After receiving the 25 silver coins and 500 units of wood, the old carpenter patted his chest proudly. “Don’t worry, the upgrade will take three days total. You don’t need to move anything out of your house either—I’ll begin work tomorrow.”

Xiao Feng waited for the transaction between Shen Xin and the old carpenter to finish before approaching the latter. “Hey, big shot, I’ve successfully upgraded my profession and learned how to repair small animal shelters. If you need any help, just let me know.”

Despite speaking these words right in front of the old carpenter, Xiao Feng’s apprentice didn’t seem to think his master would mind.

Shen Xin eyed them both, speechless.

Noticing Shen Xin’s gaze, Xiao Feng turned around and noticed the carpenter’s daughter glaring at him before storming off with a huff.

Meanwhile, the old carpenter seemed to be enjoying the spectacle, his face full of mirth.

Xiao Feng anxiously flipped through his handbook, only to discover that his master’s daughter had once again dropped his favorability rating to zero.

Oh no—he’d stolen his master’s business while also being pursued by her, right under her nose.

Shen Xin patted Xiao Feng on the shoulder. “UOL’s sentiment analysis is pretty impressive, isn’t it?”

After letting the heartbroken Xiao Feng depart, Shen Xin strolled toward the town square, where he discovered several new shops had opened up.

All of them were set up by players.

Bibi was busy working in her shop when she spotted a familiar figure pass by outside. She rushed out and called, “Sis! Sister! Sister!”

Shen Xin pointed at herself, confirming that the girl was indeed calling out to her.

“Already forgotten me? You once asked me for directions in the village.” To help her remember, Bibi crouched down, recreating the scene from back then.

“Oh!” Shen Xin clapped her hands. “Wildman! You’re actually so cute!”

Bibi blinked, speechless.

“Hey, sis, let’s not dwell on that.” Bibi stood up and pulled Shen Xin into her shop. “Would you like a haircut? I’ll do it right after I’m done with this customer, and it won’t cost you anything.”

“No need…”

Shen Xin had no intention of getting a haircut, but Bibi didn’t bother to listen to her. Instead, she ran over to an NPC and messily hacked away at his hair with a hair trimmer until an ugly NPC was freshly minted, complete with crooked bangs and a bald spot.

Shen Xin stared at the NPC, speechless.

The NPC paid Bibi twenty copper coins, holding back tears, and left the shop. The curious stares he received as he walked away were unsurprising.

“Here, sit,” Bibi said, turning a chair toward her.

How could Shen Xin possibly dare to sit in that chair? “No need! I still have business to attend to, so I’m off!”

With that, she bolted away, ignoring Bibi’s cries from behind as she ran all the way to the forest north of the village.

Jing Yan flipped through the guidebook, then followed the map to a cave he’d marked earlier. He narrowed his eyes as he took in the giant rock blocking the entrance. “As expected, there’s something strange about this island.”

He placed the map back into his backpack, then entered the cave, holding a torch in one hand and a dagger in the other, with utmost care.

The cave wasn’t large, but its walls were covered in all sorts of cryptic spells and illustrations. At the center of the cave, a set of stairs descended underground.

Jing Yan approached the staircase with the torch held high, but a few slimes suddenly leaped out, aiming for his head.

With a squishy plop, the slimes were sliced into pieces midair, landing on the ground as slimy fluids.

There came a ding, signaling a notification from the guidebook:

【 Congratulations, player! Completed the quest “Utopia Island’s Secret.” Reward: [Strength Ring × 1]” 】

[Strength Ring]: Equip this ring to gain an attack boost of +10.

Without another word, Jing Yan equipped the strength ring, and then slowly descended down the stairs.

Shen Xin chopped trees until the sunset, finally gathering one thousand pieces of wood. She looked behind her and noticed that she had actually cleared a firebreak.

Every time she chopped a tree, the corresponding seed would fall to the ground. As she walked back, Shen Xin planted each seed, perfectly embodying sustainable development.

She’d only managed to plant a handful when, suddenly, she heard the sound of heavy panting from behind her, followed by a silhouette darting out from the shrubbery.

Shen Xin looked up. “Natural!”

“Who?” Jing Yan asked, bewildered.

A giant five-colored slime half the size of a man emerged alongside Jing Yan.

