Translator: Atlas Studios
Editor: Atlas Studios
What could one do with 10,000 dollars in modern society?
Buy one-twentieth of a toilet in the downtown area of Yin City?
Go to the sauna center for three more days?
Buy a room filled with Chinese chive pockets and lie among them?
What Li Ang had said to the possessive ghost the previous night had been right. He really had a part-time job as a tutor. Due to Li Ang’s excellent grades, the pay of this part-time job was not low.
However, Yin City was the economic center of the Republic. It was a city famous for international finance, shipping, commercial trade, and technological innovation. Its consumption was very high, and everything was expensive. Life was not easy there.
Part-time wages could only cover rent, water and electricity, internet, and daily expenses. If one spent a little more, one might face a deficit crisis.
Usually, when Li Ang was buying pasta, he wished he could break the one-yuan coin into half and suddenly get more than 10,000 yuan in cash. Therefore, it was necessary to plan and calculate.
He opened Taobao and started shopping.
CQB1 bulletproof tactical vests, anti-stab gloves, anti-fragment goggles, pure black tactical pants with built-in kneepads, tactical boots, glaring flashlights, anti-pervert sprays, anti-pervert stunners, seamless steel pipes, camping hand axes, cold steel swordfish pocket knives, nail guns, high-strength towing ropes for sailboats, empty oil drums, various machine tools including small pressers, junior high school laboratory equipment including flasks and alcohol lamps, copper, wood, chemical fertilizers, shockproof tubes for motorcycles…
Different Taobao accounts were used to purchase these items and the mailing addresses were also distributed around various places in Yin City. He managed to spend all of his 10,000 yuan on these scattered items.
While waiting for the items to be mailed over a few days, Li Ang was not idle. He researched the local urban legends of Yin City on the Internet.
Players could only obtain rewards for completing quests. The best way to trigger quests was field trips and personally getting in touch with real events that were horrifying and spooky.
In the middle of the night, a peal of strange laughter echoed in the hallway of the apartment building. Green mucus oozed from the walls of the rented houses, and long hair appeared daily under the pillows of guys living alone.
In the past few days, Li Ang had visited the addresses where many supernatural events had occurred. Unfortunately, he had not found anything. It was not known whether these events were purely fictitious or had been resolved by other players.
Li Ang was also perplexed. Ever since the development of the killing field, had the supernatural events revolved around the players, or had they been randomly generated to attract the players?
It was fine if the former was true. However, it would be bad if the latter was true. Only God knew how many supernatural events had occurred and had not been discovered by the players or the State Apparatus.
The number of victims would be horrifying…
Eventually, Li Ang arrived at Qianhua Road, the center of all urban legends in Yin City.
This road was located in the People’s Square area in the center of Yin City and was one of the most prosperous commercial streets in Yin City.
At the beginning of the previous century, this street had been involved in the French Concession, which included building large-scale, high-end residential areas with a rich French style. Due to the outbreak of the October Revolution, the Tsarist Russian nobles, who had fled there from the North, had opened high-end shops that upheld the French culture.
There had been a constant change of events. Today’s Qianhua Road still retained a luxurious and elegant atmosphere, inherited centuries-old historical buildings, and integrated modern international top-notch luxury stores while constructing a world-class commercial street.
To put it simply, the land of Qianhua Road was extremely expensive.
In the coffee shop on the top floor of the mall on the street next to Qianhua Road, Li Ang was holding the cheapest coffee in the shop. He sat by the window, watching a news video on his cell phone while looking down at Qianhua Road through the layer of glass.
Warning signs had been placed at both ends of the road, and the doors and windows of the shops on both sides of the street were closed. Everyone had dispersed, leaving only maintenance staff in orange uniforms and fire trucks on the street.
“At 3 p.m. yesterday, a gas pipeline leakage accident occurred on Qianhua Road. The maintenance staff rushed to the scene for repairs. The traffic police and fire department has also temporarily blocked the corresponding road sections and diluted the pavement with water spray.”
