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Chapter 20




Li Shuoxing didn’t believe what Night Tour had just said.
After the initial excitement had passed, he calmed down.
Regardless of whether or not Terminal’s formula was ultimately changed, it had to go through internal proposals, internal discussions and internal voting; the new features would also be sent to the signed author group for notification, feedback and trial runs.
The process could go on for a month or two at the fast end, or still be unfinished by two or three months at the slow end.
And the new book period for a book was only 30 days in total.
By that time, Nine Crossings would’ve long been off the new book list. He didn’t care how Terminal changed the algorithm; it wouldn’t be relevant to him for at least two years anyway.
Having sorted out the situation, Li Shuoxing had nothing to say. He opened the late takeout and quickly ate lunch, then went back to his seat, unplugged the internet cable and turned off his phone, creating a quiet environment with no disturbance. Then, he poured his heart into writing.
As an author, you could be wild, unrestrained and overly sensitive.
You couldn’t not write.
It was also best not to write too badly.
His heart was poured in, but his progress this time wasn’t particularly ideal.
This was very common in writing. His outline wasn’t lacking, and he knew how he should write the next part in his mind. It was just that it wasn’t easy to remember when writing. It always made him feel unmotivated and a bit off.
Generally, at this time, the writing really was a bit off.
LI Shuoxing decisively put down the novel and casually looked for a book to flip through. After flipping through it, he changed his clothes and went downstairs to run a few kilometres.
When he returned to his room after the run, his clogged mind had cleared up. Li Shuoxing deleted the wrong place with one keystroke, made bold corrections, and rewrote the content from the beginning.
It took quite a while.
Apart from the next day at noon, when Li Shuoxing was still concerned about the little person and remembered to go online to say hello and sign in, he was tied to his computer writing nonstop.
By the time this long period of time was over, it was already daylight on the third day.
The warm sun was shining on the windowsill behind the computer, where a few sparrows rested, chirping and chatting about some gossip.
Li Shuoxing counted the final word count, a total of more than 30,000 words. He left the computer and thought:
It’s too metaphysical too consider whether it’ll get popular or not. But, I didn’t get stuck on this book and wrote it very smoothly, and it’s quite nice.
After silently feeling good, Li Shuoxing remembered the little person in the game again. He was concerned for a moment and couldn’t help but go on the game for a look.
Three days.
The courtyard had changed.
The original gorgeous and dizzy pumpkin party had disappeared, and sunlight once again descended on this small place. The corner of the courtyard had not only been cleared, but also planted with crops. All of them were green and full of vitality, making the courtyard wild and interesting.
Li Shuoxing paid extra attention to the pumpkin seedlings.
Ten seeds, ten pumpkins, not a single one less. Now, they were all plump and glistening yellow on the brown soil, huge and well-developed, ready to be picked and enjoyed.
Li Shuoxing tapped on the crops one by one and found that each had a countdown that popped up when tapped, which should be the time left for them to ripen.
The shortest one had just over a minute left, and the longest one had only five minutes remaining.
In five minutes, he could harvest 30 plants and 10 pumpkins. Thinking about it, it was a little exciting?
Li Shuoxing was secretly looking forward to it. Suddenly, the door opened, and the little person walked out of the room and into the courtyard with a bucket.
It’d been over a day since he’d paid close attention to the little person. When he took a closer look, he noticed some changes in him.
He was wearing the “NO ESCAPE” outfit he’d made. Thanks to his tailoring, the lapel was still slanted, revealing most of his shoulders, and the rest was like a sack. Not only that, he didn’t know if the clothes had gotten stained with soil in the process of being worn, but they looked grey and dirty. The two superimposed, making the little person look like a child picked up by someone forcing him to do hard labour.
Li Shuoxing: “
”
He couldn’t help but reflect.
There should be nothing wrong with the way I’m raising my cub, right? How come the cub looks like such a poor little thing.
He typed, “I’m here.”