“Fuck!” Shen Xin exclaimed.

Jing Yan yelled, “Run!” but, after sprinting a few steps, his entire body went limp and he collapsed onto the ground.

Shen Xin stopped in her tracks. “What’s wrong?!”

“I’m hungry!”

Shen Xin stared at him blankly before realizing that, naturally, Natural卷 had exhausted his stamina.

“Eat!” Shen Xin pulled out a loaf of bread and stuffed it into his mouth. This was Jing Yan’s first time being force-fed, and he nearly choked.

“Quickly, eat,” Shen Xin urged, glancing up to discover that the giant slime was extremely close now. She picked up an axe and threw it, but the slime swiftly shaped its body into an oval, allowing the axe to fly right through the hole in its center.

“Tu!” Not only that, but the slime that had dodged her attack spat a gob of multicolored mucus at her. Shen Xin swiftly turned, and only a bit of the mucus landed on her arm.

“Starvation?” Shen Xin discovered that the mucus had inflicted a debuff on her, causing her HP to decrease by one point every second, and it would remain until the attacker died.

“Oh no, you’ve been cursed too.” Jing Yan swallowed the bread and pulled Shen Xin along. The slime drew closer and closer, and he asked Shen Xin, “What do we do? Split up?”

“You can’t defeat it?”

“No, but I’ll run out of energy before I kill it!”

“Then eat while you fight!”

Jing Yan was puzzled.

Shen Xin stopped, took out thirty pieces of bread from her bag, and gave half to Jing Yan. “I have more if we need it!”

With this assurance, Jing Yan felt emboldened. He turned around skillfully and said, “Alright, it’s done for, let’s take it down!”

With the replenishment of food, Jing Yan held his own against the slime with no trouble. He shoved two or three pieces of bread into his mouth, then picked up his dagger in his left hand and his sword in his right, ready to fight the giant slime for his life.

Shen Xin also swung her hoe, helping to distract the slime’s attention.

The two fought well together, and the slime, now deprived of its debuff’s potency, quickly fell into a disadvantage. After a dozen rounds, it transformed into data and disappeared into thin air, leaving behind a floor full of drops.

“Wow… that was exhilarating!”

Having escaped from the jaws of death, Jing Yan sat down heavily on the ground and handed the leftover bread back to Shen Xin. “You really helped me out, how do I thank you?”

“No need for thanks.” Shen Xin was also exhausted from the ordeal, sweat dripping from her brow. “How did you provoke such a creature?”

Jing Yan pondered slightly before answering honestly, “Have you noticed yet? There’s something strange about this island. We should go ask the mayor first. The island is cut off from the rest of the world—”

“I know,” Shen Xin interrupted, “it’s a hidden quest. I just need one more clue to complete it.”

Somewhat surprised, Jing Yan smiled. “You’re the one as always. The final clue is inside the cave up ahead. Shall we go together? I dropped some things in there.”

“Sure.”

Before leaving, they collected the loot dropped by the giant slime.

Ten Slime Goo, one Radiant Ring, one bag of random seeds, and four silver coins.

After discussing briefly, Shen Xin claimed the seed bag while Jing Yan took the radiant ring; they split the rest equally.

Jing Yan declined, saying, “You fed me your bread, so you can keep the silver coins.”

Jing Yan had done most of the work defeating the monster, and Shen Xin wasn’t short on money, so she insisted on splitting it equally. “You can use the money to buy some food.”

A loaf of bread cost twenty copper coins, and he had already discovered the secret of Utopia Island—why hadn’t he stocked up on food? He was clearly an expert fisherman, so he couldn’t possibly be short on money.

Shen Xin voiced her confusion, and Jing Yan responded with some embarrassment, “I haven’t had time to…”

As a warrior, Jing Yan often went out to fight monsters, and sometimes he would accidentally injure himself. Therefore, he often visited the town’s clinic to purchase medicine. Upon learning of the secret of Utopia Island, Jing Yan began saving money to stock up on supplies.

However, he started fishing relatively late, and after spending forty silver coins on a new knife, all the remaining money had gone into purchasing medicine, so he simply hadn’t had the funds to stock up on food.

