Chapter 1

Huang Fugui and Old John, who volunteered not to sleep, played in a duo for the whole morning after breakfast. What made Jiang Qi feel a little relieved was that although these two people were addicted to games, they still had a certain degree of self-control.

When Jiang Qi took the two out for lunch, Old John went back to the house and took the professional book he had read before. Huang Fugui also asked Jiang Qi if he wanted to take time to read other books like Old John. Huang Fugui, who was motivated to become an excellent employee, felt that if he only brought one book, he would not be able to become a representative of the excellent employees in the store.

Jiang Qi now had sufficient funds, so he was confident enough to take the two out for lunch. They found a small stir-fry restaurant in the alley, and Jiang Qi asked Huang Fugui and Old John to look after it. The two studied the menu for a long time and finally ordered cold preserved eggs, braised pork with preserved vegetables, stir-fried carrots, and seaweed egg drop soup.

It was dinner time, but there were only two customers eating fried rice in the small restaurant. The boss smiled and served the three of them a plate of free melon seeds, wiped the slightly greasy table again, poured each of them a cup of chrysanthemum tea, and happily went into the kitchen to cook.

"Old John, are you confident about today's performance?" Jiang Qi asked with concern while cracking melon seeds.

In two hours, Old John would be making his first appearance as a coach. Jiang Qi became more and more nervous when he thought about whether the star upgrade plan he had chosen for Old John was correct. He even had difficulty cracking melon seeds.

Old John ate melon seeds silently without saying a word.

"Boss, you have to trust Brother John. Although he doesn't like to talk much, his work ability is definitely no problem." Huang Fugui's surfing on the Internet was quite effective, and he even knew how to use the word "work ability".

Perhaps because Huang Fugui spoke up for him, Old John put down the melon seeds and said, "I've finished reading them all."

Jiang Qi: ...

In order to get Old John to take it seriously, Jiang Qi had to use his trump card: "Yesterday I found a way to check your star upgrade progress."

After these words were spoken, both of them looked up at Jiang Qi.

Huang Fugui's eyes lit up, and he was obviously very enthusiastic about the star upgrade.

"To upgrade from one star to two stars, you need to obtain 100 points of reputation related to favorites. Currently, Uncle Huang has 8 points and Old John has 2 points."

When Huang Fugui heard that he already had 8 reputation points, he was immediately delighted and took several big gulps of tea.

Old John didn't react much. He was obviously not surprised by his slow progress in upgrading his star. He just nodded and said, "Oh."

"Brother John, you have to work harder too!" Huang Fugui encouraged Old John, "Get to three stars sooner so that you can remember the past sooner, right?"

Old John didn't react much and continued to eat melon seeds.

Obviously, star upgrades are not as attractive to him as melon seeds.

After a failed lunch of cold-mixed preserved eggs which were a bit small, braised pork with pickled mustard greens which were a bit salty, stir-fried carrots which were a bit hard, and seaweed egg drop soup which was a bit bland, Jiang Qi went to the milk tea shop and bought four cups of milk tea, one for each person, including one for Liu Lan.

They walked and drank along the way. Before they reached the door, Jiang Qi saw Liu Lan holding two express packages in his hands and three sacks at his feet. He was standing at the door of the store, staring at the sacks with a look of doubt on his face.

"Lanlan, take the express delivery home. You bought a lot of things. Do you want us to help you?" It was only 1:30 and it was far from work time. Liu Lan's base salary was low enough that she would not have her salary deducted for being late, so she never arrived on time and usually came to the store after 2:30.

"No, this is your package, Jiang Qi." Liu Lan looked dazed, raised two packages, one large and one small, and gently kicked the sack with his foot, "They are all yours."

Jiang Qi:?

Jiang Qi quickly realized that this should be the box and props of "Time Cinema".

but……

Jiang Qi looked at the three sacks carefully. Each sack was bulging, and the express box of this box was also particularly large.

This book has too many props.

"It should be the exclusive copy I bought before. It has a little too many props." Jiang Qi explained.

Liu Lan:?

a little?

Jiang Qi opened the door and Liu Lan walked in holding the express package. Jiang Qi, Huang Fugui and Old John each dragged a sack in. Without even turning on the lights, the four of them began to unpack the packages under the daylight.

The express delivery from Liu Lan was this box and a home projector. The box had the words "old movie projector" and "Time Cinema" printed on it, which looked ancient and old.

"Time Cinema, produced by Card Game Studio, written by Mr. Y." Liu Lan looked at the box and opened it silently. "Jiang Qi, you really like this book published by this company. In addition to the one that Sister Bing got for free, you bought two exclusive books from this company."

After opening the box, Liu Lan looked at the stack of books inside without feeling surprised. He then picked up the home projector and examined it carefully. "This publisher is really rich. They even gave me a projector for free. The cheapest thing would cost a few hundred yuan. But why did the publisher only give me a projector without a bracket and a screen? We don't have white walls in our store."

"The bracket is here." Jiang Qi said. He had already opened the sack and was stunned by the things inside.

