What Was a Big Brother Good For?

[Acknowledge a big brother. Mission complete. Reward: luck +1. (Granted)]

As the two acknowledged their relationship, a check mark appeared beside the Chief Supporting Character System's initial mission in Lin Bai's mind.

So we didn't need to swear an oath of brotherhood?

It was that casual?!

I hadn't even told him my name!

The world only remembered number one, so number two didn't deserve a name?

Lin Bai's eyelids twitched several times as he unleashed a torrent of complaints in his mind.

His luck increased by one, but he felt no change in his body.

On second thought, that made sense. Luck was such an intangible thing that giving it physical form would be downright fantastical. Surely he couldn't walk around with purple qi streaming in from the east wherever he went!

On Earth, people blessed with tremendous luck, such as founding emperors like Zhu Yuanzhang, probably followed paths to success much like those of ordinary people.

Still.

They probably had no shortage of coincidences that turned calamity into good fortune and disaster into blessings.

[Daily mission: a big brother who remains unknown is unworthy of the name. Following a coward will get you nowhere. The higher your big brother flies, the greater your returns. Do something to make your big brother famous. Reward: luck +1.]

The missions came one after another, and Lin Bai scoffed at the latest one to pop up.

Completing the initial mission of acknowledging a big brother so easily made Lin Bai realize that the systems in his mind weren't particularly rigorous when assessing mission results.

Besides, he had found a shortcut for grinding missions, so he no longer minded these seemingly nonsensical assignments.

Make him famous?

Too easy.

Lin Bai looked at his newly acquired big brother and asked sincerely, "Big brother, do you trust me?"

"Of course." [Lao Mi] smiled and replied perfunctorily, "Aren't we brothers?"

"Good brothers, for life." Lin Bai nodded earnestly. "Big brother, trust me. Everything I do is for your own good. As the sage so aptly said, when Heaven is about to bestow a great responsibility upon a man, it must first torment his mind..."

"What eloquence!" [Lao Mi]'s eyes lit up, and he was still absorbing the sage's words.

He hadn't even heard of Mencius's sayings. Sure enough, he wasn't from Earth. His earlier suspicions confirmed, Lin Bai abruptly stepped backward, stared at the two in astonishment, and shouted, "What? You're planning a jailbreak?"

"..." [Lao Mi].

"..." [Jingmi].

"You're accomplices of that villain who molested women?" Lin Bai pointed at the two, his voice and expression stern, putting on a flawless display of outrage.

Swish!

The spectators' gazes all shot toward them at once.

Fuck!

[Lao Mi]'s smile froze on his face.

"..." [Jingmi]'s eyes widened.

[Annoyance from Laomi and Jingmi, +2]

A gust of wind, a straw hat, and a quail trapped underneath.

The system missions could even work together!

Lin Bai perked up. With no time to dwell on it, he winked at [Laomi] and lowered his voice. "Run!"

What the fuck kind of move was that?

The two players' heads buzzed, leaving them almost incapable of thought. At Lin Bai's words, they instinctively turned and ran.

"Don't let them get away!" The instant they started moving, Lin Bai's voice rang out behind them. "They're accomplices of the sex fiend!"

[Anger from Laomi and Jingmi, +2]

Both players stumbled. [Lao Mi] turned back to glare viciously at Lin Bai, then barged through the crowd and took to his heels.

Running made them look guilty.

But if they didn't run and got caught, there would be no explaining their way out!

How could NPCs possibly listen to their explanations? Especially with another NPC framing them...

The NPCs in this world were highly intelligent. They couldn't rely on their experience from other games.

They certainly didn't want to spend the early stages of the closed beta locked in prison.

A jailbreak was an enormous matter.

The constables were already frazzled by the players' antics, with a whole bunch of troublemakers sitting in prison awaiting processing. Now their accomplices wanted to break them out!

They were practically tugging on a tiger's whiskers!

"Liu Hu, Song Jin, seize them."

At the command.

Two constables drew their sabers and gave chase.

