With the 960,000 yuan injection from Ma Siyu, plus the 800,000 Wu Jun had left, it was enough to solve the problems in the game.
After gathering the money, Wu Jun instantly felt like he was back at full health. He didn’t bother squeezing onto a bus and hailed a cab straight back to the supermarket.
He greeted Xu Fei as he walked in, made a beeline for his bedroom, and locked the door from the inside before pulling out the phone bound to Resource Tycoon.
He set aside 10,000 yuan and dumped the remaining 1.75 million into the game. It stung a little to spend so much in one go.
Exchanged for 17,500 Game Coins.
He tapped [Repair Main City].
Game Notification: [Repairing the Main City costs 10,000 Gold Coins. Repair now?]
Wincing, Wu Jun tapped [Yes].
Game Notification: [Main City repaired successfully. Functions have returned to normal. You can now purchase farmland and recruit Farmers. Have fun playing.]
After the repairs, the Main City reverted to its original appearance: a small, thatched hut.
Time was tight, so Wu Jun immediately purchased 38 mu of rice paddies and recruited 37 Farmers.
Including the survivor, Little Red, this brought the game’s production capacity back up to 38 tons per day.
Once the 1.75 million was spent, the game screen flashed and was covered by a thin mist. When the mist cleared, the scene in the game had changed.
Thirty-eight Farmers were toiling away in 38 mu of rice paddies, a prosperous and thriving scene.
The 38 Farmers looked identical in the game, and Wu Jun couldn’t tell which one was Little Red.
He had already wasted a day yesterday, leaving only four days. Subtracting Friday, when he couldn’t harvest, Wu Jun had just three full days left to complete the 125-ton order.
At the game’s current production capacity, he could generate 114 tons of rice in three days. He was still 11 tons short of the 125-ton target. To complete the order, he had to increase his in-game production capacity even more.
However, he wouldn’t need to borrow any more money. He would have rice to sell tomorrow. Wu Jun planned to use the proceeds from tomorrow’s rice sales to recharge the game and expand his capacity.
One problem was that the small supermarket’s sales had dropped sharply. It was making 20,000 yuan a day at most, which was clearly not enough.
Once he had rice tomorrow, he had to go out and expand his market. There was no time to lose.
The immediate crisis was resolved, and Wu Jun’s thoughts turned to his conversation with Little Red the other day.
The [Resource Guardian] quest had already been activated in the game. Every Friday night, beasts would attack the Main City.
Right now, the Main City was just an incredibly crude thatched hut. He could only rely on a group of Farmers to fight for their lives, constantly on the verge of having his city destroyed and the game unbinding from him.
According to Little Red, upgrading the Main City would transform it from a small thatched hut into a town, allowing him to build walls to fortify its defenses. That would be much safer.
The first two conditions for the upgrade weren’t difficult: purchase 100 mu of farmland and recruit 100 Farmers. That could be solved with two million yuan.
The hard part was the third condition: sell 10,000 tons of rice produced by the game.
Wu Jun glanced at the game’s progress for the third task: (67/10,000).
He had been selling rice for almost a month and had only sold 67 tons. That wasn’t even a fraction of what he needed for the upgrade.
Once he took care of this order from the Industrial and Commercial Bank, he had to get moving. He couldn’t rely on a small supermarket with declining sales to sell 10,000 tons of rice.
"Brother Wu, are you sleeping?"
A sudden knock came at the door, followed by Xu Fei’s soft voice from outside.
Pulled from his thoughts, Wu Jun checked the time. It was already seven in the evening. He had unknowingly spent several hours in his room.
He got up from the bed, walked to the door, and pulled it open to see Xu Fei standing there with a conflicted expression.
"What’s wrong, Xu Fei? Is something the matter?" Wu Jun asked, looking puzzled.
Xu Fei looked embarrassed. "Brother Wu, my dad and a classmate of mine came over from my hometown. I was wondering... I was wondering if I could take some time off to take them out for dinner."
Wu Jun asked, "Your dad’s here? Where is he?"
Xu Fei turned to look toward the entrance. Following her gaze, Wu Jun saw a short, older man in his fifties, dressed in a faded and worn-out camouflage suit.
There was also a young man about Xu Fei’s age who was smoking. Wu Jun felt a flicker of annoyance seeing someone smoking in the store, but since the guy was here to see Xu Fei, he didn’t let it show on his face.
Wu Jun looked away from them and asked Xu Fei with a smile, "Aren’t you going to introduce me?"
"No, no," Xu Fei said, waving her hands. Suddenly, she caught a whiff of acrid smoke, spun around, and strode quickly toward the entrance.
"Xu Penghui, didn’t I tell you that you can’t smoke in the supermarket? Why are you smoking again?" Xu Fei snatched the cigarette from the young man’s mouth, turned, ran it under the kitchen tap to extinguish it, and threw it in the trash.
After being called out by Xu Fei like that, Xu Penghui looked up at Wu Jun, who was standing at the bedroom door, his eyes filled with anger.
Even from a distance, Wu Jun could feel Xu Penghui’s hostility. Combined with the fact that he was smoking in the supermarket, Wu Jun’s first impression of the young man was not good.
’What did I ever do to you? I don’t even know your name. Why are you looking at me like that?’
"Xu Penghui, if you’re going to be like this, don’t bother coming here anymore. My dad can take the bus to the city by himself," Xu Fei said angrily as she came out of the kitchen.
Xu Penghui tore his gaze away from Wu Jun and said nonchalantly, "Feifei, it’s just a cigarette. Is it that big of a deal? This tiny little supermarket has so many rules."
"You... just get out for now." Angrily, Xu Fei pushed Xu Penghui out the supermarket door.
Xu Fei’s dad watched his daughter and Xu Penghui arguing unhappily, but he didn’t know how to mediate, so he just pretended not to see.
From a distance, Wu Jun heard Xu Penghui spit somewhere after going outside and mutter, "What a piece of work," followed by the click of a lighter.
Xu Fei turned back to Wu Jun, who was still standing at his bedroom door, with a guilty look on her face.
Wu Jun walked over to the supermarket entrance and said, "It’s not a big deal. He smoked, so he smoked. Go open the windows to air the place out."
"Okay, Brother Wu." Xu Fei nodded and went to open a few windows.
"Hello, Uncle Xu. I’m Wu Jun, I work with Xu Fei." Wu Jun smiled and extended his hand to Xu Fei’s father.
Xu Fei’s father grasped Wu Jun’s hand with both of his own and said, "Hello, Boss Wu. I’m Feifei’s dad, Xu Shucai. Her aunt told me you’ve been taking good care of our Feifei. I want to thank you for that."
"None of that ’Boss’ business. Just call me Wu Jun." He then turned to Xu Fei and said, "Your father came all this way to see you. Let’s close up for the day and go out for a meal together. My treat."
Xu Fei quickly said, "There’s no need to trouble you, Brother Wu. I can just take my dad out for a bite to eat."
Wu Jun chuckled. "In your eyes, is your Brother Wu that stingy and cheap?"
Waving her hands, Xu Fei said anxiously, "No, no, that’s not what I meant."
"Then just listen to me," Wu Jun said. "We don’t have any rice to sell today anyway, so we won’t make much money. Let’s close up and go eat."
Seeing that Wu Jun was adamant, Xu Fei stopped refusing and agreed to his arrangement.
Wu Jun went into his room and pulled out a bottle of Feitian Maotai from under his bed.