Chapter 6
Sister Hong stayed awake all night.
Being frightened is one thing, but being embarrassed in public is worse.
She was such a face-conscious person, and the psychological trauma brought by the latter was even greater. Every time she fell asleep due to drowsiness, she would be awakened by the wet and hot illusion between her legs.
At home, I couldn't avoid seeing the bed, which made me sleepy, and as soon as I felt sleepy, I was startled awake. I couldn't stay there any longer, so I simply covered my head with a silk scarf and called a rickshaw to stay in the store.
Smoking in a trance.
When someone called him back to his senses, he had only just taken a puff of his cigarette, but it was already half burned. Half the ash fell onto the glass coffee table as his body trembled.
"You are..." Her expression went from bewildered to frowning in just a moment, "An Rou?!"
I felt a surge of anger, but it was suppressed in my chest. The other person was wearing an expensive cheongsam, and her student hairstyle had been transformed into a mature bun. She exuded a sense of authority amidst her maturity.
Sister Hong rolled her eyes and looked at Sister Qiao: "Who allowed you to do someone's hair for free?!"
"Cousin, Xiaorou paid for it." Qiaojie was always afraid of her and hurried to explain.
An Rou took out 50 gold coins and stuffed them into Qiao Jie's hand, saying, "Tip."
He took out another 100 gold coins, placed them on the counter, and smiled at Sister Hong: "Sister, you have good taste. This batch of clips you bought is very pleasing to the eye, especially this one that suits my clothes best."
In the eyes of a shrewd and mercenary person like Sister Hong, clothes make the man, and at this moment, An Rou was like an ugly duckling transformed into a white swan. Her astonished eyes wandered over An Rou's cheongsam for several times, and finally found a place to vent her anger.
Sister Hong sneered, crossed her arms over her chest and stood up, raising her chin: "You have money to squander, but no money to pay the rent?"
"Rich? Not really, right?" An Rou tapped the counter with her clean nails. "50 for a shampoo, 100 for hairpins, plus the tip for Qiaojie, that's 200 in total. Isn't that just the pocket money my sister earns from me every day?"
"You have to be conscientious! I'll take you with me every day. 100 is the reward your father gave me, and the other 100 is what you lost to us. You must accept the loss!"
An Rou suddenly realized: "Oh, so sister also knows the phrase "willing to accept defeat"?"
The voiceover was referring to the 3,000 gold the three of them had lost to An Rou yesterday. Of that, Sister Hong had lost the most. This made Sister Hong feel like they were being deliberately targeted and the rent was being unreasonably increased.
Rather than feeling guilty, Sister Hong's biggest feeling at the moment was anger. When did this little girl, who used to be so stubborn and could barely even say a word, become so sharp-tongued?
An Rou sneered: "Even if I lose the entire bun shop, I won't make a penny from a piece of shit like you."
"you!"
An Rou ignored Sister Hong who was on the verge of losing control. She stepped on her high heels, lifted the bead curtain, and as if she remembered something, she turned around and smiled sweetly.
"Oh, sister, wear black stockings from now on. Flesh-colored stockings stained with water are too eye-catching, aren't they?"
The shadow hadn't yet dissipated, and Sister Hong subconsciously clamped her legs together. An Rou burst out laughing and walked away leisurely.
In the afternoon, there were few customers buying buns, and An Younian sat behind the steamer, leaning against the wall and taking a nap.
Seeing him, An Rou subconsciously slowed down her steps. One shoe was placed on the threshold, and she hesitated to go inside.
She looked at An Younian carefully.
Her skin was a little dark, her face was a little fat, and her eyebrows were sparse. She looked nothing like herself at this moment, or like her father who died unexpectedly at a young age in her memory.
An Rou's real father was a teacher, upright and dignified. An Rou's greatest impression of him was that after the school where he worked was vandalized by anti-socialist elements, her father donated most of the family savings without hesitation to repair the school.
Her father has always been a wealthy man and regards money as dirt.
And An Younian, for 500 gold, would kneel down without hesitation, and would crawl like a dog if asked to.
