Nothing Much, I'll Hang Up First

Chapter 1: Nothing Much, I'll Hang Up First

The July heat in Cihang City was stiflingly hot.

The air clung to the skin like glue, pressing down so heavily that people could hardly breathe, and rumbles of thunder rolled across the lead-gray sky; anyone could tell a heavy rain was about to arrive.

In front of the Happiness Internet Cafe, a plain-looking black-haired man wore a puzzled look on his face. What's going on? Am I dead again?

Chen Feng, twenty-six years old, was a gaming streamer.

Because he accidentally had a stroke of supreme luck, he crossed over to the Otherworld.

Fortunately, the spoken and written language of this world seemed no different from Earth's, and aside from the clothes on his back, Chen Feng had also brought a system with him.

That's right, within Chen Feng's field of vision lay a high-tech, transparent light screen that others could not perceive.

[LY-03-CDDD Save-Load System]

Just as the name implied.

This system allowed Chen Feng to set a save point just like playing a video game; when Chen Feng died, time would reverse in the world, letting Chen Feng load the save and start all over again.

Chen Feng could load a save a total of nine times, but right now it showed:

[Save-Load Count: 8]

I lost one life.

Chen Feng carefully recalled his last experience, but he simply couldn't think of who had killed him.

Large raindrops fell from the sky.

Chen Feng looked straight ahead at the Happiness Internet Cafe; if he remembered correctly, a young matron was about to walk out from there.

With a click.

The glass door opened.

A mature beauty walked out, wearing a deep-V lace-trimmed short-sleeved top on her upper body and a tight hip-hugger skirt on her lower body. She was very tall, and with Chen Feng's height of one meter eight, he had to look up at her; a conservative estimate put her at around two meters or so.

He Ting, the landlady of the Happiness Internet Cafe, a widow.

They said an eighteen-year-old girl was fresh and tender, but a thirty-six-year-old woman was doubly so; every glance and smile tugged at the heartstrings, and she was simply like discovering oil in the backyard—gorgeous to the extreme.

He Ting said, "Handsome, you don't look very well; you'd better find a place to take shelter from the rain before it starts."

And upon hearing that Chen Feng had nowhere to go.

He Ting said again, "Well, do you want to come in and take shelter from the rain at my place?"

Chen Feng nodded. Last time it was just like this, when He Ting invited him into the internet cafe.

Pushed the door open, and one could hear the clacking of keyboards and mice. The indoor air conditioning was not turned on very full, and rather than cool, the temperature was closer to comfortable.

Chen Feng saw a male and a female police officer preparing to head out. The man looked to be in his forties, holding a cigarette in his left hand and a lighter in his right, an older uncle; the woman was very young and felt like she had just joined the force not long ago, but her gaze was very resolute, like an indomitable rose.

"Master."

"How many times have I told you, use your professional title at work!"

The classic veteran-and-novice combination.

After the police left, He Ting began introducing the internet cafe staff to Chen Feng: two female cashiers, one cold and one warm, breathtakingly beautiful, and four male internet cafe attendants who were reticent and looked quite human.

"This is She Qingqing." He Ting pointed at a girl wearing a black lace hollow-out eye mask and introduced, "Qingqing just had eye surgery, so she's a bit sensitive to light."

"Sister He, why are you bringing a vagrant inside again?"

She Qingqing's chest was large, but her heart was small.

Earlier, when Chen Feng wanted to come into the internet cafe to rest for a bit, She Qingqing had chased him away.

At this moment, seeing Chen Feng walk in, she said coldly, "I just mopped the floor, and this guy tracked dirt all over it!"

"It's raining so hard outside, you can't just let him get soaked out there either."

Speaking up for Chen Feng at this time was a long-legged beauty with a sunny smile, wearing a white silk camisole vest; she asked with concern, "You must be hungry, right? Shall I make you a bowl of instant noodles?"

Chen Feng waved his hand. "No need."

Seeming to sense Chen Feng's embarrassment, Zhu Xianxian blinked and said, "It's fine, my treat."

