Receiving a commission the next day, just like that? Was there such a good thing?

Who didn’t dream of being a slumlord? Although Shen Xin could only charge for tiny advertisement spaces at the moment, she had at least reached the realm of being able to make money while lying at home.

At this thought, even Old He’s crafty merchant face seemed more agreeable.

Furthermore, Shen Xin suddenly became interested in the main quest.

Planting fields, fishing, and grinding monsters every day could also get boring. Having more quests and varied rewards would make the game more viable in the long term; otherwise, players might get bored after two days and ask for a refund.

Shen Xin sat up and analyzed her options.

The “Rebuild Peach Blossom Town” quest’s rewards were given out in stages, and they were even more plentiful than she had initially realized.

Initially, she had no idea how to proceed with this quest, but now it seemed that she only needed to build good relationships with the NPCs and complete the key objectives they offered.

The crux of the matter lay in how to gain the NPCs’ favor.

Shen Xin opened her handbook, flipping to the page with the favorability rankings. The NPCs were arranged in descending order of their favorability toward her.

At the top was Old He, with whom she had already achieved full favorability.

Next was Uncle Li, the fisherman, with whom she had achieved four hearts of favorability.

The remaining NPCs either had half a heart or none at all.

Upon seeing these numbers, Shen Xin was puzzled.

Old He liked money, so she’d spent a lot of it in his shop, which must have been why she filled his favor meter so quickly. But what about Uncle Li? She sold him fish every day; she’d be lucky if she hadn’t sold him into poverty. How had she earned so many points with him? Wasn’t he an m as well? But he certainly didn’t look the part…

The mechanics behind NPC favorability remain a mystery to this day.

Shen Xin scrolled through the entire list and discovered that there were two NPCs she had yet to meet.

The “greet twenty-four Peach Blossom Town NPCs” quest had been sitting in her quest log all this time, forgotten. If she hadn’t noticed it today, Shen Xin might never have remembered to go seek out all the NPCs.

“I’ll just finish it today,” she decided. After Jing Yan arrived at the farm, Shen Xin handed him the vegetables and showed him the portraits of the two unlockable NPCs. “Do you know where I can find these two?”

“Sure, sure.” Jing Yan pointed out their locations on the map. “A-Lai usually wanders the streets in the morning, and the other one is always at home watching TV.”

He added, “You’ve never completed this quest? How very laid-back of you.”

When he walked out the door and saw the hundreds of square units of land, he promptly changed his tune. “I take back what I said earlier; you’re not the least bit laid-back.”

“But you’re not,” Shen Xin countered.

They had both claimed to be “Buddhist” players, after all.

“I am pretty Buddhist,” Jing Yan defended himself.

“What do you mean, ‘pretty Buddhist’?” Shen Xin asked. “You spend all day fighting monsters. Are you the Buddha of Battle or something?”

“The Buddha of Battle is still the Buddha… There’s no farming Buddha, right?”

Shen Xin fell silent. As far as she knew, there indeed was no such thing as a farming Buddha.

The two bickered a bit more, until Jing Yan asked, “Oh, right, you were the one who built the shop, right?”

His tone was certain it was Shen Xin.

In all the games, Shen Xin was the only player Jing Yan knew who would do something like build a shop.

Living in a treehouse had its advantages, one of which was that it allowed its inhabitants to observe most of the other players in town. Everyone else was busy making a living, while Jing Yan spent his time down in his cave farming crystals. The only player who had enough downtime to complete missions was Shen Xin.

However, Jing Yan’s guess was only half-right. Shen Xin had indeed helped build the shop, but she had handed in the quest long ago; it just so happened that it was only marked as completed today.

“Mm-hmm, I am.”

“What’s the reward?” After asking this, Jing Yan felt he’d misspoke and added, “As a trade, I’ll sell you minerals at half price in the future.”

Upon hearing this, Shen Xin felt she’d picked the right buddy.

The fact that he had chosen to exchange information for goods made her feel very comforted.

So, Shen Xin didn’t hide it. “My commission is 5% of the total cost.”

“Oh—” Jing Yan continued to ask, “Is there a bonus?”

