Chapter 167

Chapter 167: Intermission (36)

Translator: Sigma Editor: Sigma

After a short talk with Long-Ge, Feng Bujue went offline . Anyway, momentarily, as he couldn't join any team, he should log out and prepare dinner . After playing one Killing Game 2 vs . 2 and one unfinished Multiplayer Survival Mode game, it was dinner time already . Although he called it dinner, it was just noodles .

According to his editor, the payment for the TV gameshow would be transferred to him within ‘a few days . ’ Anyway, he had no clue which day among ‘a few days’ was that one day .

Thus, currently, every time he was about to prepare a meal, he would instinctively check his computer to see whether the money in his debit card had been increased or not . If he had some, he would definitely order food online .

Apparently, this time when he checked his account, there was… still nothing .

We should clarify a bit here . Feng Bujue didn’t have a credit card . In his era, using credit card had become more troublesome . Early in the twenty-first century, credit card related cases had taken account of more than 80% of the economic fraud, among which 90% came from making use of ATM's functions . Even if it was the era of controlling the nationwide network IDs after the birth of the third generation optical computers, still, this ratio wasn’t reduced significantly .

Under the given circumstances that the functions of ATM couldn't be changed or replaced, (the Government) could only issue laws related to using credit cards to create certain restrictions . Although they couldn't finish all the fraud associated with credit cards, strict management still brought some degrees of effects .

Using polite words to address the class of citizens like Feng Bujue, they were writers . In ugly words, they were vagrants . In some other descriptions, they were free-lance writers .

They had to buy medical insurance and pay pension on their owns . And, regarding the purchase of a house… ha, ha .

Citizens like him could only apply for credit card with the extraordinary low limit . Moreover, one person couldn't apply for more than three cards . With his personality, apparently, Feng Bujue had no interest in doing so .

If he really had something urgent that required thousands of RMB to buy some apples or melons, he could just borrow from someone .

Half of the ones who work as a novelist are poor . The number of rich ones can be counted up with the fingers of one’s hands . In fact, many people can’t be as well as Feng Bujue . At least, he could be lazy and still make ends meet . Don't know how many young people out there holding the dream of making a great literary work will be starving the next month if they skip writing for one day . They have to bear the despising looks from their family and friends as they know that they are talented but it's just their time hasn’t come yet . Their enthusiasm in writing gradually becomes a habit of collecting enough required words . To the other authors, their attitude shift from admiration to jealousy and hatred . Day by day, they are writing with an impetuous mind… When they finally realize that they have been walking on the wrong path, their youth has been wasted already…

In this immense society, the ones who decided to follow his writing career couldn't help but bow to some business rules and compromises . This is how this world runs, no matter what profession it is, struggling is necessary . Even if they can achieve a particular success, usually, they just earn enough to not worry about food or clothing . Big success belongs only to a tiny group and the ones who don't successfully struggle or didn't struggle will be starving to death . Moreover, they will die in humiliation . Because, nowadays, no one sympathizes with losers .

Writing novels but must consider the real life . Money has become the first criterion that the society uses to assess a man . No need to tell whether he is a parvenu, the second-rich-generation or a corrupted officer, even if he is a dissolute person, and everyone knows that his money comes from fraudulent sources, or he is a morbidly lunatic, as long as he hasn't been jailed yet, there are still people who want to stick their hot faces onto his cold butt . (Idiom . one’s exciting while the other’s indifferent – TL)

They always talk about the poor living in the middle of the city but no one cares to pay a visit; the rich, even if they live in the mountainous area, brothers will still come to them . No matter what era we are, this principle will not change .

Just like the vast majority of saplings of the middle-class in this age, Feng Bujue felt he was born in the wrong epoch . Taking a little turn backward, at the time of the Republic of China, it should be the right place for people like him . Or, fast-forward it a little bit in the future, in which besides the brain, human's body were all replaced by machinery . Then he could just drink two liters of machine oil to survive half of a year . This would be where he could enjoy a bit of the sweetness of equality and harmony .

Unfortunately, he was living in the twenty-first century, which was like living in the threshold . If you use lines in movies to describe it, it will be, "The adults’ world is too harsh . " In fact, nowadays the children also find their lives difficult, too .

