“Sir, miss, would you like to order some wine?” a waiter holding a tray of red wine asked me and Lin Yixin.

“Do you want some?” I asked.

“If you’re drinking, how are you going to go back later?”

“I’ll just call a taxi!”

“Alright then, please give us a bottle. Does this cost extra?”

“Yes, this is high-quality imported red wine. For only 998 RMB, you may enjoy the taste of an authentic French red wine.”

I nodded. “Okay. Two bottles please, or we might fight each other for the last sip of wine…”

Lin Yixin glared at me. “Like that would ever happen, you bastard…”

I spread my arms innocently. “Who knows?”

After I paid for the red wine, the waiter opened the bottles and put them nicely on the table.

……

Lin Yixin was clearly in a good mood today. Not only did she sign a contract with the legendary Apple, it probably came with an iPhone-N or something. Long story short, she hit the jackpot.

“Yiyi, if I may be so bold to ask a favor…” I started.

“What is it?”

“Is it possible for you to contact the parent company of Apple and request an autograph of Steve Jobs? I’ve been his fan for the longest time…” I stared at Lin Yixin with starry eyes and asked in a reverent tone.

Lin Yixin sighed quietly. “Do you want to get beat up again? He had retired at least a decade ago.”

“Then… let us drink a toast to his retirement…”

“Fine!”

We clinked glasses and drained the whole thing in one go.

After that, we drank a toast to Teacher's Day, Princess Karinshan, and more random and made-up reasons just for the sake of it, finishing our bottles of red wine in the blink of an eye. Although the red wine we had ordered wasn’t very strong, there was a noticeable kick after we drank it for some time. Both of us were feeling a bit dizzy by the end of it. I looked at the time and noted that it was past 8 pm, meaning that we had been eating at the buffet restaurant for over two hours. It was time for a tactical retreat.

“Are we going back now?”

A rosy-cheeked Lin Yi lay her head lazily on the table and smiled at me, long eyelashes blinking.

“Mn, let’s!”

I got up and put an arm around Lin Yixin’s shoulder. The two of us then supported each other as we walked toward the exit. The only proper way to enter or exit a buffet restaurant was to hold the wall for support while you were walking, so we did just that.

……

The rain had stopped when we got to the streets. The cool wind helped to blow away the haze of alcohol and cleared up our minds a little.

As we walked along the streets, I carefully slid my arm downward until finally, I caught Lin Yixin’s small, smooth hand in my own. She immediately shot me a glance and let out a soft snort, but she didn’t object to my advance. We walked for a time while holding each other’s hands.

“Yiyi.”

“Hmm?”

“It’s pretty dark in here, isn’t it?”

“And?”

“Wanna kiss?”

“No way!”

Lin Yixin was a rogue maiden. Her mouth said no, but she was also the one who stood on her tiptoes and planted a quick kiss on my cheeks. Then, she pulled away and walked ahead with reddened cheeks, clearly embarrassed.

I smiled and followed her from behind. We were both a bit drunk and light-headed.

Suddenly, Lin Yixin came to a stop and pointed at a metal box by the wall. She asked, “What is this, Lu Chen?”

It was my turn to turn red as a beef. I muttered, “Condom auto-seller… or rubber in short…”

Lin Yixin cocked her head before leaning closer to me. She asked in an innocent voice, “And what’s that?”

“Er…” I hesitated. “It’s a tool that protects you from…”

“Hehe, I know what’s a rubber, stupid. Do you really think I’m that ignorant?” Lin Yixin burst into a fit of giggles before asking, “Lu Chen, I’ve never bought something like this before, so why don’t we give it a try? Do you have a coin with you?”

“Give me a moment…” I searched around in my pockets for a moment before pulling out a one RMB coin. I passed it to her and asked, “Are you sure you want to buy this?”

“Yep. Is there a problem?” A devious and seductive smile crossed her features.

“Fine, do what you want…” I let out a soundless sigh.

Lin Yixin walked up to the rusted auto-seller and searched around for a bit. After she found the coin slot, she slotted the coin and… nothing happened.

“Hmm? What’s going on? Why isn’t a rubber coming out?”

Lin Yixin stared at the auto-seller in confusion. Then, she gave it a careful knock just in case it was stuck in the process or something. Still, nothing happened.

Bursting into sudden anger, the girl started kicking and punching the auto-seller with everything she got, yelling, “Unbelievable! If you can’t even do your job properly, then why do you even exist, you coin trapper! I’m going to take you apart and take revenge for all the other poor customers you cheated, you irregular construct!”

Beside her, I was completely stunned by Lin Yixin’s outburst.

Suddenly, a childish voice came from behind us. “Big sis, do you need this urgently?”

Caught off-guard, Lin Yixin turned around and found a young boy about five to six years old standing behind her. Smiling, the young boy opened his hand and revealed a pack of Durex-brand rubber. “You’re so pretty, big sis! Here, take this. You look like you really need it…”

Lin Yixin turned as red as a beef. “I…”

The young boy didn’t care to wait for a reaction. He just stuffed the pack of rubber in her hands and bounced away with light footsteps.

Clutching a pack of rubber in her hands, Lin Yixin stared blankly at the corner the young boy vanished to.

I finally walked up to her and teased her, “Yiyi, I didn’t know you were this thirsty…”

Face reaching boiling temperatures, Lin Yixin grabbed my hand and forced the condoms into my hand, “This is yours!”

