Ch 163: Guide to Running a Shop in Another World II

Lu Yao left the Childhood Tutoring Center, unaware that a chubby “gas tank” with its tail raised was following behind her.

Returning to the DIY shop alone, she opened the built-in Ghost Street system interface. At the bottom of the page, the logout button was indeed visible. She tapped it but got no response.

She tried several times, both by touch and voice commands, but nothing worked. The logout button was technically selectable—when tapped, its color darkened slightly—but beyond that, there was no further reaction.

According to Alfred’s analysis, the Ghost Street system itself was not malfunctioning. However, Lu Yao’s existence was too unique, and the system couldn’t complete a real human’s transfer.

Unable to go to Mingshi City and with all the other players logged out—including the defeat of the final boss—Lu Yao found herself as the last “living” person on Ghost Street. The eerie solitude weighed heavily on her.

Pulling a chair to sit by the shop entrance, she began contemplating how to find the system again.

Suddenly, a soft warmth pressed against her legs, accompanied by the sound of purring like a little motorbike.

Lu Yao looked down.

Erxin had her tail raised high, rubbing her head affectionately against Lu Yao’s pants. Her round face and large eyes were unbearably cute.

Surprised, Lu Yao bent down to pick her up, preparing to return the “big gas tank” to the Childhood Tutoring Center. “How did you get here? Followed me, huh?”

“Meow.” Erxin nuzzled against Lu Yao’s neck, purring happily.

Having neglected its weight control for months, Erxin had become a solid little pig-cat. Lifting it abruptly, Lu Yao almost lost her grip. She shifted her hold, trying to steady the hefty form.

At the spot where Erxin had just been lying, several silver wristbands were scattered on the ground. Lu Yao found this odd—those hadn’t been there when she returned.

Crouching, she picked one up. It was an already activated Ghost bracelet.

How had a customer’s bracelet ended up back at the shop?

Erxin hopped down from her arms with a quick push of the stubby legs. Picking up one of the bracelets in her mouth, it began heading toward the operations classroom, glancing back at Lu Yao as if urging her to follow.

Gathering the remaining bracelets, Lu Yao stood and followed the little fat cat.

The two arrived at the staff break room, where Ghost bracelets were scattered everywhere.

Lu Yao picked up a few to examine. They were all bracelets previously sold to customers.

Although the Ghost bracelets were physical objects, players couldn’t take them out of the game when logging out, leaving them behind in the Ghost Street world.

After the bracelets were officially launched at the DIY shop, some staff and customers had expressed concerns about losing them. To address this, Lu Yao had enchanted them with a “Never Lost” spell, which customers could upgrade for free.

Thanks to the enchantment, if a bracelet was misplaced, it would find its way back to the shop within four hours. With players now logged out, the abandoned bracelets, guided by Lu Yao’s spell, had returned to the DIY shop in search of their owners.

Over the course of sales, thousands of bracelets had been sold. Now, they were all piled up in the break room.

Lu Yao fetched an empty storage box and began collecting them. She surmised that Ghost Street’s players wouldn’t return, rendering the bracelets she had painstakingly developed essentially useless. With little motivation to deal with them now, she decided to pack them up and store them in the warehouse.

Midway through her tidying, an idea struck her: some bracelets might have made it to Mingshi City.

A few customers had once commissioned her to create storage rings. These rings functioned on the same principle as Xiao Ji’s ring but were lower-spec versions due to their relatively modest price of just over 800 Ghost Coins.

Since the Ghost bracelets were about to be launched, Lu Yao considered their storage function overlapping with the custom storage rings. As compensation, she used empty illusion rings as a medium for storage space and added a bit of passive enhancement.

Due to the unique nature of illusion rings, the storage rings customized by customers could be taken into the real world.

The Ghost bracelets of the customers who owned those rings likely ended up being stored in their rings upon logging out.

Lu Yao decided that checking with the store’s staff on whether those bracelets were still in the DIY shop would confirm her suspicions.

Carrying Erxin, who was sprawled on the couch licking its fur, she returned to the shopping street, dropped the chubby cat off at the Childhood Tutoring Center, and headed to the main server room to investigate the status of the bracelets.

Zhang Shu tensed up upon seeing Lu Yao. “Did something happen at the shop? Ninety-nine percent of the Ghost bracelets are in sleep mode.”

Lu Yao replied, “All the players have logged out of Ghost Street.”

He Bi asked, “So suddenly?”

Lu Yao explained, “The logout mechanism hidden in the game was discovered by a colleague at the shop, making it simple to log out. The bracelets, being tangible items, couldn’t be taken out of the game, so they’ve all returned to the shop and entered sleep mode. However, I suspect a few have been taken away. Can you check?”

Zhang Shu quickly conducted a search and confirmed, “There are indeed five bracelets missing from Ghost Street. The system can’t locate them; their status is unknown.”

Lu Yao nodded. “Got it.”

With confirmation that a few bracelets were no longer in Ghost Street, she could be sure they had followed the storage rings into Mingshi City.

After Lu Yao left, the staff in the main server room exchanged concerns.

Song Qingshan cradled his head, distressed. “All the players logged out in one morning—does this mean I’m about to lose my job again?”

He Bi tried to reassure him. “Relax, bro. They’ve only temporarily logged out. It doesn’t mean they won’t come back.”

Song Qingshan retorted, “Would you go back to a game where you were trapped for years, constantly facing life-threatening dangers, and only just managed to escape?”

