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Chapter 30




Silence.
Suffocation.
Silence mixed with suffocation.
Li Shuoxing couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He subconsciously rubbed his eyes and looked at the screen again.
But, no matter how many times he looked at it, the cold words remained unchanged.
He was the bad player who deceived the good lover.
Li Shuoxing was stunned, forgetting even the national curse. He directly typed in the chat box, “You—”
Su Mingqian: “?”
A small text bubble popped up right after it.
Su Mingqian read the text on the light screen. Sensing Li Shuoxing’s agitation, he asked with concern, “What’s wrong?”
Crap, I accidentally sent it to the wrong place…!
Li Shuoxing immediately crawled back from the abyss of anger.
He silently took his hand off the keyboard, took a deep breath, and then looked back at the email, trying to find a way to contact the game maker from it.
Unfortunately, there was none.
There was no reply option to this system email.
Searching the mailbox’s built-in contact list, there was only 001, which was Su Mingqian.
Li Shuoxing accepted it.
Has this game determined that it’ll only get scolded, so it doesn’t even dare to open a contact method?
Forget it.
No problem.
A generation of versions is a generation of pits, generation after generation of versions drive people crazy.
Just get used to it.
I can lie down and enjoy it.
Li Shuoxing successfully consoled himself and calmly closed the email, pretending he hadn’t seen the update log.
Then, he squeezed out a smile and continued to type, responding to the little person’s earlier concern, “It’s nothing. I was just a little panicked seeing the Double Eleven promotion.”
Su Mingqian was puzzled. “Panicked?”
Li Shuoxing spoke the mind of the consumer word for word: “The fear of feeling like you should buy everything when there’s nothing you need to buy.”
Su Mingqian was a little confused. “So do you want to buy or not?”
Li Shuoxing explained, “I’m too lazy to buy my own. There are so many things that I’m overwhelmed, so I wait until I really need them. You still must buy yours. Because the venues here won’t be open for long, you have to seize the opportunity to buy more necessities for now and the future.”
Su Mingqian shook his head and refused. “It’s good now. I don’t lack anything. Don’t bother.”
Li Shuoxing corrected, “No, you are lacking a lot of things. I won’t talk about fresh food, general merchandise, clothing and furniture; we’ll buy whatever looks good when the time comes anyway. Another point on the flyer really concerns me, and that’s the venue with only three question marks that opens on Double Eleven night. I’m wondering if anything special will be sold inside… If there really is something similar to a plane ticket, I’m willing to sacrifice everything I have to buy it.”
He said it was possible; in fact, the possibility was close to one hundred percent.
After all, the system was so foul.
Li Shuoxing had seen through everything in this game.
He finished and waited for the little person’s response, but somehow, the little person in the game suddenly stopped talking.
Li Shuoxing was puzzled and sent a question mark.
Then, he saw a text bubble pop up from the little person’s head.
“…Thank you.”
An unsurprising reply.
Ah, the cub is good everywhere, he’s just too polite.
I don’t want him to thank me.
I just want him to be so delighted that he jumps up, hugs me and gives me a muah.
Hmm… maybe it’s because the favourability isn’t high enough.
Li Shuoxing regretfully typed, “Don’t say thank you. I don’t want you to thank me. Come and give a muah~”
Text appeared on the light screen.
The little person facing the light screen remained motionless, as if transformed into a statue.
However.
“…”
“…”
“…”
Three ellipses, one after another, popped out of the little person’s head.
Again.
-1-1-1-1-1-1-1.
-1’s swarmed out.
The honest system revealed the little person’s violently fluctuating heart completely to Li Shuoxing’s eyes.
At this moment, Li Shuoxing fell deeply in love with the system again.
Having bullied the little person, Li Shuoxing was satisfied. He started typing, ready to use sweet words to stop this continuously declining favourability.
“…-ah <sup>1</sup> 么么哒 [me me dá] is a kissing sound. Su Mingqian says only 哒, so I shortened muah to -ah. .”