The little person heading to the planting area paused, turned his head all around, then continued forward with the bucket. Only a small text bubble popped out of his head.
Su Mingqian: “Done with work?”
Li Shuoxing: “How did you know I was working?”
The little person was very small and the bucket was rather large.
Li Shuoxing felt he was very tired looking at him. He couldn’t help but stretch out his finger and press it on the bucket to see if he could pick it up.
And he could.
The bucket was picked up by Li Shuoxing, pressed under his fingertip and moved all the way to the edge of the crop to be put down.
Light +1.
Su Mingqian’s hands were free and he could finally spare a hand to tidy up his clothes. He replied, “Simple reasoning.”
Young people were either busy with work or relationships.
If she was busy in a relationship, how could she put extra affection on him?
Of course, work was the only option.
Li Shuoxing: “That’s about right. I’ve written enough stockpile for about five days, so I came over to relax. What’s the bucket for?”
Su Mingqian explained, “Watering. We’re supposed to loosen, fertilise and water the soil, but I couldn’t find any fertiliser, and you’ve been busy these past two days, so I’ve tried just loosening and watering the soil. They seem to be growing very well.”
It was very well.
Li Shuoxing thought that the vegetables were growing with great spirit. He also understood where the dirt on Su Mingqian’s body had come from.
He felt a little guilty for a while.
The cub really worked hard!
He decided to compensate him. “Cub, I think you’re still a little short on clothes. Why don’t I make you some more sets of clothes? This time, we’ll make white T-shirts, five sets in all, and write on the chests, ‘Hoeing the harvest at noon’. How about it?”
Su Mingqian: “
”
“If that’s not enough,” Li Shuoxing added, “we can add five more sets and proceed with the next verse, ‘Sweat dripping into the soil <sup>1</sup> The two verses, é”„çŠŸæ—„ćœ“ćˆïŒŒæ±—æ»ŽçŠŸäž‹ćœŸ, are an excerpt from the poem æ‚Żć†œ, Sympathy for the Peasants in English. It depicts peasants working in the fields at noon under the scorching sun, and summarises their life of hard work throughout the year. ’.”
Su Mingqian: “
”
Two cold -1’s in succession.
Su Mingqian refused to speak. He lowered his head, picked up the bailer, and began to sprinkle water.
When the first ladle of water sprinkled in the air, mixing with the sunlight and turning colourful, there was a sudden “ding-dong”. The first vegetable had ripened!
Next, the ding-dong sounds continued, like a field tune, and a whole field of vegetables ripened in sequence!
Su Mingqian was stunned by the special effect. “Are they ripening?”
Li Shuoxing replied affirmatively, “Yes!”
On the screen, all these vegetables had an extra virtual hand, bobbing up and down, beckoning him to harvest everything.
But before harvesting them, there was something that had to be done first.
Li Shuoxing typed, “Cub, you can keep whatever you want to eat. I’ll sell the rest.”
Su Mingqian pondered for a moment and pulled out some vegetables from the vegetable area.
The mixed vegetable seed packets were really mixed vegetable seed packets. Li Shuoxing swept his eyes and could see bok choy, broccoli and tiger pepper. There seemed to be 15 varieties in 30 seeds.
Then, he found that the little person had taken only a third of each of the 15 varieties away, leaving the remaining two thirds in the ground.
One vegetable seed produced about one plate’s worth of vegetables.
One third was one third of a plate.
Li Shuoxing couldn’t help but ask, “Is there enough of each kind?”
Su Mingqian: “There’s not enough of each kind, but several kinds mixed together to make a plate is enough.”
Li Shuoxing: “
Several kinds mixed together?”
Su Mingqian: “Yeah.”
Li Shuoxing: “Is that good?”
Su Mingqian: “It’s all vegetables, so there shouldn’t be any conflict. I want to taste every vegetable I grow.”
He said so, without any intention of touching the pumpkin next door.
Li Shuoxing: “
”
Also, okay?
For some reason, the plate of blackened wild greens that’d appeared in the narration flashed through his mind.