Realizing the gravity of the situation, He Bi’s expression turned serious. “We’ve just become permanent staff—are we about to be laid off?”

Zhang Shu, equally anxious, chimed in, “No, please! The location might be out of the way, but the boss doesn’t micromanage, the lunchboxes are tasty, and we often get staff perks. I don’t want to change jobs so soon.”

…

Lu Yao was unaware of her staff’s worries. Back at the DIY shop, she retrieved the Regulation Rod.

Since most Ghost bracelet users were linked to her consciousness, the bracelets served as a medium. She decided to use an unconventional method to contact those customers.

…

Mingshi City, E60 District

The hospital had contacted the family earlier: Granny Xu had awakened. Song Wen’s parents had already left for the hospital.

Sitting alone in the living room, Song Wen watched news reports projected on the wall. They were all about the sudden mass awakening of “net-blindness” patients and the flood of Ghost Street players demanding accountability on the game’s official channels and forums.

He stared blankly at the news. Many players had been trapped in the virtual game world for years. Upon waking, their bodies exhibited varying degrees of damage or degeneration, leaving them physically impaired. For various real-world reasons, discussions and debates about net-blindness and virtual worlds raged only online.

When trapped in Ghost Street, Song Wen had thought that if he could escape with his grandmother, he would never ask for anything more.

But after finally returning to the real world, not only had no one realized their plight, but they were also labeled as “net-blindness” patients. Society crudely lumped all the players trapped in the game as escapists addicted to the virtual world.

Having been unconscious for so long, Song Wen’s body couldn’t yet handle solid food, so he had to rely on liquid nutrition to stave off hunger.

Perhaps it was because he had just awakened, or maybe it was the chaotic state of the world. Seeing how much his parents had aged over the years, worn out from caring for him and his grandmother, the fleeting joy of escaping Ghost Street was quickly overshadowed by the cold and absurd reality.

Song Wen lay back on the sofa, exhausted, and closed his eyes, his thoughts a chaotic mess.

Reality was just as awful as the virtual world.

Suddenly, a faint tingling sensation pricked his fingertips. He ignored it.

But after a few seconds, a sharp pain shot through his knuckle. Irritated, Song Wen opened his eyes and froze at the sight of the silver ring on his left index finger. His brows furrowed.

This was… the storage ring he had bought from the DIY shop?

Could virtual items be brought into the real world?

He had never heard of such a thing.

Even in Mingshi City, with its advanced technology and the guidance of Polaris, where over 90% of people had experienced immersion in fully sensory virtual spaces, including taste and smell through specialized communicators, there was no technology capable of transferring items from the virtual to the real world.

Unless… this ring was a real object to begin with.

Song Wen thought of the speculation online about the shop owner’s identity. Staring at the ring on his finger, an inexplicable fear crept into his heart.

Come to think of it, when he first woke up, that strange voice in his head mentioned he had a ring.

At the time, still groggy from waking, he hadn’t paid attention. Now, recalling it gave him an eerie feeling.

Why had that strange voice appeared in his mind?

Before he woke, it seemed to be repeatedly calling for Lu Yao.

Was the “Lu Yao” it sought the same Lu Yao he knew?

Song Wen raised his hand, struggling to remove the ring. He held it up to his eyes, his face pale.

The mark engraved on the inside of the ring was unmistakable—it was the very symbol he was all too familiar with.

As Song Wen focused, a storage panel materialized in front of him, revealing a silver bracelet in the first slot.

The silver bracelet had a small blue dot on its inner side that blinked rhythmically. Song Wen blinked hard, but the panel and flashing light didn’t disappear. Resigned, he pulled the Ghost bracelet out of the storage ring.

The moment the bracelet appeared, it was as if an object from a 2D world had breached the dimensional barrier and entered the 3D realm.

The bracelet was sleek and smooth, gleaming silver. It felt heavy and cold in his hand—definitely not a virtual item.

The blinking blue dot was precisely at the center of the “遥” (Yao) mark on the bracelet’s interior. Song Wen’s bracelet was an early version that he had later upgraded at the shop. He remembered Lu Yao specifically explaining the button to him during the upgrade.

He put the bracelet on, fumbling to press the tiny dot inside it with a finger.

A soft mechanical click sounded, and the bracelet transformed into a watch.

The watch’s face lit up as a small screen displayed an incoming video call request.

Caller: Lu Yao.

Song Wen stared at the screen, motionless.

After more than ten seconds, the call automatically connected.

Lu Yao’s face appeared on the small screen. “Hello, Song Wen. This is Lu Yao, the owner of DIY Small Workshop at Ghost Street, No. 13.”

Song Wen frowned. “…I didn’t accept this call.”

Lu Yao apologized, her tone calm. “The situation is urgent. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

On the screen, Lu Yao’s expression was livelier than it had been in the game. Her voice, however, was exactly the same.

Though still wary, Song Wen found himself inexplicably calmed by her familiar face and voice. “Where are you?”

Lu Yao didn’t hide the truth. “Ghost Street.”

Song Wen exhaled slowly. “Why haven’t you logged out of the game? Who are you? And why are the bracelet and ring you gave me so… strange?”

Lu Yao smiled faintly. “Those are minor details. I’ll explain them thoroughly when we have more time. For now, I need your help with something.”

🛍️🛍️🛍️🛍️🛍️