Chapter 148 Countermeasure System (Unrevised) She didn't want to be someone else's prey...
There are many more such anecdotes.
Liang Jun wasn't an angel who descended from the real world into the game instance; she was just an ordinary person trying to survive as much as possible. At this moment, she couldn't afford to waste her limited mental energy on unimportant side quests. Ensuring that she could complete the main storyline was the priority.
Liang Jun counted the 1,100 yuan in cash that the girl handed over again. After confirming that there was nothing wrong with it, she put the stack of banknotes together with the previous ones.
Throughout the entire ordeal, Liang Jun never opened the cash drawer. The system seemed to have realized this problem, and just as she took out her phone to report the progress, it suddenly rang in Liang Jun's head.
[Hidden rule triggered.]
4. As a cashier in the store, you need to check for customers attempting to skip out on their payments and urge them to pay promptly. If a customer successfully skips out on their payment, you will be penalized with a deduction equal to five times the value of the goods sold.
Liang Jun paused in her typing motion.
She wasn't quite sure why the system would trigger this rule for no apparent reason.
Then, as if proactively answering questions and resolving doubts, the system surprisingly began to provide reminders.
[Automatic detection of fare-skipping behavior]
[Items omitted: One lychee-flavored lollipop and one orange-flavored lollipop.]
[Total price deducted: 5 yuan.]
Liang Xun was dissatisfied, "Tsk."
She remembered that when they were paying, the girl had casually picked two lollipops from the side to use as a gift for the child, but she hadn't been paying attention to them at the time, so Liang Jun hadn't realized it until they left unharmed.
Fortunately, although the system rules require deducting five times the value of the goods from the sales revenue, the price of a lollipop is only 50 cents, and two lollipops only cost one dollar. Even with the five-fold multiplier, it is only five dollars.
However, when the girl paid the bill, she gave an extra twelve yuan. Although this money did not enter the cash drawer or be recognized by the system, it was equivalent to Liang Jun not losing anything.
No loss, guaranteed profit.
The hidden rules that she had actually obtained were real. Liang Jun temporarily put aside the idea of reporting her progress and instead shared the hidden rules she had just triggered in the group.
Her intention was to draw more attention to the issue, but to her surprise, as soon as the message was sent, the players in the group chat began to echo her sentiments.
Xin Sang: [Baby, did you trigger this hidden rule too?]
Qi Zhixia: [I triggered it too.]
Ge Lin: [Me too...]
Gu Keke: [Raises hand.gif]
It's rare for customers to collectively skip out on their bills, and Liang Jun's vigilance immediately rose to her throat.
She reacted extremely quickly, throwing her shopping bags onto the checkout counter to create the appearance of a busy checkout process, temporarily turning away customers who tried to pay.
She took two steps back, her back against the cold cash register door.
Liang Jun: [What happened?]
Leung Chung: [Have you had customers skipping out on their bills too?]
Immediately afterward, Xin Sang sent a long voice message, which Liang Xun played without hesitation.
"It wasn't that I skipped out on the bill. I deliberately slowed down the payment process to prevent anyone from slipping out right under my nose."
Xin Sang's tone also carried a hint of confusion, "This hidden rule was only triggered after I finished collecting money from two customers. After realizing something was wrong, I paused the checkout process and started to figure out what the problem was, and that's when I saw the message from Xiao Liang."
While Liang Jun was listening to the voice messages, other people also sent their own voice messages one after another.
To save time as quickly as possible, Liang Jun directly activated WeChat's voice-to-text function.
“I’m always slow at processing payments, and this guy only bought two cans of peanut oil. I saw it clearly, and I swear on my integrity that he didn’t have anything else on him. But right after he walked out, the system started reporting a case of skipping out on payment—who can I complain to?!”
"I noticed this guy only bought a few cans of food, so I chatted with him a bit more on a whim. Who knew he'd then take a liking to the cans I bought and insist on taking one, or he'd complain about me... I had no choice but to give him a can of luncheon meat—but I bought it myself, so the system shouldn't count it as me skipping out on my bill, right..."
Liang Jun kept her brows slightly furrowed, indicating that everyone was facing different situations.
However, the conditions for the system to trigger hidden rules are extremely strict. Even if it is passed down word by word between people, it must be word for word to be completely identified, let alone individual behavior where the rules are completely unpredictable.
If that's the case, then they must have all done something specific at the same time, and that action just happened to violate the system's pre-set settings.
What is it...?
Liang Jun racked her brains, leaning her entire body back against the blue partition. As her gaze shifted slightly downwards, she was able to use the natural curve of her body to catch a glimpse of the cash peeking out of her pocket.
Oh, right.
They didn't put the sales revenue into the cash drawer.