Feng Bujue was kind of optimistic and open-minded, just living like that . When he should cook noodles, he then cooks noodles . Then, when he should eat noodles, he eats noodles . Might be one day, the shadow in his brain burst out, then death will end all of his troubles . Or, after it had burst out, he became a mutant . Henceforth, he would achieve the meteoric success in his career and so on… Anything is possible . In short, if there's something that makes you unsatisfied with your life, every factor that can change the current situation will be worth looking forward to .

"Currently, air quality in S City has a signal of increasing again . Heavy pollution level is expected to become more moderate…"

"Metro Line 9’s station expansion plan will be put on hold because of construction accident…"

"Fifteen-year old girl taking exposing photograph to sell her first night for latest mobile phone model…"

During his cooking, Feng Bujue turned on the TV to listen to some trash news while his hands were still doing what they needed to do .

After ten minutes, he was done with his ‘dinner’, then turned off the TV . He took the peanut butter jar from the fridge, sat down at his computer and yawned . "I've never heard any good news for a long time . Maybe the news-hunting ability of the mass media's decreasing . Perhaps they know that if they show the positive reports, it will play the counter-effect…"

Besides news, Feng Bujue rarely watched TV, because the most favorite sort of program that the stations wanted to do was to find a group of people sitting there talking about family scandals . They could argue in front of the whole city or even the nationwide to increase views . At around dinner times, all channels showed the same b*llshit, so as he couldn't even find a simple program that helped the audience grow their intellect . And, the soap opera was all about killing the invaders and then dealing with the civil war and vice versa . Feng Bujue really wanted to write to those screenwriters: Please save your time not to write scripts to fight against the Philippines or aliens . Think outside the box, perhaps you will be famous soon .

He browsed the official website of Dream Inc . while having his noodles . He had intended to access the page of Thriller Paradise directly, but a corner of the website drew his attention as he saw an interesting piece of news .

"We are completing and finishing the second Online Game, whose demo is expected to be released in May . " Feng Bujue muttered the news . "The temporary name of the game is [Frantic Thought]? Type: Cardfight . "

He swallowed a bite of noodles with peanut butter flavor . "The first game is still in Beta stage, but they've already announced the progress of the second game . Dream Inc . 's policy is unimaginable… If it were another company, hadn't had any profit from Thriller Paradise, how could they develop the new game? Do they really want to compete with themselves?"

This news had just one line without any related game’s screenshot or more specific information . In some sense, it belonged to the ‘title party’ . However, this tactic had successfully drawn attention from players . When Feng Bujue browsed to Thriller Paradise’s Forum, he saw many topics discussing ‘Frantic Thought . ’

Of course, even the official news from the producer didn’t have a photo and more information . What players could discuss was from their imagination . The ‘rumor party’ had found something somewhere in a hideous mess and pretended that those were the screenshots of the game as they said that they knew the internal information and so on . Moderators seemed not to care . Since today was the first day they had released the news, throwing a buckle of cold ice on players would cool off their excitement and longing for the game . Of course, they wouldn't do that . More false news indicated that players were interested in their new game .

"The well-known Martial World Studio’s professional gamer [Wild Trade Sword Shadow] suspected of cheating . "

This topic attracted Feng Bujue . This was a hot topic as the views were more than one hundred thousand and there were around one hundred pages of comments .

The poster seemed to be a sockpuppet with the name consisted of all English letter, but it looked more of random typing . Although this account had received many points from the forum, just checking through some posts by this account, besides some nonsense posts, it wasn't hard to detect this account was the mouthpiece of Corpse Saber Studio .

Feng Bujue felt excited checking out the content of this topic . The scenario the other mentioned was surely the one he had participated .

"From the time my buddy and I had entered the scenario until we lost the Killing Game, we hadn’t even seen the faces of the opponent team . They disappeared in a closed section . That map had a Survival Value reducing effect . And, the introduction said that the environment outside the map would wear out even more Survival Value! I’d been waiting for so long in the map, and I had to use more than one supplement bottle . [Wild Trace Sword Shadow], if you weren’t cheating, how could you survive longer? Don’t tell me that you had so many blood vials in your bag or you were a player specialized in Curing Specialty . You can’t believe those words of yours, can you?"