He shook his head, waving away the horrible thoughts from his mind, and continued his conversation with the little person, “And, cub
”
Su Mingqian: “?”
Li Shuoxing made a questioning voice and deliberately said, “Why are there so few pumpkins? I remember I bought the same amount of both kinds of seeds.”
Su Mingqian: “
”
Quiet -1.
He said, “Pumpkin seeds
 are more difficult to plant. They depleted in the process of planting.”
Li Shuoxing suddenly realised and said hypocritically, “So that’s how it was?”
Su MIngqian: “Yes.”
Another quiet -1.
Li Shuoxing was then regretful and pretended, “It seems that we can’t make money by growing pumpkins and selling them. What a pity.”
Su Mingqian: “
”
Still a quiet -1.
At the same time, he lowered his head, put his hands behind his back, and grounded the earth with his feet.
Li Shuoxing thought he saw something from this little action. Just in time, the system narration flashed out.
[Su Mingqian is a little upset.]
[Su Mingqian whispers.]
Su Mingqian: “I should’ve known
”
Li Shuoxing felt he was really bad, because he asked again, “Known what?”
[Su Mingqian is startled.]
Su Mingqian: “Nothing.”
Strong -3!
Cough

Although there was no double favourability effect anymore, he still had to restrain himself, more or less.
After all, death couldn’t be done all at once. If done all at once, he’d really die.
Li Shuoxing went back to normal. “Alright, you can put the vegetables you want into the fridge. I’ll sell all these.”
Su Mingqian: “Okay.”
He picked up the vegetables and quietly sighed with relief as he walked back.
So the favourability that’d fallen silently grew a little.
Li Shuoxing saw it and really wanted to advise his cub

Cub, you know, you’re so two-faced, tsundere and apprehensive. The mixture of angry and cute will only make people want to bully the hell out of you.
He watched as the little person carried the vegetables into the kitchen and shoved them one by one into the fridge before washing his hands. Then, he went to the bedroom wardrobe, took out the prince’s shirt and trousers, and entered the bathroom.
In about three minutes, the frosted bathroom door reopened.
The little person reappeared in a new outfit, his shirt straight and his trousers slim. He became a clean and beautiful little prince again.
The little prince still had the overalls in his hand.
He put them into the laundry basket, waited a few seconds, took them out, folded them, and stuffed them into the closet.
The sequence of movements was neat and methodical.
Li Shuoxing felt that the cub’s cleanliness must be very high, definitely unlike him, who depended on housekeeping to continue his life.
Only then did he turn his attention to the remaining vegetables. With a circle of his hand, he harvested them all and got an additional 3 fragments from 10 pumpkins. Calculating a 30% chance, it was quite a bit higher than the 10% stated in the game data, full of luck.
The fragments automatically entered the system warehouse.
The vegetables were stacked in the courtyard, and, with a tap of his finger, a one-click selling option popped up.
Li Shuoxing distinguished them and found that the selling price of pumpkins was higher, at 1 contribution point per pumpkin, while vegetables were sold in batches, at 5 contribution points for a group of ten vegetables. Because Su Mingqian plucked some out, all three groups of vegetables were dropped to 3 contribution points.
The original price was calculated to be 6 contribution points, and now the selling price was 19 contribution points.
Basically tripled, it was very good. After all, the scale was still small. If they worked hard and fully planted the courtyard, they could make a fortune, live in a big villa, drive a sedan

Hmm?
Li Shuoxing felt something wrong.
It seems like there’s something else I missed.
Li Shuoxing thought about it carefully, and suddenly realised that in the process of planting, he’d basically done nothing. The whole time it was the little person doing the work. In other words, the concept of the game was that the little person relied on hard work and the player relied on money. If he didn’t want to work hard, sacrifice his wallet; if he wanted his wallet, enslave the little person?
Having figured out the situation, Li Shuoxing was speechless for a moment. He could only curse again, “Trash game, eat shit.”
