Evening.
Chu Tian pushed open the villa door.
The familiar scent brought a special sense of peace to his heart.
But the thought of Luo Luo no longer being here suddenly brought a sense of loss.
He went up to the second floor, Luo Luo's bedroom door was open.
Chu Tian stood at her doorway, recalling the scenes from this period.
Before his rebirth, Luo Luo had hidden her identity and accompanied him for four years in the game with the character 'Yi Yi'.
On the first day of his return after rebirth, he had impolitely knocked on her door in the rented apartment where he first saw Luo Luo.
His sole purpose was to ask for the time.
Later, when he couldn't enter the game due to lacking a helmet, Luo Luo provided timely assistance, coming to give him a gift.
The gift was exactly the virtual helmet he needed most.
Later, he learned of Luo Luo's true identity and recalled a thrilling childhood memory.
As well as their subsequent separation.
Moving into this villa, and all the little things of living together.
Suddenly, Chu Tian realized that Luo Luo was indispensable in his life.
Although they had a long and affectionate conversation this morning, Chu Tian sensed that Luo Luo was hiding something from him.
He didn't ask what it was, and she didn't tell.
Chu Tian trusted her completely, believing that Luo Luo had her reasons for keeping things from him.
During the day, with Gao Kai and the other two accompanying him, he had been too distracted to think about it.
Now, alone in this large villa, in the quiet stillness, a heavy stone seemed to be pressing on his chest, making it difficult to breathe.
He checked the time; it was 5:40 PM, with twenty minutes until Tiandao opened.
He hadn't entered the game in a long time. Chu Tian took a deep breath and went to the bathroom.
After washing up, it was exactly 6 PM. Chu Tian, naked, slipped into the game pod.
Since he was alone now, he didn't care.
As soon as he entered the game, he saw the system notification that his offline experience bonus had accumulated to double.
In Shengjing City, people came and went.
It was currently the peak login period, and players were constantly appearing around him.
After logging in, Chu Tian felt as if a lifetime had passed.
[Ding... Your friend 'Shang Da Hao Mei Dai Zhi' has sent you a video call invitation.]
Just as he was about to head to the city center to check on his shop, Mo Shi sent him a video call.
Upon answering, the other party's somewhat anxious face appeared on the screen.
"Boss... sob... you're finally online!" Mo Shi cried out as soon as Chu Tian connected.
This left Chu Tian stunned. He asked, "What's wrong? Tell me slowly!"
"Sob... Boss, hurry and give me money, or I'll be beaten to death... sob..."
"Wait a moment, I'll be there at the shop to find you." Chu Tian saw that he couldn't explain it clearly on the video.
He closed the video and quickly ran towards the city center plaza.
From a distance, he saw 'Shang Da Hao Mei Dai Zhi' standing at the entrance of 'Sha You Gong Cheng Dian' looking out.
"Boss..." He saw Chu Tian from afar and rushed over.
Chu Tian saw from a distance that the business of 'Sha You Gong Cheng Dian' and 'Sha You Da Yao Dian' was extremely popular.
Crowds of people were coming and going, with a large flow of customers.
"You've managed this shop quite well!" Chu Tian had initially thought that their development would have lagged behind after his eleven-day absence.
"Boss, if you hadn't returned, the shop would have been unable to continue operating!" he said, following Chu Tian into 'Sha You Gong Cheng Dian'.
Chu Tian casually opened the shop's transaction records.
The shop's cash deposit was a substantial 3,400 gold coins, which surprised Chu Tian, as the income was so high.
"With so much profit, how could it be unable to continue operating?" Chu Tian asked in surprise.
"Turn forward, to the day after you went offline," Shang Da Hao Mei Dai Zhi said.
Curiously, Chu Tian adjusted the date to check.
Upon seeing it, he understood what had happened. The operating funds Chu Tian had left in the shop were only thirty gold coins.
He hadn't thought much about it at the time, just depositing them casually.
In the beginning, with few customers, it was quite sufficient.
Later, as the customer flow increased daily, the profit from selling items and the expenditure for purchasing materials daily could maintain a balance.
However, on the second day after Chu Tian went offline, Qi Xi delivered two blueprints and three recipes to the shop, which were intermediate bullet and arrow crafting blueprints.
The recipes were intermediate blueprints for apothecaries: Intermediate Slow Health Recovery, Intermediate Instant Health Recovery, and Intermediate Slow Mana Recovery.
Shang Da Hao Mei Dai Zhi immediately appraised the blueprints and found people willing to sign contract agreements to learn and craft them.
After crafting, they were put up for sale directly in the shop. This was excellent, and the system recognized the items listed in the player's shop.
Concurrently, these items were removed from the system shop.
Consequently, 'Sha You Gong Cheng Dian' and 'Da Yao Fang' became the only shops in all of Shengjing City selling intermediate bullets, arrows, and intermediate potions.
The prices were much cheaper than the system shop.
This immediately made the two 'Sha You' chain stores incredibly popular.
However, a problem arose for Mo Shi: the funds Chu Tian had left in the shop were insufficient, and the daily automatic material purchases by the shop were limited.
This resulted in limited production, and the items, once listed, were always in short supply.
Among players, scalping also emerged. Other shops that could only produce intermediate items began spreading rumors and slandering the 'Sha You' shops.
They accused them of artificial scarcity, monopolizing the market, and price gouging, among other things.
Seeing that this wouldn't work, he went to Qi Xi for help. After discussing it, Qi Xi withdrew two thousand gold from the 'Ni Shen Meng' guild warehouse and gave it to him.
It wasn't that she didn't want to give more; it was just that 'Ni Shen Meng' also had its difficulties. The guild warehouse only had a deposit of five thousand gold, and the guild had to support ten thousand people.
Daily income and expenditure were just reaching a balance.
In fact, 'Ni Shen Meng' was already doing quite well; most guilds were spending more than they earned.
At this early stage of the game, guilds had few revenue streams.
'Ni Shen Meng's' ability to maintain this operational state was also due to previous battles.
This ensured that their guild warehouse was not lacking in equipment that could be exchanged.
Otherwise, they would have to spend a large amount of gold to purchase equipment to provide for guild members' exchanges.
After returning, Mo Shi deposited five hundred gold into the engineering shop and fifteen hundred gold into the pharmacy. After injecting the two thousand gold,
although there was some relief, the supply was still insufficient. Every day after the server opened, they could barely operate for more than an hour, producing and purchasing simultaneously.
Life players generally sold materials in the morning and didn't return for the day, only coming back the next day, or even saving up for several days before selling.
The current inventory of gold in the shop was over 3,400, but that was because they hadn't started purchasing materials yet.
Chu Tian checked the material inventory and, indeed, there were very few left, and even the listed goods were scarce.
Several engineers were idle in the workshop on the second floor.
Listening to his explanation, Chu Tian calculated that the initial funds here were only over thirty gold, plus the five hundred gold he later deposited.
After operating for so many days, the daily profit was around 250 gold.
Upon calculating this, he inwardly exclaimed, this engineering shop alone had a daily income equivalent to one million Renminbi.
This made him extremely excited. This was just the income from the engineering shop; according to him, the pharmacy's daily income was even greater.
However, Mo Shi's next words extinguished his fantasies.