Chapter 6: Not Bending for Five Bushels of Rice

"What!?" Song Qingfeng was utterly dumbfounded. He had only just felt his blood surging, prepared to do great things, and his time was already up?

How long had he even been playing?!

Hadn't he only just played for a little while?!

"Owner, there's a cap on the game time?"

"Isn't it written clearly by the door? Six hours per person per day."

"Six hours?" He looked around him. "How has it been six hours for me? I've only just killed a few monsters..."

He had previously fought zombies and zombie dogs one-on-one, and in order to prevent them from touching him, each skirmish had lasted an extremely long time, naturally consuming a great deal of time.

"No way!" Song Qingfeng immediately said, "What kind of rule is this? Are you telling me that even if someone has money, they aren't allowed to play?"

"Rules are rules."

"..." Was this how one did business? Driving customers away?

But he had only just reached the peak of his excitement; it was like a woman approaching her climax when the other party suddenly pulled out and left, driving one absolutely mad.

He grit his teeth and held up two fingers: "I'll pay double the price, how about that?"

Fang Qi did not even raise his head.

"Five times!" Song Qingfeng extended five fingers.

"Fi..." Fang Qi's eyes widened. One had to know that before he had the system, his entire net worth combined was not even enough for one crystals! Where had he ever seen so much money!

Fang Qi hurriedly asked the system, "Can't the rules be changed? Ten crystals an hour!"

"No!" The system immediately rejected Fang Qi's proposal. "As the host of this system, you must never bow for five bushels of rice!"

"Holy crap!" Fang Qi was so depressed he could vomit blood. Did he really need to be so noble just to be an internet cafe owner?

He looked longingly at the ten crystals in Song Qingfeng's hand: "Really no?"

The system went completely silent.

"You're amazing!" Fang Qi could only grit his teeth and reject Song Qingfeng's offer to raise the price, "No!"

By this time, Fatty Wang's time had also been up for quite a while, and he spoke up eagerly, "Qi, this guy's background doesn't seem simple, can't you really make an exception?"

Fang Qi shook his head directly.

"Young Master!" The grey-clothed youth snorted coldly, "This kid refuses a toast only to drink a forfeit. How about I..."

"What kind of thing are you? Back down!" Song Qingfeng glared at him fiercely before looking back at Fang Qi.

And Fang Qi could do nothing about it either; his eyes darted, seemingly intentionally yet inadvertently, toward the small blackboard.

There it was written: troublemakers will never be received.

Following Fang Qi's gaze, Song Qingfeng immediately saw this sentence, and his rather handsome face could not help but turn dark.

This shop owner's way of doing things was truly... beyond words.

"A'Man! Let's go! We'll come back tomorrow!"

"Young Master... we're just leaving like this...?" As he spoke, he saw that Song Qingfeng had already walked out the door.

Once he stepped out of the shop door, he said in a low voice, "Investigate the owner's background thoroughly."

"Yes!"

Seeing the two leave, Fatty Wang then chuckled, "Qi... look, I have my assessment tomorrow, and I still don't have any confidence right now, is it possible..."

Fine, this guy actually knew how to play pitiful to garner sympathy.

"If you still can't pass like this, do you still have the face to be a warrior?"

Fatty Wang: "..."

He was completely impervious to any persuasion!

He could not help but feel extremely depressed, and it seemed he could only go and prepare for tomorrow's assessment.

...

Inside the internet cafe, only Fang Qi was left once again. With no one to disturb him, Fang Qi continued to play by himself.

The entire mansion was filled with all kinds of traps and monsters, and while the first-generation zombies appeared to have low combat capability, that was only how it appeared.

In reality, zombies that were not killed with a headshot would all go berserk, and with the hunters and chimeras filling the later stages of the game, wanting to clear it in the fully realistic system remastered version was no easy task!

Because killing monsters in the system remastered version granted experience, the vast majority of zombies had to be killed, and as a result, ammunition would become scarce to a horrifying degree in the later stages!

