A Merciless Mission Machine

[Negative Emotions from Song Qing and Zhu Huan, +1+1...]

[Negative Emotions from Liu Jiang, Zhang Mao, and Hu Tiezhu, +1+1+1...]

[Congratulations, the negative emotion tree you planted has grown its first leaf.]

[Congratulations, the negative emotion tree you planted has grown its first branch.]

[Make three hundred people feel the incompleteness of... (Completed; reward: Dragon-Subduing Ten-Stroke Palm · Incomplete (Issued)]

[Make one thousand people feel the incom...; reward: Morning Flight · Incomplete (Incomplete)]

[Sell your first dish; (Completed) reward: one tael of Bai Yin (Issued)]

[A deserted doorstep: make at least ten people aware of your establishment; reward: Basic Knife Skills—Straight Cut (Completed)]

[Known along the street: make fifty people aware of your establishment; reward: Basic Knife Skills—Push Cut (Completed)]

[Your first achievement: make one hundred people aware of your establishment; reward: Basic Knife Skills—Pull Cut (Completed)]

[A modest reputation: make one thousand people aware of your establishment; reward: Basic Knife Skills—Saw Cut (Incomplete)]

With the groundwork laid, the systems began working in tandem, and Lin Bai became a merciless mission-grinding machine.

Mission after mission was completed, scrolling past like a flood of messages.

Often, a system would issue a mission, only to mark it complete a second later.

After all.

Even if you felt no sense of incompleteness when looking at the sign and couplets, once you went inside and sat on a chair, you were bound to feel something was missing!

When you sang a song like that in full public view, you had to feel at least a little embarrassment and shame!

When you ordered and were told that even after the discount, the food still cost more than elsewhere, how could you possibly be in a good mood...

You were seething before eating, and after eating, the more you thought about it, the angrier you got...

Even long after leaving the restaurant, when the brainwashing song "You love me, I love you" rang in your ears or suddenly popped into your head, you would still contribute another wave of Negative Emotions;

It was fair to say that Lin Bai had turned the Chef God Restaurant into an emotion-harvesting machine, forming a perfect closed loop...

Moreover, once the God of Cooking System finally remembered what it was and stopped rewarding him with silver, returning to the right path by rewarding knife techniques instead, the marketing methods Lin Bai had pushed to their limits—the sunk-cost effect and the foot-in-the-door effect—would keep bringing him a steady stream of wealth.

So he was not worried about his cash flow drying up.

It was entirely fair to say that, with just one little Chef God Restaurant, Lin Bai had already secured a foothold in Jiamao City.

It had taken him only ten days. He had not disgraced his fellow transmigrators.

Finally, even if everyone in Jiamao City had been fooled once, there were still players to harvest. Its reputation as a haunted house was no joke.

As long as Ghost remained there, the players would come in wave after wave of fat sheep.

No one could escape Lin Bai's schemes. Everyone was a crop of chives for him to harvest.

The only blemish was the Chief Supporting Character System.

His dear big brother [Lao Mi], whom the beggars had delivered to the City Lord's Residence, had actually not deleted his character.

The earlier mission to help his big brother establish his convictions was still there.

The system had issued another mission, a red time-limited one at that:

[Big brother's outlook on his career: detected that big brother has been recruited into the Shadow Guard by the City Lord's Residence. Better the head of a chicken than the tail of a phoenix. With big brother serving beneath others, where does that leave you?

For the sake of your future, pull big brother back from the wrong path within seven days; mission success (reward: five Fortune; failure: deduct three Fortune); countdown: seven]

[Deng Libuduo] served as the doorman outside the restaurant, singing to attract customers, while the temporarily hired waiter attended to customers inside.

The Chef God Restaurant was running smoothly and no longer needed Lin Bai to worry about it.

At that moment.

He sat in the shade of a tree not far from the restaurant, taking stock of his mission rewards.

But when he spotted the new mission from the Chief Supporting Character System amid the string of mission notifications, his joy immediately dimmed.

The fucking system could actually deduct Fortune?