“I thought that having medicine would be enough for fighting monsters, but I never expected it would reduce one’s stamina,” Jing Yan explained vividly to Shen Xin. “The other day, while I was hunting monsters, I noticed a cave blocked off by debris. There was an earthquake last night, right? I’m guessing it’s connected to this place…”

“After going down the stairs, there’s a long and narrow passage that leads straight to a room. After opening the stone door, the inside is filled with monsters…”

“I fought five rooms’ worth, and finally encountered a bunch of colorful slimes. Right before my eyes, they combined into that thing, and then you know the rest…”

Shen Xin picked up an axe and listened to Jing Yan’s narration all the way until he entered the cave.

“ding.”

【 Congratulations, player! Completed the “Secrets of Utopia Island” quest and received reward: [Harvest Necklace x 1]. 】

[Harvest Necklace]: 20% chance to double the harvest from crops.

“The rewards might be related to one’s chosen profession…” Shen Xin pondered this possibility. “Then a hairdresser might receive a wig or a shampooing, cutting, and drying set, while a performer might receive throat lozenges…”

In some respects, this game was quite whimsical. Maybe such a thing would actually happen.

Jing Yan chuckled, then ran down the stairs. After a while, he returned to tell Shen Xin, “There are no more monsters in the rooms I’ve cleared. Looks like they’re one-time spawns.”

His tone seemed a bit disappointed, and Shen Xin also felt that the design of this monster cave wasn’t quite right… It clearly sounded like the design of a Rogue-like game, but the one-time spawn mechanic was far too wasteful.

Both of them were exhausted today, so after returning to town together, Jing Yan said to Shen Xin, “Thanks for your help. If I get another seed bag in the future, I’ll come find you.”

“Okay.”

They parted ways in the small town. The shops were already closed, so Shen Xin could only turn in her quest the next day.

After arriving at the farm, she had planned to sleep soundly until dawn, only to discover that there were still about three hundred square meters of land that hadn’t been watered.

“Wow… have mercy on me.”

If all of the crops had not been watered, Shen Xin would have slept straight through, but the problem was that she had watered some of them haphazardly while chopping trees this morning.

According to the usual pattern of farming games, if she didn’t water all the crops today, the maturity date of the unsprinkled plants would be delayed by a whole day. As a perfectionist, Shen Xin could not tolerate such an eventuality. If they were going to grow, they had to grow together!

Reluctantly picking up the watering can, Shen Xin began fetching and pouring water, once again passing the midnight mark before falling into bed.

Spring, Day 9, clear skies.

With last night’s tragedy in mind, Shen Xin decided to water her crops first thing this morning before going out to make money.

Around seven or eight o’clock, the old carpenter arrived. After Shen Xin gave him permission to build, she watched as he picked up a large hammer and started knocking on her house.

Her dilapidated dwelling already seemed quite shoddy, and under the force of the old carpenter’s hammer, it emitted creaking noises as if it was about to collapse.

Shen Xin was speechless, thinking that this wasn’t repair work, but rather a plan for demolishing her house.

After waking, Jing Yan sat habitually at the window of his tree house to observe changes in the village.

A new monster had appeared on the island after the cave was unsealed the previous day: blue slimes.

He had encountered some in the cave; a blue slime’s health and attack power was 1.5 times that of a green slime.

Some players had ventured outside to forage for wild vegetables or fish, only to be driven back to the town by blue slimes, their cries echoing through the island.

The monsters weren’t dumb enough to rampage in the town, so it could still be considered a safe zone.

“That guy really is tending to his fields diligently, huh?”

The farmland east of the town was too conspicuous; it was impossible not to notice it.

Strawberries, broccoli, potatoes, and cilantro had all sprouted healthy green leaves, while passion fruit and kidney beans climbed up their trellises. Aside from watering, which was quite exhausting, the sense of accomplishment from farming was unparalleled.

Once he finished watering the last plot, Shen Xin stretched, then turned around and delivered a thousand pieces of wood Old He had requested to the shop.

【 Congratulations, player! You have completed the quest “Bring 1000 pieces of wood to Old He”! 】

Shen Xin stared at the notification in silence.

“And that’s it? What about the reward?”

Old He blinked, then began looking around as if he didn’t understand what Shen Xin was asking.

Shen Xin cursed under his breath: Fuck, this damned merchant, give me back my wood!