What malicious intent could NPCs possibly have? C19.2

Hey, first of all, thanks for reading my lousy Machine Translation. To be honest, I’d really like it if you guys corrected the mistakes I made. But please speak nicely and politely. My heart is not strong enough to read your too-harsh comments. Have a nice day. 🙂

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Chp19. part2

The same old lady was at the early childhood education centre. She seemed to have deeper wrinkles and looked a little older after not seeing her for a while.

She smiled at Pei Han, “You two are here again?”

Pei Han replied, “Yes. The baby’s been born, can we order the chip now?”

The old lady looked at Ning Ge in surprise, “Already given birth? I thought it would take a while. Last time you came, your belly wasn’t very noticeable.”

Pei Han calmly glanced at Ning Ge’s loose top. “She’s thin and doesn’t eat much, so her pregnancy isn’t very noticeable.”

Ning Ge: “…”

The old lady nodded, putting on her reading glasses. “Give me the number.”

Pei Han gave her own number and the fake baby’s. “Mine is KW9309, and the child’s is LM9530.”

The old lady squinted at the screen, searching for a long time before shaking her head. “It’s not there.”

She smiled at Pei Han. “The system says it can’t find it. Did you misremember the baby’s number? Such careless parents.”

“Then I’ll go back and check again.” Pei Han pushed Ning Ge’s back and turned to leave.

Everyone fled in panic.

“Could it be that the data wasn’t entered successfully?” Owen pondered.

“Impossible,” Pei Han said confidently. “Every entry reported success. Or is the numbering algorithm wrong?” He pondered deeply. “But the numbers on my parents’ forms do indeed add up to my number.”

He frowned, thinking. “Strange, how could it be wrong?”

Ning Ge said confidently this time, “I think I know why the number is wrong. But I need to verify it first.”

Everyone: ?

Ning Ge led everyone back to the glass cubicle where the mother was on the ground floor.

The mother was still there, pedalling her wheel, round and round. Seeing Ning Ge, she smiled warmly. “You’ve come to see me again?”

‘Mom,’ Ning Ge called out, “I came to ask who my father is.”

The mother paused, a blank expression on her face.

That expression was all too familiar. She’d seen it on the face of the young aunt-nanny who had forgotten the little chubby boy, and she’d seen it on the little chubby boy’s mother.

It was the expression of memories erased by the system.

“I really don’t remember,” Ning Ge’s mother said apologetically. “I don’t know why, I can’t remember anything at all.”

Sure enough.

Ning Ge thought to herself, Scumbag.

“Forget about it,” Ning Ge said to her mother, “Don’t worry about him.”

Leaving her mother’s cubicle, Pei Han speculated, “So your father must also be a player?”

“Yes. You said this is a transitional dungeon, and many players have been here. I think my ‘father’ is one of them. He disappeared after giving birth to me. I don’t know if he finished his quest and left the dungeon or…”

“He’s dead.”

He must have been working on the chip ordering mission, too. He went to find the NPC Ning Ge’s mother and had a baby with her.

Ning Ge glanced at the QR code on the back of her hand.

“When we were pushing the QR code, I also calculated his number. It’s JJ9589.”

Pei Han quickly calculated and understood. “Your mother’s number is JJ0631, and your father’s is JJ9589. They should add up to 10220, but your number is KW0221, one extra.”

“Right. One extra,” Ning Ge said. “I suspect it’s a system-generated marker. If one parent is a player, the child’s number gets an extra 1.”

Both Ning Ge and Pei Han are players, so the baby’s number isn’t simply the sum of their numbers.

Therefore, the baby’s number reported by Pei Han was incorrect.

Pei Han pondered, “If both parents are players, is the number increased by 1 or 2?”

“Go try it and you’ll find out,” Ning Ge said.

The group returned to the early childhood education centre. The old lady smiled as soon as she saw them.

“You’re back? Did you remember it correctly this time?”

Pei Han showed her his QR code and then reported, “The baby’s number is LM9531.”

The old woman tapped the screen for a while, about to shake her head, when Pei Han, sensing her expression, immediately corrected herself, “No, I misremembered, it should be LM9532.”

The old woman laughed, “So young, yet more confused than an old woman like me,” she tapped the screen, letting out a sigh of relief, “Finally found it this time.”

It turned out that both parents were players, so their IDs needed an extra 2.

The old woman tapped the screen a few more times, “Ordered it for you, now you owe us 80,000 coins. Young man, work hard and earn money.”

Pei Han and Ning Ge’s bracelets immediately vibrated.

[Successfully ordered an early childhood education chip, congratulations on joining the ranks of chip slaves.]

The others also reported their own and the fake baby’s IDs, ordered the chips, and the task was successfully completed.

This task was not difficult at all, taking less than an hour, much faster and more convenient than actually giving birth to a baby.

The bracelets didn’t give them a moment to breathe.