Admittedly, there were game settings involved, and An Younian was powerless to resist the rules of favorability. But An Rou had a vague feeling that... compared to her father, An Younian seemed to love her more.
An NPC who is obsessed with money will spend 200 gold every day just to make his daughter's life less lonely and boring.
If you put yourself in An Rou's shoes, even she would feel it's not worth it.
On the second floor, An Rou was in her room, leaning against the window and staring blankly for a while.
A bright red figure came slanting across the alley.
An Rou raised the corner of her mouth: As expected, she came.
"An Younian! Pay the rent right now!"
Sister Hong's shrill voice startled An Younian out of his sleep. He jumped up and, seeing it was Sister Hong, hurriedly smiled apologetically, "Boss Hong, tomorrow is only the end of the month."
"I don't care!" Sister Hong stormed into the store and slammed the lease on the table. "What if you can't pay it tomorrow? I don't believe you can move all these pots, pans, and other things in one day!"
"Pay it in today. If you can't pay it in full, you'll be kicked out tonight!"
Before she finished speaking, Sister Hong felt something cold approaching her back. She subconsciously took two steps forward and turned around to see that it was An Rou.
An Rou picked up the lease on the table and glanced at it. It was indeed the rent increase amount mentioned before, an increase of 6,000 per quarter.
She took out the brush tucked behind her and signed her name neatly.
I was forced to learn calligraphy by my father who was a teacher. The skill is engraved in my finger bones. Even after years of not using it, my handwriting still has a strong and majestic style, which is in stark contrast to my soft and weak appearance.
An Rou looked at An Younian who was not far away: "I'll sign on behalf of Dad, is that okay?"
An Younian only then noticed his daughter's new look. He was stunned and nodded hesitantly: "Yes, yes..."
Sister Hong had a hunch that something was amiss. She'd believed An Rou's words, "You'll spend all your money on the bun shop and not pay," and was certain An Younian couldn't afford the rent. Furious, she'd come to chase him away. She'd figured that with An Younian's easygoing nature, even if he couldn't get the money, she could still see him pleading, and use that to taunt An Rou.
Unexpectedly, An Rou signed the new lease without hesitation.
“Where’s the money?!”
Seeing An Rou turn around and walk upstairs, Sister Hong chased after her.
An Rou stopped halfway up the stairs, turned around, and her half-smile on her face stopped Sister Hong in her tracks.
She smiled and said, "Sister has picked it up."
The slender white hand gently pulled the hemp rope beside the wall.
With a loud crash, a basket of gold coins fell on Sister Hong's head.
Sister Hong reacted quickly, turning on her balance "instinct" and adding most of the gold coins that hit her head directly to her balance. But the gold coins hitting her head were real, inevitably messing up her carefully styled curly hair, making her look disheveled for a moment.
"You, you, you, I'm going to the police station to report you for assault!"
"Murder?" An Rou was bewildered. "Where's the murder weapon?"
There were a few gold coins scattered on the ground, but not many. Most of the "murder weapons" were already lying in Sister Hong's balance, transformed into virtual numbers.
Unfortunately, the only item possessed by the NPC, "Balance," didn't seem to be much of an item. Even with An Rou's ability to see through everything on the screen, she couldn't see exactly how much she was worth.
What a rich woman.
An Rou was not without envy.
There were only three thousand gold in the basket, and the farce ended with An Younian taking out the prepared rent and Sister Hong leaving with gritted teeth.
Although the problem was solved, An Younian's face showed no joy. He walked up to An Rou with a worried look on his face.
"Rou Rou, you..." He hesitated for a moment, then asked, "Where did you get so much money?"
When asking this question, his eyes involuntarily fell on An Rou's cheongsam, which was obviously very valuable.
Strangely enough, An Rou guessed his thoughts right away. All the prepared thoughts were thrown away.
"Dad," An Rou lifted up his hand that was slightly stained with grease from the steamed buns, "Dad, what are you thinking? I didn't work in places like dance halls."
The dance hall is the brothel of this era, and it is also the favorite place of players - the destined ones in the eyes of ordinary NPCs - and there are always customers who spend a lot of money.