Shen Xin hadn’t paid attention to this detail.

She opened the manual. “Increased by 1000 points… Tsk, how stingy.”

“Indeed.” Jing Yan could earn those points back by killing a couple more monsters, but he instantly lost interest in the main quest.

“However, the rewards outside of the point system are quite interesting.” Jing Yan rubbed his chin. “I’ve checked the bulletin board, and they accept goods as payment. If you request ten units of copper ore and offer one loaf of bread as payment, and since bread is a physical item, five percent of a loaf of bread counts as one unit… So, after the player submits the completed quest, you’d not only get the ore, but you’d also get the bread after it’s been accounted for… Holy shit, wouldn’t that be free farming?”

Shen Xin fell silent. How did this guy always manage to come up with underhanded tricks?

“There must be some mechanism to prevent players from farming like this, right?”

“Let’s go, let’s try it out!”

Jing Yan was no longer in a rush to hunt monsters and followed Shen Xin to the small town, eager to witness firsthand the birth of a freebie.

“This is the place.”

At the shop, Jing Yan retrieved a quest from the board, and then handed it to Shen Xin with eager expectation.

【 Please note: The number of items rewarded must be at least two. 】

Shen Xin laughed—UOL had actually taken precautions against freeloaders like Jing Yan.

Though he couldn’t score anything for free, Jing Yan was even more disappointed than Shen Xin.

“Alright, I’m heading up the mountain.”

Just as Jing Yan was about to leave, a burly man blocked his path.

“Good day, sir. May I ask if you are the first- and tenth-ranked players in the qualifying round?”

Shen Xin and Jing Yan exchanged glances. With such precise information, this man must have entered the competition as well.

They nodded, tacitly confirming his assumption.

“I knew it wasn’t you, sir!” The man introduced himself. “I’m Chen Hangyun, the second-ranked player. To be honest, there’s no more food left in town, and many players are suffering.”

“Many people want to go outside the town to find food, but there are too many and too powerful monsters in the wilderness.”

“That’s why several other players and I decided to form a mutual aid team. Everyone goes out together every day, with some fighting monsters and others fishing, each contributing their part, and the food is divided according to each one’s contribution…”

Chen Hangyun looked at the two players before him, his eyes shining.

These two were the real deal.

The male player was solidly in first place, while the female player…was not someone you could underestimate!

If these two joined, the team’s overall strength would greatly improve, and Chen Hangyun himself could relax a little.

In order to entice the two experts to join, Chen Hangyun added, “Your treatment will be different from that of ordinary members; your shares will be higher…”

Before he finished speaking, Jing Yan spoke up to decline. “Thank you, but I don’t have any intention to join.”

Shen Xin followed up with, “Same here.”

“Ah? No need to think it over? Your shares can be even higher…” Chen Hangyun tried to persuade them further.

“No.” Shen Xin and Jing Yan once again declined.

These two already had no need to struggle for sustenance. Joining a team would only hinder their gaming experience.

Take Jing Yan, for example. His goal was to earn four million points, and he spent all his time hunting monsters, leaving no room for group activities.

As for Shen Xin, she disliked troublesome things, so she chose Jing Yan as her partner because he had similar skills, and she helped Fan Qing and Xiao-Jie, who had both learned their lessons after initial mishaps.

Jing Yan and she each focused on their own tasks, while Fan Qing and Xiao-Jie also worked in accordance with her schedule, completely not interfering with her gaming progress.

A team was different; she would have to cooperate with others, which inevitably hampered her own enjoyment of the game.

Chen Hangyun raised the stakes, and pleaded earnestly, but ultimately, seeing there truly was no room for cooperation, he had no choice but to leave disappointed.

“It’s been barely a week, and the town’s food stores are already depleted. Don’t tell me that the appeal of environmental conservation is the real theme of this game…” Jing Yan grumbled a little.

“Enough. You should hurry up and go hunt monsters.”

After Jing Yan left, Shen Xin took on the majority of the missions listed on the board. Compared to other players who completed the missions and received a 5% commission fee, why couldn’t she just do them herself and pocket the entire reward?

