Chapter 402: Childish but all the rage

Her hair dishevelled and in a total mess, Lu Zhixin sprang wildly up from her bed. Clambering from the front of her bed, extending as far as she could, she barely managed to reach the ‘on’ button of her laptop.

“Why is this suddenly turning on so slow? This can’t do! I’ve got to ask a technician to take a look at it later...”

After the system finally managed to boot up, she turned on Weibo and logged into the game.

What met her was a sight of desolation and ruin...

Her carrots were already stolen to the point that they could not have been stolen any further.

Lu Zhixin pursed her lips, despondent, unhappy.

She despondently harvested the tragic remnants and planted seeds again...she seemed to have suffered a loss in terms of coins. Luckily, though, she had still gained a bit of experience. After scanning over that list of thieves who had stolen from her, Lu Zhixin gnashed her teeth and clicked on the group chat for the testing group.

A few hundred messages flashed past her eyes. Lu Zhixin began reading them from the beginning.

“Wa, Goddess Lu stole my cabbages. I’m so honoured...Please steal moar, Goddess...”

This had been posted by some IT geek from Xingchen Technologies and was followed by a long string of ‘two eyes emitting hearts’.

Lu Zhixin had previously registered an account on Weibo too. A joking remark by Xu Tingsheng had inadvertently turned her crazy popular on the internet. Having once been nicknamed ‘cool, domineering female CEO’, she had gained an additional nickname, ‘goddess’, on the internet.

“Mine was stolen too. Come often, Goddess Lu! I’ll get to planting right away. You’ve got to visit again!”

“I discovered that Goddess Lu actually stayed up till after 2am, netting it all up in one fell swoop with no stone unturned.”

“Is there a need to be so hardcore, Goddess? Remember to pay attention to your health!”

Lu Zhixin felt a guilty pleasure from reading the hundred over posts, feeling a little embarrassed too.

Next, the discussion gradually grew unrelated to her as everyone was chastising one another, about who had allied and who had betrayed, who had stolen whose, who was watching over theirs too vigilantly...higher-ups or employees, male or female, they were all noisily involved here.

“Little Sis Li from the front desk, my carrots are nearly ripe! Come on, I’ll harvest them when you’re done stealing,” Some IT geek thereby began using this game to try to pick up chicks.

After a while, there was something from him again.

“Oi, you lot...Little Sis Li hasn’t stolen from me yet.”

“Heck, this bunch of bandits...I’ve made a total loss...”

Lu Zhixin scanned all the messages before typing a line of words and pressing ‘enter’.

“I only stole your radishes, but you guys stole my carrots,” Lu Zhixin said earnestly.

“Wa, Goddess is awake! Why don’t you come and steal them back, Goddess.”

“I didn’t steal any, Goddess! I wanted to, but there was already none left...”

“I did steal some, I admit it. But, Goddess, you’re still ranked first, alright?”

A bunch of replies immediately came in.

Lu Zhixin hurriedly opened the leaderboards whereupon she promptly heaved a sigh of relief. She was indeed still in first place.

These people had wasted too much time from when their first batch of cabbages had ripened. That chaotic battle that had ensued thereafter had also been far messier than for Lu Zhixin as she had happily stolen everything away late at night...

Because of that, she was still in first place right now.

Still, everyone else was basically already at Level 2 as the highest few seemed set to level up soon. The gap in their total experience values was already very small...

Lu Zhixin saw that her own crops were still far from ripening. “Stealing? That’s the only way. Otherwise, I’ll be overtaken.” She began checking other people’s’ plots of land, going through them one by one as she casually helped to water the crops and exterminate the pests there. It appeared that they were basically all carrots this time...

“Alright, this guy’s should be maturing the earliest. I’ll wash my face, brush my teeth and eat breakfast, and then I’ll come back to steal you.”

Lu Zhixin was blissfully unaware of how she, the ‘cool domineering female CEO’, was so invested in this childish game as she was just like a little girl.

......

Xiang Ning’s school had a rule against students using their handphones.

