Building a sect from scratch.

Chapter 45 Maltose

Despite Wang Ergou talking to the players in the group for so long, it only took a few minutes. By then, the old man had gradually recovered. The surrounding villagers did not approach him, but they no longer hid in fear as they had when they first saw the players.

“Grandpa, it’s like this. Don’t worry, our Taiyin Sect is a legitimate sect. We don’t need human sacrifices, nor do we need any raw or cooked offerings. We also don’t need to pay taxes or perform corvée labor. In the next few days, we’ll even help you all tidy up the village.”

Wang Ergou recalled the old TV dramas he watched as a child in his grandparents' arms, and his words of comfort became smoother and smoother: "Let everyone raise poultry and livestock, let every family have land and property, and let life get better!"

Unexpectedly, the old man was horrified upon hearing these words: "Then, will the immortals leave in a few days?"

Wang Ergou then realized that his Taiyin Sect's refusal to accept anything had only made the NPCs more panicked, which made him even more troubled about how to appease them. The task assigned by his organization was proving difficult!

He said dryly, "No, from now on, your village will be under the jurisdiction of our Taiyin Sect. No one can bully you. If anyone attacks, just come find us... cough, come find our Taiyin Sect disciples!"

He himself didn't find his words convincing, so he simply called for help in the group chat: "I can't do this, brothers. I can't handle this job. Come and help me out. Keep the NPCs calm and polite. If anyone does anything unethical, whether you get banned or not is another matter, but I'll blacklist you from now on when I start a group!"

"Hilarious, Dog Bro is amazing. He goes all out against the BOSS and his teammates, but he's all thumbs when he's dealing with NPCs."

"Get out of the way! My mom's a psychologist at the city hospital! I know this stuff!"

"Wait, don't rush, I'm searching for introductory psychology books."

"Me! Me! Me! I've trained my husband so well! I'm an expert in 'child psychology'! Let me do it!"

The players typed in the team list as they rushed into the village.

There's a reason why players are called the "Fourth Calamity".

Although Fang Xianyu considered the average daily playtime and past gaming habits when selecting lucky players who received activation codes, human behavior is unpredictable most of the time.

Petty theft is a minor matter. If Fang Xianyu hadn't already restricted some of the players' behavior through the cross-dimensional network controlled by the system, there would probably have been murder and arson.

Don't be fooled by the heated speculation surrounding "Ten Continents Chronicle" on gaming forums; it's all just guesswork and banter. If someone actually suspects it's a time-travel story simply because the game is too realistic, then even anti-fraud apps can't save their brains.

Therefore, a game is just a game, and you can't expect players to be overly moral in a game.

When an NPC village with no resistance appears before players, it's like a piece of meat in a wolf's mouth or a mouse in front of a cat; theoretically, it's bound to go through a rather tragic incident.

But what the players didn't know was that there was a mole among them—

As soon as they approached the spot where Wang Ergou and the old man were, a player took out a piece of malt candy from his backpack and gave it to the little girl who was hiding behind the old man.

The little girl watched nervously as a group of strange "fairies" hopped and skipped toward her, when suddenly a small square wrapped in oil paper was shoved into her hand. She was a little taken aback. She looked up, her two big, dark eyes staring blankly at the "fairy" who had given her the thing.

He's a very handsome older brother.

The gentle voice of the "fairy" came from above: "This is called maltose."

An Ning subconsciously tilted her head, and the parrot mimicked her, saying, "Maltose?"

She knew about maltose. When Pingya was still alive, the aunt next door made maltose once. It was sticky and sweet.

"It's delicious, it's sweet, you should try it!"

"The immortal said." Anning glanced at her great-grandfather. His expression was strange, as if he were very happy, yet also very sad, but he didn't shake his head. This meant that Anning could eat the candy!
She carefully peeled off the oil paper, and licked the brownish-yellow sugar cube with great care, swallowing hard and her eyes sparkling.

At least a dozen pairs of eyes witnessed this scene. One player couldn't hold back any longer and typed furiously in the team list: "I'm going back to that Cold Pool later to find that Demon's corpse. I'm going to chop that thing up and feed it to the pigs!"

"Count me in, thanks. I'm a pervert; I like to torture corpses, especially the corpses of demons and monsters!"

"Then if you're a pervert, I'm a pervert too, let's all be perverts together!"

More players started rummaging through their bags looking for things to give to the little girl. One person stuffed in two steamed buns, another a bunch of the most beautiful blooming spirit plants, and a wealthy player even lavishly stuffed in several spirit stones. At first, the little girl accepted whatever anyone gave her, but later she couldn't accept them all, so she pouted and looked a little aggrieved.

"No! No!"

Seeing that the items being handed to him were increasingly frightening, the old man quickly refused them and tried to return what Anning was holding.

Players, however, were unhappy, arguing that feeding cubs was "human nature," especially beautiful ones. Of course, the more important reason was—

Who knows when this game will suddenly introduce hidden stats? Or even hidden NPC affinity levels?

You see, Wang Ergou messed up the NPC's favorability rating by getting it down to -100 just because he used the wrong posture when fighting the random encounter BOSS. As a result, while all the players on the server had received Huang Gong's quest, Huang Gong would just snort coldly and disappear whenever he saw Wang Ergou.

These are all painful lessons!
Compared to the precise feeding of Ziran, the gifts from other players clearly didn't suit the little girl's taste. Although the human cub was clutching a bunch of random things, she was still drooling, particularly fond of the piece of maltose that was already stuck to her hand.

"Hey cumin guy, why do you carry this thing with you all the time?"

"Alone, thank you."

Knowing part of the inside story, the Jade Emperor decisively betrayed his teammate: "I know, I know! Boss Cumin bought a Qiankun bag from Elder Lu Ying, which is full of all sorts of gadgets, just in case!"

"Holy crap? Elder Lu Ying is a merchant NPC? Can we buy things from her?"

"No, it's all about luck. It seems like all NPCs have a trading system, but what you can buy and whether you can actually buy it all depends on luck, or if you offer a high enough price. Last time I spent three taels of silver to buy an NPC's sesame seed cake..."

"Three taels of silver? For a sesame seed cake? I don't really know."

Are all the hobbies of the wealthy so simple and unpretentious?

"No, listen to my excuse, I just wanted to see if I could buy it, and I actually did..."

"Aren't you going to change your mind?"

Upon hearing this, the Jade Emperor was on the verge of tears, saying, "I originally wanted to back out, but he deducted 10 points of my favorability. I said I was just joking, and that's when he added them back..."

"Which NPC is it? Let's avoid this one!"

"Eucommia ulmoides".

"..."

"I can't avoid it, goodbye, but I'll remember this, don't buy his sesame cakes next time."

(End of this chapter)