Chapter 169
Chapter 169
In the standby world, any player with enough money could own what people called a home.
Survival Coins could buy property.
Most people simply did not want to spend a fortune buying a house in a world where they might not live much longer.
It was a terrible bargain.
Besides, Survival Coins lived up to their name. Used well inside a game, they could save a life.
Compared to staying alive, what need was there to buy a house?
Player Center
Like the downtown district of any city, the Player Center even had NPCs running roadside stalls.
It offered movie theaters, shopping malls, and every kind of merchant one could imagine.
Players were more than happy to visit the area.
Lu Qian led Xiao Huai into a deep, secluded alley.
The silence here formed a stark contrast with the noise outside.
The long alley had no streetlights. Illumination from the surrounding high-rises provided just enough light to see the road.
After walking for several minutes, Xiao Huai noticed the glow of a small shop spilling across the ground at the end of the alley.
The shop did not even have a sign. A lucky cat sat directly on the ground outside, as if anyone passing by could pick it up and carry it away.
Noticing Xiao Huai staring at the lucky cat, Lu Qian said, “That’s the owner of this shop.”
In the real world, anyone saying such a thing would have been assumed to be joking.
But Xiao Huai saw the statue’s neck move. Within two or three seconds, the rigid ornament became a living cat.
It had golden fur and perpetually narrowed eyes. Along with the faint upward curve of its mouth, it seemed to be smiling at all times.
“Boss Lu Yuanshi, it has been a long time since your last visit.” The lucky cat spoke with a faint southern Fujian accent.
“Mm. I brought my friend to have a key made.”
“Of course. This way, please.” The lucky cat raised its tail and curled it gently toward the front, beckoning them to follow.
The shop’s interior was a world unto itself. No matter how one looked at it, a tiny storefront could not possibly have contained so much space.
White dominated every wall, and thousands upon thousands of merchandise shelves filled the room.
Some customers had covered themselves completely in black suits and sunglasses, as if afraid of being recognized. Others were muscular men with tattooed arms who looked thoroughly unapproachable.
After Lu Qian entered, Xiao Huai noticed several gazes from unknown corners settle on him.
Lu Yuanshi tilted his head toward Xiao Huai and whispered, “Some of them used to be my clients.”
“Oh.” Xiao Huai now understood those stares.
The lucky cat walked to a shelf of toys and studied it for a while. A white capsule toy floated out and stopped before them.
Lu Qian took it down. As though remembering something, he murmured, “When I was little, I used to take my silly brother out to play. He loved capsule toys, but we had no money, so I never bought him one. Fortunately, from now on, he’ll always be able to have them.”
Returning to himself, he handed the capsule to Xiao Huai.
“Open it.”
Xiao Huai did not hesitate. The instant he opened the capsule, a System notification sounded in his ear.
[Welcome to Player Lu Qian’s custom world.]
Blinding light flashed before his eyes. When he opened them again, they had arrived in an entirely different world.
They stood in a recreation area filled with old equipment.
The paint had yellowed and peeled from the swings and seesaws, and the same was true of the roller tracks and exercise equipment.
Lu Qian stood beside him, looking toward a severely dilapidated five-story apartment block in the distance.
Even its walls had turned gray.
Yet he pointed at the building without a trace of disdain and told Xiao Huai, “That’s my home.”
Lu Qian remembered very little about his birth mother. When he was around three, she had abandoned him and his newborn brother at an orphanage.
Because they were young, a family soon adopted them.
That family was wealthy, and everyone assumed the brothers would live like young masters from then on.
What no one knew was that the family consisted of demons wearing human skin.
At first, they pretended to love and cherish the brothers.
Later, whenever either child made the slightest mistake, they used every method imaginable to torment them both.
The brothers had only ever been adopted as tools on which the family could vent its rage.
The adoption was for show. Every kindness they offered was feigned hypocrisy.
They withheld food and left the brothers alternating between hunger and rare full meals. Afraid his little brother would starve, Lu Qian often stole food, and he was always the one beaten most severely in the end.
Yet when he saw his brother eat his fill, even if Lu Yuanshi himself had been beaten until his eyes would not open,
He never regretted it.
When Lu Qian was around six, they beat him blind in his right eye.
All he remembered was how bitterly his brother cried that day.
He did not want to live that way any longer.
At seven, he killed someone so he could survive.
He had assumed the police would come quickly and had even prepared to confess alone. But he later discovered…
It had been the perfect crime.
A secondary persona with immense power had long since been born inside his body.
The police could not find the corpse because…
While the secondary persona controlled him, Lu Qian had devoured it whole.
In the end, the master of that household was declared missing and the case was closed.
Lu Qian thought his freedom had begun, only to discover that the secondary persona kept emerging beyond his control.
He was hungry… always hungry.
Later, Lu Qian took Lu Zhi and left that home. They had neither money nor influence, so Lu Qian accepted every filthy, exhausting job he could find. He remembered that the first apartment he ever rented had been here.
In this old residential complex.
The rent had been cheap and the apartment very small. But to him,
It was a true home.
There were no cruel adults who beat them every day.
Lu Qian told Xiao Huai none of these stories. He only said casually,
“This was our first home.”
The past could remain buried forever in the past.
Xiao Huai did not press him. From where he stood, he could see the right side of Lu Qian’s face. For one instant, that white eye seemed to shine with lucid light.
He raised his head and looked at the rundown apartment block as well.
“Does that make me the first friend you’ve invited home?”
Lu Qian grinned slyly. “With as many friends as I have, do you really think that’s possible?”
He slung an arm around Xiao Huai’s shoulders and answered his own question. “Of course it’s possible. You’re the first friend I’ve ever invited. Come on. I’ll show you upstairs.”
As Xiao Huai walked toward the building, he asked curiously, “This is your custom world. Was it expensive?”
Other people bought houses in the standby world. Lu Qian had simply bought an entire world.
Lu Qian looked calmly ahead. “Not too bad. A little over ten million.”
“What?” Survival Coins were nothing like currency in the real world.
People traded their lives for Survival Coins.
“By the way, that capsule is the key to this place. I think a custom one costs around eighty thousand.”
Xiao Huai fell silent.
Fine. He was obscenely rich.