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At 5:30 p.m., Chen Zhuzhu hopped on one foot to put on her sneakers, about to leave, when a muffled complaint drifted from the other end of the sofa: "Aren't you going to eat? Where have you been again?"

She looked up and saw her mother walking from the bedroom to the living room, wearing a face mask and only revealing two eyes full of disapproval.

"Mom, didn't I tell you last week that I found a job as a presenter, but it's for an evening slot?"

Chen Zhuzhu tried her best to make her tone sound innocent, and with a strong push of her feet, she finally managed to squeeze her feet into her shoes.

The uncomfortable pressure made her feel irritable.

Have these shoes shrunk? The clothes are the same; they look like they fit perfectly, but they just don't feel right when I wear them.

"What evening show host? I asked you to name a program so I could find it, but you wouldn't tell me for ages, acting all mysterious." Mom patted her face mask lightly, giving her a suspicious look. "Are you kidding me?"

Why would I lie to you? Even if that company is bad, it's still better than the one that lousy fellow villager recommended.

"Really?" Being her own mother, she could see the genuine disdain and confidence on her daughter's face. But with her own experience and the stubbornness of an elder, she still found it hard to believe her daughter could find a job without connections. She couldn't help but mutter, "If you ask me, the job someone introduces you to won't be a rip-off. If you run away without a word, and this job falls through too, who will be willing to introduce you to jobs in the future?"

It would have been better if she hadn't mentioned it, because the moment it was brought up, Chen Zhuzhu's anger flared up, and she rolled her eyes so hard they almost reached the sky: "That job almost killed me!"

This isn't a metaphor; you really could die!

She still remembers that when the fellow villagers contacted her mother, her mother specially lit three extra incense sticks for the Guanyin statue in the house, saying that Guanyin would bless them.

Bless me my ass! If you really blessed me, that person wouldn't have bothered me!

"It's just a little tiring, everyone goes through this. If you can't even handle this little bit of hardship, what would happen in our time..."

The mother, of course, couldn't understand the subtext of her words and only thought that her daughter was complaining about hardship and being lazy, and was nagging on and on. Seeing that she couldn't reason with her, Chen Zhuzhu grabbed her shoulder bag and made a quick getaway.

The door closed behind her, but the voice saying "I'm doing this for your own good" could still be faintly heard. Chen Zhuzhu covered her ears, pretending not to hear it.

As a first-tier city, Huacheng naturally has a chain of low-end luxury coffee shops under the name of Sanchuan, located five kilometers away from Chen Zhuzhu's home.

She initially thought the distance was too far, but considering her mother's attitude today, the distance actually became an advantage. At least she wouldn't easily run into acquaintances, and she wouldn't be questioned, "Weren't you supposed to be an evening host? Why are you spending the whole night in a coffee shop?"

Just thinking about it is annoying. Chen Zhuzhu felt she had to find a way to solve the problem of the program not being searchable, otherwise today's conversation would keep repeating itself.

After greeting the receptionist, she dragged her tired body into the staff area. Jiuchonglou had already arranged for the café to prepare her dinner. Accustomed to the cafeteria food and her mother's cooking, suddenly enjoying understatedly luxurious individual dishes as a set meal was a somewhat strange experience.

Scrolling through your phone while eating is a common problem for modern people, and Chen Zhuzhu is no exception, except that she's scrolling through her chat history.

The fellow villager who tricked her has been silent ever since he dragged her into the game. The account wasn't deleted, but her Moments and chat history are frozen in time.

Chen Zhuzhu regretted not adding other people's contact information when the dungeon ended. But then she thought that ordinary communication devices probably didn't support cross-platform communication, so she had to give up.

She doesn't know if Sanchuan Tailor Shop has helped her get things sorted out with the "Scream Time" program team, nor does she know if the second round of challenges has already started.

Adhering to the principle of "it's better to ask directly than to think too much", Chen Zhuzhu quickly finished her meal, took out the prop key, and stepped into Sanchuan Entertainment Co., Ltd.

Although the program itself has no name, renting an office building to start a company still needs a name.

"You're here so early today?" As soon as she entered the program room, she saw Ji Mo sitting there.

What's unusual is that Jiu Chonglou wasn't there. In Chen Zhuzhu's memory, the two were almost inseparable.

Ji Mo held a book titled "A Brief Analysis of the Similarities and Differences in the World" in his hand.

Having experienced the Zhang Qixuan incident, he felt a strong need to deepen his understanding of other worlds. Therefore, he asked Jiu Chonglou for a book analyzing the development history of common small worlds. Just reading the preface, it felt like an introduction to the background setting of some kind of board game:

"The number of small worlds discovered to date has exceeded three thousand. They are scattered like stars on the edge of our understanding, each unfolding its own unique trajectory of civilization and logic of development. Some are martial, building order with pure power; some are constantly contemplating the essence of things, regarding scientific research as life itself; and there are even strange paradigms dominated by magic or mechanical ascension. Upon first exploration, this diverse diversity is dazzling."

However, when we look beyond appearances and delve into the inner workings, we perceive three major factors contributing to the differences in civilizations: the amount of polluted information they carry, their human resources, and their external interactions—all of which exert a combined influence…

This book, from simple to complex, from classic examples to variations, was very enjoyable for Ji Mo, and she learned a lot from it.

That's the advantage of having a senior mentor: they know exactly what he needs right now, and the books they provide are all practical and useful.

However, now that Chen Zhuzhu was here, even though the show was still a long way from airing, Ji Mo couldn't continue reading. He closed the book and noticed her hesitant expression: "You want to watch too?"

"No, no!" Chen Zhuzhu scratched her face, a little embarrassed, and said, "Actually, I wanted to ask about the 'Scream Time' thing..."

"Oh, I forgot to tell you, Xiao Jiu has already resolved this matter." Ji Mo saw that Chen Zhuzhu's expectation had not diminished, guessing that she wanted more details about the solution: "She threatened the 'Scream Time' program team that if they didn't disqualify you from participating, Sanchuan would randomly select a lucky program team to fry fish and put the blame on them."

"Fried fish?" Chen Zhuzhu didn't play games and didn't get the idea for a moment.

"It means we'll send someone to create a fake identity and suppress their own power, infiltrate similar programs pretending to be newbies, and then use overwhelming power to easily clear the stages and obtain a large number of points."

After Ji Mo explained for a long time, Chen Zhuzhu finally realized: "So you mean every show has a budget, and 'fish fry' would exhaust their funds in the early stages, making it impossible to operate later, and the show's effect would be very poor, making it impossible to recoup costs?"

Even the independent Sanchuan Tailor Shop needs legitimate funding, so these urban-themed program production teams naturally can't just print money. From a certain perspective, maintaining a high participant mortality rate is also a way to control costs.

"That's right."

"Won't this ruin Sanchuan's reputation?" Chen Zhuzhu recalled the extraordinary laws, pondering, "Isn't this illegal?"

Without hesitation, Ji Mo countered, "Would you like to hear a nicer way of putting it, or a harsher way?"

"Should it sound better?"

"This was an individual act, and we have issued a strong criticism of it and are willing to assist the program team in improving the rating selection mechanism."

"To put it more bluntly?"

"Sanchuan's reputation outside is almost like that of a hooligan, so this little bit doesn't matter."