Chapter 2: The Job Must Be Kept Hidden

Before the alarm could jolt him awake, Shirley’s voice came through Da Chun’s headset: “Are you there?”

Da Chun was stunned. She had clearly gotten off work early just for his sake, so she could leave before the dancer. Smart.

She had changed out of her shop uniform and into a very ordinary outfit for a girl strolling the streets with a parasol and a basket. It was the first time Da Chun had ever seen her after work. Only then did he realize he had missed a huge blind spot: the world they lived in after their shifts. What was the dancer like once she left the tavern?

Shirley comforted him. “Don’t worry. I know Miss Vivian very well. She would never act rudely in front of someone she knows.”

Da Chun was relieved. “That’s good!”

At the same time, he learned something else: she would hit people when there was no acquaintance around! Her identity was indeed not as simple as a dancer. She was probably some underworld queenpin. Now there was hope!

So Da Chun walked in front, with Shirley following behind. On the night market street, where millions of players surged to and fro like salmon, Da Chun’s group was as inconspicuous as a drop of water. Yet the suppressed state he had endured for days since losing his job changed dramatically. He felt as though he might rise like a violent tide and stir the age itself into a storm.

Just as they reached the rear entrance of the tavern, the closing bell rang inside.

At that moment, a luxurious carriage rolled into the back street, and then the scene shifted. The countless player figures all around blurred and dissolved.

Da Chun was thrilled. He had entered the legendary independent-scene story mode! In this mode, only he and the relevant NPCs could interact. The players outside could not see any of the changes here. One could only imagine how high-end this dancer’s hidden event must be.

Shirley grabbed Da Chun and pulled him against the wall. “It’s Baron Bapeng’s carriage. Don’t block the way.”

Huh?

Vivian came out after work, now wearing an even more splendid dance costume, especially those high heels, which were dazzling.

The coachman got down, opened the door, and called out, “Miss Vivian, the baron requests your presence!”

The dancer bowed with a smile blooming across her face. “For a lord to come personally to receive me—Vivian is honored beyond measure!”

Only then did Da Chun see a huge fat man sitting inside the carriage!

In that instant, Da Chun felt an indescribable disgust. He knew this was all part of the dancer’s setting, but if he were to fully accept this wild kind of persona...

He panicked. “Miss Vivian, my matter—”

The dancer turned and stared blankly. “You? You both?!”

Shirley gave her an awkward smile and waved.

The dancer let out a scoff. “I was planning to teach him a lesson so he wouldn’t get carried away, but since such a rare festival comes once in a while, I’ll let it go. I still have to attend the baron’s Midnight Glass Slipper Ball, after all. Still, since he’s already here, why not come with the carriage to the baron’s residence and do some odd jobs, see a bit of the world?”

System prompt: You have triggered the event “Temporary Worker at the Baron’s Residence.” Do you accept?

Da Chun froze.

So this hidden event was just to watch her be dragged away by this mountain of flesh to spend the festival? Would starting as a drudge let him meet big names at the ball?

What should he do?

Da Chun hurriedly looked to Shirley. Shirley wore the helpless expression of a lowly shop girl, but there was pity in her eyes too.

Da Chun understood. The two of them were both at the bottom; however much they triggered events, their reach was limited. The one who could truly bring benefits was this fat man. If the fat man refused to speak, then even the dancer could only offer him some menial work. That was not what he wanted at all.

And as for Vivian, hooking up with an ugly fat man like this simply meant she had already tested this type and found him to be a proper easy mark. Since he was an easy mark, then Da Chun could just lay it on thick and force this fat man to speak. At the same time, he could not let either of them look down on him. Being looked down on by Vivian, that snobbish woman, would have serious consequences.

Decline, decisively!

There had to be a variant to the hidden event.

Then there was only one thing he could do.

Da Chun hurriedly said to Shirley, “I’m going to duel for love. First cheer for me and build the momentum. Make it loud, as loud as possible—best if it alarms the neighbors and brings them out to watch. If the lord wins, say he only beat an unknown nobody and that does not show his valor. The lord should magnanimously arrange a lucrative job for me. Once I have the strength and the fame, I’ll keep challenging the lord to show off his generosity and courage, and it’ll become a splendid tale worthy of a script, the talk of the whole city… do you understand?”

Shirley blinked. “A lucrative job?”

Da Chun said urgently, “The more profitable, the better. That way I’ll have more money to support your studies…”

There was no time to explain. He could only trust her intelligence, trust the understanding between them.

