Lu Anna took the report and carefully examined the test values on it.
She found that MCSS had dropped from 43 points to 40 (for reference, the immune value is 100).
Puzzled, she looked at Doctor Cheng and asked, "Mentor, hasn't Mr. Long Ming's MCSS value gone down? Shouldn't his condition be getting worse? Why did you tell him it was well controlled?"
Hearing this, Cheng Yue let out a deep sigh, then said to Lu Anna, "Of course I know his condition is getting worse. Long Ming, his father, and his grandfather were all my patients, and every one of them died under my care. I have never been able to find a good treatment for the hereditary disease in their family. Long Ming has already spent a great deal of money on treatment, and there is no way he could come up with more to pay for it, so all I can do is treat him conservatively. The reason I lied to him is that I hope he can keep his spirits up and not be under so much pressure. That way, perhaps he can live a little longer."
"I understand," Lu Anna said with a nod.
That afternoon.
At the Lower City subway entrance.
Long Ming walked out with the dense crowd. Looking at the familiar street, his whole body relaxed.
Rumble~
He suddenly realized he was starving, though that was only natural, since he had been busy since morning without eating a bite.
Long Ming headed straight for a small shop by the roadside.
A big, burly owner with a cigarette in his mouth saw Long Ming coming and greeted him warmly. "If it isn't Long Ming! What'll you have?"
"Boss, one bowl of plain noodles in clear broth."
After telling Boss Zhao, Long Ming looked over the tables set out in front of the shop and picked a seat.
"Coming right up!"
Zhao Ku smiled and went into the shop.
In good spirits, Long Ming looked at the bustling street in the distance. Today's test results were better than he had expected; he hadn't been holding out much hope.
Then he noticed something going on in the distance, with a long line forming, though he had no idea what for.
"Noodles are ready. I added some scallions for you. Eat them while they're hot!"
Zhao Ku set a bowl of clear-broth noodles down in front of Long Ming.
"Thanks. By the way, boss, what's going on over there? Why is there such a long line?"
Long Ming was very curious.
"Your guess is as good as mine. Probably another trendy shop opening and they hired a bunch of shills."
"Oh, I see. Isn't that a rip-off?"
"Exactly. Shops like that, and the shills they hire, ought to be locked up."
Boss Zhao joined in the grumbling.
"Heh!"
Long Ming chuckled and bent his head to his noodles.
A little over an hour later, Long Ming opened his door and walked inside, coughing.
He poured a glass of water and took his medication, then let out a long breath and went to sit at his computer desk.
He moved his game character over and opened the auction marketplace, intending to list some equipment and items for sale first. But when he saw the prices others were asking for equipment and items, his eyes went wide and an expression of disbelief came over his face.
In the space of a single day, the prices of every piece of equipment and item in the game had crashed by half.
Long Ming rubbed his eyes and looked at the screen again, hoping his eyes were playing tricks on him.
Unfortunately, reality was cruel: the game's virtual assets really had crashed.
Long Ming drew a deep breath and quickly steadied his racing heart, then looked up Black Fatty, a merchant he often worked with, and sent him a video call.
Ding ding~
The call connected quickly, and a man with a round, pudgy face and a thin, two-stroke mustache appeared on screen.
"Well, if it isn't Brother Long! What can I do for you?"
"Little Fatty, prices in Black Starfield have crashed."
"I know!"
"What happened? It looked fine this morning."
"You don't know?"
"No. What on earth happened?"
"Haven't you read the announcement? At noon, the Shanchengshan City Lord's office officially announced that to clean up the unhealthy gaming culture, the government has decided to launch a game open to everyone. Everyone who heard about it is selling off their holdings, so Black Starfield's prices collapsed."
"..."
At Little Fatty's words, a bitter smile appeared on Long Ming's face. He hadn't expected the sky to fall in just because he'd gone to see a doctor.
Although Long Ming was a graduate of the Higher Academy, his health was so poor that he simply couldn't handle a regular job.
Fortunately, he was extremely gifted at studying and at games, so he made money through part-time tutoring and gaming.
Those two sources of income had barely been enough to cover his living expenses and the medication he would need going forward.
But recently his coughing had grown so bad that even talking had become exhausting, so he'd had to give up his rather well-paying tutoring job and rely on gaming alone, and now the game had run into trouble too.
Then Little Fatty asked with a chuckle, "Brother Long, how much stock do you have left?"
"I'll send you a screenshot."
Long Ming screenshotted his inventory and sent it to Little Fatty.
"Wow, all that equipment, items, and game currency. You sure know how to stockpile!"
Little Fatty glanced at the screenshot, an astonished look on his face.
"It's not much."
"What a shame. If you'd sold this morning, you'd have been fine. The market's crashed now."
"It's too late to say any of that."
"How about this: if you're willing, I can buy all of it at twenty percent of the original price."
"Twenty percent?"
The corner of Long Ming's mouth twitched as he looked at Little Fatty. This guy wasn't pulling his punches.
"Don't turn your nose up at it. Prices on the auction marketplace have already fallen to half, and they're still dropping fast. With that much piled up, you'll have a hard time offloading it, and then it won't be worth a thing."
"Then why are you still buying at twenty percent?"
"Have you ever heard the saying, great fortunes are won by taking risks? Sure, Shanchengshan has put out a game, but who knows whether it's any good? It might be the same money-grubbing nonsense, and then everyone will come crawling back. Anyway, enough of that. Are you selling or not?"
Little Fatty was thoroughly pleased with himself.
"Selling!"
Without a moment's hesitation, Long Ming cut his losses.
Little Fatty wasn't wrong, but Long Ming couldn't afford to gamble. Besides, if everyone was running off to the official game, what was the point of him clinging to this one? With his skills, he could make a living in a new game just as well.
"Great. Let me add it up... 20,950 in total. Let's call it 21,000."
"Fine. Transfer the money to my card and I'll hand everything over."
"No problem. This isn't our first time working together."
Little Fatty was grinning from ear to ear.
He felt like a business genius, about to make a fortune.
"All right."
Long Ming ended the video call and carried out the trade.
A short while later, he had emptied the game account of every asset. Looking at the account, stripped bare, he felt a little dazed for a moment.
Buzz~
His phone vibrated, and a message popped up.
"Dear Mr. Long Ming, 21,000 has been credited to your bank card ending in 421. Total balance: 32,150."
Looking at the balance in the message, Long Ming quickly adjusted his mindset, then exited the game and opened his browser to search for the new game released by Shanchengshan.
Civilization Paradise, an epoch-making masterpiece, employing the newest virtual-reality technology to let you experience wonders as if you were there.
Reading the description on the official site, Long Ming was left blinking in amazement.
For a moment he even wondered whether Shanchengshan was pulling their legs. Did they really have such advanced technology? Had he sold off his game assets too early?
But he had no choice now; he could only believe it.
Then he noticed that the game required a virtual helmet or a virtual game pod sold officially by Shanchengshan.
The virtual helmet cost 20,000 Shan coins, the virtual game pod 2,000,000 Shan coins, and sales would begin at nine tomorrow morning. The devices were sold only in person, and the servers would open three days later.
Long Ming immediately looked up the sales points in the Lower City and found that there were only a few, but one of them was very close to him.
At that, Long Ming shut down the computer, walked to the corner, picked up a small stool, and left.
He planned to go queue at the nearest sales point. Although sales didn't start until tomorrow morning, if he waited until then, chances were nine in ten that he wouldn't get one.
So Long Ming intended to take his little stool and queue through the night. When it came to profiteering, he was a professional.
(This chapter is complete)
Chapter 4