It really didn't give a damn about the user's feelings. It had only rewarded me with four Fortune in total, and now it wanted to take back three at the drop of a hat.

If I kept failing missions, would it deduct enough to send me into the negatives?

Grumbling was one thing.

Lin Bai still had to consider how to salvage his big brother's career. Everything was going smoothly for him now, and that might well have something to do with the Fortune the system had awarded him.

If it dropped into the negatives, who knew what would happen?

Step in dog shit as soon as I left the house?

Get something stuck between my teeth even drinking cold water!

The systems attached to him had appeared from who knew where. If he enjoyed their benefits, he naturally had to bear a certain amount of risk.

Opportunity and risk always went hand in hand. Lin Bai understood that.

Moreover, when a whole pile of systems had been thrust upon him for no reason, Lin Bai had clearly understood that whatever lay behind them, he was currently no match for it.

To learn the truth, one approach was to grow stronger; another was to upset the game board, probing the limits of the person behind the scenes one step at a time...

Lin Bai was pursuing both approaches simultaneously.

Every absurd method he used to complete a mission was a probe aimed at the person behind the scenes.

Of course, the prerequisite for all of this was staying alive. Even as a pawn, he had to survive. Only by living to the very end would he have a chance to discover who was moving the pieces.

"My dear big brother actually joined the City Lord's Residence as a shadow guard. Did he stumble into a hidden class? To think I was the one who gave him a helping hand. When drinking water, don't forget who dug the well. That ungrateful bastard hasn't even come to thank me!"

An incomplete cleaver flipped up and down in Lin Bai's hand, as nimbly as the pen he used to twirl in class.

Just like the Incompleteness System's rewards, the knife skills awarded by the God of Cooking System required no practice. He could use them immediately.

The most direct consequence was that Lin Bai had developed a liking for playing with cleavers...

"Do I have to deal with the city's higher-ups already?" Lin Bai sighed, looking at his bustling, thriving establishment, and murmured, "I'm not ready yet!"

The mission issued by the Chief Supporting Character System had brought Lin Bai some information hidden behind the scenes.

On the surface, there were two forces maintaining order in Jiamao City. One was the constables, mainly responsible for public order within the city—petty theft, businesses obstructing the streets, and the like;

The other was the City Guard, responsible for the defenses of the entire city and protecting Jiamao City.

The constables fell under the jurisdiction of the Public Security Office;

The powerful City Guard, meanwhile, was controlled by the city lord.

Lin Bai had never heard anyone mention shadow guards, but judging from various films, television shows, and literary works, he could guess that this profession most likely involved espionage, assassination, and similar work—an existence that could not see the light of day.

For a player, discovering a hidden class at level one made him a truly lucky fellow.

But viewed from the standpoint of reality, it was actually rather abnormal for the level-one player [Lao Mi] to be recruited as a shadow guard by the City Lord's Residence.

The only reasonable explanation was that the city lord already knew the players' characteristics and was deliberately recruiting and training them, taking advantage of their rapid growth to complete missions.

And since the city lord knew to make use of players, he would surely provide them with resources to help them grow. That meant [Lao Mi] was probably practicing his skills and gaining experience right now.

Unless he had a mission, the likelihood of him showing his face was extremely low...

"That was rash!" Lin Bai muttered, somewhat regretting his impulsive decision to acknowledge a big brother. Now, instead of helping him, his big brother had become a stumbling block. What a fucking nightmare.

"Luckily, I still have seven days. If I work harder at missions, I should be able to shear a little more wool off the systems." Lin Bai looked toward his establishment again.

With less than five years' worth of internal energy, an incomplete Dragon-Subduing Ten-Stroke Palm, and a set of vegetable-cutting knife skills, rashly provoking the City Lord's Residence would hardly be wise. At the very least, he needed to get his hands on the incomplete lightness skill, Morning Flight.

Just thinking about the reward being a lightness skill called Morning Flight filled Lin Bai with frustration.

He was not quite sure whether this lightness skill was a damaged version of Grass-Treading Flight, or whether it really only let him fly in the morning.

Either possibility could certainly count as incomplete...