Returning Home

Congratulations on clearing the Returning Home instance. Overall rating: S-rank. First reward: two Golden Friend Cards. You may write a friend's name on a card, and it will be delivered to them. If they accept, you will also receive friend status with them. Both parties may use teleportation arrays to travel to each other's villas and pay to use each other's facilities. When friends enter an instance simultaneously through the same teleportation array, they will be assigned to the same instance and the same scene whenever permitted. Second reward: one Sixiang Teleportation Card and one one-way teleportation ticket. The one-way teleportation ticket had already been introduced previously. Ding Shi tore up the one-way teleportation ticket on the spot, indicating he would continue taking on instance challenges. With a Sixiang Teleportation Card, one could travel to any Sixiang City when outside an instance. Spending 10 dao to use a Sixiang City teleportation array would allow one to return to the sea island. Third reward: Whole-House Upgrade Card, which upgrades the entire house and all its facilities by one tier. Fourth reward: two Facility Scratch Cards. Each Facility Scratch Card was guaranteed to grant a functional building. Fifth reward: 450 dao. Adding in his previous savings, Ding Shi was now a wealthy man sitting on a fortune of 500 dao. Ding Shi first filled out a friend card for Chu Yu. Once sent, it sank like a stone into the sea with no reply; she likely hadn't left the instance yet, or she had died inside. Using the Whole-House Upgrade Card, the thatched hut upgraded into a stone house, and the tables, bedding, toilet, and other furnishings inside upgraded as well. The stone house's area expanded to a hundred square meters, and the coal stove became a coal-burning fireplace with an automatically added chimney. Ding Shi deeply regretted not having built a heated brick kang earlier; otherwise, would the fire kang have upgraded into... a blaze kang? The indoor floors were completely paved with bluestone, level and clean. The main material for the walls was solid stone, so the biggest hassle would probably be moisture seeping back in. Next were the Facility Scratch Cards. He washed his hands and prayed to all the gods and deities, but just as he prepared to scratch them, he glanced at his Luck stat. 4 points. Forget it, not scratching now. Using the Sixiang Teleportation Card, there was only one city available to select: Sixiang City No. 00. The next second, Ding Shi appeared in City 00. He stood in the teleportation array at the commercial center's plaza. Although there were no players yet, the place looked fairly bustling. The shops along the streets were all open for business, offering everything from food and drink to clothing and daily necessities. At present, all the staff inside were robots. System prompt: AI surveillance zone. Please mind your words and actions. The way it phrased it sounded as though one could commit misdeeds so long as they were outside a surveillance zone. Ding Shi first spent 1 dao to rent an electric scooter for five hours. He headed over to the East Villa District first, but without an invitation from a villa owner, he was blocked by an air wall and couldn't get in. The same applied to the west, south, and north communities, with the difference being that he couldn't enter simply because he wasn't a resident there. In other words, people in the East Villa District could invite anyone into the villa area, whereas the other three districts were accessible only to their own property owners. Ding Shi returned to the commercial street. It covered a massive area, with the outer layers mostly offering cheap, practical goods, while closer to the inner layers, the value and quality of the merchandise steadily rose. Ding Shi parked his scooter and slipped into the Real Estate Agency. Rental and property purchase procedures could be processed here. Currently, all housing and land were held in the hands of the AI and had not yet begun circulating among players. Ding Shi had no interest in residential communities; after all, no matter how luxurious a villa was, could it beat having his own island? His eyes were set on the suburbs of City 00. The suburbs held farms, power plants, and other facilities servicing City 00, along with vast tracts of vacant land. The workers at these facilities were currently all robots, but as human players moved in, players would take over the robots' posts. Ding Shi spent 200 dao to buy a relatively intact five-square-kilometer plot of land on the eastern side of the suburbs. What was he buying it for? No idea. Why buy it? Because it was simply too cheap. Having lived in a modern society where every inch of soil was worth an inch of gold, many people harbored an immense longing to own land. Ding Shi would have to pay a 5% annual land tax, which amounted to 10 dao. As long as one didn't severely disrupt the ecosystem—such as digging a crater thousands of meters deep—the authorities wouldn't interfere with the land's use in any way. The second shop Ding Shi visited was the construction