“As of now, the risk of leakage has been basically controlled. Further notice from the fire department is still necessary to know the specific time the blockade will be lifted.”
Gas pipeline leakage? What the hell?
Li Ang shook his head. On the two sides of Qianhua Road were large-scale shopping malls, the headquarters of the world’s top 500, and internationally-renowned luxury stores. It was no exaggeration to say that this street was a wealthy cornucopia.
One could do anything with money. If this was really a fire-fighting quest, the crisis would probably have been quickly resolved and the road blockage would have been lifted under the dual pressure of economy and administration.
If it had been sealed for so long without any intention of the block being lifted, this could only be related to extraordinary power…
Li Ang took a sip of coffee and watched the ‘maintenance staff’ on Qianhua Road discuss for a while before they drove a… super-large rotary drilling rig.
The mass of such a drilling rig was at least more than 100 tons. The drilling diameter could be 1 to 2.5 meters and the drilling depth could be up to 100 meters. This was generally used for super bridge piers of highways and railway bridges.
Right now, the Big Mac drilling rig was rotating its caterpillar track and opening the commercial street pavement. After the maintenance staff installed the protective tube, the drill bit lightly touched the concrete ground and started rotational excavation with a rumble.
One meter, two meters…
The drill bit went down slowly, causing the rumble to traverse the street while vibration spread all over the ground. Ripples appeared on the coffee that Li Ang had placed on the table.
40 meters, 60 meters, 80 meters…
The gas pipeline was definitely not buried so deep. What were they digging?
Li Ang quietly put on his sunglasses and smoothly inserted the Cat’s Eye into his eye socket.
The addition of some Perception and the sharp Cat’s Eye was enough to allow Li Ang to observe every action of the maintenance staff.
Boom!
The gradually-sinking drill suddenly stopped, and the driver of the rotary drilling rig, Ding Zhensi, was startled.
20-year-old Ding Zhensi was an outstanding graduate of Shandong Lanxiang Vocational School who could use the CNC machine tool to arrange flowers, the excavator shovel to stir-fry, and the hand-held tractor to create the drifting effect of an F1 sports car.
He had gone through hundreds of operations. If the Republic had Gundam Troops, Ding Zhensi could have definitely become a gold-medalist driver.
Right now, Ding Zhensi was holding onto the control handle of the rotary drilling rig, looking somewhat bewildered.
“Has the drill bit reached the bottom?” A colleague’s voice was heard through the intercom hanging from the top of the cab.
“Not yet!” Ding Zhensi took over the intercom and said, “It seems to be stuck! We should use a small impact drill cone to remove the area around the drill cone and then lift the drill cone out…”
Before he was finished, a huge sound erupted from the ground.
Boom!
80 meters deep under the ground, a huge force pulled the drill bit and the majestic force was transmitted along the retractable drill rod, causing the 100-ton huge rotary drill to be suddenly lifted. Just like slow motion in movies, it slowly toppled over.
The maintenance staff around were dumbfounded as they watched the drill rig collapse.
When the 100-ton weight smashed on the ground, the rumble was deafening and the dust flew all over the sky.
The rotary drilling rig was strongly dented and deformed. Ding Zhensi, who was shocked, relied on his survival instinct and climbed out of the cab with the shattered windows before he fell to the ground.
The maintenance staff hurried forward and dragged him away backward.
Most of the drill rods of the rotary drilling rig that had toppled on the ground remained underground. When the third rumble came from underground, the long drill rod sprayed with red paint was dragged underground and disappeared!
It was like… something underground was angry about being disturbed…
In the coffee shop, young men and women who had heard the loud noise gathered around the glass windows, pointed at the dusty Qianhua Road, and shot videos.
Li Ang, who was hidden in the crowd, withdrew his line of sight, drained the coffee on the table, and left.
No matter what was deep in the ground of Qianhua Road, he could not afford to provoke it now.
Monsters had to be fought level by level, and quests had to be completed one by one. He would only die faster if he aimed too high.