***
Even developing a minigame within a game couldn’t make it succeed with a “whoosh!” in an instant.
On Wu Guanyue’s list of hired workers, Wuyun’s status had changed to [In Development, Please Don’t Rush].
Er… why does this suddenly feel so much like a day job?
Whatever. She would just leave it at that for now!
Before the game was finished, Wu Guanyue naturally still had plenty of daily activities to grind through.
For example, she needed to order furniture from [Carpenter Zhang Wulang].
To open the guest rooms to customers, she had to place the four basic pieces of furniture: a [Wooden Bed], [Wooden Cabinet], [Wooden Table], and [Wooden Chair]. The bed and cabinet were large items and therefore relatively expensive. Beds cost four taels each, while cabinets cost five taels apiece.
However, when Wu Guanyue had previously ordered tables, chairs, and benches for the main hall, she had already ordered some wooden beds. She could go pick them up now, while the cabinets could be replaced with wooden chests. After all, the point was simply to give guests somewhere to put their belongings!
That brought the cost down considerably.
After grinding away for several days and selling some unneeded items at the pawnshop, Wu Guanyue finally managed to gather enough basic furniture for all five guest rooms.
She opened [Build Mode] and began decorating the rooms!
She put the bed on the east side… then moved it to the west… and finally put it on the south side…
Wu Guanyue: “…………”
There were only a few pieces of furniture to begin with. It didn’t seem necessary to fuss over them so meticulously…
Once the decorating was complete, she received the guest rooms’ initial rating!
Thus, the rooms received their first-ever evaluation.
[Rating: ★☆☆☆☆]
[Evaluation: Simple and ordinary guest rooms. Every now and then, a porter working in the city might come stay for a night.]
It was an extremely low rating, to put it mildly…
Of course, Wu Guanyue’s core competitive advantage didn’t lie in the guest rooms.
But then again, would Cat Mario… er… really work?
Forget it. She would grind through some other quests first!
The Chronicles of Running a Xianxia Inn had no dead season. Every day, there were countless things waiting for players to do!
Go to the kitchen to prepare dishes, open the doors for business, set the inn to automatic management, head to the backyard and give the Seven-Treasure Pine a spoonful of fertilizer, go to the outskirts of the city to chop trees and gather flowers and other resources… and finally, never forget to visit the important characters and raise their affection levels!
With a loud bang, Wu Guanyue swaggered into Wenren Ying’s home!
Naturally, Wenren Ying’s front door was firmly locked, but that didn’t matter. The player’s affection level with him had already reached three hearts.
The game’s affection system was highly similar to Stardew Valley’s. Once affection reached two hearts, the player and the NPC were considered friends, and the player could freely enter the NPC’s room!
And Wu Guanyue and Wenren Ying were, of course, already friends!!!
Their friendship had been forged after the Battle of Huiming Mountain. That exhilarating battle had allowed Wu Guanyue to witness his magnificent and brutally violent fighting style, while it had shown Wenren Ying how fast and nimble Wu Guanyue could react in an emergency.
These were undoubtedly qualities one could admire, and at the time, his affection for her had risen to… two hearts.
Er…
He really was stingy.
But then again, when Wenren Ying had run around investigating matters on her behalf and joined her on Huiming Mountain without a second thought, his affection level had only been half a heart.
Half a heart was enough to make someone go that far for another person?
In a certain sense, he was actually a remarkably generous man.
At that very moment, the generous Wenren Ying was sitting in his little courtyard, slowly wiping down his blade with a cloth.
Wu Guanyue walked in with an expressionless face and handed him a golden deutzia blossom.
Wenren Ying: “…………”
Wenren Ying hesitated for a moment before tactfully saying, “Little Shopkeeper Wu, thank you for coming to see me. But could you please stop picking the lock to get into my house?”
Wu Guanyue: “!!”
Wu Guanyue’s eyes flew wide open, and she stared at him as if she couldn’t believe what she had just heard!
Wenren Ying: “…………?”
Her expression shifted several times, and she stood there looking somewhat dazed.
Finally, she drew a notebook from her sleeve and began writing in it with a stiff expression.
“Wenren Ying… doesn’t like… me… coming to his house with gifts…”
She left with a faintly aggrieved look.
Wenren Ying: “…………”
Wenren Ying: “………………”
For some inexplicable reason, Wenren Ying suddenly felt a little guilty… and began shifting restlessly in his seat.