Upon claiming the missions, the System alerted her:

【 Please deliver two eels to Aunt Zhou within one day. 】

【 Please deliver fifty pieces of wood to the carpenter within one day. 】

Instead of turning in the quest items on the board, she had to deliver them personally to the NPCs.

Shen Xin returned to the farm, packed up the items needed for the quest, and then began delivering packages around town.

On the way, she dropped by the final two NPCs, completing the quest and earning a reward of ten silver coins.

At the same time, the advanced quest “Reach five hearts with a certain NPC” was also completed, and she received a bouquet designed to promote friendship, which, when used, would add an additional heart to the favor rating with the NPC who received it.

Upon reading the description, Shen Xin’s first instinct was to give it to Uncle Li.

The last time she triggered Old He’s quest was when she reached five hearts with him.

Didn’t Uncle Li also have four hearts with her now?

Shen Xin deliberated for a while, ultimately deciding to observe a little longer before taking action.

Uncle Li’s favor had risen by an enormous amount for no apparent reason; perhaps it would be easy to farm. There seemed to be no need to waste the item on him.

Besides, what if one of the NPCs had a disgustingly difficult favor rating to farm?

After completing the quest, the reward, minus the commission fee, was automatically deposited into her account.

On top of that, her favor rating with the corresponding NPCs had also risen slightly.

“Completing quests to gain NPCs’ favor isn’t a bad idea.”

Unfortunately, there were no new quests from Uncle Li today. He lived so far away; that it was hard to say whether he’d come to town to hand out more work.

The board was now almost empty, leaving only the quests that Shen Xin deemed the rewards too low for, or those she couldn’t complete, or those she simply wasn’t willing to complete.

For example, the blacksmith needed five copper ingots.

Shen Xin needed them herself.

She followed up with a request for ore, offering three loaves of bread in exchange for either thirty copper ore or fifteen iron ore.

Considering how difficult it was to acquire ore, Shen Xin didn’t dare request more than that. Otherwise, she could have written out a quest like “1,000 copper ore for 100 loaves of bread” without issue.

Fishing for ore was an unreliable source, so she would mainly have to fight monsters for it.

Once she acquired a weapon, she considered heading underground with Jing Yan to fight the stone monsters and earn enough ore to craft a steel hoe as soon as possible.

“Thank you for taking us fishing these last few days. Please accept this small token of our appreciation.”

Xiao-Jie and Fan Qing set aside some of the fish and wild vegetables they hoarded to give to Shen Xin as a gift.

“What’s this?” Shen Xin didn’t rush to accept.

“Fan-bro and I joined a player-run mutual aid squad. We won’t need to trouble you to take us to the beach in the future.”

So that’s how it was. That could only be a good thing; Shen Xin felt more at ease when she acted alone. She just hadn’t expected gratitude from these two who had initially intended to rob her. Surely turning over a new leaf was the greatest virtue?

Shen Xin didn’t want to take their supplies for nothing, so she placed a common longsword in the trade window.

Shen Xin wasn’t worried they would do anything malicious with the weapon; their skills were too poor for them to cause any trouble.

Xiao-Jie was stunned upon receiving the blade.

Shen Xin turned to Fan Qing. “I still need the other one, so I’ll give it to you later. If you guys find any chests in the future, consider selling them to me. The price is negotiable.”

Fan Qing and Xiao-Jie were touched. “You’re such a good person, big shot…”.

In the northern part of the small town, Yun Yuwei pushed Qin Chengyue’s fish soup aside, visibly displeased. “Fish again? I’m sick of looking at it.”

Qin Chengyue ignored him, pouring the soup into his bowl.

“Hey, do you not understand me? Make something else.” Yun Yuwei reached out to grab him, shaking the table. Qin Chengyue’s hand trembled, spilling the soup everywhere and knocking the bowl over as well. It wobbled briefly before shattering on the floor.

Qin Chengyue’s expression darkened completely.

He left, slamming the door shut behind him.

Yun Yuwei hadn’t realized what the problem was, and he shouted after him, “Hurry up, I’m starving!”

However, Qin Chengyue never returned.