Chapter 21: Play Nice, Don't Break the Door

If the system could manifest the T-virus, what else from the game might it produce?

What about the rocket launcher, or the Magnum?

Perhaps items from other games altogether.

Could those also be...

"Host authority insufficient. Please continue to elevate your rank."

Soon enough, Fang Qi received his answer.

"Authority? There is such a thing?" Fang Qi asked in bewilderment. "Where do I check my rank? And what can I do with my current clearance?"

"Authority insufficient. Unable to view."

"..."

"Fine, fine. I knew this system of yours was unreliable." Fang Qi looked thoroughly depressed.

The side-effect-free T-virus.

Staring at the pale blue test tube in his hand, Fang Qi felt a faint surge of excitement in his heart.

He slowly injected the fluid from the tube into his body, feeling nothing at first but a stream of icy liquid flowing from the syringe. In the next heartbeat, this glacial sensation followed the rush of his blood, spreading gradually into every limb and bone.

But right then, a wave of agonizing pain suddenly erupted from within his body!

A bizarre, powerful force abruptly surged from deep inside him, so fierce it felt as though it would tear his entire frame apart!

Fang Qi's heart sank. "Didn't you say there were no side effects?"

"This is an inevitable reaction to the strengthening process," the system explained. "No side effects simply means you will not turn into a zombie."

"..." He felt as if his entire body were on fire, as though every cell, every drop of blood, and the very marrow of his bones were about to be utterly consumed by these flames!

The immense torment brought wave after wave of dizziness crashing over him. He lay helplessly on the bed, feeling as if he might black out at any second.

Just then, the system's voice rang out once more: "The host is advised not to lose consciousness, otherwise the efficacy of this side-effect-free T-virus will be entirely wasted."

"..." Fang Qi clenched his teeth tightly. He felt he had never experienced such agony in his entire life; every single cell in his body felt as though it were being brutally ripped open!

What made him want to spit blood the most was that he actually wasn't allowed to faint?!

In order to prevent this precious, side-effect-free T-virus from going to waste, he had no choice but to endure through sheer, bitter perseverance!

The excruciating pain assaulted him relentlessly, making him feel like a lonely skiff adrift on a vast ocean, in constant danger of capsizing at any moment!

He desperately wished for this agonizing sensation to pass quickly, but time seemed to be working against him, dragging on with agonizing slowness!

Like a snail, crawling forward millimeter by millimeter!

As time ticked away, Fang Qi had no idea how he managed to survive the ordeal.

By the time he felt the agony recede from his body, the next morning had already arrived.

...

Meanwhile, down below his quarters, a commotion had already broken out.

A large crowd had gathered before the entrance of the internet cafe. "Why hasn't the boss opened the doors yet today?"

"Didn't he say eight o'clock? What time is it now?" Wu Shan complained, glancing up at the sun that had already risen high into the sky.

"It's nearly noon, isn't it?" Blackie paced back and forth in front of the shop. "The mystery of the Book of Curses is right on the verge of being solved. Why on earth hasn't the boss opened up?"

"Could he have overslept?"

If given a choice by destiny, no one would willingly choose to lag behind others.

This was even truer for warriors who revered strength above all else in a world where the strong preyed on the weak.

Playing games could actually aid one's cultivation? Once Xue Ming discovered this, he could no longer sit still!

Xue Ming had woken up uncharacteristically early today, solely to advance his game progress as quickly as possible and uncover a few clues that even Xu Zixin had never seen, so he wouldn't constantly be looked down upon.

"That wretched shop actually only allows this young master to play for six hours!?" Recalling this, he kicked a pebble by the roadside, clearly still harboring a grudge over yesterday's events.

"If it weren't for..." Remembering the cold warning Fang Qi had delivered yesterday—"permanently banned"—he instinctively drew his foot back, suppressing the urge to bring a band of thugs to smash the shop to pieces.

"Forget it! This young master is doing this for Zixin! I will swallow my pride for now!" With a cold snort, he walked up to the entrance of the Origin Internet Club, only to find a crowd already clustering around the door!

