Chapter 6: A Chance Encounter with an Acquaintance

The moment Mo Yubai opened the shop, she saw her glittering gold coin balance: 1,632!

The corners of her mouth curled up instantly as she looked at the system shop with glee.

Mechanical Race Product: Auto-Loot Device (90% off): 999 Gold Coins

Mechanical Race Product: One-Click Game Creature Identifier (90% off): 888 Gold Coins

Mechanical Race Product: Myriad Realms Random Housekeeper (90% off): 1,000 Gold Coins

Mechanical Race Product: Omnipotent Mechanical Butler (90% off): 9,999 Gold Coins

Mechanical Race Product: Fully Automatic Repairer (90% off): 1,888 Gold Coins

Well, she had been too presumptuous just now. Even at ninety percent off, she still couldn’t afford two of the items.

But this “Mechanical Race Product: One-Click Game Creature Identifier” looked pretty good!

At least she would know what those monsters were when they appeared, so she wouldn’t accidentally trigger some taboo!

She stared reluctantly at her gold coin balance, sighed, and then steeled herself, closing her eyes as she made the purchase!

[Congratulations to player Mo Yubai for becoming the first customer server-wide to purchase an item from the game shop.

To thank you for your support, you have been upgraded to a Black Gold VIP.

Would the player like to make a server-wide announcement?]

“Are there any rewards for the announcement?”

[The Black Gold VIP privileges are the reward. The game announcement does not offer additional rewards!]

“Then forget it. No announcement.”

Mo Yubai declined the game’s announcement invitation with zero interest, thinking no thanks, and then opened her Black Gold VIP privileges to take a closer look.

“Ahhh! This is amazing! What a massive profit!” She kicked her legs excitedly under the covers.

[Black Gold VIP (Non-transferable!)

Name: Mo Yubai

Amount Spent: 8,888 Gold Coins

User Privileges:

Monthly free spending allowance of 666 Gold Coins

Exclusive 50% discount on select items

Special Title (Automatically equipped)

Golden skin for chat channel messages

Exclusive butler within the service area

Free room upgrades at Mechanical Race hotels

Three days of free presidential suite stays per month at Mechanical Race hotels]

This was an absolute jackpot. Just the monthly free spending allowance of 666 gold coins was enough to get her excited!

Not to mention the presidential suite, the exclusive butler, and the fifty percent discount. Hahaha… it was so good to be rich!

Mo Yubai nodded in approval as she looked at her name, which was now glittering with gold, and the colorful title trailing behind it.

As expected of me! At such a young age, relying neither on my parents nor myself, but purely on cheats to become a Black Gold VIP!

Mo Yubai hugged her blanket, so happy she could faint. After calming down a bit, she opened the chat channel to see what everyone was up to.

It was already one in the morning, but the chat channel was still as lively as ever.

“I miss home. My mom is in her fifties, and I don’t know if she got dragged into this crappy game. I’m so worried about her.”

“I miss home too, but my parents are in their sixties, so they probably didn’t get brought in. I checked today, and most of the profile pictures belong to people between eighteen and fifty.”

“I’m all alone, with no parents, no husband, and no kids, but my dog is still waiting for me at home. What’s going to happen to him if I’m gone? He’s so dumb, if I even change his food bowl, he won’t know where to eat.”

“You guys have too much free time! Still having the energy to worry about others. I’m starving to death right now. All I can think about is hot pot, instant noodles, rice noodles, and hot and sour sweet potato noodles!”

“Bro, are you ordering takeout here? You’re making me hungry too!”

“Waaah… my kitty! I only kidnapped him home three days ago. I even promised him that if he jumped onto my scooter on his own, I’d take care of him for the rest of his life… Sob… Will I ever get to go back and take care of him?”

“Buck up, everyone. Why is everyone getting so emo late at night? Just think about the three hundred million in cash and the healthy body we get after winning!”

“Trading one potato for two iron blocks. My bicycle is close to upgrading, I just need six more iron blocks. I can trade three potatoes for them. PM me if interested.”

“Wang Shizhu, you scammer! Everyone, watch out and don’t trade with this scammer. He blocks you as soon as he gets your resources. Don’t trust him!”

“Emergency! Does anyone have an antidote? I got bitten by a snake! Trading a workbench blueprint for painkillers or an antidote. Urgent!”

“Holy crap, that’s good stuff! You’re actually willing to part with a workbench blueprint? Too bad I don’t have any medicine.”

When Mo Yubai saw this message, she immediately clicked on the player’s profile picture. It was actually the player who got the third monster kill!

The profile picture showed a young girl in a floral dress. Her eyes were clear and bright, and she had two little dimples when she smiled.

Wait, she looked a bit familiar.

Wasn’t this the girl on the bus yesterday who had kindly given her two coins when her phone ran out of battery?

She was in here too?

Mo Yubai immediately clicked to send a friend request, writing: “I have medicine, we can trade!”

Her request was accepted almost instantly, followed by a message and a screenshot from the girl.

“Do you really have medicine? This is a screenshot of my inventory. Can you show me a screenshot of yours? I’m sorry, private trades aren’t secure and there are a lot of scammers, so I have to be careful.”

Mo Yubai’s eyes lit up when she saw the screenshot. The girl actually had three full sets of toiletries and twelve pieces of rubber in her inventory!

Without hesitation, she took a screenshot of the slots in her inventory containing the medicine and bedding, and sent it over.

Before Mo Yubai could say anything, another message came from the other side.

“Okay, can we start the trade then? I can send you the workbench blueprint first, but you’ll need to put up something as collateral. Would that be okay?”

“No need to go through all that trouble. I’ll send the antidote straight to you, and I’ll throw in some pain-relieving ointment that worked well for me! Cure your poison first before we talk. Consider it my thanks for the two-yuan tip!”

“It’s you! That weird older sister! Waaah… I can’t believe I ran into someone I know here. This is so great, sob… Thank you! Thank you so much. I’ve already been scammed twice today. Sob… I thought I was going to die here today.”

Mo Yubai pinched the bridge of her nose helplessly. Was running into an acquaintance in this godforsaken place really a good thing?

This was a Survival Game, after all. The point was never the game, but survival!

Deceit and mutual slaughter were inevitable; when resources were limited, everyone had to rely on their own abilities.

In just a single day, the population of this zone had dropped from one million to nine hundred thousand, and this was only the first day of the novice period.

She opened her inventory and took out the antidote. At the same time, she squeezed out a small dab of her used pain-relieving ointment, applied it to the antidote, and selected transfer.

“Thank you! Thank you! I received the medicine. I’ll transfer the workbench blueprint to you right now!”

Mo Yubai looked helplessly at the stream of thank-yous filling the chat box, thinking to herself:

Students really are the polite ones. Always apologizing and thanking people. No wonder they get scammed so easily.

[Do you wish to accept the Workbench Blueprint x1 transferred by Zhu Ou?]

She selected “Yes” without hesitation. A workbench blueprint appeared in her inventory. Pulling herself out of her thoughts, she took out the blueprint to examine it closely.

Workbench Blueprint: Stone x80, Iron x20, Nails x38, Wood x40, Hemp Rope x35.

She had enough materials! She retrieved them from the snack shop’s backend storage and clicked craft.

The workbench resembled a desk with drawers from the Blue Star. It was a dull, dark purple, engraved with intricate magical runes. In the center, a circular magic circle faintly shimmered with flowing light. On either side were a tray for blueprints and buttons to input materials.

Snuggled under her blanket, Mo Yubai excitedly stared at the freshly crafted workbench sitting by the head of her bed and tapped to open its details.