Volume 3, Chapter 14 – Maybe I Should Sell Cakes to Them

Anran walked out of the research center’s domed building.

The guard was still standing at the entrance with that same lazy look on his face.

The moment he saw Anran come out, his spirits instantly lifted. Wearing a smile like an autumn wind sweeping away fallen leaves, he watched her leave.

That smile sent a chill through Anran.

Bleak autumn winds indeed.

She stepped onto Qiuyang Road outside.

Not far away, in front of No. 97 Qiuyang Road, players still filled the area, and there seemed to be more and more of them.

Anran crossed the street and quietly edged a little closer.

The players were all chatting animatedly and did not notice Anran suddenly running over to eavesdrop.

Groups of three or five gathered together, grumbling to each other.

“Damn it, I came a step too late. This place used to be free, but now it costs 50 Bilu every time you go in.”

“Who the hell leaked the news about this instance? What the hell!”

“I don’t know about the other channels, but on the forums, it seems like it was mentioned by someone with the ID ‘Leading the Escape.’”

Leading the Escape.

Hearing those familiar words, Anran instinctively swept her gaze around.

She immediately spotted a girl standing beside a tall young man and looking around.

Above her head, in big letters, was [Leading the Escape].

“Leading the Escape?”

“Yeah, is that the girl you meant?”

“In Night of the Stars, players can’t have duplicate names!”

“Any punctuation marks?”

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“Nope.”

“Then hell yeah, it’s her!”

After a burst of noisy chatter, the whole group suddenly turned their eyes toward Zhou Jieyu.

“Hey, hey, hey, what are you trying to do?!”

Zhou Jieyu asked in confusion. Beside her, Leading the Charge looked wary.

“You made that post on the forums, didn’t you?” someone demanded.

“What post?”

Zhou Jieyu thought about it. She had probably made several posts recently. She just had no idea which one he meant.

Given the weird atmosphere right now, it probably was not that livestream post.

At the crucial moment, Zhou Jieyu’s thoughts suddenly became crystal clear.

The air turning cold around her instantly triggered her survival instincts.

“What do you think? Isn’t this sudden flood of people all your doing?”

“Oh, you mean that Twinmoon City guide post!”

Zhou Jieyu suddenly understood. It was a guide she had written based on what she had explored around Twinmoon City over that period of time, though she had very slyly omitted Anran’s existence from it.

A good NPC had to be kept for herself!

“So you do have some self-awareness after all!” Several people closed in on her.

Leading the Charge shifted sideways and stood in front of Zhou Jieyu.

My little sister is under my protection!

“What’s wrong?”

Zhou Jieyu still did not understand what was wrong with that post of hers.

That was the fruit of all the hard work she and her brother had put into discussing and summarizing everything. Sure, she had left some parts out, but it should still have been pretty useful for newcomers, right?

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“If you hadn’t posted that guide, how could this many people have swarmed over here? This place used to be free, but now it costs 50 Bilu every time you go in!”

What the heck, they can do that?

Anran was startled the moment she heard that.

Was the person in charge of Nine Songs some kind of genius?

Fifty Bilu per entry. However she looked at it, there were nearly a hundred people gathered here. Even if each one only went in once, that was still 5,000 Bilu in a single round!

“Emmm…”

“It really was just a straightforward guide post,” Zhou Jieyu explained.

She looked a little troubled.

Had she somehow turned a good intention into a bad outcome?

“Don’t mind them,” Leading the Charge suddenly turned back and said to Zhou Jieyu in a low voice.

This bunch of players standing outside in line with nothing to do just wanted to stir up trouble. And after discovering that Leading the Escape was actually a pretty cute girl, they wanted to cause trouble even more.

“Hey, what are you all doing!”

Anran took one look. Hah, another familiar face. Nai Knight, with a sword on his back, had stepped forward.

“Brother Nai.” Qingshuang tugged at his sleeve from the side.

Chuuni Soul dashed up in one stride. “So what if you’ve got numbers? Just because there are more of you means you get to bully a girl? We’ve got even more people!”

Very quickly, the scale of the argument expanded.

As a group, players could still follow the law and behave themselves quite well in the real world, but once they entered a game with fewer restraints, all kinds of “desires” became amplified.

If they disagreed, they started fighting.

If they didn’t like someone, they beat them up.

Before long, it had turned into a full-blown brawl. Anran’s eyelids twitched as she watched, and she hurriedly backed away to the side, afraid of getting dragged into it.

Players were terrifying once they went crazy.

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They even hit themselves!

Anran saw one relatively weak player repeatedly swinging his knife, only to accidentally stab himself several times.

Emmm…

The melee ended quickly. In the end, the players on Zhou Jieyu’s side gained the upper hand. The players who had been threatening Zhou Jieyu were all beaten black and blue, and had lost more than half their stamina and health.

Zhou Jieyu had not been idle either. Among this group of players, her strength was above average. Sneaking in a few hits here and there, she promptly knocked down the one who had been the fiercest in yelling at her.

Serves you right.

Zhou Jieyu quietly tossed away a wooden stick.

“…”

“Uh, what happened here?” At that moment, four players who had just walked out of the building at No. 97 stared blankly at the chaotic scene.

They did not look to be in very good condition. They seemed a little drained.

“Why does everyone look about as bad as we do?” one of them said.

“Hmph!” The person who had been beaten the worst climbed to his feet, gave a heavy snort, and left.

“Hmph!” The second person got up and left.

The third person climbed up, turned back, and said, “Hmph!”

Then he left too.

The fourth person’s head tilted to one side, and he died.

Cause of death: heatstroke had drained his stamina, then the beating lowered both his stamina and health. Once his stamina hit zero, his health dropped to zero along with it, and he died.

His corpse quickly disappeared.

“…”

Anran, who had no idea what was going on, felt her heart skip a beat. When these players got ruthless, they were no weaker than she was.

“What the hell?”

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No one explained it to the few people who had not been there.

They were left thoroughly confused.

Then several more people came out from the building at No. 97.

The one in front kept sighing. “This Nine Songs place is practically a money pit! It ruins my finances and drains my stamina!”

“It costs 50 Bilu every time you go in, and it also eats up about half your stamina bar. Why do I feel like I’m visiting a brothel?”

“If it weren’t for the 3,000 EXP and the chance to join Nine Songs, I wouldn’t come here even if you beat me to death.”

“Let’s rest for a while. My body’s too worn out. If I go in again now, I’ll die on the spot.”

“I’ll go buy some stamina recovery medicine tomorrow.”

Medicine that restores stamina?

The moment that came up, Anran’s eyes suddenly lit up.

The mung bean cakes and osmanthus cakes she made were all foods that could restore stamina.

An ordinary mung bean cake restored 3 stamina points, and an ordinary osmanthus cake restored 5 stamina points.

At this stage, players’ stamina generally ranged from 40 to 100.

The effects of those two ordinary-quality pastries were still quite noticeable.

If she brought over a batch of pastries to sell here, they would definitely sell out instantly.

All at once, Anran had found a new business route, one that could make full use of her old trade.

She too had once been nothing more than a poor girl selling cakes.

The only problem was that if she had to keep busy leveling up while also making pastries, it might be a bit too much to handle.

Anran’s gaze fell on Zhou Jieyu by chance. This was the girl who had inherited the [Pastry Maker] class from her.

This child might be able to help.