Currency could definitely not buy two servings of shrimp, corn, and braised pork rice in District 1. After laughing for a while, she started crying again.

This time she cried and whimpered, still muttering, "What will happen to my points?"

Until a chubby, short Garfield cat sat down in front of her—

"--Miss, are you short of a team?"

Sister Guozi immediately became alert; "Brother, didn't you see the record of my losses on my certificate?"

"I see, are you short of teams?" Jiang Xueming asked persistently.

Sister Guozi asked cautiously, "What team is it? Selling children's toys? Your mascot costume is quite nice, but the model is a bit ugly. Is the club reliable? Don't your parents care about you? You're not taking enough calcium supplements, are you? Your voice sounds quite mature, but your height seems so familiar."

Gunsmith was both amused and exasperated. When he was a referee, he only knew that the contestant, Sister Guozi, was shy and timid during interviews, but he never expected her to be like this off the field.

"You think my height looks familiar?"

"Yeah, if you took off that hood, you'd probably be about the same height as that lousy referee." This half-Japanese, half-Chinese girl spoke with a strong Dongbai accent, "He's so cunning! Before the match started, I was supposed to sneak in a few milliseconds and fire before the whistle blew, and he actually gave me a card! Just a few milliseconds! His mind is as petty as his size, you know? -- Later I thought, are all short people cunning?"

At this point --

--Young Miss Yu Mei said all sorts of bad things about the gunsmith in front of him.

"You're not here to scam me out of money, are you?"

"Cough cough cough cough cough." Jiang Xueming didn't know what to say, so he could only tease in Japanese: "I'm so sorry that I'm too short to meet your standards."

Upon hearing her native language, Yu Mei immediately tensed up, because Hua Ling's business representative had used this tactic of appealing to national sentiment to trick her into signing the contract, saying that they wouldn't deceive their own people, and that Chinese and Japanese people—that was Fujiwara Tamami's family.

"Speak Chinese! I understand! What exactly do you want, bro? Stop beating around the bush."

Xue Ming got straight to the point. "I'm a craftsman from the Fairy Tale Kingdom. The coach sent me to talk to you about whether you'd like to come to our team as a substitute."

Yu Mei's mind didn't quite process it at first. She sifted through a large amount of information and managed to understand the words "craftsman" and "substitute" in a hasty and superficial way.

"That won't do! I'm a penetrator, not a substitute! And wait..."

After finishing the main course, this tall, 1.82-meter-tall woman finally began to understand the remaining meaning of that sentence. She chewed up every last bit of food and digested it all in her brain.

"Referee."

Fujiwara Tamami suddenly stood up with a grin, crossed her arms and clasped them together, playfully pressing her cheeks against hers, tilting her head, her red and black ponytail swaying behind her head.

"Hehehehehehe. Am I insulting you to your face for not playing cards?"

The gunsmith said kindly, "Sit back down and keep your voice down. No cards here."

"I knew it! I knew it! Guys under 1.8 meters tall on Little Red have lost their human rights!" Yu Mei muttered in Japanese, "I've been poisoned by the distorted values of capitalism! It's understandable that I have some stereotypes. After all, I'm a Sino-Japanese joint venture, so I'm bound to have some of those stereotypes."

Jiang Xueming: "Stop for a moment."

Fujiwara Tamami immediately replied, "Yes!"

Her Chinese name is Tingting, which is quite down-to-earth.

Jiang Xueming covered the Garfield head mask's chubby face, feeling a bit exhausted.

"Um, would it be okay for you to be A Hao's substitute?"

"Is there any room for negotiation? Whatever you say, that's what it is." Fujiwara Tamami nodded like a chick pecking at rice.

"Come back with me to sign the contract." Jiang Xueming stood up to leave.

"Slow down! Slow down!" Fujiwara Tamami shouted, "I'm packing something!"

Jiang Xueming was shocked--

He was stunned.

Is this young lady able to eat so much?

Yu Mei is not picky at all, and she has never been afraid of anyone when it comes to food. She showed off her green tourmaline, a color full of vitality, which also represents the basic desires of food and sex.

"Cheap, generous portions, and delicious! Just a quick bite is all it takes!"

On the way back, Yu Mei followed closely behind Xue Ming, staring at Garfield's wagging tail. Her chatter was as loud as a shooting star.

"How did you move your big tail, referee?"

Gunsmith: "The mascot costume has air conditioning; the wind is blowing it."

Yu Mei: "Is Shasha a mascot costume too?"

Gunsmith: "That's a hybrid of a calamity beast, it's alive, not a toy."

Yu Mei: "If I work for you, will I get extra points?"

Gunsmith: "It depends on your performance, but it should be a plus. I think you can do it."

Yu Mei: "Then you're my real father!"

Gunsmith: "Cough"

Yu Mei: "I have a question for you, does Big Sister snore when she sleeps?"

Gunsmith: "He doesn't snore."

Yu Mei: "I snore, is there any way to stop snoring? I want to become someone like the Big Sister."

Gunsmith: "If you talk less, eat less, lose some of the fat on your neck, lower your body fat percentage, and sleep on a lower pillow, you won't snore."

Yu Mei: "This is so difficult!"

Gunsmith: "Any other questions? Ask them all at once."

Yu Mei: "It's gone."

Within a minute, Yu Mei seemed to remember something and completely forgot what she had said, "[It's gone]."

"How did you know I ran away, referee?"

Gunsmith: "When you're about to foul, you'll see tense micro-expressions on your face, and your sweat will have pheromones of panic. I can smell it from over fifty meters away; my Inspiration is very strong."

Yu Mei: "Is there any way to cover it up? So I can make sure I don't make the same mistake again next time."

Halfway through her sentence, Yu Mei realized it was impolite and stopped talking.

Gunsmith: "There are high-speed cameras watching, so I called a halt beforehand to save face."

Yu Mei: "Oh, I see. Could you sign a few autographs for me?"

The gunsmith patiently rummaged through Garfield's pockets and pulled a marker from his toolbox.

Where to sign?

The beautiful young woman pulled open her jacket and pointed to the chest of her shirt. "Here, here, here!"

The gunsmith rolled his eyes, trying to reason with the enthusiastic fan.

"Why? Wake up! Show some restraint! If my wife finds out about this, you won't live past the next day. I swear on my honor as an anonymous person."

Yu Mei immediately said, "Then I'll take them off and let you sign them? I have several more! Sign them all for me!"

"Huh?" The gunsmith was dumbfounded.

Yu Mei is quite honest.

"--A gunsmith's signature! Even if I fail again, I can still recoup my fee by selling the clothes on Xianyu (a second-hand marketplace app)! I only know that I got ripped off so badly in this remote mountain village! I never expected such an unexpected bonus!"