“Why would I need this for? I don’t have anyone to use it on!”

“I don’t care!”

……

And so, with a pack of rubber in my pockets, I escorted Lin Yixin all the way back to her dorm before I finally bade her goodbye. Then, I called a taxi and returned to the workshop.

My head felt really heavy when I walked through the door. The power of alcohol was as brutal as ever. Not in the mood to play the game, I hit the sack and blacked out immediately.

……

When I finally woke up, it was early in the morning.

He Yi and Murong Mingyue had gone to the company, and they wouldn’t be returning until late afternoon. I went online after eating breakfast with Beiming Xue.

Swhoosh!

I went to repair my equipment after appearing in Sky City. A sense of idleness immediately struck me afterward. At Level 140 I would be leveling at a snail’s pace, so I was in no hurry to find a leveling map. In the end, I decided to travel to Dark Moon City. Our guild territory had ranked up once after we conquered the Nine Lost Dragon Domains map, and considering the existing progress, the Undead Castle should be at Rank 5. I wanted it to hit Rank 10 as soon as possible because I heard that it was the requirement for a city to gain unique racial buffs and privileges, though I didn’t know the exact details.

I sheathed the Cyan Netherworld Sword and put it on my back. Now that I was inside my own territory, there was no need to remain in combat state at all times.

As I thought, Dark Moon City was now a Rank 5 castle. He Yi had spent some resources to recruit Dark Insects before leaving for work, so there were plenty of accumulated resources right now. The city walls had turned into obsidian and were many times stronger than the wooden fences they were when the castle was still at Rank 1. The arrow towers had already grown bigger, taller, and capable of fitting more archers at the top.

At the hall, Dark Knight Hero Udal was kneeling on one knee and waiting for me to give him an order. Unfortunately for him, I didn’t have an order for him right now, so he had to stay kneeling for a while.

I brought up the city UI and checked the stats. All the numbers had risen considerably—

Dark Moon City (Lord: Broken Halberd Sinks Into Sand)

Rank: Rank 5 Undead Castle

Gold Production: 5000 per hour (+50%)

Wood Production: 5000 per hour (+20%)

Stone Production: 5000 per hour (+11%)

Crystal Production: 7950 per hour (+8%)

Dark Insect: 2295

Buildings: 17

Troops: 321 (31x Skeletal Spearman, 50x Zombie, 140x Dark Knight, 100x Umbra Sharpshooter)

Wall Durability: 500

Teleportation Formations: 2

Lord: Dark Knight Hero Udal

……

At Rank 5, I could build a Blood Pond Cemetery and recruit Vampires, a mob with an amazing skill called Vampire’s Embrace that converted 50% of damage dealt to HP. Moreover, they also had a skill called Vampire’s Grasp that increased their attack power by a whopping 40%. The problem was that their HP and Defense were absolutely abysmal, meaning that they could only be deployed under very specific circumstances. For now, I had no plans of recruiting Vampires in large numbers.

My goal was the Rank 6 unit, Dark Knight. They also had two skills, and they were “Halo of Corruption”, a skill that raised attack speed and movement speed by 20%, and “Dark Crusade”, a skill that raised attack power by 70%.

Moreover, Dark Knight naturally had great HP and Defense scaling, making them the perfect unit to use when charging and breaking through enemy lines. They could also be mass-produced because they were fairly cheap to recruit, and I planned to do just that once Dark Moon City reached Rank 7. I couldn’t wait to see Warsky Alliance or Candle Dragon players’ faces when they attacked Dark Moon City, only to find tens of thousands of Dark Knights who were as tanky as players with over 10k HP waiting for them.

I checked my resources and noted that the castle was just a small amount of crystals away from meeting the requirement to upgrade to Rank 6. So, I waited until the crystals had reached the necessary amount before clicking “Upgrade”!

With that done, Dark Moon City would become a Rank 6 Castle in 6 hours. The next rank was a long way away though. For starters, the two basic structures, Nest of Corruption and Blood Pond Cemetery, had to be upgraded to Rank 6. It would be a long while before my objective could come true...

After everything was done, I received a system message—

Ding~!

System Notice: Congratulations, the item "Heaven-stealing Sword" you consigned for sale has been sold to player “Roaming Dragon” for 2.45m RMB. After deducting the 5% intermediary fee, 2.3275m RMB has been delivered to your bank account! Kindly confirm that the payment has been received!

……

Someone bought the Heaven-stealing Sword? And look at that money. A weapon I discarded could still be sold for over 2 million RMB, and even better, it was bought by my old “friend”, Roaming Dragon. Tsk tsk! If possible, I’d like to kill him again and sell him the sword a second time!

Suddenly, Gui Guzi sent me a message: “Boss Broken Halberd, I got bad news!”

“What’s wrong, Little Gui?”

“You need to come to ASUS’ Suzhou e-sports club right now! Today’s the opening day of the club, and Chaos Moon, High Fighting Spirits, Eighteen Steeds of You and Yun, and me were all here. However, Warsky and his goons like Lin Bing Dou Zhe and Farewell Song suddenly showed up and issued a challenge on behalf of their club! They clearly planned for this since they flew all the way to Suzhou this just morning! Li Chengfeng is flying over from Beijing right now, but he’s still stuck at Shanghai at the moment. It’ll be hard to justify this to the sponsors if we get wiped out here!”

“Got it. I’m coming right away!”