"Help catch the criminals, and the city lord will reward you handsomely!" Lin Bai, mingling with the crowd and eager to stir up chaos, immediately shouted after them.

One sentence.

The spectators joined the pursuit as well. After all, the two villains looked weak and easy to bully, without so much as a weapon in their hands.

Behind the crowd.

[Jade Cat], held in chains by a constable, stared dumbfounded at the two fleeing players, the corners of his mouth twitching violently several times. "Who the fuck are they?! I just wanted a one-day prison tour! What fucking jailbreak? Are they trying to make me rot in prison forever?"

Having wreaked havoc on his newly acknowledged big brother.

Lin Bai ran along with the crowd for a while before finding an opportunity to slip away. He had to reassess this world and plan his future.

If this world was a game, would dead NPCs respawn? Would bugs in the game be fixed?

These were all questions he had to consider.

After all.

Although he was a transmigrator with systems, he looked more like an NPC.

If he died, would he respawn?

Would he retain his own thoughts after respawning?

And were the systems he possessed part of the game's design, or were they outsiders like him?

If they were outsiders, would a GM delete him once he was discovered?

Would dying return him to his original world?

A whole series of questions weighed on Lin Bai's mind.

His future was shrouded in mist once again.

Without understanding how the game operated, Lin Bai couldn't make judgments about much else. Compared with the entire world, he was nothing but a tiny speck of dust.

He hated the feeling of being swept along.

"Stay alive!"

In the end, that was the conclusion Lin Bai reached.

Since he couldn't be certain what would happen after death, he would stay alive.

Keep living.

Even if this was a game world, living a good eighty or a hundred years would be enough to make his life worthwhile.

Walking down the street, Lin Bai's mind churned with thoughts. Meanwhile, he observed the city around him and looked for other players.

All along the way, everyone around him seemed normal.

It appeared there weren't many people in the closed beta.

Of course, it was also possible that the players had caused so much trouble that the constables had arrested them all.

As for screwing over his newly acknowledged big brother, Lin Bai didn't take it to heart.

Was that screwing him over?

That was making him famous...

Just as the players were exploring how a new game unfolded, screwing over his big brother was Lin Bai's way of testing the system's limits.

As everyone knew.

Few big brothers ever rose to greatness, while far more fell along the way. Even Lü Bu went through three fathers!

Even a gold-medal supporting character had no reason to stick with one big brother to the bitter end.

If the system rigidly demanded lifelong loyalty to one big brother, he didn't mind continuing to screw that big brother over. A puppet big brother was still a big brother!

Chief Supporting Character System:

[A big brother must have ability. Have your big brother learn a special skill (incomplete). Reward: luck +3.]

Emotion System:

[Collect ten instances of negative emotion directed at you (7/10). Reward: spirit +3.]

There had been no progress on the Flawed Creation System's or the God of Cooking System's missions.

So far, Lin Bai had gained 2 luck and 1 spirit from completed missions.

He had experienced the benefits of spirit, but luck had yet to manifest in any concrete way.

Still.

Lin Bai hadn't expected the rewards from the starting missions to make him a sage on the spot.

Everything had to advance step by step.

He had already completed several missions cleanly and decisively. That counted as a good start.

As Lin Bai wandered aimlessly down the street, the constables and helpful citizens who had gone after [Laomi] and his companion returned in groups of three or five. Neither player was anywhere to be seen.

Lin Bai stopped someone and asked, "Did you catch them?"

"Don't even mention it. They turned a corner and vanished," the man he had stopped said regretfully. "Notorious bandits must have special skills, or someone was there to help them escape. Notorious bandits have slipped into Jiamao City. These are troubled times!"

As he spoke.

He shook his head and walked past Lin Bai.

Lin Bai paused, then couldn't help laughing. They'd logged out!

Although he didn't know how logging out and back into this game worked, logging out was undoubtedly a lifesaving weapon for players fleeing pursuit. Actually catching a player wouldn't be easy.

He still needed to find an opportunity to figure out how players logged out!