Chapter 1 You're the Mysterious Merchant, This Round?

Lu Xiaoyao snapped out of her daze, watching Mingmei slowly nod. She felt like her whole world had turned upside down.

"Why?"

Lu Xiaoyao even wondered if she was dreaming. How could she dream that her best friend was the mysterious merchant?

"I don't know, maybe it's the game company's problem? After all, the start of this game doesn't seem very friendly, does it?"

Seeing that Lu Xiaoyao didn't seem to realize that she had always been the mysterious merchant, and instead asked if it was just for this round, Mingmei didn't say anything more.

Anyway, it was what it was. =.=

Blame it all on her uncle.

Hearing Mingmei's explanation, Lu Xiaoyao reluctantly accepted it. After all, it was true.

What did her role as a community cafeteria server have to do with a star pirate invasion or the Zerg destroying Planet Gu Lan?

Could she stir-fry the Zerg with a spatula, or knock the star pirates to death with a plate?

But with the mysterious merchant, it was different.

As everyone knew, the mysterious merchant's boxed lunches came with buffs.

And the fact that this game could "temporarily" assign players to sell boxed lunches showed how terrible the game was.

Lu Xiaoyao thought to herself, then personally accompanied Mingmei back to the insulated backpack.

This time, Mingmei watched as the backpack that Lu Xiaoyao had carelessly tossed on the ground was now treated like a treasure and held with both hands. Mingmei couldn't help but find the situation a bit comical.

The double standard was too obvious.

"Do you want to buy something?"

Taking the backpack from Lu Xiaoyao, Mingmei asked the same question she had asked last night. This time, Lu Xiaoyao agreed without hesitation.

"Buy! Of course, I'll buy! Why not?!" Seeing Lu Xiaoyao's indignant expression, Mingmei's lips twitched slightly before returning to normal.

However, Mingmei noticed that the game didn't seem to have as many restrictions as the military academy students. At least Lu Xiaoyao didn't have that six-hour countdown anymore.

But Mingmei focused on a setting related to NPCs, but not directly related to her—allowing NPCs to sell based on their favorability towards the player.

Before, her transactions had been too smooth, and she hadn't noticed.

If it hadn't been for Lu Xiaoyao's first refusal, and then the system prompt reminding Lu Xiaoyao to initiate a purchase request and whether to trade based on favorability the second time she bought something, Mingmei probably wouldn't have noticed this.

If she wasn't the mysterious merchant in this game, then that meant other players might encounter NPCs who were angry or in a bad mood and wouldn't sell boxed lunches?

Lu Xiaoyao successfully bought a boxed lunch from her in the end, and didn't pay attention to Mingmei's daze.

She had originally wanted to be frugal and buy Roujiamo (meat sandwiches) and water with a "science and technology" twist, but when she saw the bottled water in the high-quality Roujiamo set, she immediately decided to buy the expensive one!

She had to buy it just for that bottle of water!

"Did you meet any other players yesterday? Where's a good place to sell boxed lunches?"

Mingmei asked curiously while Lu Xiaoyao was eating her Roujiamo. She had entered the game last night, but from what Lu Xiaoyao said, they seemed to have entered earlier than her.

"I don't know. My character is just a community cafeteria server. Usually, I just serve food to the residents of the community. But yesterday, I saw some workers in overalls eating there too. I don't know what they do."

Lu Xiaoyao, who was eating the Roujiamo, almost cried. It was a world apart from the food she had brought back from the cafeteria last night. This was food fit for a human!

After finishing the entire Roujiamo, Lu Xiaoyao finally came back to her senses and answered Mingmei's question.

"I forgot to ask A'Chen what he does." A trace of annoyance flashed across Mingmei's face. She should have asked Mu Chen last night. Maybe she would have a place to set up her stall today.

At that moment, she stood in the lobby on the first floor of the apartment, looking at the heavy snowfall, then turned to look at Lu Xiaoyao, who was drinking water after finishing her Roujiamo.

"Do you still want to go to the community cafeteria with me?"

Seeing Mingmei looking at her, Lu Xiaoyao tentatively suggested, "Maybe we'll run into classmates there."

"Did you meet any yesterday?" Mingmei asked, and this time it was Lu Xiaoyao's turn to remain silent. She hadn't met anyone.

"I think I'll go somewhere else." Mingmei looked at the heavy snow and remembered the route she had taken back last night. It seemed like she had been standing at a bus stop?

Maybe she would know where to go next if she saw those street signs.

…

Mu Chen, whom Mingmei was thinking about, had woken up early in the morning and was already dressed and packed, sitting on the bus to their mission destination with his toolbox.

Wearing a mask and hat, Mu Chen concealed himself tightly and sat in the last row. He stared blankly at the white expanse outside the window of the modified bus, which was adapted for the heavy snow, but his ears were constantly gathering information from the surroundings.

"What's going on? Why are there so many people for this circuit repair?"

"Isn't there a special team for the army's power supply problems? Why are so many people being transferred from the city this time? How big of a problem is it?"

