Chapter 2

Feng Jun's phone really had been a freebie from topping up his phone credit. Not only were its specs abysmally low and its performance sluggish, but... it also took forever to charge.

Without fast-charging technology, it took four hours to barely fill the battery, after which it could last a day and a half to two days.

If he kept scrolling on it nonstop, it would not even last a full day.

What Feng Jun was curious about was how this phone could fully charge in around two hours.

He was so curious that he even forgot the distress of being about to lose his job.

Feng Jun was the sort of guy who liked reading webnovels. It was actually a somewhat reluctant choice. He also enjoyed pastimes like going to bars, but those hobbies cost too much. Reading was cheaper; even if he read official releases, he would not spend as much in a day as a pack of cigarettes.

Could I have stumbled upon one of those legendary fortuitous encounters?

Feng Jun simply could not stop himself from thinking that way. After all, he seemed to have... been struck by lightning, yet somehow emerged completely unharmed?

He tried calling his colleague Wang Haifeng. The call quality turned out to be quite good, and he could even tell that Wang Haifeng was not in a very good mood.

Wang Haifeng was one of the people Feng Jun was closer to at Hongjie Club. Though he was also in his twenties, he held a coaching certificate and possessed considerable professional expertise in fitness. They were close in age but vastly different in status, yet they had a good personal relationship.

Feng Jun complained about what had happened that day and said that he did not want to keep working there.

Coach Wang absentmindedly replied, "Oh, Liu Shuming bullied you? I'll deal with him later."

Liu Shuming was just an ordinary body-shaping coach and already in his thirties. Although his muscles were rather exaggerated, if they really came to blows, he was no match for Wang Haifeng at all.

After hanging up, Feng Jun muttered softly, "Something's on his mind."

Well, other people's problems had little to do with him. What he needed to consider now was whether he should still go to work tomorrow.

Although Hongjie Club was in the service industry, it was fairly proper. Since service staff had high turnover, the company calculated wages by the day. If Feng Jun resigned tomorrow, he would still be paid for these twenty-odd days of work.

But... Sister Ren in finance had far too many issues. He would inevitably have to listen to her nag for quite a while.

More importantly, if he resigned, he would have to find somewhere to live by tomorrow night, and that would cost money.

"Not many good people in Hongjie," Feng Jun muttered as he looked over his phone. The battery was charging quickly—hopefully it would not drain quickly too.

As he looked, he spotted ChatChat on his phone and suddenly remembered: he had not harvested the crops in Liaoliao Farm yet.

Feng Jun had not installed Liaoliao Farm because he wanted to. He had installed it to curry favor with his superiors. Strictly speaking, it was to curry favor with Hongjie's boss—Red Sister liked stealing crops.

In the workplace, one did not need to be as cautious as in officialdom, but if a superior had a hobby, the lower-ranking employees had better play along. Wang Haifeng had been the one to remind him of that.

Sure enough, two days after he installed Liaoliao Farm, Red Sister came to inspect the place. When she noticed the farm interface he had "accidentally" exposed, she asked for his ChatChat account. Dual Degree had thus gained a direct route to the ears of the higher-ups.

But getting close to a superior was not entirely a good thing. More than a month after Red Sister added him, she casually remarked one day, "Your level has gone up, but you still can't stop planting pasture grass."

Feng Jun immediately came to a realization: the boss also had a ranch!

Feng Jun actually had a ranch too, but the grass he grew usually sufficed for his own use. Only when he was running low would he think to plant another couple of batches. How could he have known that the boss's ranch needed pasture grass too?

Red Sister never planted pasture grass. Her level was high, so she only planted high-value crops.

What could she do if she did not plant pasture grass? She could only steal it. Hongjie Club had so many employees, after all; she had no shortage of targets to rob.

Feng Jun could barely count as one of the boss's favored employees. Having received Red Sister's hint, planting pasture grass became routine for him. He even reminded himself not to harvest it as soon as it was ready. He had to wait until Red Sister finished stealing it before harvesting it himself—though he really disliked the feeling of being robbed.

However, Red Sister did not harvest on schedule either. As Hongjie's boss, she had countless things to do every day. The farm owner would often wait half the day without seeing the thief come, and in the end, he could only wait until the pasture grass had been stolen as much as it could be before harvesting it.

That should count as doing right by the boss, right?

Now, Feng Jun was planning to let the boss down. "I'm resigning anyway. I remember I planted nothing but pasture grass this time..."

Then he opened Liaoliao Farm. Looking at the mature pasture grass in the fields, he controlled the giant hand on the screen and gave it a light tap.

Holy grass... he was really holding grass!

The next moment, everything went black before his eyes, and he found himself in a strange space. It looked just like Liaoliao Farm all around him. Ten plots of land lay before him, all planted with pasture grass, while more fields nearby had been left fallow.