Da Chun immediately rushed to the departing carriage and blocked it, shouting, “I won’t let you toy with Miss Vivian! I challenge you to a duel!”

Shirley, perfectly in sync, shouted, “Go for it! Brave warrior fighting for love! Bloom brilliantly like a violet…”

The dancer gasped in outrage. “How dare you! Insolent!!”

Your voice was pretty loud too?

The coachman lifted the whip. “Insulting a noble is a serious crime! Get lost at once! I can beat a thousand of your kind!”

Warning! You are about to be attacked!

A serious crime? At this point Da Chun could only grit his teeth and follow the scam to the end. “Being able to fight is your business. It does not change the fact that this lord is a coward who dares not duel!”

The dancer shouted, “The lord is not a coward! The lord could send you flying with one slap…”

The moment she yelled that, the coachman actually lowered the whip, and the red warning vanished.

Perfect coordination.

Just then, the tavern’s back door and the surrounding street windows opened, and more NPCs who had heard the commotion appeared. Da Chun was overjoyed. With all of them here fanning the flames, and with him being nothing but a trash miner, there was no way the lord would refuse to fight.

Sure enough, from inside the carriage came a snorting voice: “Accept the duel!”

The coachman immediately got down and opened the door. Da Chun let out a long breath of relief.

Dueling benefited all three sides.

For the lord, fighting would establish the image of a brave noble, win him female favor, and earn the admiration of the watching commoners. No man could refuse that.

For the dancer, she was the one who most wanted him to duel for her. Only a woman fought over by men could satisfy her vanity and prove her worth.

For himself...

He would probably be killed in a single strike, but at least his dignity would be preserved in front of the two women. He had already told Shirley everything she needed to say. He was certain that when she spoke, the dancer would support her. Many women, when going on blind dates, bring a girlfriend to back them up, and that multiplies their fighting power several times over. Even a top-tier sucker could not withstand that.

A hugely fat man, dressed in splendid clothes like a rolling ball of flesh, emerged.

Seeing this sucker’s face, Da Chun felt even more certain. This was stable. Bring it on!

The fat man slapped him.

Da Chun’s vision went black. He felt himself flying, and the whole game screen turned dark...

Not dead? A scripted faint?

He could hear jeers and laughter all around, and then Shirley’s voice came through: “Esteemed and magnanimous Baron, he is merely an unknown nobody... please give him a chance...”

The dancer also laughed. “My little tagalong has not seen much of the world. Thank you, my lord, for teaching him a lesson. I think it would be good to give him a little suffering and continue the lesson, so he learns not to overestimate himself...”

As expected, the fat man was flattered into losing himself. “Well then, there is one very dirty and very miserable task. Ordinary people would not want to do it...”

Shirley shouted, “As long as it pays, that’s fine...”

The fat man chuckled. “Very well. We’ll arrange it. Once his injuries heal, this lord will welcome his challenge at any time...”

Cheers erupted all around!

System prompt: Congratulations! You have triggered a special story event and unlocked the hidden profession “Sweeper.” The public beta is now ending and entering the archive-and-cleanup phase. When the game updates, you may log in normally. Thank you for experiencing the game, and we wish you pleasant gameplay...

Da Chun was ecstatic. Success!

Wait—ending the public beta early? Archive and cleanup?

Da Chun suddenly understood. There was no such thing as deleting everyone’s progress. What was being wiped were only the records of the ordinary players who failed to break through. The people with inside information would use this kind of method to inherit the key clues from the beta and pull away from the common crowd. This was a game that threw around real money. There was no chance it would ever be truly fair. Precisely because this game could make money while idle, it did not care about fairness at all. Love it or leave it.

Fortunately, he had broken through.

A Sweeper, was it? It sounded like a janitor, but it might also mean an assassin or something of the sort. This start was solid. All he had to do was wait until midnight, when the official server opened.

Looking at the time, it was past noon. He might as well go out and get lunch. Ordering takeout would be the easiest, but it did not fit his persona.

Da Chun left the private room and went downstairs. The masters below were even more respectful now.

“Greetings, Bureau Chief!”

Da Chun did not know whether to laugh or cry. “Stop calling me that. I’m not some bureau chief.”

“Bureau Chief of Goji Berries and Chrysanthemums!”

Just then, the net cafe attendant came running over. “Brother Chun, are you heading out?”

“I’m going to get food.”

The attendant hurriedly said, “Could you wait a moment? Our boss wants to treat you to a meal.”

Huh?