Liang Shi, Wu Shan, and the middle-aged man with the goat-mustache, Yang Hai, were there, along with several men in black martial attire including Blackie. Beside Blackie stood a blunt-headed, eager-looking giant named Black Bear, and a lean, short fellow named Black Rat—all nicknames, of course, rather than their real names.

"What are you all doing?" Seeing this circle of people, Xue Ming instantly felt a bad premonition. "Why aren't you going inside?"

"It's not open?" He peered inside and was instantly dumbfounded. "Didn't we agree on eight o'clock?"

"We don't know either." Liang Shi found the young man somewhat familiar, guessing he was also a player who had tried Resident Evil yesterday. He offered a bitter smile. "Before this, the boss opened late because he was adding more computers. Could he be adding more today too?"

"It's possible," Blackie said. "Every seat was taken yesterday, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to add a few more."

"Should we... wait a bit longer?"

Fang Qi lay on his bed, completely exhausted.

"It's finally over..." Fang Qi felt that he never wanted to endure such an experience ever again.

He gave his fingers a slight twitch, sensing that his physical frame had become entirely different from before.

Not just his body, but everything around him had changed!

He could even clearly track the flight path of a fly buzzing in midair!

Opening his eyes, every single speck of dust on the wall appeared crystal clear to his sight!

By this time, another hour had passed outside.

"I can't wait any longer!" Wu Shan said with a dark, stern face. If Liang Shi hadn't been holding him back, he probably would have smashed the door down by now.

"I can't wait either!" Xue Ming had never been this anxious in his life. "If he doesn't open soon, the rest of the crowd will get here!"

"Why don't we just break the door open?" Black Bear suggested. "It's just a door. At worst, we can install a new one for the boss later."

"..." Liang Shi's face darkened. "If you do that, you'll probably find yourselves on the boss's permanent ban list by tomorrow."

"Then what should we do?" Although the shop was small, the boss did not seem like an ordinary man. Remembering the words 'permanently banned', Blackie was indeed weighing whether he could afford to offend him. "This won't work, that won't work!"

"Exactly, it's driving me mad!" Wu Shan slapped his palm against the door. "Yesterday, I barely played for a bit and suddenly six hours had passed! How could it go so fast? And today he won't even let us play?!"

"..." Liang Shi's face twitched slightly. "Not to contradict you, Brother Wu, but I was standing behind you watching you play yesterday, and my feet went numb. Are you sure it wasn't six hours...?"

"..." Wu Shan's face flushed with embarrassment as he rattled the door panels loudly. "Then six hours is simply too short!"

To the left and right of Fang Qi's internet cafe were other storefronts. The shop on the left had originally belonged to an old man but hadn't opened in a long time; it was said his son had achieved academic honors and the whole family had moved away. The shop on the right was a bun shop, which was where Fang Qi bought his breakfast every morning.

Auntie Wang from the bun shop, seeing these people crowding around Fang Qi's door for so long, couldn't help but feel curious. "What are you all doing, crowding around someone else's shop like this?"

"Uh..." Liang Shi bought a few buns on impulse and asked, "Auntie, why hasn't the owner of this shop opened up today? Didn't he say business hours start at eight? Do you know what's going on?"

"Well..." Auntie Wang shook her head. "I was wondering about that myself. That little fellow Fang Qi usually comes to my shop to buy buns at this time every day. Why is he so late today? Why don't you try calling out to him?"

"Call out?" The men exchanged looks.

"I'll do it," Wu Shan said after a moment's thought. This method did seem quite a bit better than smashing the door down directly.

...

Fang Qi still felt a lingering ache throughout his body, though compared to last night, it was a massive improvement.

Finding himself drenched in dark, murky sweat, he hurriedly took a shower, but halfway through, a sudden commotion from downstairs caught his ear.

He hastily poked his head out the window, only to see a sizable crowd already gathered outside the shop entrance.

“...What time is it?” Fang Qi’s heart skipped a beat, wondering if he was running late.

Downstairs.

