"I really don't have 200,000 now! Please, brothers, give me some more time, I promise to gather it quickly!"
"Your final repayment deadline has arrived, we'll give you one more week. If you can't pay, we'll have to ask the court for forced execution."
"Alright, alright, I will definitely pay it back."
Yang Genshuo tried his best to speak kindly to the bank personnel who had come to his house to collect the debt before he finally managed to send them away.
He returned to his small courtyard, sat on the lounge chair under the pomegranate tree, and looked around the yard as memories flooded his mind.
In three years, he opened three script murder mystery stores, from making money to breaking even to losing money. Each step he took had a kind of linear beauty.
Had he closed the stores earlier and curtailed the losses, taking advantage of the few fools willing to take over at a low price, Yang Genshuo could have sold all three stores, liquidated the assets, and still owed the bank 200,000.
The money his parents had saved for his wedding had all been poured into this, and he was about to become the notoriously unfilial son in both the villages around, the kind people would talk about for a lifetime.
"If only I hadn't done this courtyard, I could still have had 300,000 left..."
Yang Genshuo was somewhat annoyed.
He lived in Gu Village, which is the last subway stop in Shimen City.
He was renting the small courtyard. He had signed a 30-year lease, and only three years had passed so far.
Over these three years, he had transformed this abandoned rural courtyard into a cozy, modernized small courtyard step by step. He had also built an underground bunker, stocking it with a lot of supplies.
Yang Genshuo was a person who placed great importance on emergency preparedness. He believed he should have the ability to handle extreme situations, such as... nuclear war, viral spread, global cooling, and the like.
He chose to rent this place not because he couldn't afford a house in the city but because this house came with a basement. He only needed to do some renovation work to build his own underground shelter.
The events of the past few years proved that his bunker had been useful. When others couldn't eat meat more than a few times a month, he boasted various canned meats every day. During that time, others were losing weight while he ended up with a big belly...
Ding dong~
The sound of a WeChat notification pulled Yang Genshuo back from his memories.
[Transfer of 30,000 yuan.]
[Lin Yue: "Brother Shuo, here's 30,000 yuan. I can't use it all, you can use it to pay the bank."]
"Little Yue..."
He remembered that girl with the gentle, clear, lively eyes, who always wore a pretty string of wind chimes on her wrist.
Thinking of her would remind him of the 'dinglingling' sound of the wind chimes.
Lin Yue was a special employee at his script store. Yang Genshuo had initially hired her with a different intention, but now...
"Ah, silly girl, how could I take your money..."
He didn't accept it.
"Well, I'll try to borrow some money from old friends first."
He went into the underground bunker, took a pack of self-heating curry chicken rice and a box of canned goods, and brought them to the study. He turned on the computer.
Yang Genshuo prepared to make a list of potential godsponsors to ask for some money.
After turning on the computer, the screen flickered for a moment, then switched to a splendid and magnificent scene of the Immortal World, which looked 80% similar to some online Immortal Cultivation game advertisements.
Next, a few lines of text appeared in the center of the screen.
[Cultivation Family Simulator]
[Hardcore Immortal Cultivation! Experience a completely authentic Immortal Cultivation family rearing experience from scratch...]
[Please confirm your family's surname: __]
Yang Genshuo was slightly startled.
"An online game advertisement?"
"Damn! I was already annoyed from urine on my hands today, and now you pop up this crappy ad!"
But after fiddling with the mouse, he couldn't find the exit button, and strangest of all... even pressing the restart button on the case didn't work.
"What kind of new virus is this? Can it lock my hardware too? That's too absurd!"
As a member with a bit of knowledge about computer assembly, Yang Genshuo couldn't understand what was happening in front of him.
After fiddling with the controls for a while and unable to shut down the computer, Yang Genshuo suddenly realized something and decided to follow the game process first.
[Yang]
After entering the surname, the animation on the screen quickly zoomed in again and again, bringing his perspective directly to a cemetery covered with white snow.
The surroundings were desolate, with only a tattered and dispirited beggar kneeling thinly in front of one of the low graves.
There was a relatively square tombstone at the head of the grave, with only a large "Yang" character engraved on it.
The beggar shakily lit three sticks of incense with a piece of paper, placing them in a tattered copper incense burner that had a plate of pastries set beneath it.
Curling wisps of smoke leisurely drifted up...
"Unworthy descendant Yang Shi, coming before the ancestral grave to pay tribute. I have an important matter to inform the ancestors about."
"At the age of six, my Yang family was massacred. Because I was outside feeding some little beggars, I avoided the calamity and then became one of the beggars, beginning a life of displacement and hardship..."
"Twelve years have passed, I have barely survived to adulthood, and returned to my hometown to investigate the events of that year. The Yang family ancestral home has now become a property of the Xiang Family, heavily guarded, and I was discovered and beaten severely for merely climbing over the wall to take a glance, then thrown onto the street with grievous injuries."
"Dear ancestor... As far as I know, this Xiang Family has several innate experts, rumored to also be officials in the court. Even the servants guarding the house are so fierce; the chance for revenge is slim, and I am most likely to die miserably on the streets."
"I have pondered deeply in calm sorrow, now there's only one plan that could avenge the blood feud of the Yang family!"
"Therefore, I have made a decision that goes against our ancestors... From today onwards, I will no longer carry the Yang surname!"
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three bows hit the ground, and the mist from the incense shrouded the offerings.
Yang Genshuo: "?"
Let's not talk about whether this game can be turned off or why it adopts a live-action filming technique.
This development... Isn't this a bit too casual!
"The only descendant I start with just ran away?"
Obviously, as a god-like perspective, he was playing the role of the old ancestor in the Yang family's tomb.
Sigh~~
A wisp of smoke emerged from the computer, and a plate of pastries appeared out of thin air on the computer desk.
On the right side of the computer screen, a line of text popped up:
[Your descendant Yang Shi has successfully completed this year's ancestral tribute]
[Incense Fire Value +10]
[You have received an offering from your Yang family member: a plate of pastries]
[Would you like to bestow a reward on the descendant of Yang family?]
Yang Genshuo glanced at the pastries on the table, then at the computer screen.
"?"
After being stunned for a few seconds, Yang Genshuo picked up a piece of pastry and put it in his mouth.
"Ptui! Ptui! Ptui!"
"This is disgusting!"
"These game props came into reality?"
The supernatural phenomenon unfolding before him genuinely surprised Yang Genshuo for a while.
Realizing he might have encountered a great opportunity, he couldn't help but smile.
"This is quite interesting..."
As Yang Shi's ceremony in the game concluded, time also stopped passing, freezing on the image of him bowing.
Just like a turn in a battle strategy game.
Yang Genshuo could now take action, so he moved the mouse over to Yang Shi.
He opened his [Character Card].