With that, he sold all the seeds with one tap, and the total contribution points in the upper left corner became: 1155.
At the same time, there was a pleasant special sound effect of gold coins falling into a pouch.
Li Shuoxing’s heart was tickled. He suddenly began to want to sell more and enjoy the feeling of accumulating money.
But

He looked around the house. The construction of the house was still in its early stages and there was nothing to sell. The only thing that could be sold was probably—
Li Shuoxing’s eyes turned to the wardrobe. He took out the clothes he’d made and tried to sell them.
This time, however, the selling function was grey.
He relentlessly tapped several times, but failed to poke the grey function key. Instead, the system narration flashed several times.
Li Shuoxing had another bad feeling.
He tapped on the system narration.
[Hello, the clothes you have made are of ordinary material and poor style, so they have no purchase value.]
[Hello, the clothes you have made
]
[Hello, the
]
Three identical messages appeared in the narration box.
Li Shuoxing could see it clearly. He took a deep breath and held back, but couldn’t hold back. “Trash game, I’m telling you, if it wasn’t for the cub’s sake, you’d be finished!”
The game was as motionless as a mountain.
It said it wouldn’t purchase, so it wouldn’t purchase.
The player couldn’t threaten the system and disrupt the market!
Just then, a text bubble suddenly appeared.
At some point, Su Mingqian had come to the table, and he was looking out through the window. “The pumpkins outside are gone.”
Li Shuoxing left the game alone. “I sold them all. What’s the matter?”
Su Mingqian was thoughtful. “So I really don’t have to eat pumpkin?”
Still remembering this?
Li Shuoxing was amused. He reassured, “You really don’t have to eat it.”
Su Mingqian: “Oh
”
Suddenly +3.
Another +3.
And another +3.
A series of number 3’s jumped out one after another, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, squeezing together to form a small stream above Su Mingqian’s head.
At the same moment, the number in the favourability pool also changed rapidly, reaching a new height in the blink of an eye.
It was a little spectacular.
Li Shuoxing was stunned for a moment.
What
 What happened?
Nothing happened.
Only the last bit of worry in Su Mingqian’s heart was quietly solved.
From the moment he’d woken up here and forgotten all about his past, he’d been worrying.
First worrying about his safety and freedom.
Then worrying about being coerced.
And then worrying about being forced.
These worries had always plagued him, keeping him from letting go of the vigilance in his heart and fully accepting the other’s persuasion and kindness.
Until now.
Su Mingqian found that the other really didn’t have any intention or action of forcing him.
She may say some strange things, but that’s just joking between friends. I shouldn’t take it too seriously.
Su Mingqian accepted his situation and this unique friend.
Her name is Ximu.
Su Mingqian was very happy. He bent the corners of his mouth, so a little super happy expression appeared above his head and fell in Li Shuoxing’s eyes.
Li Shuoxing watched as the favourability that’d been climbing all the way finally stopped at 503.
An unfamiliar sound effect sounded at this moment.
On the screen, the system narration flashed rapidly. When he opened it, lines of system text appeared in it.
[System: Su Mingqian has acknowledged you. Su Mingqian’s favourability with you has increased significantly.]
[System: Your favourability with Su Mingqian has exceeded 500, achieving the system’s hidden task [Sunshine’s First Encounter].]
[System: You receive the following task rewards: Lottery Ticket × 1; Sunshine Bottle × 1]
[System: You have received lottery tickets. The lottery function officially opens.]
Emm

Li Shuoxing found that the speed at which this game came up with new features never disappointed; in other words, its ability to develop microtransactions had never been disappointing.
But then again, was a game without a lottery function really a game?
Li Shuoxing closed the system narration and searched the buttons along the edge of the screen, soon finding a new lottery icon.
The tiny transparent bottle placed in the corner seemed to contain coloured hearts.
He tapped on it, and the screen switched to the lottery interface.
In the galaxy-like space, a huge wishing bottle was hanging upside down. The wishing bottle was transparent and filled with many coloured diamond hearts. There was a small slit at the mouth of the bottle, which should be for dropping hearts.