As if waking from a dream, Liang Jun realized the problem. She pulled out a thick wad of banknotes from her pocket and, without caring whether they were neat or not, spread them out on the cashier's counter.
Nevertheless, Liang Jun still wanted to confirm beforehand, "Did none of you put the money in the cash drawer?"
Seeing the unanimous affirmative replies flashing across the "Never Die" group chat, Liang Jun's resolve only grew stronger.
"I suspect that it might be because we didn't put the revenue we earned into the drawer, so the system couldn't recognize it and therefore judged it as a customer skipping out on payment."
However, there are still some details that don't make sense.
This explanation might account for the situation most people encounter, but for Liang Jun, she has only received a notification from the system regarding the two lollipops being a no-show. As for the other items the girl took, the system has not yet mentioned them.
Furthermore, regarding the 1,500 yuan in cash that I managed to keep last night by exploiting a loophole, the system doesn't seem to be aware of the existence of this order yet.
There's a possibility that there's a bug.
But regarding a system that seems intent on killing its players, Liang Jun felt that another possibility was more likely—
The system is trying to scam someone big.
Gu Keke's two buckets of peanut oil, Ge Lin's several cans of food, and her own lollipops, which cost no more than one yuan in total, were all goods that were still within an acceptable range even after factoring in the penalty coefficient.
But what if they actually manage to accumulate a turnover of 10,000 yuan?
If the system does indeed calculate the price at five times the original price, then each of them will receive a difference of 50,000 yuan.
What will they use to fill the 50,000 yuan shortfall?
Only then will you truly step into the trap that the system has tailored for you.
Thinking of this, Liang Xun smacked her somewhat dry lips.
She then shared her idea with the other team members, "Let's put all the money in the cash drawer first, so that the compensation won't snowball and get bigger and bigger."
For some reason, Liang Jun felt inexplicably agitated.
She put her phone aside and then gathered all the cash and banknotes spread out on the table.
It's a thick stack of paper, and holding it in my hand gives me a great sense of accomplishment.
It seems that Leung Yung has never received so much cash at once before.
However, with the rules established by the system in place, even if Liang Jun had nine lives, she wouldn't dare to confront the ruthless system head-on.
She sighed softly, but still chose to press the "Checkout" button on the keyboard.
As if it knew beforehand that it would be filled to the brim, the cash drawer popped out happily with a "pop." Liang Jun's mood was completely opposite. She didn't bother to sort the banknotes of different denominations and stuffed them directly into the drawer's groove, then pushed the drawer back in.
After ensuring that all the cash had gone into the system's coffers, Liang Jun's heart remained in suspense, unable to relax.
Her carefully laid plans had failed once again, and Liang Jun had no intention of continuing to collect payments. She left the shopping bags on the counter, blocking customers from entering the store until closing time arrived, plunging the entire store into darkness once more.
Liang Jun did not turn on her phone to provide light.
Her phone's remaining battery power wasn't enough to keep her doing this. Besides, Liang Xun had already lived in this small space for three whole days. Even if her vision was completely taken away, Liang Xun could still find her way back to where she was resting by relying on her memory.
She simply closed her eyes, but she wasn't resting; her mind was filled with a multitude of thoughts.
Liang Jun discovered that the system's malice towards players had escalated to a point where it no longer needed to be concealed.
In the early levels, the system was perceived as "impartial and incorruptible" by the players. However, starting from the third level, the system began deliberately adding false rules, exploiting the players' trust to its advantage and ultimately leading to their demise. Seeing that these false rules were ineffective, the system then projected the game into the real world, using the players' attachment to reality to selectively numb them, attempting to ensnare them willingly—but unsurprisingly, this still failed to defeat a truly human being.
So in the fifth level, the system used a completely new method to torment the surviving players.
That is, no matter what methods players devise, the system will always release new rules to counter them, blocking every safe exit for players with the aura of death, thus making it truly "nowhere to escape".
In the darkness, Liang Xuan's eyes were bloodshot from holding her breath.
The feeling of being manipulated, trained, monitored, and recorded made Liang Jun feel a chill and discomfort in every bone of her body.
They are like lab rats kept in a laboratory, manipulated and designed by experimenters in a higher dimension outside the cage. Those experimenters will calmly witness the death of each lab rat, routinely record the extreme experiments of each day, and then discard the body to which each life depends without any emotion.
Liang Jun didn't want to watch the scalpel hang over her head while she remained indifferent.
She didn't want to be a guinea pig to be slaughtered, nor did she want her companions to become innocent guinea pigs to die.
After taking several deep breaths, Liang Jun held her breath and focused her mind, entering the system's shop page—
She wants to use systematic methods to counter the system.
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Author's Note: Sister Gan: This battle is awesome!
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