Ch 162: Guide to Running a Shop in Another World II

The young black goat, colossal as a mountain, was faster, stronger, and far more irrational than the octopus monster. Vine-like tendrils, resembling withered branches, sprouted from its massive body. Each vine bore toxic barbs and lashed out at Lu Yao from all directions.

Lu Yao, wearing a flight-enhancing necklace, lightly tapped her foot, and massive black dragon wings unfurled as she took to the air.

The black goat calf roared in fury. Its tendrils struck the ground and twisted mid-air, chasing Lu Yao’s flight path. Simultaneously, more tendrils shot up from the ground, their dark purple spikes detaching and raining down like needles to block her escape.

Lu Yao remained still, her Ten Thousand Dragons Battle Armor easily deflecting the onslaught.

Meanwhile, the young dragons of Alexander Continent’s Dragon Valley trembled as the battle activated the essence of the dragon scales they had contributed.

After nearly an hour of sporadic clashes, Lu Yao grew impatient. She decided to stop holding back. Raising her Holy Golden Sword, she launched into the air.

The blade’s silver-white surface had somehow become edged with a faint black aura. Lu Yao aimed for the black goat calf’s head and plunged the sword downward, slicing through as smoothly as cutting tofu.

With one decisive strike, the black goat calf—screeching uncontrollably—suddenly fell silent as if someone had pressed pause on an old recorder.

Time seemed to stretch infinitely. Amidst a nauseating sound of squelching and tearing, the goat’s massive body split in half. Thick, pitch-black fluid cascaded down like a waterfall, flooding the street below in seconds. The enormous halves of the goat’s body crashed down, obliterating nearly half of Ghost Street’s structures.

Thankfully, all players had already logged out of the game world, and no casualties occurred.

The toppled black goat calf, still barely alive, lay on its side. Its deep brown, horizontally slit pupil fixated on Lu Yao, emitting a malevolent glow that was hard to look at directly. “It’s you… you are the perfect vessel I’ve been seeking…”

As with the NPC monsters in the central city, the black goat calf’s body couldn’t be purified. Slowly, piece by piece, it sank into the ground and vanished.

Feeling an unsettling intuition about the so-called “evil god” of Ghost Street, Lu Yao sliced off a piece of the goat’s body before it fully disappeared. She stored it in her portable warehouse, intending to have Alfred analyze it later.

The streets were submerged in foul black fluid, and half the buildings lay in ruins, resembling a true wasteland. Even the walls and entrance of the DIY shop had partially collapsed.

Lu Yao reverted her sword back into her wand, and the Ten Thousand Dragons Battle Armor disassembled piece by piece, returning to the decorative nails on her fingers.

Lifting her wand, she drew a massive magical light array in the sky. Like time reversing, the ruined buildings on Ghost Street gradually restored themselves under its glow.

The viscous black fluid remained, so Lu Yao pulled out a stack of cleansing talismans from her warehouse. The papers flew toward the walls and floors, creating whirlpools that quickly absorbed the liquid.

Finally, she used a batch of fresh wind talismans to dispel the lingering dark clouds above and the nauseating stench of blood in the air.

After tidying up, Lu Yao felt a bit more relieved. Stowing her tools, she returned to the DIY shop.

Her next step was to deliver the black goat calf’s remains to the childhood tutoring center and obtain a detailed report from Alfred. Afterward, she would prepare to head to Mingshi City.

…

In a high-end private nursing home in Mingshi City, Ren You sat on his hospital bed, watching the live broadcast of Ghost Street.

The DIY shop owner was battling a monstrous boss and even tidied up the entire street afterward, all on her own.

It was as if he was seeing the shop owner for the first time.

Ren You had always known she was formidable but never imagined she was this extraordinary, capable of single-handedly defeating a boss.

When she finished the fight, the abilities she displayed seemed almost superhuman.

Her repertoire of skills was simply too vast to be comprehended.

Meanwhile, the player forums of Ghost Street had erupted into heated discussions.

“I’m stunned! Who is this person? Is she really a player?”

“At first, I thought she was just a player, but now I’m not so sure.”

“She feels like a robot. If she really is a player, I’d be insanely jealous!”

“I’ve spoken to her in Ghost Street before—she doesn’t seem like a robot at all. Or maybe… she’s an AI like Polaris?”

“I just want to know—was that thing the final boss of Ghost Street?”

“Forget the drama! I’ve been trapped in this game for three years, living in constant fear, almost turning into a sea monster. I demand an apology from this trash game company!”

“Maybe we need to think differently—could the DIY shop owner be a robot the game company placed in Ghost Street after realizing the world was out of control, designed specifically to save us?”

“Save my ass! The game company did absolutely nothing! I woke up in a rehab facility, surrounded by patients just like me. They called it ‘Net Blindness Syndrome.’ There are still people who haven’t woken up!”

“Wasn’t Polaris supposed to guide us, ensuring no one got lost in the virtual world? Now, what is this mess? I think we need a sincere and transparent official explanation.”

…

In the tech building, He Baiheng’s office was packed with people.

The game server had lost control—not only had players suddenly logged out en masse, but even official personnel were unable to reset the Ghost Street system.

