Chapter 50: Continuous Heart-Stabbing! Something Went Wrong

Chapter 50: Chapter 50: Continuous Heart-Stabbing! Something Went Wrong

Wei Yuan saw Zhao Han’s dumbfounded look and teased, "The call I just got was an update on Li Yuan Farm. I figured it’d be better not to break your heart."

Hearing this, Zhao Han wanted to retort. ’So you say that, but then you don’t tell me the news. Isn’t that just breaking my heart anyway?’

"This way, I get to break your heart twice, don’t I?" Wei Yuan said jokingly.

"..." Zhao Han was speechless. Finally, he asked helplessly, "What exactly is going on?"

Wei Yuan finally smiled and said, "Bookings for Li Yuan Farm have already surpassed 5,000. The key thing is, the farm has a limited capacity, so Boss Zhang had to cap online ticketing. Otherwise, far more than 5,000 people would be coming to Li Yuan Farm tomorrow."

"What? 5,000 people already?" Zhao Han stood up subconsciously, his cheek twitching. He knew all too well what the combined daily average of all the scenic spots in You City was.

And Li Yuan Farm had attracted this many people on only its second day.

As a leader in the tourism industry, he could naturally see the writing on the wall. If this trend continued and online hype was properly managed without capping visitor numbers, Li Yuan Farm alone could surpass the combined average daily visitor count of all other attractions in You City.

’If only we had built a good relationship with Li Yuan Farm before,’ he thought. ’By now, we could be discussing a partnership and diverting at least some of those tourists, right?’

It was just like that city that went viral nationwide for its barbecue; its tourist attractions benefited immensely from the traffic.

The crucial part was that Li Yuan Farm was right next to the county seat.

’Tourists from out of town need a place to stay, don’t they?’

’They need to eat, right?’

That would bring a lot of spending to You City.

’Our tourism bureau could have been a part of this, but now it has absolutely nothing to do with us.’

As he thought about it, he couldn’t help but curse, "Chen Ting, that bastard!"

Seeing this, Wei Yuan said with a grin, "Zhao, you can stay here and stew all you want. I need to get back to the Agriculture Bureau to oversee our cooperation with Li Yuan Farm. With over 5,000 visitors a day now, imagine the online traffic! Promoting new fruit varieties will be so much easier. It’s like a massive fortune just fell from the sky and landed on our heads."

"..." Zhao Han was silenced once again, feeling like another knife had just been twisted in his heart.

...

Meanwhile, Zhang Lin had just arrived at his color-steel-panel office when a game notification suddenly appeared in his mind:

[Congratulations! You have completed the "Host 1,000 Visitors" milestone and received a milestone reward. The Recruitment Market has been updated with a new recruitable profession: Professional Scenic Area Security Guard!]

Zhang Lin was stunned by the notification.

’Talk about good timing.’

Just when he learned about the surge in ticket bookings, he had been thinking about hiring some security guards. That way, it would be easier to handle unruly visitors or fights.

He had just been wondering how to recruit security guards, since the secrets of him and his farm absolutely could not be exposed.

He had originally planned to hire more farmhands from the game to act as security. At least for now, he didn’t want to hire anyone from the real world.

Hiring people from reality would make it easy for his and the farm’s secrets to be investigated and potentially exposed.

At the very least, he didn’t want to hire from the real world until the development of these 2,000 acres was complete.

Even if he were to hire real people in the future, he would wait until the farm expanded further. He’d hire real people for the outer areas, while keeping the inner core staffed entirely by game-recruited employees to prevent exposure.

He would also need his game-recruited employees to lead the ones hired from reality.

He never expected the "Host 1,000 Visitors" milestone reward to unlock a professional security guard position for recruitment.

This meant that after hosting 409 visitors yesterday, he had already hosted 591 today. At this rate, breaking 1,000 visitors for the day should be no problem at all.

Zhang Lin immediately opened the Recruitment Market and saw that a security guard option had indeed been added to the list of available professions:

Professional Scenic Area Security Guard (6,000 yuan/month)

A salary of 6,000 yuan a month for a security guard was definitely high. The normal rate was around 4,000.

But this Professional Scenic Area Security Guard came with a note: "They will actually step up when trouble starts."

This meant that when something happened, these guards wouldn’t back down; they would actually dare to charge in.

For that alone, he felt 6,000 yuan a month was worth it. He even thought it was a bit low.

He had read a news story before about two tourists at a scenic spot who got into a fight. It escalated until one pulled a dagger from his bag, but none of the nearby security guards dared to intervene. In the end, one of the tourists ended up in the hospital.

The incident blew up afterward, with the attraction being blamed for inadequate security measures. The scenic area had to undergo rectification and compensate the injured party for their medical expenses.

When incidents like this happen at an attraction, if you have the ability to intervene but don’t, you get blamed whether it’s your fault or not. It was a huge hassle.

But those security guards were only making 3,000 yuan a month. It seemed unreasonable to expect them to risk their lives for that, and nobody would.