[The chip slaves burdened with loans now need to go earn money.] [Task: Pay off all chip debts.

Description: Three-hour time limit, to be completed by all surviving players.

Failure Penalty: Elimination of all players.]

Another cooperative task.

Owen turned off his bracelet screen and sighed, “Endless studying, then pressure to get married, have kids, take on loans, pay them off, treated like animals— I’ve had enough of this godforsaken place.”

Pei Han said, “Let’s find an anchor point, once we find it, we can get out.”

Ning Ge scoffed at those who could return to the real world, “Is there a difference? It’s all the same.”

Pei Han glanced at her, “Paying off loans is a little different.”

His face was clearly asking for a beating.

He often ran dungeons, in real-world terms, he earned 500,000 per run, and he didn’t know how much he’d made.

Owen added, “Their Alpha dungeon run points are doubled. Pei Han is currently ranked first on the Alpha leaderboard, and the first place gets an extra double. The test reward points are also doubled compared to others. The next dungeon run will net them millions, so everyone wants that position.”

Unfortunately, no matter how much money they have outside, they can’t bring it inside. They still need to earn the chip money, unless they find the anchor point before then.

According to the old lady from the early childhood education centre, earning 80,000 yuan by pedalling would take almost a whole day, not enough time to do in three hours.

They definitely need to find other, faster ways to make money.

Owen calculated, “We just ordered four chips, a total of 320,000 yuan. To pay it all off, each of us needs to earn at least 50,000 yuan.”

“Is there a bank here?” Pei Han wondered.

It’s obvious he’s not serious about this.

However, this aspiring robber was disappointed. There was no bank here. Everyone’s money was stored in the system, swiped around on the touchscreen on the ground floor, but there was no real cash in sight. So everyone obediently went upstairs to the employment agency.

The rather handsome agent listened to Pei Han’s request, pondered for a long time, and finally gave a fair suggestion.

“Want to earn 50,000 in three hours? You’d be faster at robbing someone.”

Ning Ge: He was planning to rob someone anyway, but unfortunately, he didn’t have a stage to perform on.

“Usually, 50,000 requires ten or twenty working hours. If you get promoted to management, you’ll have to work at least ten hours a day,” the agent looked them up and down, “Besides, management promotions aren’t that easy.”

A bespectacled guy next to him leaned over, “Actually, these kinds of jobs do exist…”

Ning Ge thought, Here it comes.

The high-paying job the system dug, waiting for people to jump into, is finally here.

The bespectacled guy continued: “…You can work as cleaners.”

Everyone:?

What kind of terrifying cleaning job is this? Can an ordinary person earn several times more than by pedalling a wheel?

Ning Ge’s heart trembled. How dirty could it be?

The word “cleaner” made the handsome young man shudder instinctively. “This isn’t quite right,” the agent hesitated. “Introducing someone to such a dangerous job isn’t that just harming them?”

So it wasn’t dirty, just dangerous.

Ning Ge silently breathed a sigh of relief.

Pei Han was already quite familiar with her, he could discern subtle emotions from her seemingly expressionless face.

He smirked. “Dangerous? Great!”

The agent hesitated. “But only people with children can be cleaners. You all look so young, you probably don’t have any, right?”

Owen blurted out, “We’re all already parents!!”

The agent: “…”

He was sceptical. He had everyone show the QR codes on the back of their hands, scan them one by one, check in the system, and was quite surprised. “You really are all parents?! Is early childbirth fashionable these days?”

Ning Ge was a little puzzled. “Why do you have to have children to be a cleaner?”

“Oh, because after having children, people are more stable, reliable, and won’t run away,” the agent replied.

Ning Ge, Run away? Run where?

Five minutes later, everyone in the maintenance management office received a large bag of odds and ends: gloves, shovels, brushes, hoists, etc., along with safety helmets and large rolls of safety rope. They had started their highest-paying and most dangerous job here, becoming proud cleaners.

The office manager, a man in his forties or fifties, led everyone to the top floor in the elevator.

On the top floor, there was a metal escalator. The man carefully climbed down the escalator into the ceiling, pulled out a large bunch of keys, and unlocked several doors above him, one after another.

Finally, he reached the last small door.

It was pitch-black outside, and a cold wind blew in. The man shivered, stepped aside, and handed Pei Han a small camera.

“Okay, you guys go out. There are monsters and savages outside. Be careful. Each person is responsible for ten squares from top to bottom. Take a picture when you’re done, and bring it back to me.”

No one understood.

“What are monsters and savages?” Owen asked him.

“And what are these ‘squares’ you mentioned?” Ning Ge asked him.

The man didn’t answer any of them. “You’ll find out when you get out.” He then went down the escalator, disappearing faster than a rabbit.

It was as if a monstrous flood or beast awaited him outside, he didn’t want to peek out the door even a hair’s breadth.