A text bubble floated out.
The text bubble was followed by a small tail.
+1.
Li Shuoxing: “!!!”
Delightful surprises always come so suddenly!
Although it’s only one part, I already know your love!
Li Shuoxing was struck with great happiness, but he didn’t get lost. He was calm and quick, taking a screenshot and saving this picture that would perfectly prove the little person’s tsundereness.
Then he began typing, expressing his long excitement in words:
“Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuah! Cub, I love you!”
The light screen once again faithfully displayed the other’s words.
Su Mingqian only took a glance at it before turning his head in a tangle.
Unfortunately, the light screen floated in front of Su Mingqian’s eyes, so no matter which way he turned his head, it followed him like a shadow. This was normally convenient, but at this moment, it seemed particularly rogue.
…Just as excessive as Ximu.
Su Mingqian inwardly took a breath. He simply closed his eyes, not looking at anything.
He hypnotised himself.
I didn’t kiss.
No mu-.
Just -ah.
Nothing more than -ah.
Things falling on the ground also make that sound.
…But Ximu says she loves me.
…It’s really too soon.
I have to find a time to have a serious talk with Ximu and tell her that we need to get to know each other better before I can give her an official response. She seems to care quite a bit about me and has given a lot for me. I have to make it clear to her.
Su Mingqian thought silently.
But let’s wait until after today to sort it out.
She seems very happy now.
It’d be too dispiriting to say it today.
Su Mingqian reopened his eyes. Pretending not to see the text on the screen, he found another topic and tried to steer their conversation back on track. “Ximu…”
Light screen: “Tell me, tell me, tell me~”
Su Mingqian organised his thoughts. The Double Eleven flyer had reminded him that it was time to add making more money to the to-do list. And to make money, farming was undoubtedly a job with very low cost-effectiveness. It was no good even if the pumpkins here ripened every three days. He was prepared to talk to Ximu about this. “I think, planting pumpkins isn’t worth much…”
Light screen: “Then don’t plant them. It’s not much money anyway~”
-1.
Su Mingqian patiently explained, “We should look for some industries that are more cost-effective. No matter when, farming isn’t a profitable line of work because it’s low skill. I…”
Light screen: “Cub, you don’t have to think so much. I’ll raise you~”
-3!
Su Mingqian seriously replied, “Ximu, I appreciate you for always helping, but it’s not your responsibility to raise me. I also want to take care of myself.”
The light screen flashed.
An expression full of question marks was sent.
Then came text.
Light screen: “Cub, are you saying this because you want to leave me? What did I do wrong?”
It’s impossible to communicate!
Huge -10!
Su Mingqian was very angry and even blurted out, “You did nothing wrong. The only thing wrong is that you take care of me too much! And you’re the one who should be taken care of. Why don’t you understand that?”
He finished.
The silvery-white light screen hovered silently, suddenly devoid of words.
The surroundings were empty again, and the sense of distance between the two resurfaced.
A hint of worry appeared in Su Mingqian’s mind.
Was my tone too intense just now?
Is Ximu… angry?
Li Shuoxing didn’t reply in time because he was in a trance, really full of question marks.
I never expected to see such a reply…
Doesn’t that mean…
Cub, you’re a mature cub.
You can learn to take care of dad.
Another text bubble appeared on the screen.
Su Mingqian: “Ximu?”
Li Shuoxing sat upright. He felt a sudden respect for a little person who was trying to raise his dad. “Hmm?”
Su Mingqian: “Are you angry?”
Li Shuoxing: “I’m not. I’m very happy.”
Su Mingqian: “…Back to what we were talking about, we should change our thinking.”
Li Shuoxing: “Like what?”
Su Mingqian: “The workshop next to the courtyard. I noticed there are many tools in the workshop. We can use these tools to make some things and try to sell them.”
Su Mingqian had thought a little about this in his free time.