Wu Guanyue, however, quickly forgot all about the incident. After all, completing the main quest was far more important than raising affection!
At present, she was standing outside a teahouse.
The teahouse was bustling with people coming and going, and the noise was deafening. Yet no matter whose voice it was, none could overpower the sharp crack of the storyteller’s clapper.
Of course, a storyteller in a xianxia world wouldn’t be talking about the Three Kingdoms or Water Margin. He would be telling tales of the various sects, as well as the most fashionable topic of the moment: the Lotus Tournament.
Today, the storyteller was recounting the tale of a swordsman who had climbed to the summit in his pursuit of the Dao.
He had not been born into a prestigious family, nor had he come from wealth. His parents were merely a menial worker and a cook employed at an inn. If nothing unexpected had happened, he would have grown up to be an entirely ordinary young man.
But then, an accident occurred.
A group of spoiled young disciples from an immortal sect got drunk at the inn. After an argument, they began fighting. When cultivators clashed, how could ordinary people withstand it? The young man’s father, a menial worker, had his bones crushed throughout his body by the force of spiritual energy and died on the spot.
When the boy found out, he did not say a word.
But the next time that group of spoiled disciples came to the inn, the boy carried a butcher’s knife upstairs, chopped off the head of the culprit, and tossed it from the third floor down to the first as if he were throwing a flower ball.
Afterward, he sat down in the middle of the inn’s main hall and ate and drank to his heart’s content, waiting for someone to come arrest him.
As it happened, Perfected Renhua of the Profound Heaven Sect passed by the area at that very moment. Moved by the boy’s fierce determination to avenge his father and astonished by his once-in-a-thousand-years spiritual aptitude, he took the boy and his widowed mother back to the Profound Heaven Sect. The boy then became Perfected Renhua’s final disciple.
It was said that he was not yet a hundred years old, yet had already reached the pinnacle of the Golden Core realm and would soon step into the Xiantian realm.
His name was Chu Yingfeng.
Though Chu Yingfeng was still young, his seniority was astonishingly high. He was actually of the same generation as Verdant Cloud Adept, Lord of Meishan. Truly, he was a peerless genius!
However, there seemed to be something extreme in Chu Yingfeng’s personality. The way he killed people was practically more sinister than that of an evil cultivator. It was said that on one occasion, he had butchered an evil cultivator like a master chef dissecting an ox… slicing the flesh thinner than roast duck!
The reason he was so extreme was precisely because he had no equal.
“Does everyone know that Chu Yingfeng, that unorthodox disciple of the Profound Heaven Sect, has arrived at Meishan?”
“What?! Is that true?”
A wave of astonishment swept through the teahouse.
The storyteller shook his head and swayed from side to side as he continued, “Naturally, he’s here to watch the Lotus Tournament. Those of you taking part in the competition must be sure to bring glory to our Meishan… Speaking of this year’s Lotus Tournament, the outer disciples of Verdant Cloud Grotto Heaven…”
The storyteller was about to move on to introducing the contestants, but the audience wasn’t interested in that at all. They clamored for him to say more about Chu Yingfeng.
Hmm…
Wu Guanyue pondered this.
He seemed to be quite a prominent figure… He was probably a story character who had some connection to the player, right? After all, the player was the center of the world. Even if they went out and encountered a dog, that dog ought to be the beloved pet lost by some high-ranking official!
However, she hadn’t come to the teahouse today to listen to storytelling. She had come to find the storyteller—to buy an advertisement!
Advertisements were great. Advertisements were wonderful. Last time, it was because she’d hired two wandering cultivators to perform a live-action Jinkela commercial outside her inn that she’d made a name for herself!
This time, she planned to do the same thing again.
If she wanted her reputation to spread throughout Meishan City, putting on live-action commercials only on Qihua Road clearly wouldn’t be enough. So she had come to Meishan City’s center of public opinion to find the biggest self-media influencer in this xianxia world!
At that moment, the storyteller finished his tale.
Wu Guanyue walked over and began interacting with him.
[Silver-Tongued Wu (polite smile): “I hear you wanted to speak with me? Please, go ahead.”]
Wu Guanyue: “Yes. I’d like you to promote the new game rooms at our inn!”
Whether or not people liked Cat Mario, as long as she could get the message out that “The Inn With the Ridiculously Long Name Nobody Can Be Bothered to Read Has Something New,” she could still gain popularity points!