This post had many unclear details on purpose… However, such topics used to smear people always declared the point benefited the posters . They wouldn't mention the disadvantaged details, or they would play them down . The only gratifying detail in this post was that it mentioned only [Wild Trace Sword Shadow] and excluded Feng Bujue . Of course, the poster wouldn't disclose his ID and his buddy's ID . As for the fact that they were from Corpse Saber Studio, they didn't mention that either, and their excuse was funny— " Martial World is a big studio with big force, I’m afraid of retaliation . "

Feng Bujue read the topic and felt amused . Even if they didn’t know the truth, from the point of view of an outsider, this topic had many questioning details . Besides, just say that Wild Trace Sword Shadow had cheated, why don't you report to the Customers Service, but posted your complaint in the forum?

At this moment, Feng Bujue seemed to understand why Wild Trace Sword Shadow didn't want to mess with the members of Corpse Saber . Those tactics outside the game weren't subtle, but they were sure disgusting enough .

He scrolled down to read more . The contents of this topic became more interesting . No wonder why it took many pages of numerous comments . There were many squids (1) of Corpse Saber trying to stir up the mess and support the topic . For example, they would answer: "Yeah, right . Wild Trace Sword Shadow, if you are cool, come out and talk . Do you think that your big studio can always bully people like that? Or you know you're wrong, so you don't dare to show up?"

This kind of topic was really inexplicable . When Feng Bujue logged out, Wild Trace Sword Shadow was still playing . No one had expected that these people were trying to cause war in the forum after losing a match in Killing Game . Even if members of Martial World Studio saw this and reported to Wild Trace Sword Shadow, with his personality, he wouldn't give a f*ck . A dog can bite you, but you can't bite it back, right? Whenever celebrities encountered cursing like this in the forum and the stars had to come out and explain, besides giving an explanation, they didn't need to do anything else .

Also, many other players got incited and joined for fun . Apparently, they didn't know who was the guy mentioned in the post, or what was the Martial World Studio, but whenever they saw a post like that, they would gather like crazy just like they did have deep grudge with the others .

Of course, there were also opposite views . Some even gave suspicions . For instance, "Poster should use you real ID to talk . Being afraid of retaliation is not a proper excuse," "We shouldn't listen to only one side," "Are you sure that there's no other mechanism in the map, bro?"… To the comments like that, squids from Corpse Saber would definitely ignore them or give sophistry or try to splash dirty water on the others by saying that those were members from Martial World… Squids are good at spraying water . They should have this occupational skill .

He continued scrolling further . After thirties some pages, the comments became more malnourished . Most of the time, they would be, "Waiting for the truth", "I'm just an average Joe," "a strong onlooker, already prepared watermelon seeds . " There weren’t many people giving debates to others . (Dried watermelon seed is a kind of snack . In this context, it’s like grabbing the popcorn and waiting for the fun show . –TL)

This is also the regular routine of people when surfing the forums . At least 50% of the readers only read the first page, and they would never read the following pages . Unless that post has large contents of photos, it could be an exception . And, the other 50% who read the topic only skim through some pages . If there's no interesting development, they don't want to see others quarrel .

Not more than 10% would read each page of the topic, also follow up the new comments . Some of them are really into the contents and the results, while the others just want to check if someone replies to their comments or not… And, there’s someone who just likes to read…

Feng Bujue could use his left hand to hold the chopsticks . He wasn't a lefty . Writing with left hand was difficult too, but he could use the chopsticks . Holding the chopsticks with left hand and scrolling the mouse with right hand is the technique he had always wanted to develop . Thanks to this technique, when he finished his noodles, he was also done with the topic .

"Ah~~~ already finished . " In fact, Feng Bujue hated quarreling . He thought it was the most nonsense thing on earth . This world has justice and the truth . It’s just people who don’t want to admit their mistakes or bear loss, and that’s why they choose to lie or use tricks…

"I really shouldn't read it . It’s affected my mood . " Feng Bujue picked up the empty bowl, cleaned his desk and then went to the kitchen to clean there .

He didn't return to the game cabin immediately since he had just had dinner . Now he wanted to do some exercise… . For example… bathing his pet .

As a result, he looked at Arthas like a tiger watching its prey . The latter was lying on the sofa with its limbs all stretched out comfortably . Suddenly, it jolted up as if it could sense the murderous aura, turning around, looking at Feng Bujue…

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(1) Chinese netizens use the term ‘Navi' to describe someone getting paid to support and give likes or comments to topics on forums . It's somehow similar to the term ‘Shill . ' But in this chapter, I use the word ‘squid' because I've read somewhere than the US Marines call the Navi ‘squid’ and ‘squid’ is also good at spray ink and water .