To clear the game, not only did one have to achieve a headshot with every single bullet, but one also had to possess the ability to flawlessly hunt single zombies using nothing but a dagger! One even had to be able to fight hunters head-on!

It was worth mentioning that the headshot spoken of here did not simply mean hitting the forehead with a single shot, but rather, the zombie's entire brain had to be shattered!

Therefore, if one used a handgun, several shots had to land entirely on the head to completely kill a normal zombie!

But if a dagger was used...

Fang Qi was crouched low, like a hunting leopard, quietly approaching the zombie ahead.

Just as the distance between them was only about a meter, and the zombie was about to turn around, he suddenly burst forward, plunging the knife fiercely into the zombie's temple!

Fang Qi was not satisfied with this single stab, because he saw that the zombie was still struggling wildly!

The zombie was not dead yet!

Fang Qi gripped the dagger and twisted it violently inside the zombie's brain!

Only then did the zombie twitch and finally collapse to the ground.

A faint, warm current flowed from the zombie's corpse into Fang Qi's body. He opened his character interface: Level 9.

A character's level always became harder to raise the further along it went, yet Fang Qi's current level was more than double that of Fatty Wang and the others!

If all of this were to be reflected in his own strength, his current speed and power were almost a sliver higher than those of Song Qingfeng, who came from a prestigious family and had honed his body with various precious medicinal herbs since childhood!

Fang Qi shook off the foul blood on his dagger and continued to explore deeper into the mansion. Just then, a terrifying monster covered in scales with incredibly thick and massive claws appeared before his eyes!

A hunter!

Fang Qi's mind grew tense; this was the most troublesome monster in the mid-to-late stages of Resident Evil 1!

Fang Qi remembered that when he first played Resident Evil 1, encountering this thing when his health was below yellow meant that if he was not careful, a decapitation effect would be triggered, and he would be instantly killed by a single claw strike! Extremely dangerous!

He swallowed hard, but what he held in his hand was just a dagger!

He did not switch to a gun; instead, he walked straight up holding the dagger...

Not everyone was as proud and unable to resist their curiosity as Song Qingfeng. After Fatty Wang and Song Qingfeng left, another young man dressed in black entered the shop in the evening.

"Owner!" The young man in black pushed open the door and entered curiously, "What does your shop do?"

"Play a game called Resident Evil." Fang Qi pointed at the computer, "Want to try?"

"A game?" The young man in black looked at Fang Qi curiously, "How do you play? What are the charges?"

Fang Qi pointed directly at the small blackboard in front of the door.

"Crystals?" The young man in black's face darkened, and he turned around to leave immediately, not forgetting to curse before he left, "A rip-off shop!"

"..." Fang Qi's face twitched violently.

A few more stragglers drifted in afterward, yet not everyone possessed the same temperament as Song Qingfeng; thus, as the night wore on, not a single coin changed hands.

Fang Qi could only let out a quiet sigh before sinking back into his seat to resume his play.

This bout lasted until the deep hours of the morning, well past three o'clock.

On the glowing screen, Chris collapsed onto the earth, drenched in crimson from countless wounds scoring his flesh.

Several of those gashes were deep enough to be deemed fatal.

Before him stood a Hunter, its own form hacked into a gruesome slurry of flesh and blood.

Yet, the Hunter remained standing.

"Son of a..."

The hour had grown exceptionally late, and half a day spent in continuous life-or-death struggles had taken a visible toll on Fang Qi's focus; he lacked Song Qingfeng’s luxury of simply pulling out the moment things went south.

To fully absorb and map out the Hunter’s predatory patterns, he refused to log off until the bitter, lethal end.

But looking at things now... continuing any further would likely yield no better harvest.

Upon exiting the game, Fang Qi felt an immense weariness wash over him; though he had remained motionless before the monitor, fighting monsters for a whole day had left both his body and spirit thoroughly exhausted.

It was clear he could never sustain this for twenty-four hours a day, so he promptly shuttered the storefront and headed upstairs to sleep.

...