After all, popularity points were calculated based on “how many people know about the inn,” not “how many people approve of the inn.”
This was the player’s path to self-rescue!
[Silver-Tongued Wu (polite smile): “Certainly, certainly. I have a price list right here. Would you like a straightforward advertisement, or would you prefer me to weave your guest rooms into a story and promote them subtly, like rain nourishing the earth?”]
Wu Guanyue: “The subtle one!”
[Silver-Tongued Wu (polite smile): “Ten taels of silver.”]
Wu Guanyue: “…”
So expensive!
She had just gone completely broke buying furniture. Even if she sold the player, she couldn’t scrape together ten taels of Tongxuan silver right now!
Maybe subtle advertising cost more because it required writing a story?
Wu Guanyue: “Then let’s do the straightforward kind!”
Silver-Tongued Wu: “Ten taels of silver.”
Wu Guanyue: “…”
Wu Guanyue: “Can’t you make it a little cheaper…?”
Silver-Tongued Wu: “I’m afraid not, Shopkeeper. I have a whole family to support too, you know~”
Wu Guanyue: “Why don’t you come and try it for free? If you find it interesting, then…”
Silver-Tongued Wu cut her off with a hearty laugh.
“All right, all right. Really, if you don’t have the money, why are you trying to buy an advertisement? You don’t need this right now. Just focus on running your inn, all right?”
Silver-Tongued Wu was a pure, money-minded businessman, someone who had completely abandoned all higher pursuits. One look at this young girl, and he could tell she couldn’t afford the fee. Her inn was on Qihua Road too… What kind of godforsaken place was that?
Instead of wasting time haggling with her, he might as well gather more stories about Chu Yingfeng. That was what the audience actually liked listening to!
Silver-Tongued Wu gave a perfunctory laugh and left.
Wu Guanyue’s attempt at self-rescue had failed, and she left as well, all fluffy and dejected…
However, not long after she returned to the inn, someone walked in from outside.
He was a pale young man dressed in black. Standing in the doorway, he stared at the inn’s signboard with a pair of pitch-black eyes. Even after noticing the densely packed little characters on it, his expression did not change in the slightest.
The setting sun illuminated his face, emphasizing the hard lines of his jaw and the air of coldness and inhuman detachment about him.
And the name floating above his head was…
Chu Yingfeng!
Wu Guanyue: “!!”
Sure enough, he was an important story character! Speak of the devil, and he appears! The player really was the center of the world!
Wu Guanyue was in an excellent mood. She greeted him with a bright smile.
“Welcome, esteemed guest. Are you here for a meal, or would you like a room?”
Chu Yingfeng’s gaze slowly settled on her face, studying her as though he were examining her very carefully.
Only after a moment did he speak in his unhurried voice.
“I’m here to ask about someone.”
“Mhm, who are you looking for?”
“Daoist Master Songfeng.”
The instant those words fell, a new side quest suddenly appeared before Wu Guanyue’s eyes!
[Quest · Side Story: Every Footprint Leaves a Trace]
[Quest Details: When you killed Daoist Master Songfeng, you probably never imagined that someone would come looking for you… The genius swordsman Chu Yingfeng of the Xuantian Sect is searching for Daoist Master Songfeng. How will you conceal the traces you left behind?]
He was a hidden red-name character!!!
Wu Guanyue was utterly stunned. This red-name character was the highest-level one she had seen so far—an entire LV.8… Wasn’t this game’s difficulty getting a little ridiculous?!
No, she had to find a way to keep him calm!
Chu Yingfeng stared at the young shopkeeper before him with a pair of pitch-black eyes, utterly devoid of emotion. No one knew what he was thinking.
The shopkeeper had round eyes. Suddenly, she smiled at him, revealing two tiny dimples.
“Daoist Master Songfeng? I’ve never heard of him! But I can help you ask around… Oh, that’s right. Our inn has game rooms where you can try a high-difficulty side-scrolling platformer. No one has managed to clear it yet. Would you like to give it a try, guest?”
Chu Yingfeng narrowed his eyes slightly.
High difficulty…?
The aura of the Qibao Pine was indeed nearby… Could this “game room” be a trap?
But…
That was exactly what he wanted.
He would see whether this person could finally make things interesting enough that he wouldn’t be bored.
Chu Yingfeng stared at Wu Guanyue and slowly nodded.
“I’ll take a room.”
The next chapter will be out at midnight! It’s a big one, so don’t miss it~