’Now, the game system’s guards make 6,000 a month and will actually step up. That alone is a guarantee if an accident really happens. Spending a little extra is worth it!’

To maintain security for the 500-acre Flower Sea, considering the farmhands he already had on patrol, he would only need to hire another 10 guards.

So, that was another 60,000 yuan gone.

Zhang Lin glanced at his current balance: 667,354.12 yuan!

The bulk of this, of course, came from online ticket sales. 9,369 tickets had been booked for tomorrow and the day after. At 50 yuan a ticket, that was 468,000 yuan.

The rest was his previous balance, plus today’s revenue from fruit sales, tickets, and the restaurant.

So, hiring 10 professional security guards from the game system was not a problem.

But just as he was about to select the recruitment option, he received another game notification:

[Insufficient housing available. Recruitment failed. Please prepare adequate living quarters before recruiting!]

Zhang Lin froze at the message.

’There’s this kind of game restriction?’

’Isn’t this just like management games such as Warcraft, where you need to build houses to increase the population cap before you can recruit more units?’

He hadn’t received this prompt during previous recruitments. It must be because the system defaulted to two people per room in the color-steel-panel buildings, and now both buildings were full.

However, the housing issue wasn’t too difficult to solve. He just needed to build more color-steel-panel buildings.

The problem was, he currently had no game construction slots available, so he couldn’t use the system for a quick build.

Besides, even if he did have a construction slot, using it on a simple color-steel building felt like using a cannon to shoot a mosquito.

Construction slots should be used for buildings with special attributes, like the service center.

Something like a color-steel-panel building could just be built by hiring people from the real world.

As it happened, he had a high school classmate he was on good terms with who ran that kind of business in You City. He could just contact him later.

But hiring someone from the real world to build it would take at least three days, which was too slow.

So, he decided to try and exploit a game bug. He’d have to inconvenience Liu De and the others for a bit by arranging for some of them to stay four to a room, just to free up five rooms.

Once the new color-steel-panel buildings were ready, he could reassign the rooms.

This time, he would have to build at least two extra buildings to avoid being restricted again the next time he needed to hire someone.

After all, he didn’t have the capital to build a proper dormitory building right now.

With this in mind, Zhang Lin called Liu De over and gave him a direct order. "Liu De, this is an emergency. A batch of new employees is arriving. I need you to have some people share rooms, four to a room, to clear out five empty rooms!"

"Yes, Boss!" Liu De nodded immediately. Without a single word of complaint, he carried out the order with superb efficiency and quickly freed up five rooms.

This time, when he tried to recruit again, there was no restriction. The recruitment was successful.

[Congratulations! You have spent 60,000 yuan to recruit 10 Professional Scenic Area Security Guards for a one-month employment term. The Professional Scenic Area Security Guards are now materializing...]

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

"Card ending in *** paid 60,000 yuan via China Merchants Bank at 12:30 on June 28. Remaining balance: 607,354.12 yuan."

Inside the color-steel-panel office, humanoid balls of white light began to coalesce once more, solidifying into figures.

These newly recruited security guards were noticeably different from the farmhands. Each one was much more robust, as if they had been professionally trained. Their "will actually step up" trait was backed by real substance.

If he dressed them in black suits and took them out, they would look very intimidating.

"Boss!"

After materializing, they all greeted Zhang Lin in unison, their voices firm and full of confidence.

Zhang Lin called Liu De over again and had him take the new security guards to arrange their accommodation and distribute living supplies.

However, now that the men were hired, he was still missing one thing: security uniforms.

He called his uncle directly.

The reason his uncle had the leisure time every day to handle housework, cook, and dote on his wife was that he owned a small garment factory and earned more than the average person.

"Lin, what’s up?"

His uncle’s voice came through as soon as the call connected.

Zhang Lin explained, "Uncle, I need to ask you a favor. Could you make a batch of security uniforms for me, with ’Li Yuan Farm’ embroidered on them?"

Hearing it was just that, his uncle chuckled and agreed. "Got it. That’s a small matter. I’ll have them delivered to you tomorrow morning."

Time passed, and evening soon arrived. The visitors gradually left the farm, either heading home or to their accommodations in You City.

Zhang Lin, along with Mucheng and Zhao Lin, the two waitstaff supervisors, began to tally the data for ticket sales and the restaurant.

But just as the data was tallied, his phone rang urgently. It was Lin Mengxi, the young woman from the Agriculture Bureau.

’She should be off work by now,’ he thought. ’Why is she calling me?’

He answered the call, only to hear Lin Mengxi’s anxious voice. "Boss Zhang, you need to get online and take a look! There’s a situation with Li Yuan Farm on the internet."

"What’s going on?" Zhang Lin was stunned.

’How could something suddenly go wrong when everything was fine?’

"Boss Zhang, I’ll just send you the video link on WeChat. You’ll understand once you see it," Lin Mengxi said before hanging up.

A moment later, Zhang Lin received a video link from her on WeChat. When he clicked it, a Tiao Yin video appeared.

But when he saw the content of the video, he was completely bewildered!

’What the hell is this?’

...