"How would I know? But did you see that many of the people who came this time are power grid maintenance personnel? I think this isn't so simple."

"Shhh, keep it down. Didn't you see that besides us, there are several people from the city government's cybersecurity department sitting in the front of the bus?"

Hearing the whispers, Mu Chen opened his eyes, looked at the people sitting at the front of the bus, and then at his backpack. Unfortunately, he was in charge of cybersecurity.

"What the hell? You're saying the army needs the government's help with network signals? That's nonsense!"

"Exactly. If they can't solve it themselves, who outside can solve it? It might involve some secrets. They might not come back~"

"Tch, it's good if they don't come back. Isn't the treatment there better than outside?"

The few people chattered away, and more people joined the conversation. Although most of the talk was pointless, Mu Chen still managed to glean some useful information.

The history of Planet Hua Lan regarding Planet Gu Lan mentioned that in the later stages, water resources were polluted. Countries distrusted each other to vie for the limited resources, and did a lot of things in secret to hinder each other even though they appeared to be amicable on the surface.

Such network attacks were also the most common.

If Mu Chen didn't know that star pirates were going to invade Planet Gu Lan in a month, he might not have thought there was anything wrong with this.

However, historical records about Planet Gu Lan mentioned that star pirates had been eyeing Planet Gu Lan long ago.

They first infiltrated the entire planet's network and did a value assessment of everything on Planet Gu Lan.

Then, they destroyed all the signal satellites around Planet Gu Lan to ensure that no news would be sent out when they did bad things.

At this time, the star pirates might have already begun their plan.

Mu Chen thought to himself, even if he found out, how could he warn them?

At this time, Planet Gu Lan's exploration of outer space was still based on pure imagination of aliens.

…

Regarding this issue, Qi Hai Kui and Li Yuan, who had transmigrated into the astronomical observatory this time, also met privately. They didn't know as much detail about the history of Planet Gu Lan as Mu Chen did, but because of the game they had played before, they had also studied some of the history of Planet Gu Lan.

They also knew about Planet Gu Lan being invaded by star pirates first, and then destroyed by the Zerg.

They didn't know much about the history of fighting for water, but they also knew that it seemed to have been going on for many years before the star pirate invasion?

"I'm saying, aren't these star pirates about to show up?"

The two, who had just finished their night shift, were eating breakfast in the employee cafeteria. Although the color of the drinking water here was indeed a bit unappetizing, they couldn't really taste how bad it was in the porridge mixed with millet and rice.

After entering the game yesterday, the two were reserved at first and didn't drink water or eat. After this night, a bowl of mixed grain porridge was like a godsend.

After drinking several bowls in a row, the two took advantage of the time to calculate the time until the star pirate invasion in the game.

"Otherwise, we wouldn't have entered the game if it wasn't soon..."

After finishing the third bowl of mixed grain porridge, Qi Hai Kui let out a long sigh, "But, according to the technology at this time, what's the use of even if we warn them?"

"Not warning them? Are we just going to wait for death?" Li Yuan glared at Qi Hai Kui, "Of Planet Gu Lan's four billion people, how many survived in space and were able to start over? Only three hundred thousand.

If we don't act, who knows if we'll end up as one of the thirty-nine billion nine hundred ninety-nine thousand seven hundred and forty-one who disappeared, or one of the three hundred thousand who survived in the end?!"

"I know everything you said, but still, how do we warn them? Planet Gu Lan's technology at this time can't reach the level of interstellar travel at all. Even if you say you observed that there seem to be aliens in outer space, so what? Do you think anyone will care about aliens with Planet Gu Lan in such a scattered state?"

Qi Hai Kui also wanted to save themselves, but the situation was too outrageous!

Regarding the matter of dealing with aliens, Hu Yue, who had transmigrated into one of the air force fighter pilots, was of course also pondering this matter.

During training, when she asked her colleagues about the combat effectiveness of fighter jets, everyone's answers were surprisingly consistent.

"Of course, they're used to defend our territory and protect our country. Anyone who dares to steal our country's things will have their claws broken!"

"Huh? Aliens? Fighting aliens? Are you kidding?"

"Oh, if you want to fight, you can. Wait until the aliens come."

Having not heard any useful information, Hu Yue sighed deeply, and finally couldn't help but lament:

"Our fighter jets really can't beat aliens, can they?"

"What? We have to fight even if we can't beat them!" A comrade-in-arms, attracted by Hu Yue's suddenly pessimistic sigh, looked at her, "You girl, instead of thinking about proper matters, you're thinking about useless things. It's one thing for you to be useless, but you're not even thinking about good things."

Saying that, the comrade patted Hu Yue on the shoulder and said with firm eyes: "Whether it's aliens or people from any country, as long as they are enemies, they are our targets! Whether we can beat them or not is not our problem. We just need to fight, understand?"

Hu Yue raised her head and looked at the NPC with a slight change in her eyes.

Was this the ancestor of the people of Planet Hua Lan?