Lin Ruoyu stood dumbly outside the apartment building, looking up at the fat flakes of snow drifting down from the sky. With his arms folded across his chest, he felt his body, which had warmed up a little, slowly grow cold again under the assault of the chilly wind.
"Go out for a walk, and come back early for dinner!"
Chris stood behind the door and raised a hand as he spoke to the ten players outside.
"This city may be bustling, but it isn't all that safe. When you go out to get familiar with the area, you'd better stick together instead of wandering off alone.
Remember to turn on the translation feature when you talk to anyone. People here speak Bohemian!"
With that, Chris closed the door and went back to take a nap.
What about the players outside?
They could do whatever they wanted and wander wherever they pleased. He had already told them that space in the apartment building was limited, and once they found jobs and places to live, they would have to move out.
Chris knew the players certainly wouldn't behave themselves while playing, so he had laid down the ground rules in advance.
Also, to avoid getting hammered by the iron fist of censorship, Chris hadn't enabled sexual functions for the closed-beta players.
How should he put it? If players killed a few people, stole some valuables, or did other bad things, Chris could kick those troublemakers out and report them to the twenty-fifth century's law enforcement agencies while he was at it.
Things like that generally weren't a big problem and wouldn't implicate Chris. Fighting and killing in a game was perfectly normal.
After all, twenty-fifth-century China had a comprehensive legal system, and immersive games weren't beyond the reach of the law. Even while gaming, people had to keep morality in mind instead of doing whatever they pleased.
But if a player suddenly got the idea to force themselves on someone, that would change the nature of the whole thing. A combat game full of fighting and killing would become an illegal game featuring pornography and sexual violence.
Twenty-fifth-century China, with its high moral standards, would definitely ban the game.
Chris didn't want his source of income cut off, so he had taken precautions.
Now, back to bed.
Chris had always wanted to live like this, drinking tea and playing on his phone whenever he had nothing to do. His phone not only had the twenty-first century's Online Shopping Platform, but also connected to all kinds of entertainment apps from that century.
Although he couldn't leave comments, scrolling through short videos and watching movies was still immensely satisfying.
"Tittytainment" might not sound very nice, but it really did feel good!
Chris had worked himself to the bone for most of his previous life. Now that he had come to another world, what was wrong with enjoying a leisurely retirement?
Absolutely nothing.
The door closed behind them, and the players outside scattered like startled birds and beasts, paying no attention whatsoever to what Chris had said.
Lin Ruoyu had taken Chris's warning to heart, but the other players weren't interested in teaming up. They hurried off, as excited as elementary school children heading to an amusement park, and disappeared in no time.
Seeing how they were acting, Lin Ruoyu gave up on calling them back. After wandering around in front of the apartment building for a while, he found a public bench on the street and brushed the snow off it.
Then he took out a newspaper he had picked up from a trash can, spread it over the seat, and plopped down.
Even with the newspaper as a barrier, Lin Ruoyu still felt a bone-chilling cold seep up into his clothes when he sat down.
Still, it was bearable. Lin Ruoyu planned to sit for a while and take in the street.
Lin Ruoyu found the game's setting interesting, though he had no idea what period it was supposed to be. Two-wheeled carts pulled by horses with mixed-color coats or by donkeys frequently clattered along the cobblestone street.
The bells hanging around the necks of the plodding horses and donkeys jingled, warning pedestrians ahead of the carts to move aside so they wouldn't be knocked down by the large animals-or bitten.
Horses were easily startled. When they encountered something they considered dangerous, they could suddenly bolt and knock pedestrians over.
Donkeys, on the other hand, were stubborn beasts. If someone blocked their path while the driver behind them kept brandishing his whip, they might take a bite out of that person.
Their large front teeth weren't as lethal as a predator's sharp fangs, but getting bitten by a stubborn donkey was hardly a pleasant experience.
Besides the horse-drawn and donkey-drawn carts, Lin Ruoyu also studied the pedestrians.
The apartment building where Chris lived was in a working-class neighborhood. It wasn't particularly prosperous, but it wasn't all that poor either. Most of the men walking along the street had thick winter clothes to wear.
Their winter clothes weren't of very good quality, though. Most of the men wore several layers of homespun clothing in blue and white, green, black, or earthy yellow, with baggy trousers below and hats on their heads.
The men wrapped strips of cloth or wide belts around their waists to cinch their clothing tight. They also stuffed their baggy trousers with fluffy material that retained body heat, allowing them to go outside in the bitter winter.
The women, whether old or young, wore bulky, thick skirts that reached their ankles, making it impossible for Lin Ruoyu to tell how many layers they had on.
As for their heads, they wrapped white or gray homespun scarves around their necks and faces, leaving only their eyes or half their faces exposed.
Apparently, the women of this other world also understood how important it was to keep their heads warm. That key part of the body lost a great deal of heat, so if your clothes weren't thick or warm enough, you had to wrap both your head and legs in fabric.
That way, your body wouldn't lose heat so quickly.
Besides ordinary people, Lin Ruoyu also spotted two police officers patrolling the street. They wore blue double-breasted coats, blue trousers, black felt hats, black boots, and thin red belts.
Each officer had a one-handed saber hanging at his waist and carried a wooden club. Their eyes were fierce, and when they noticed Lin Ruoyu studying them, they raised their clubs to threaten him.
"Dammit, what are you looking at?"
Lin Ruoyu promptly averted his gaze. Otherwise, those two lawmen might genuinely have had no qualms about coming over and giving him a taste of their clubs.
"Right, the police are no different from street thugs. I should've known better than to expect anything from my industrial-era counterparts."
Lin Ruoyu muttered to himself in Chinese. Once the police officers were far away, he stood up, straightened his clothes, and headed toward the apartment building.
All right, that's enough. Time to head back. He had a rough idea of what things were like outside now. As for what lay farther afield, he could just wait for the other players to return and have them share their map information.
Every player had a system minimap. Places they had visited would appear on it, while unvisited areas remained shrouded in black fog.
Even without wandering around outside, Lin Ruoyu could still get the information he needed.
"I need to earn some money as soon as possible. Chris doesn't look like a wealthy NPC. With ten people living under his roof and eating his food, he probably won't be able to keep this up for long."
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