He had been coming to this internet cafe for so long, and he had never seen the boss. But after interviewing so many bosses during this time, he had grown utterly tired of them. Now that he had broken through the strategy, he just wanted to play the game quietly. Once he became a big shot, he would be able to meet any boss with ease.

So he refused decisively. “It’s just a small matter. No need.”

The attendant froze. “Uh...”

A group of masters started heckling. “Exactly! You’re testing a leader with just one meal? What leader can’t withstand that kind of test?”

Those lines fit the moment perfectly.

By the time Da Chun was eating noodles at a small eatery, the phone rang. It was his wife, Xiao Qin.

“Busy at work? Have you had lunch?”

Da Chun immediately sent her the work video he had recorded that day. “Just finished. I’m eating now.”

Xiao Qin laughed. “Oh? And who shot this for you?”

Da Chun broke into a sweat. “The new company leader likes to watch it. I have to be ready at any time.”

“All right, then. Take care of yourself. Your uncle’s birthday is on the day you come back from your business trip. Try to be there.”

“Got it...”

The call was as plain and ordinary as always. But Da Chun’s state of mind was different now. He no longer had to fear the future that had seemed so hard to face.

He ordered another bottle of cheap liquor and thought back to his school days. Back then he had been a poor student from elsewhere, surviving only by relying on scholarships, and it was in the library that he first caught her attention. His classmates all said her family was rich, beautiful, and local. He had felt a little afraid to hope, and a little eager all the same...

And in the end, it really happened! Only the truth was that her family was not rich at all. The wealthy one was her uncle.

In a way, that made Da Chun feel more at ease. If the gap had truly been too large, it would have driven him to question life itself. Thanks to her uncle’s connections, she, despite studying an information-related field, had actually landed some idle job at the neighborhood office. Even after marriage, they had been renting his uncle’s apartment at a bargain price, because she firmly believed housing prices would definitely fall. Living under someone else’s roof had never felt good. Now the housing prices had indeed fallen, and yet the high-paying job was gone too.

Still, hold on. Starting today, everything would turn around.

After eating and drinking his fill, Da Chun worried that the internet cafe boss would be waiting to treat him to dinner, so he did not hurry back. Instead, he strolled around the city. It had been a long time since he last went to the Bund. He might as well head there, feel the night market’s little lobsters, and the heroic spirit of the waves surging on and on...

By the time he returned to the internet cafe, it was already nine at night.

The attendant was waiting at the door. “Brother Chun, the boss has been contacting places to swap machines and find a solution, but there’s a severe shortage, so we’ll have to borrow your tablet for one night.”

That serious? Then a lot of internet cafes would miss the midnight official server launch!

“No problem. I can handle it.”

“Thank you so much, Brother Chun.”

At that, a group of masters sighed in dismay.

“Brother Chun, we’ve fallen for the enemy’s Trojan trick this time. Our China server is probably doomed. I heard a lot of internet cafes didn’t know how to handle it and just burned their machines.”

Da Chun smiled helplessly. “Aren’t you still here?”

The masters laughed. “There are still the professional players on the third floor. If they can’t hold out, then it’ll be our turn.”

Da Chun could already sense just how many variables this opening would face.

In any case, he should go back to the private room and make up for the last three hours of sleep.

...

On the third-floor balcony, Qing Feng, the captain of the Firmament Battle Team and the fifty-third-ranked player in the global public beta, watched Da Chun enter the building. Then he asked the beautiful player beside him, “Ningning, this whole rescue is riding on him today?”

Ningning smiled. “Yes. The girl downstairs told me he’s here every Monday and Friday, and leaves at five in the afternoon. Today he even came quietly in a luxury car. Brother Feng, do you know which department official he belongs to?”

Qing Feng shook his head. “I’ve never heard of any official with that kind of clout.”

Ningning smiled. “Want to make contact?”

Qing Feng chuckled. “We can find a chance to thank him. Making contact would be too much trouble.”

Ningning smiled again. “Unless he’s a game expert?”

Qing Feng laughed. “Given his age and that schedule, do you think he looks like an expert?”

Just then, the whole place erupted. “The Pig God has broken through!”

Qing Feng was overjoyed. “Good! That makes three breakthroughs for our team! Let’s aim for one more in the last three hours!”

Ningning sighed. “This blackout got so many teams. In a way... aren’t we now the top team on the national server?”

Qing Feng smiled with pride. “Even without the blackout, we’d still be in the first tier!”

“Then let’s do our best. Let’s try to take Silverlight Village’s village battle in three days!”