"I won all this money playing mahjong," said An Rou.
An Younian was half-believing and half-doubting, and looked at the woman's hair accessories and clothes.
An Rou spun around like a little princess: "Only by dressing like this can I play mahjong with the rich ladies in town. Dad, you don't believe me."
She pouted.
An Younian immediately softened his heart: "Believe me, of course I believe Rourou, Rourou has been the best since she was little."
An Rou half lowered her head, wiped her eyes, and spoke with a nasal tone: "I'm hungry."
"Oh, Rourou is hungry. Whatever you want to eat, Daddy will make it for you." An Younian finally showed some joy. "Rourou is so promising. Daddy will make you your favorite fermented fish!"
"No." An Rou shook her head, "I want to eat meat buns—three!"
Since traveling through time, An Rou has never once eaten her own family's steamed buns. It's not that she despises her cheap father, An Younian, but she has deeply detested steamed buns for years. After her parents passed away in her previous life, her family didn't have much money to spare, and the three-yuan meat buns were almost the only meat she could enjoy.
I ate it from elementary school to high school. After working to earn money, I felt like vomiting whenever I smelled it.
But at this moment, the dough she bit into was unusually sweet, the braised meat wrapped in the dough was also unusually fragrant, and the gravy spreading in her mouth actually gave her a sense of security and happiness.
Once upon a time, she had the same feeling when another person accompanied her to eat buns.
At that time, she thought this feeling would last a lifetime.
The other person's voice and appearance appeared in her mind, becoming clearer and clearer, allowing An Rou to break free from the illusory sense of happiness.
She sat at the table at the edge of the bun shop's entrance with her back to the alley, because from this angle, she could see An Younian behind the steamer, while also facing the wall to avoid attracting attention.
I don't know when, there were people sitting at the table next to me.
The three players' guild logos before their IDs are exactly the same as Yewang's.
They are all players of the Ouli Guild.
What made An Rou afraid to stand up was what they were talking about.
"...Killed by an NPC? What a joke! The NPCs in this game are greedy, but they don't have any bad intentions. They can't even lie, let alone kill people."
"I think so too, but he makes it sound so convincing. Captain, why don't we go over and take a look? It's not far anyway."
An Rou raised her arm and quietly peeked from behind it.
One of the three had his back to her, with the ID above his head reading [Drawing Sword Slash]. The other two sat on either side. An Rou squinted her eyes and made out the IDs on the diagonal light screen: [Wild Flower] and [Slippery Path].
Yehua and Huatielu were both browsing the forum, with a light screen floating in front of them. The words were so small and slanted that Anrou couldn't make out what was written on it.
I guess it was a post from the King.
After hearing Yehua's words, Badaozhan, who had his back to Anrou, put down his chopsticks and asked, "Did he give me a seat?"
"He gave it to me. He said the branch he's assigned to is in Sub-9th District, and it'll take some time for his teammates to collect the body. He's afraid of something going wrong, and with the Berserker Ghoul guarding him, he doesn't dare use the Resurrection Card rashly. He's seeking help on the forum."
Huatielu rushed to say, "Captain, let's not waste time on this trivial matter. The guild is still waiting for us to return and hand in the props. This is--"
He unconsciously lowered his voice: "If anything goes wrong with the second-tier Lan Wu, the three of us will be held accountable."
"What could possibly go wrong in this shabby town? Forget high-level ghouls, we can't even find a player above Gold level," Yehua retorted. "Captain, this trip is just a laborious task of transporting items, with no rewards at all. That guy already said whoever helps collect the bodies gets the money and goods he drops. Besides, that crazy ghoul might not have left yet. We can take care of it while we can, not only earning a few extra rewards, but also gaining some experience."
"Don't complain about the little bit of meat on a mosquito leg. If it's something that's easy to do, why not do it?"
An Rou's heart moved.
She knew that players had varying numbers of resurrection opportunities depending on their Life Points, but she had never seen a player drop "money" upon death.
Does that mean—
Every time you die, you will get a lot of gold coins and props?
If it's true, then the job of "corpse collector" is so tempting!
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