He explained to Li Shuoxing, “We’ve already used the garment room in the production workshop. We can collect fabric and then continue to use it to make clothes. Apart from that, there are axes, saws, hammers, and even various carving knives in there. I think they should be used for wood or stone carving, but I feel like I’m not very good at carving, so I’ll put that aside for now and not think about it. Instead, we can look for raw wood materials and use the hammers to make some simple furniture, like small stools.”
Li Shuoxing was still typing, wanting to tell Su Mingqian that he had sold the homemade clothes last time but unfortunately the system had evaluated that it was too poor and had no purchase value…
Just after he typed that out, Li Shuoxing came back to his senses.
The system’s meaning was that it was made too poorly, not unpurchasable.
So, the little person’s idea was actually scientific and achievable. And conventionally, the manufacturing industry was indeed more profitable than the farming industry.
He couldn’t help but open the system store. Sure enough, he saw that it had refreshed with a lot of fabrics and woods, all items purchased with favourability points, priced between 2 and 50 favourability points. 2 favourability points was the ordinary fabric he bought last time, and 50 favourability points was a piece of wood, which was bald cypress from the description.
…It really figured out the little person’s heart and fulfilled his wish.
Li Shuoxing’s mood was rather complicated.
There were more things, but he didn’t buy them immediately. Instead, he went out of the house and entered the production workshop with the cub to round up the woodworking tools.
There were no raw materials before, so Li Shuoxing naturally ignored the carpentry room not far from the garment room every time he entered the production workshop. Now he studied it carefully and found that the little person was right. The carpentry tools in the production workshop were quite stocked.
The most striking was the table saw placed among the tools.
It was a big table with a metal tabletop and a circular saw blade on it. People who knew about woodworking might be able to make a professional analysis of the style and shape, but in Li Shuoxing’s view… a bloody picture of a horror suspense novel was born.
He shook his head and continued to observe the other equipment. He found all sorts of things here. It looked as if they could really meet the needs of making a wooden stool.
But there was another problem.
How on earth do you make a wooden stool?
Li Shuoxing tapped on the various tools in the workshop to see if he could find a wooden stool blueprint from them.
But there didn’t seem to be this configuration. Instead, in the various menus that popped up, there was a grey drawing of a long wooden stick, which looked like a wooden stick blueprint.
It didn’t matter if there was no blueprint.
Anyway, the structure of a wooden stool was simple. It seemed to just be a horizontal board with four vertical legs, nothing difficult.
At this moment, the little person popped up another text bubble: “Ximu, search for a wooden stool blueprint and send it to me.”
Li Shuoxing: “…”
It can be like that?
He switched out of the game and went online to Baidu for five minutes. Then, he calmly returned to the game and replied to the little person with a great change of tone, “Cub, I feel like making a stool is a very difficult and rather dangerous thing to do. And neither of us are woodworkers. I’m afraid we can’t make this item.”
He didn’t wait for Su Mingqian to reply before continuing to type.
“But your idea is right. We can try to make some simple handmade items to sell. I just thought about it briefly and found that the carpentry room and the garment room can be used at the same time. For example, a stick plus two pieces of cloth would be a simple Japanese curtain <sup>2</sup> ; a stick plus one piece of cloth with pockets would be a cloth hanging pocket <sup>3</sup> . What do you think?”
After typing that, he still didn’t wait for the little person to reply and continued to speak, slightly proud.
“As for the pattern of the fabric surface, it’s simple too. I saw a lot of Chinese Zen curtains on the internet… In fact, it’s just writing with a brush on a piece of white fabric, super simple. My handwriting’s pretty good. I can totally handle it!”
Su Mingqian: “…”
He thought of those clothes in the wardrobe.
Suddenly, he wasn’t so confident.
The author has something to say:
Cub: Unable to communicate, angry.
1
么么哒 [me me dá] is a kissing sound. Su Mingqian says only 哒, so I shortened muah to -ah. 2
3