Chapter 1: Things from the Game Appear in Reality

Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Things from the Game Appear in Reality

「In early June.」

「You City.」

Zhang Lin arrived early at the barren land his dad had contracted. After taking in the desolate surroundings, he went into the simple prefab steel building and turned on his dad’s work computer, wanting to see what plans he had for this land before he passed.

When he turned on the computer, he discovered a game on the desktop called Agricultural Tycoon.

He hadn’t expected his dad to play games.

Curious, he clicked on the game and found it was a farming and management simulation. Moreover, its open-world design and gameplay potential were very high.

Players started by recruiting farm workers, then began their business by wholesaling agricultural goods from the market. These goods could be sold for a profit, used to open factories to produce related products, or even researched in a lab to improve their quality.

’This game is actually pretty interesting.’

However, he wasn’t in the mood to play games right now. Just as he moved the mouse to close the game, currents of electricity shot out from it, instantly making his whole body go numb.

’A power leak?’

’But how the hell can a mouse conduct electricity? Is this a joke?’

’My hand is completely numb...’

’Is it true what they say? A frayed rope snaps at its weakest point, and misfortune seeks out the suffering.’ In other words, when it rains, it pours.

Before this year, his life had been pretty easy. He had been working for a few years after graduation, he didn’t have to worry about things at home, and his parents had even prepared the betrothal money for his future marriage.

But ever since his high school sweetheart was torn away from him by their parents, he found that no girl he met in college or even after he started working could give him that same pure feeling. The betrothal money had gone unused.

However, that easy life came to an abrupt end this year.

At his company, he had clearly accomplished his task and done a great service, yet he ended up being unceremoniously fired.

He had originally thought he could go back and help his parents. They had just taken out a loan on their house and borrowed money from relatives to contract 2,000 mu of land in the county. It wasn’t like he had no other options.

His dad had ambitiously dreamed of becoming a great farm owner in the future. But who would have thought that after developing only five mu of land and planting some vegetables, his grand ambition would be cut short by a sudden cerebral hemorrhage.

In the end, they spent all the preparatory funds borrowed to build the farm and all the betrothal money they had saved for him, but his father still couldn’t be saved.

His mother’s health also deteriorated from grief and overwork. Her check-ups all came back with poor results, and she needed to go to the hospital from time to time for medicine and IV drips.

And so, in the prime of his life at 26, he had to shoulder the family’s debt of over a million yuan.

If a normal person’s starting point is zero, his was now negative one million plus!

Legally, a son doesn’t have to bear his father’s debts, but if he didn’t, his mother would have to. How could he bear to let that happen?

Besides, he didn’t want his dad to be unable to rest in peace, nagged and blamed by the living.

Although their relatives weren’t pressing for the money back, they would surely keep bringing it up in private over time.

Moreover, the fact that these friends and relatives were willing to lend his dad hundreds of thousands of yuan was already incredibly generous. After all, their money didn’t just fall from the sky. He couldn’t turn a blind eye to all this.

Besides, he was still young. His future wasn’t set in stone. He refused to believe that with his whole life ahead of him, he wouldn’t be able to pay back this million yuan.

The key now was to escape his current predicament. Otherwise, as an unemployed nobody, he couldn’t do a thing.

The only resource he had control over right now was the 2,000 mu of land his parents had contracted. At least the rent his dad had paid was good for another quarter, so he didn’t have to worry about that for the time being.

It’s just that he had studied networking. Suddenly being thrown into agriculture was really not his forte. The crucial part was that he had no startup capital to develop the land.

So, what he was thinking now was whether he could transfer the lease for this quarter.

But probably no one would take it unless it was at an extremely low price.

Just then, a voice suddenly rang out in his mind:

[Ding! Special game channel activating. Locking onto the game "Agricultural Tycoon"... Loading and applying modifications to the game...]

"???" Zhang Lin slapped his head.

’Am I hallucinating now?’

’They say an ordinary person’s life can fall into a vicious cycle, but I’m already miserable enough. There’s no need to make me go crazy, right?’

[Ding! Special game channel successfully linked. Game "Agricultural Tycoon" locked. Real-world map construction synchronization and modification complete!]

In that instant, a surreal image appeared in Zhang Lin’s mind. Judging by the interface’s control bar, it was the game screen for Agricultural Tycoon; the controls were identical.

But the rest of the scene astonished him. It wasn’t a game screen, but a real-time view of the prefab steel building he was in right now. Next to it was the three-wheeled cargo tricycle and the warehouse his dad had built to store agricultural products.

Even the location of the compacted, empty plot of land not far away was exactly the same.

His dad had been a man with ideas. This empty plot was originally intended for a farmhouse restaurant. In the future, once all 2,000 mu of land were planted with crops, he could let visitors personally experience rural life and pick their own fruits and vegetables.

Now, all this land had appeared in the game screen in his mind.

And the attribute panel in the upper-left corner was filled with his information.

Player Name: Zhang Lin.

Level: 1

Level-Up Requirements: 1. 3 Workers (0/3)! 2. Earn 100,000 in profit (0/100,000)! 3. Develop 50 mu of agricultural land (5/50).

Bank Card: 62122614*******

Balance: 10,052.5 yuan

Agricultural Area: 2,000 mu!

Game Constructions: Prefab Steel Building, Warehouse!

