Feng Bujue disconnected, opened the cabin, sat up and exhaled.
It was noon now, and sunlight was shining beautifully outside.
Feng Bujue lived alone in a rented room at the thirteenth floor, the highest floor of a building. His parents understood that they had no chance to take their POV in this novel; they had received the compensation from the author (San Tian Liang Jiao) angrily and passed away a few years ago, leaving our MC lonely here. Because I, the author, didn’t want to be bothered thinking about two other names for them, I had to let them go to Shangri-La right at the beginning of the story. Tsk tsk, this is what we call, “When you help people, you shouldn’t disclose your name.”
Feng Bujue glared at the clock, and he found out that he had just played the game for 15 minutes. In non-sleep mode, the ratio between the time in Thriller Paradise and the real time was one-half. In simple words, he had been in the game for thirty minutes. Besides, in sleep mode, the nervous connection was deeper, and thus, the ratio of time could be up to 1/10.
There’s a saying that reads, “There is no time in dreams.” If the players had played for the entire duration of their slumber, they could play for eighty hours non-stop. Of course, this meant they had been dreaming for eight hours continuously; they would surely have a headache when they get up the next morning. The manual said that players shouldn’t play for over four hours in sleep mode. Since Feng Bujue had read this, he memorized it all.
At this time, Feng Bujue got up from the cabin. It wasn’t that he needed to get some rest, but he and his friend had set up a date as they would play the game together.
Today was the first day that Dream Inc. had released the Closed Beta Version. The server had opened since 8:00 am, but his friend was busy at that time, so Feng Bujue had to wait for him then. He just wanted to go online for a while to get used to the game control. He didn’t want to upgrade his levels as it could create a gap between them.
The question here is, does Feng Bujue have nothing to do in the morning?
Yes, it’s true, he doesn’t have anything to do.
I’ve told you that he was a detective novel author, bet some of you still remember that. Does this kid, the author-sensei, have nothing to worry about even when he doesn’t do anything?
Apparently, nope.
Feng Bujue was not famous, but just somewhat known. His works were not bad, and each was qualified enough to be published. There was a publisher that was working with him though. He was one of those authors that weren’t rich but wouldn’t be starved.
He got two pages in a weekly magazine, where he posted an ongoing detective story. Every month, he had to submit the draft of the next month’s contents. If the quality wasn’t good enough, he still had time to re-write it. The deadline was always by the end of the month since the royalties would be settled at the end of the same month.
However, with this income, he could barely survive in S City. Thus, he had also written some series of detective novels, which would be published in the form of real books. After he had finished one book, he would have some savings, which could be considered as his small benefit.
But why doesn’t he have anything to do in the morning?
This was easy to explain. Feng Bujue described his life and the inspiration for his works as follows: ‘profuse inspiration, timely delivery, lavish delicacies, fine cakes, dry ideas, no words, plain soup, noodles then.’ Apparently, he was in his ‘dry ideas’ stage, where he couldn’t give birth to any words.
This dude was very adaptive. When he couldn’t write, what he forced himself to write was just crap. Thus, he just played for now, and he called it ‘collecting inspiration’.
Consequently, waiting for that dude Feng Bujue to submit his draft on time was practically a myth.
Whenever half of the month had passed by, the magazine’s editor would hold the dagger while riding on the horse to knock on his door. And, his landlady, one hand holding the Lutetium Gold Tang Phoenix Wings, the other hand holding his spare key, would open the door and slash him.
Every time that day came, Feng Bujue was well-prepared, arranging the formation, beating the battle drum, waiting for those two to fight for three hundred rounds with him. Then, under the sky that would be covered with black clouds, he would spit out only one sentence: ‘I don’t have money, I just have one sheet of draft!’
All right, I just blow up the story. Anyway, he was satisfied with his life.
Now, we’re going to talk about his friend. Birds of a feather flock together. So, how could it be impossible that Feng Bujue’s friend was Mr. Right? (1)
Yeah, he was indeed Mr. Right.
This guy was named Wang Tanzhi, Feng Bujue’s closest friend. In local sayings, they were bosom friends. They had been classmates since kindergarten until they had graduated from high school. Then, Wang Tan Zhi had enrolled to a medical school, while Feng Bujue became a lazy ass in this society.
How close their relationship was, we can describe in two ways, which are in supposition and reality.
First, we will talk about reality. Why did Wang Tanzhi choose medical school? It was because Feng Bujue had always wanted to follow Sherlock Holmes’ step, and Sherlock Holmes’ assistant is Doctor Watson. He was then determined to go to medical school.
Now, it turns to suppositions. If Wang Tanzhi were a girl, my novel would be changed drastically since Miss Wang possibly had probably given her virginity to Feng Bujue years ago.
From that supposition and with what are rolling in your mind, I have to add this, don’t worry, they are all males. Pretty straight ones.
Wang Tanzhi came from a rich family. How rich he was didn’t matter because it was enough for him to survive this life without working his butt off. He was handsome, a little bit taller than Feng Bujue. Well, 6 feet it is. He was a kind, humble, and tender guy, who was also a little bit soft-hearted, and didn’t want to bother others.
In short, it was hard to find his flaws. He totally contrasted with that old freak Feng Bujue. Wang Tanzhi was a homie that everybody would love, while Feng Bujue, in other people’s eyes, was always a couldn’t-give-a-damn type, moody, and even a young hoodlum.
However, life always has miracles. Those two people could still be the closest friends.
Noon had soon passed by. Feng Bujue had spent another hour to read information on the game’s website. Since he had completed the newbie tutorial, it was easier for him to read and understand the contents of the game now.
In the remaining time, he made noodles. It wasn’t because he loved noodles, but it was because he had bought instant noodles to save money to buy flour.
He was a freak indeed. He had calculated his food intake for each meal, as well as the minimum amount of food that he should eat to survive. Then he used his savings, which wasn’t much anyway, to buy the game’s cabin. The remaining amount was used to pay for the utilities and flour.
If you are saying that he was an economical person, yeah, he had used the money that was beyond his limits to buy a luxury item (the new model of his cabin was surely a rip-off). If you are saying that he was extravagant, he had never let himself starve.
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Soon, it was twilight. Feng Bujue had eaten a bowl of plain noodles as it was his dinner.
Wang Tanzhi had called to tell him that he had logged in the game and finished the newbie tutorial. He had gotten scared, sweating in fear. After he had logged out, he called Feng Bujue while trying to get himself together.
Feng Bujue thought, “I do admire you! What is cold sweat? It’s been several months since I last had that.”
After a few words, they exchanged nicknames, and they logged in.
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(1) 高富帥: Gao-Fu-Shuai, Internet slang, lit. tall, rich and handsome