He looked at both sides of the wishing bottle.
On one side was Li Shuoxing’s one lottery ticket; on the other side was a small doll that looked like the little person.
Li Shuoxing tapped the doll with his finger, but it didn’t respond.
He then tapped the lottery ticket with his finger, and this time he could tap it.
At the same time, the system popped up with a guide.
“In the lottery interface, you can give lottery tickets to the doll. For each lottery ticket received, the doll will take the small basket beneath the wishing bottle to receive a wishing heart. Wishing hearts are dropped by shaking the wishing bottle. Lottery items are divided into four grades, with the probability from high to low being green, blue, purple and gold. Among them, the probability of obtaining a green item is 70%, a blue item is 20%, a purple item is 9%, and a gold item is 1%.”
Li Shuoxing’s mind went over it and understood.
Green was an N card, blue was an R card, purple was an SR card, and gold was an SSR card.
The system then prompted, “It is detected that you have a lottery ticket. Do you want to start the lottery?”
Li Shuoxing chose no.
He closed the lottery screen and opened the check-in list.
As he recalled, the week’s check-in was coming to an end. Tomorrow was the last day, and a lottery ticket would be given away then.
It was better to wait until tomorrow.
With two lottery tickets, the likelihood of getting a good item would double.
Li Shuoxing was ready to go offline. Before he did, he said goodbye to the little person. “Cub, I’m leaving. See you tomorrow.”
Su Mingqian: “See you tomorrow.”
He thought, I hope she comes early tomorrow.
***
Tomorrow, he came on time, neither early nor late.
It was another day of sunshine and gentleness.
As soon as Li Shuoxing woke up from bed this morning, he thought of the little person in the game, and then of the two lottery tickets in the game.
Today, I’m gonna do the game lottery.
Let’s go draw a prize before I start writing.
What is the best way to draw good items?
As Li Shuoxing thought this, he couldn’t help but pick up his phone and sent a Weibo post, asking his fans for help.
“I’m asking everyone, what is the best way to draw good items?”
After posting that, he went into the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth, and when he came out, there were already comments under the Weibo post. Those fans with different IDs seemed to have made an agreement, saying the same thing.
“Update.”
“Use the update method.”
“Use the update to accumulate goodness <sup>2</sup> 攒äșș擁 means to reduce one’s bad luck by helping others. method.”
“Use the mass update to accumulate goodness panacea.”
They left five, six, seven, eight in a row like this, and finally there was a different one.
“Ximuzi, I’m a famous golden finger of game lotteries. No matter what game, I can help you draw. If I don’t draw good items I’ll chop my head off for you. I’m not asking for much, you have to update 100,000 words today.”
Li Shuoxing calmly finished reading, and calmly ignored them.
He opened Weibo, searched for the most forwarded koi recently to forward to his Weibo, and then put his hands together in worship.
“Koi immortal, remember to bless me with a good draw, amen.”
After worshipping, he washed his hands and opened the game. He first took the lottery ticket for this week’s check-in bonus, and then poked the little person through the blanket, waking the sleeping cutie.
The little person opened his eyes. “
Ximu?”
Li Shuoxing: “I’m here!”
He waited patiently for the little person to get up and share the lottery time with him.
In the end

Su Mingqian rubbed his eyes, glanced at the time, pulled the blanket up with both hands to completely cover himself, then curled up and went back to sleep.
A few more text bubbles popped up through the blanket.
“Don’t disturb me.”
“Want to sleep.”
“What words.”
“Talk later.”
1
The two verses, é”„çŠŸæ—„ćœ“ćˆïŒŒæ±—æ»ŽçŠŸäž‹ćœŸ, are an excerpt from the poem æ‚Żć†œ, Sympathy for the Peasants in English. It depicts peasants working in the fields at noon under the scorching sun, and summarises their life of hard work throughout the year. 2
攒äșș擁 means to reduce one’s bad luck by helping others.