Milestone Progress: 0%

The bank account on the info panel was his card, the same one he’d registered as the public account for the farm’s legal procedures. Even the balance was identical. This was all the money he had to his name.

’What’s going on? Is this a pay-to-win game? And it directly linked to my bank card?’

’The key question is, how do I even play this game inside my head? Mind control?’

Faced with this situation, besides amazement, he naturally had to experiment.

So, he tried to think about recruiting an employee. Something magical happened. The game screen actually opened the employee recruitment interface. He clicked on the "Recruit Ordinary Farm Worker" option.

He was only Level 1, so the only option available on the interface was to recruit an ordinary farm worker.

But even this ordinary farm worker was pretty impressive. The description noted they were skilled in operating all kinds of agricultural machinery!

[Congratulations, you have spent 7,500 yuan to recruit one Ordinary Farm Worker. Employment period: one month. The Ordinary Farm Worker is now materializing...]

Following the prompt, the balance in the upper-left corner changed from 10,052.5 to 2,552.5!

At the same time, his phone rang with a notification:

"A payment of 7,500 yuan was made from your China Merchants Bank card ending in *** at 10:30 on June 2nd. Current balance: 2,552.50 yuan."

"???" Zhang Lin was instantly dumbfounded.

’Even pay-to-win games don’t work like this! It just took 7,500 yuan of my real money?’

But in the next moment, a shocking scene unfolded. A humanoid ball of light appeared before him. Within the light, a figure solidified from a phantom image, clearly dressed as a farm worker.

On the table in front of him, the phantom image of a contract also slowly solidified.

A moment later, a farm worker in his forties with sun-darkened skin appeared before him. "Boss, my name is Liu De. It’s my first day. What are your orders?"

"..." Zhang Lin felt like he was seeing a ghost.

’So this is what "materializing" means? Just conjuring a living person out of thin air?’

He tried giving Liu De an order: "Go water the vegetable patch outside!"

"Right away, Boss!" Upon receiving his orders, Liu De respectfully exited the prefab steel building.

Zhang Lin found it all too incredible. He looked at the contract on the desk. It was Liu De’s employment contract, and it even included a copy of the man’s ID card. The place of residence was actually a real place.

He looked it up and found that it was a real village, but it had been buried by a mudslide a few years ago.

’The system can’t be this good at faking things, can it?’

He took out his phone, snapped a picture of the ID copy, and sent it to his cousin, Zhang Zhao. His cousin was a minor leader at the local police station and should be able to check on it.

"Lin, what’s up with this guy?" Zhang Zhao messaged back.

Zhang Lin quickly made up a reason: "I’m planning to get Dad’s rented land up and running, so I’m hiring a worker. This is the ID copy he sent over. I wanted to see if he has a criminal record!"

"Got it, I’ll take a look for you!" Zhang Zhao replied. A short while later, he sent over a screenshot of a file. It was indeed about Liu De, and the photo was identical to the Liu De outside.

The file showed that Liu De had no criminal record, but he was the only person listed on his household registration.

"Thanks, Zhao!" Zhang Lin replied to his cousin, marveling at how amazing the system was.

’It actually arranged a usable, real-world identity for someone recruited from a game. How awesome is that!’

Then, he thought of something. The game seemed to allow him to wholesale products from a market. ’Since the recruited person can appear in reality, then the wholesaled products should be able to as well, right?’

He immediately and eagerly began to study the Agricultural Tycoon game.

He opened the market interface, and a message popped up.

Products available for wholesale at the current level:

1. Honey Peaches (Quality 1), Wholesale Price: 4 yuan/jin, Wholesale Limit: 500 jin/day.

Just as he expected, only one type of product—honey peaches—was available for wholesale at Level 1.

But Zhang Lin immediately felt something was off. In a place like You City, the market price for honey peaches was 10 yuan/jin. The wholesale price couldn’t possibly be just 4 yuan. Wholesalers in a small county wouldn’t leave that much profit for the retailers.

Honey peaches usually had a profit margin of around 30%. If the market price was 10 yuan, the wholesale price for retailers would be around 7 yuan.

Of course, this was for the current stage and wasn’t set in stone. The market was always adjusting, and different fruits had different prices and different reserved profit margins.

And clearly, the wholesale price for the honey peaches in the game was definitely lower than the real-world wholesale price right now.

If these honey peaches could be brought into the real world and sold, then based on the market price, he could earn 6 yuan per jin. For 500 jin a day, that would be a profit of 3,000 yuan.

Crucially, he had no transportation or other associated costs.

’If this is possible, it has some serious potential.’

He immediately chose to wholesale the 500 jin of honey peaches, his face full of anticipation.

[Congratulations, you have spent 2,000 yuan to wholesale 500 jin of Honey Peaches (Quality 1). The Honey Peaches (Quality 1) have been materialized and stored in the warehouse. You can click on the warehouse to view them!]

"A payment of 2,000 yuan was made from your China Merchants Bank card ending in *** at 10:30 on June 2nd. Current balance: 552.50 yuan."

Instantly, the system’s voice sounded, and his phone once again received a bank notification for the payment.

Zhang Lin looked at the light screen in his mind, clicked on the warehouse, and sure enough, information appeared:

Current Stored Items:

1. Honey Peaches (Quality 1): 500 jin

Seeing this, he immediately left the prefab steel building again and headed for the nearby warehouse. He opened the door and went inside. The first thing that greeted him was the sight of baskets upon baskets of honey peaches.