Xu Tingsheng slept uninterrupted till noon, whereupon he turned on the computer and bought takeaway and drinks through ‘Are You Hungry’. As he ate, he accessed his virtual farm in a lacklustre manner, collecting the few radishes that remained and planting some new ones.

He checked the leaderboards. Just as he had expected, he was in last place.

He really couldn’t get his enthusiasm up for the game. Regarding most games, Xu Tingsheng was only ever able to muster up some short-term passion for them. After playing Happy Farm for two months in his previous life, he had quickly gotten tired of it to the point that he couldn’t get very immersed in it at all now.

His third year of university had yet to begin and there was nothing else he had to do...getting this game successful was his main task at hand. Xu Tingsheng ended up spending the whole day at home. He didn’t steal anyone’s cabbages, simply watching the commotion in the group chat growing crazier and crazier.

He would see mentions that so-and-so’s cabbages were ripening soon, and he would smile at that. Besides occasionally mentioning that the project team should adjust this a little, tweak this a bit, he basically stayed silent.

In the evening, Hu Chen and He Yutan both individually texted him in expressing their thoughts in a frank and concise manner.

One was: Definitely becoming the rage. I admit it. You win.

The other joked: From now on, you are my one and only lighthouse. If you say we can make a fortune from mud, I’d believe it.

Besides these two, everyone else was basically too immersed to give Xu Tingsheng feedback.

Xu Tingsheng had set the timespan as two days. After the first 24 hours had ended, looking at the leaderboards, Lu Zhixin was still ranked in first place. She had grasped the preemptive and played very seriously too afterwards. Along with that group of male nerds who were just waiting sillily for her to steal from them, she was still in an advantageous position, though not by much.

In second place was ‘Little Sis Li’, a front desk receptionist of Xingchen Technologies. She had a very sweet appearance and a similarly sweet voice to match it, earning her the affection of a whole bunch of the company’s IT geeks.

Of course, being IT geeks, it was basically impossible for them to try to act provocatively so as to earn her attention. They usually just showed their concern for her, with most not even daring to flirt with her. Due to Happy Farm, they finally got an alternative means to express their affection this time as they were all lining up happily hoping to be stolen from by her.

Just like this, Little Sis Li came to be ranked second.

In third place was a rather unexpected person, this being none other than Hu Shengming. This tycoon who was individually valued at several million and was well-known for it on the internet was actually also incomparably immersed in the game. After camping the entire day through, the position of third place was finally attained by him.

Going down the leaderboards, Xu Tingsheng found that Ye Qing was actually ranked very high as well as even Fu Cheng was ranked upper average...

So iceberg-cool female tycoons and male artistic youths were childish too, huh.

After a while, Xu Tingsheng refreshed the leaderboards and was astonished to find that Hu Shengming had already surpassed Little Sis Li and climbed up to second place.

“It can’t be? What’s this?”

After opening and checking the group chat, Xu Tingsheng immediately understood. Hu Shengming had directly offered Little Sis Li a new bag worth at least 3000 yuan in the chat, hence successfully bribing her.

Hu Shengming had harvested his crops first. While Little Sis Li should next have harvested her own crops to surpass him once more, she had waited until he had stolen from her before doing so. With that, their rankings had swopped.

The prize money for second place was 5000 yuan while the person in third place would receive 3000 yuan. In promising her 3000 yuan, this was equivalent to Hu Shengming making a loss of 1000 yuan in climbing from third place to second place.

This sort of ‘rich and wilful’, show-offy act demonstrated the great ‘monetary’ future that Happy Farm had in front of it, causing Xu Tingsheng to feel very satisfied.

Yet, Hu Shengming himself was dissatisfied. He looked at Lu Zhixin above him. The difference in their total experience values was not small. Also, she definitely could not be bribed as there was also a group of male nerds supporting her...

“Sigh, if this wasn’t the test version, I’d call my underlings and girlfriends to plant some crops just for me to steal. Sure win.”

“My number one spot, nooooo...” Hu Shengming howled in anguish in the group chat twice successively.