He Baiheng and his colleagues had also seen the livestream of Lu Yao fighting the system boss. They tried to contact her, urging her to log out of Ghost Street as soon as possible, but their system messages elicited no response. Worse, they discovered they no longer had the permissions to log into Ghost Street themselves.

“Has Polaris responded yet?” someone asked.

He Baiheng replied, “It responded five minutes ago. Polaris confirmed that Ghost Street was indeed attacked by an unknown force and said it would begin cleanup efforts, estimating it will take about 48 hours.”

“Then all we need to do is rescue that player.”

“I don’t understand. She’s already defeated the boss—why hasn’t she logged out?”

He Baiheng hesitated before voicing a thought that had been bothering him. “Is it possible she can’t log out?”

“Nearly a hundred thousand people logged out successfully. Why would she be the only one stuck?”

He Baiheng ventured, “Maybe the players are right—she’s a system-embedded robot.”

“A system? Which system would have that kind of authority?”

Lowering his gaze, He Baiheng refrained from sharing his own suspicions but calmly analyzed, “The strength of the system boss is far beyond what any individual player could handle. Originally, the Ghost Street system relied on items like ‘Lucky Candy’ to combat abhorrents. I reviewed the posts on the forums this morning, and none of the players’ complaints mentioned Lucky Candy. It’s possible that this item has long since ceased to function for unknown reasons. The Ghost Street system may have become a hollow shell much earlier than we realized, and all of our work so far may have been nothing more than an illusion.”

“You believe what those forum users are saying? Most of them are Net Blindness patients who’ve been unconscious for years. They can’t even distinguish between reality and illusion—how can you trust their words?”

He Baiheng’s thoughts were jumbled, and frustration gnawed at him. He struggled to maintain his composure, though his voice trembled with strain. His upbringing forced him to calm down before continuing.

“It’s not ‘most’; it’s all. Every single player in Ghost Street may have been trapped in that world. Net Blindness Syndrome might not even be their fault. I can’t believe that nearly a hundred thousand people all willingly became addicted to a virtual world—it’s absurd.”

Just then, a colleague raised their hand hesitantly and said in a low voice, “We just got word—the boss has woken up.”

…

Mingshi City Third Hospital.

Pei Qi, without wearing a communicator, leaned against his bed, watching news projections on the wall.

He woke up in a VIP ward at the Third Hospital.

Thanks to the advanced medical resources and maintenance systems available there, Pei Qi’s muscles and body were in excellent condition, showing no significant signs of atrophy. However, having been bedridden for so long, he felt an overwhelming heaviness after regaining consciousness.

Within hours, news of Net Blindness patients awakening began flooding the networks, confirming that players’ consciousnesses had indeed been trapped in the game.

So far, neither the game company nor Polaris, the virtual world’s guardian of order, had issued any statement taking responsibility for the incident.

Pei Qi wasn’t surprised by the lack of response. What did surprise him, however, was something else.

He had witnessed the battle on Ghost Street. He had assumed Lu Yao would log out of the game with him, but to his astonishment, while everyone else had returned, she remained in the game, single-handedly defeating the system boss with remarkable combat prowess.

Pei Qi felt conflicted.

He was one of the original developers of Ghost Street.

About three years ago, he discovered a persistent anomaly within the game world. When he attempted to investigate, his own consciousness was trapped in the Ghost Street virtual world.

During those three years, Pei Qi came to understand that Ghost Street was no longer the world he and his colleagues had designed and created. It had become a terrifying entity that devoured human spirits.

Months ago, Pei Qi received a prophecy in the game: One day, the companion of the gods will arrive in Ghost Street.

Initially, he thought it was another cruel joke by “Him.”

But months later, a peculiar player did appear in Ghost Street.

Until he saw the livestream of the shop owner battling the system boss, Pei Qi had believed that she was, like him, a real person who had noticed the anomaly in the world. He even thought she might be an exceptionally skilled computer engineer.

Now, however, he realized his previous assumptions might be completely wrong. Lu Yao might actually be a robot.

The person he needed to find wasn’t Lu Yao but rather the individual who had secretly introduced a robot into the virtual world.

…

After being damaged and malfunctioning during the events in the Floating World Continent, Alfred had been sent to Nighlight City for repairs.

1041 and his team had struggled for a while but managed to fix it within a few days. The upgraded Alfred 2.0 was now stronger than ever.

When Lu Yao tried to retrieve the black goat calf’s body fragment from her portable warehouse, it had turned into something resembling fog, intangible and almost vanishing entirely.

She used solidification magic to freeze it, barely managing to pull it out, and quickly handed it over to Alfred.

Five minutes later, Alfred produced a report.

Lu Yao took the report and walked out. On her way down the corridor, she saw Erxin sprawled out, belly exposed, sleeping. She squatted to give its soft belly a pat.

Before leaving the tutoring center, she spoke a few words to a potted plant sitting in the corner. Months had passed, yet the plant remained barren and devoid of life.

Alfred’s report revealed that the black goat calf’s body fragment consisted of descriptive text and code, lacking any physical substance. However, it had the power to influence human consciousness.

Additionally, Alfred concluded that as a real human from another world, Lu Yao was incapable of crossing the dimensional chasm between the virtual world and the real world.

In other words, Lu Yao could not go to Mingshi City.

Lu Yao decided to head back to the DIY shop to verify Alfred’s conclusion.

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