There was even a doghouse not far away, with an empty bowl in front of it—dog food had to be bought with money.

Besides, if he bought dog food, would the boss still be able to happily steal crops?

Feng Jun stood there dumbfounded for a full ten minutes. He gave himself a hard slap, and only after feeling the pain did he leap into the air. "Holy grass... what the hell, what the hell, what the hell..."

He was so excited that he could barely form coherent words. A fortuitous encounter—this was absolutely one of those legendary fortuitous encounters.

The facts proved that it truly was one. He actually had the chance to harvest pasture grass himself. He did not need a sickle or anything; all he had to do was reach out and yank, and he would pull up a whole handful. Truly, holding grass.

But... holding grass was exhausting. Strictly speaking, manually harvesting pasture grass from the fields was truly grueling work.

Feng Jun spent nearly half an hour pulling up the grass from one plot. That plot was a full half mu in size—why had they made the fields so big? Nothing better to do?

Then he straightened up. "How... do I get out? System, are you there?"

He hoped the system would take the form of a fairy in flowing white robes. If that was not possible, a robot would do. Just not a loli. Lolis were the worst; he did not even know who he was supposed to act cute for.

Unfortunately, there was nothing at all. Forget the loli he hated most; there was not even a system prompt.

Feng Jun looked at the mature pasture grass in the remaining nine plots and muttered softly, "Maybe... I have to harvest all of it before I can leave?"

Six hours later, Feng Jun sat on a ridge between the fields, panting as he stared at the ten empty plots before him. He wanted nothing more than to collapse on the spot and sleep soundly. "What the hell, this is not work for a human being. System... why haven't you come out yet?"

There was still no response whatsoever.

"Fine, a loli is okay too," Feng Jun decided to surrender. "Loli... why haven't you come out yet?"

There was still no response whatsoever.

Feng Jun started to panic. Was he trapped in here? His life might have had a few minor disappointments, but... he really was not mentally prepared to become a farmer, much less a farmer inside a game.

Thinking of that miserable possibility, unease rose in his heart. Could it be that he could get in but not get out, and his whole body would turn into a stream of data made up of "0"s and "1"s?

After repeated attempts, Feng Jun finally returned to reality half an hour later.

He first looked around, then reached out and pinched his thigh. He could not help it; he had slapped himself too hard earlier, and his ears were still ringing a little. Pinching himself seemed more appropriate.

The pain from his thigh told him that yes, he had really returned to reality.

Then he let out a long breath of relief. "Damn, I was even saying that if all else failed, I'd have to go explore outside the farm."

The facts proved that there was no heaven-defying existence like a system in that strange farm space. The reason he could not get out earlier was because one plot still had a tiny blade of pasture grass left behind.

Just because he had not harvested every last blade of pasture grass, he had nearly starved to death inside a game. What a painfully profound realization.

"Looks like this farm strictly follows its programmed settings," Feng Jun told himself, wearing an expression caught between laughter and tears.

Next, as the beneficiary of a fortuitous encounter, he naturally needed to first analyze where this encounter had come from.

But the next moment, Feng Jun's stomach let out a rumbling growl—he had not eaten for seven or eight hours, and during that time, he had even been doing physical labor.

However, when his gaze swept over the time in the upper-right corner of his phone, he was stunned again. "Damn, it's still eight at night?"

After checking the date, Feng Jun could confirm that he was still living on the same day, the day he had drunk too much and then been struck by lightning.

In other words, although he had spent seven hours inside the farm, time outside had actually stopped!

"What an incredible thing," he exclaimed involuntarily. Then his thoughts began to run wild. With such a heaven-defying treasure—or perhaps such a heaven-defying opportunity—what kind of swaggering stride should he use when he finally reached the pinnacle of life?

Just as he reached the door to the room, a chubby young man hurried in from outside. Seeing Feng Jun's utterly exhausted appearance, he froze. "Holy grass, what have you been doing?"

This was Feng Jun's roommate, Zhao Qi, also one of Hongjie's junior employees. He mainly handled valet parking and often received tips, so his income was slightly higher than that of Dual Degree. He also spent money freely.

Feng Jun disliked him greatly. It was not because he envied Zhao Qi's higher income, but because Zhao Qi had been a suspect both times Feng Jun lost money.

So, faced with Zhao Qi's question, he merely answered weakly, "I went and farmed half a day."

"Holy grass," Zhao Qi said, displeased. Yang City is a major city. Where in the city center could there possibly be land for you to farm? "I was just showing concern for you. Will it kill you not to snap at me?"

Feng Jun looked at him for quite a while before nodding slightly and speaking with complete sincerity. "I'm not lying to you. I really went and held grass..."