company. After inquiring, Ding Shi paid 100 dao, and the construction company dispatched robots to his island to build a road leading from the beach to his hilltop villa. Next, he went to an electric scooter shop and spent 10 dao to purchase an electric scooter. The next shop was the power company. At a rate of 0.1 dao per kilowatt-hour, Ding Shi hired the power company to connect residential electricity to his island. At the same time, he signed a service contract ensuring that if he expanded or demolished facilities in the future, the power company would provide wiring and installation services free of charge. Finally, upon the power company's recommendation, Ding Shi purchased a batch of light bulbs. Ding Shi then went to a securities firm to open an account, put in 50 dao, and bought shares of Sixiang Electric Power. He spent 30 dao to purchase one year of service from a robot housekeeper. This housekeeper was remarkably capable—cooking, doing laundry, weeding, digging—there was nothing it couldn't do. After this entire circuit, plus a 10-dao electricity prepayment and the 10-dao teleportation fee, 400 dao was gone. Returning to the island, the robots from the construction company and the power company were already at work. The road didn't materialize magically; the robots were genuinely working away. The robots first erected a materials storehouse near the teleportation array. All teleported materials arrived inside the storehouse before the robots hauled them out to their respective sites. Xiao Tangtang hovered above Ding Shi's head while Ding Shi sat on a large rock. One man and one angel watched the robots hustle about. Someone might ask: What's so interesting about that? That only showed a lack of understanding of a certain breed of men; some men could stare at an operating excavator for hours on end. Watching the robots work was a sheer delight to Ding Shi. Their movements were neat, their pace uniform, and their coordination utterly methodical. The power company took five hours to finish the job. The robot housekeeper was named Ji Guan. Upon receiving its orders, it installed energy-saving bulbs throughout the inside and outside of the main villa. In addition, it doubled as a chef, weedkiller, pest exterminator, alarm clock, and numerous other roles. Day Seven of the Returning Home instance. Ding Shi woke up from his coir cane bed. The first thing he did was check his Luck stat. 2. Screw this. With a word from Ding Shi, Ji Guan notified the robots that they could resume paving the road. Ding Shi washed up, ate breakfast, and went to the adjacent martial arts hall to practice throwing knives. After an hour's rest at noon, he spent the afternoon practicing drawing talismans, but he just couldn't get them right. Feeling somewhat discouraged, Ding Shi looked over at Ji Guan, his eyes lighting up. "Xiao Ji, do you know how to draw talismans?" Ji Guan: "No." Sitting on Ji Guan's shoulder, Xiao Tangtang tilted her head, glanced at Ding Shi's handiwork, and looked away without a word. Ding Shi immediately leaned in. "Dearest, gorgeous Xiao Tangtang, do you happen to know how to draw talismans?" Xiao Tangtang tilted her head up haughtily. "No, but I do know where your problem lies." Ding Shi asked with a beam, "Xiao Tangtang, would you like me to give you a leg massage?" Xiao Tangtang said, "I can teach you, but I want something in return." Since it was a transaction, Ding Shi put away his smile and asked, "What do you want?" Xiao Tangtang said, "The Seven of Spades in your room's storage locker." "In your dreams." Ding Shi sat back down. Ji Guan spoke up: "Master, your biggest issue with talisman drawing is your brush grip." Xiao Tangtang glared daggers at Ji Guan. Ignoring her, Ji Guan continued, "There are multiple ways to hold an ink brush. Prior to the Song dynasty, people used the finger-palm technique, where the wrist remains stationary and only the fingers and palm move. After the Song dynasty, wrist movement became prevalent, and modern brush-holding and writing habits are related to moving the wrist. "With the finger-palm method, one can hold the paper in the left hand and write with the right, allowing flexibility where the brush tip makes contact. Moving the wrist requires the paper to rest flat on a table, which lacks flexibility at the tip's point of impact." The clever Ding Shi immediately grasped Ji Guan's meaning: the reason he couldn't draw the raindrops properly was that he had been relying on his wrist rather than the finger-palm technique. Ding Shi asked Ji Guan curiously, "Can I ask you any question from now on?" Ji Guan replied, "I can only answer the most basic professional questions." What did that mean? This was considered the most basic question? Was it mocking him? Ding Shi rolled his eyes, turned to Xiao Tangtang, and said, "Xiao Tangtang, demanding one of my playing cards in exchange for the most basic professional question—have you no shame? Do you even want your face?" Xiao Tangtang reached up, peeled a face right off, tossed it onto the ground, and flew away haughtily. Ding Shi was dumbfounded. She really didn't want a face!