Before long, the City Guard noticed the anomaly here, and a squad of guardsmen in bright, gleaming armor marched forward, demanding, “What are you all crowding around here for? We saw you standing here first thing in the morning, and now more than half an hour has passed, yet you’re still here?”

“And that long-bearded fellow over there, what are you shouting for so early in the morning? Are you trying to cause trouble?”

“...Long-bearded fellow?” Wu Shan’s dark face grew even darker.

Fortunately, he hadn't banged on the door just now, otherwise he wouldn't be able to clear his name even if he jumped into the Yellow River; if word got out later that he was hauled off by the City Guard for banging on a door because he couldn't play a game, the cultivators of the entire city would probably laugh about it until next year!

“Motherfucker! I really want to curse someone out!” Wu Shan was already bursting with suppressed rage.

Hei Da chuckled softly, stepped aside to clear a path for him, and pointed toward the City Guard: “After you!”

“Hmph!” Wu Shan let out a cold snort; though his cultivation level was decent, anyone but a fool knew the outcome of a clash with the City Guard.

“I knew these loose cultivators couldn't be counted on!” Xue Ming looked around and had no choice but to step forward, “Xue Family, Xue Ming.”

“The... the Xue Family?” The leading guard commander bowed slightly, “So it is the young master of the Xue Family, please forgive my blindness for not recognizing Mt. Tai!”

“That fellow seems to have quite a background!” Hei Da whispered.

“A scion of an aristocratic family,” Wu Shan snorted coldly.

Liang Shi smiled and said, “Well, at least it looks like this matter will be easily resolved now.”

“No trouble at all,” Xue Ming adopted as cold and aloof an expression as he could muster, laughing inwardly, 'Just the City Guard, with this young master stepping in, isn't it a piece of cake?'

The few guardsmen immediately became respectful and deferential: “We must still ask Young Master Xue to inform us of what exactly has transpired here, so that we may have something to report back to our superiors.”

After Xue Ming’s explanation, the guardsmen only found themselves more bewildered: “Young Master Xue means to say... the owner of this shop hasn't opened his doors, so they have been waiting outside for an hour?”

Then what exactly did this shop do?

“Virtual reality?”

“Killing zombies?”

“Playing games?”

The more the guardsmen listened, the more perplexed they became, whispering among themselves, “Do you think we should go inside and take a look?”

“I think so too... every time the brothers on night patrol caught someone these past two days, they came out of this place, and they were all young masters from prominent families whom we couldn't dare touch. I think there's something fishy going on here.”

“In my opinion, we shouldn't act rashly just yet! These people are of no low status, let's report to the higher-ups first before making any plans.”

Right at that moment, they noticed that the sound of the door opening finally echoed from within Fang Qi’s shop.

A head poked out from behind the door: “I say, why do you all show up so early every single day?”

“It’s open! It’s open!”

“Why is the boss only opening the door now!” someone immediately complained.

“Could it be that new computers were added today?” The group craned their necks desperately to look inside, yet failed to spot the slightest change, “Boss, you didn't oversleep, did you?”

Fang Qi touched his nose in slight embarrassment; strictly speaking, he probably really had overslept.

“Don't say another word,” the crowd immediately filed inside in a single line, “Boss, just speak honestly, is there anything new today?”

“Something new?” Fang Qi nodded, “Yes, there is.”

“What is it?!”

“Are there more computers?”

“A new game?”

“Is that movie you mentioned out?”

Several people immediately looked at Fang Qi with eyes full of anticipation.

“Err...” Fang Qi pointed at himself, “Does breaking through my cultivation level by accident this morning count as something new...”

“...”

“...Err... Boss, you can’t play with people like that!” Liang Shi looked utterly dejected.

“...Boss, you are something else...”

“...Congratulations, Boss...”

“Couldn't you choose another time to break through?” Several people couldn't help but complain; with a reason like this, they didn't even have a chance to refute it.

Could it be they weren't going to allow the man to break through?

But then again... he had just taken down the Tyrant without a scratch yesterday, and he broke through again today? Wouldn't that mean the boss’s strength had risen yet another level?

The group couldn't help but feel a growing sense of trepidation.

...

.