Rendering unprovoked favors showed either a thief or a traitor.

Chen Feng let out a cold snort in his heart. In his previous life, he had once been moved by Zhu Xianxian's meticulous care and was charmed into a daze.

But now, Chen Feng after rebirth was in no mood for some damn love story.

"Then I'll help out with some work as repayment."

Next to the internet cafe cash register, there was a built-in bar counter that could provide drinks for customers surfing the net. By now, customers had ordered a lot of coffee, and the two front-desk workers simply couldn't keep up with the busywork.

Coffee powder, add water, stir, add ice.

Chen Feng quickly finished the work and asked Xianxian, "Do you want me to make a cup of coffee for you too?"

Zhu Xianxian politely declined. "I don't like coffee, you drink it yourself."

Seeing that Chen Feng was still fairly nimble with his hands and feet, the landlady He Ting pointed at the recruitment notice hanging on the internet cafe wall—Long-term internet attendants wanted, long-term internet attendants not wanted—and asked Chen Feng if he wanted to come work at their shop: "3200 base salary, room and board included, 200 full-attendance bonus, 4 days off per month, a certain amount of free internet time every month. Any problems?"

Here it comes.

After discovering he had died once, the first thing Chen Feng thought of was staying away from this haunted Internet Cafe.

Yet upon closer reflection, a torrential downpour was falling outside, and as an undocumented time-traveler, he had nowhere at all to go; if something could happen even in a crowded Internet Cafe, then wouldn't standing out in the rain alone be even more dangerous?

Therefore, just like last time, Chen Feng deliberated repeatedly and still chose to stay.

At that moment, He Ting told Chen Feng three rules of the Internet Cafe.

"First, going up to the third floor is not allowed."

"Our Internet Cafe has three floors in total: the first floor is the regular surfing area, the second floor has team-play private rooms and staff dormitories, and the third floor is going to be converted into a billiard hall, but construction hasn't started yet and it's full of concrete and building materials, so don't go up and step on them."

"Second, don't turn the air conditioning too low."

"Qing has caught a cold recently and can't take the cold air."

"Third, watch out for people wearing white coats."

"Those people in white coats are lunatics who escaped from the Fourth Hospital Internet Addiction Rehabilitation Academy, so if you don't want to cause trouble, stay away from them."

Although these baffling rules had greatly puzzled Chen Feng in his previous life, considering the other person's willingness to employ an undocumented person like him with no ID card, he had nothing to complain about.

An internet cafe attendant was similar to a server at an Internet Cafe; the work was very simple, consisting of restocking snacks like betel nuts and instant noodles on the shelves, delivering drinks to customers who ordered them, wiping down mice and keyboards, sweeping the floor and cleaning up, and so on.

As for technical jobs like fixing computers, those fell outside their job description.

"Attendant! The machine's lagging!"

"Reboot!"

"Attendant! The machine's broken!"

"Reboot!"

Whenever someone asked questions like that, several male internet cafe attendants always answered this way.

Several hours passed, and the rain outside still showed no sign of letting up.

The landlady He Ting gave Chen Feng a key. "Walk along the second-floor corridor to the very end, and the one on the right is your room. If you're tired, get some rest early."

"Also, I live right across from you, so come find me anytime if something happens."

After speaking, the landlady cast a flirtatious glance and wiggled her way upstairs.

Was she dropping hints about something?

Watching the landlady's graceful and alluring back, Chen Feng almost gave up on trying.

Yet in order to survive, he had better keep trying.

The internet cafe attendant's job operated on two shifts—working from nine in the morning to nine at night, and then from nine at night to nine in the morning—but because Chen Feng was a newly hired employee, strictly speaking, he didn't need to be on duty today.

However, last time, Chen Feng followed the landlady's words, went back to sleep, and then had a good dream, only to reload his save upon waking up.

He couldn't sleep; once he slept, he died.

Chen Feng stared fixedly at the doorway; this time, he was determined to see what on earth happened.