Four red cinema-style chairs to be assembled, a bracket, and a curtain. No wonder the sack was so heavy. Jiang Qi almost couldn't lift it the first time. He thought it was because he neglected exercise.

Huang Fugui's sack was also opened, and it was full of clothes, dozens of sets of the same style, loose white robes that looked a bit like nightgowns and a bit like hospital gowns, and a set of female theater staff uniforms.

In Old John's sack were two large red curtains in the style of stage plays that Jiang Qi was very familiar with, both large and heavy, and two chairs to be assembled that were the same as those in Jiang Qi's sack.

These props are even more outrageous than the dishes and chopsticks from last time.

Liu Lan was also confused. He pulled out the character book on top and started reading it. "What kind of book is this? Why does it feel like a small cinema in the store?"

The character Liu Lan read was named Ke Linyue.

After reading it, Liu Lan became even more confused.

Jiang Qi had already started assembling the chairs according to the blueprint. Seeing Liu Lan holding the book with a look on his face that said, "Am I really an idiot?", he couldn't help but ask, "What's wrong? This book should be easy to read. It's an emotional book."

"It's easy." Liu Lan said, "But this is not the book."

"This is just a short story. Ke Linyue's story is over. There is no mission, no suspense, it just ends directly, from birth to death. What's the point of this?"

Jiang Qi was also confused by Liu Lan's words.

No wonder the Time Cinema is classified as? , it really is? .

"Why don't you take a look at the host manual?" Jiang Qi suggested.

Liu Lan began to look through the host manual, and as he flipped through it, he felt something was wrong and asked, "Jiang Qi, how many people are these?"

"Six-person version!"

Liu Lan took out all the books from the box. These books were not thick, and a stack of them in his hand was a considerable number. After taking out the scripts, there was a thick layer of clue cards in the box, which was about six or seven centimeters thick, and there were estimated to be about one or two hundred cards.

"But there are 18 character copies!" Liu Lan counted them again to make sure he was right. "Are you sure this is a six-character copy?"

Jiang Qi was really confused this time: "Ah this..."

Jiang Qi could only scratch his head: "Why don't you take a closer look at the host manual."

This book is truly beyond Jiang Qi's knowledge.

Liu Lan could only start reading the host manual. Huang Fugui had already assembled the first chair, which was an ordinary red cinema chair. The cushion was quite soft and elastic, so it should be more comfortable to sit on than an ordinary cinema chair.

"Boss, what should we do with these chairs after they are assembled?" asked Huang Fugui.

"Let's move it to the utility room upstairs first. We'll arrange the show after Liu Lan finishes reading the script and decides which room the Time Cinema will be opened in." Jiang Qi once again joined the ranks of assembling chairs.

Just when we were working hard, a guest came.

Wen Luo arrived early with his classmates, four boys and two girls, each holding a cup of milk tea in their hands. They had obviously bought milk tea at the entrance of the alley before coming here.

"Brother, you guys..." Wen Luo looked at the people who were putting together chairs, and was not sure whether he should go in.

"These are props for the new book. You came quite early. You arrived at just a little past 1:40." Jiang Qi dusted off the dust on his body, stood up, moved the two sacks aside and made way for the guests to come in.

"Wow, there are so many props here." Wen Luo didn't know much about script-killing games, so he pointed at the bookshelf and introduced them to his classmates, "You can choose which book you want to play. This is my cousin Jiang Qi."

"Hello, Brother Qi!" said a man with a crew cut, staring at the shelf, "I saw that the reviews of Jiu online are very good."

Liu Lan, who is reading the book: …

Facing the new players who were not afraid of tigers, Liu Lan put down the host manual and explained: "Nine is a hardcore reasoning book, not suitable for novices. It may take more than ten hours for a novice to play. If it is your first time, I recommend playing the fun book and the novice reasoning book. The third row on the right are all reasoning books that are more suitable for novices."

Hearing Liu Lan say this, the guy with the buzz cut became more interested: "Ten hours?! Not bad!"

Liu Lan: "...Someone has already made a reservation for this afternoon's "Nine", so it can't be open today."

"Okay." The boy with a crew cut could only start picking books with a disappointed look on his face.

"But I want to play the horror game." The short-haired girl whispered to her sister, "I heard from my sister that the horror game is very exciting, and there will be shop owners pretending to be ghosts chasing you."

"Isn't that the same as an escape room?"

"It's different. Escape rooms are so expensive, and you can only play for an hour or two."

"But the escape room is more exciting. Last time I played it, there were several ghosts chasing people. I was so scared that my shoes fell off."

Jiang Qi, who was listening silently: ...

The tastes of high school students these days are quite strange...

The two girls were not interested in the selected book, so the four boys discussed it and finally chose a 4 to 5 hour mystery book. They finished the game just in time for lunch.

Liu Lan put away the host manual of "Time Cinema" and stood up to take the box and prepare to go upstairs. Jiang Qi stopped him and asked, "How about the new book?"

"It's OK, it's quite special. You can actually watch movies. No wonder there's a projector." Liu Lan gave a good review of "Time Cinema". "I'll drive this laptop and do a test run. You'll never guess what mode it is."