Pokémon, but cultural invasion.

Players who block the road try to reveal the truth of the world to passing NPCs.

"AAA Magikarp Wholesale: Is it possible that the world you live in is fake, just a game?"

"Citizen No. 12035: Neurotic."

The player, caught red-handed after leaving the apartment building, patiently explained to Officer Jenny.

"Short-tailed Wrecker: Would you believe me if I said I forgot to turn off auto-pickup?"

Officer Jenny: Go tell my Arcanine what you have to say.

The players who tried to pick up girls at the bar didn't seem to be making much progress.

"Shiny Blastoise: What exactly is a bride price?!"

"Citizen No. 20102: It's a sign of sincerity and a guarantee, and it's not expensive, only 388,000."

Shiny Blastoise: Sorry to bother you.

The player weighed the five thousand in starter funds in his pocket and fled in panic.

"Our DianDian live streaming room is truly full of talented people."

"Little-known fact: as long as the NPC's favorability is high enough, you can get married without a dowry."

"The wooden cabinets and suitcases in this game can all be opened with the [Search] option. Who can resist opening blind boxes like that?"

The most important thing in building a city is funding, and this is also true for individual players.

Breeders need start-up capital to rent their first breeding house; woodworking experts need money to buy favor items; and fishing experts need fishing gear...

In order to earn their first pot of gold, players flocked to various work locations and began to try out all sorts of mini-games.

Some players with poor hand-eye coordination complained about the low efficiency and started forming teams and asking for help in the chat channel.

"【Gold Miner】Looking for a mentor/expert to help me mine. I'll give you a bigger share after the settlement."

"For those looking to loot a large junkyard, these NPCs throw all sorts of things into the garbage dump. Pokémon with tattered bags are given priority."

"The detective agency's hidden mission, 'The Vanished Her,' requires two more brothers to unlock. First come, first served."

The chat channels are bustling with activity, and players are roaming around Night City, creating a vibrant and thriving scene.

Pokémon have various abilities that can boost a player's power, and their numbers are limited, making the Baby Shop a highly competitive arena for new players.

Besides that, the most popular are the NPCs who can give out quests.

There are almost no repeatable tasks, creating a situation where there are too many applicants and not enough tasks, so whether you can find a task depends on luck.

In this situation, if an elderly NPC wants to cross the road, the players will also want to carry her across.

Most quests are accepted as soon as they are discovered, while only certain quests with special requirements or high difficulty are retained and attract a group of players like flies.

For example, an elderly man with failing eyesight wants to ask someone to find his lost Pokémon.

If someone can't pronounce a name clearly, a round, black silhouette will be used instead.

Players instinctively thought it was a Pokémon like Jigglypuff or Electrode, but who would have thought it was actually Pikachu viewed from above?

For example, at the entrance of the Trainer School, an NPC who looks like a student has a worried expression, and about a dozen players are gathered around him.

They either stood still, perhaps looking up information, or pondered deeply, pacing back and forth.

Qi Shu dragged the camera over to see what task had stumped the players.

[Optional Task: Xiaoming's Troubles]

He was distressed because he hadn't finished his homework yesterday, and he lingered at the school gate, hesitant to go to school.

He only has one major question left in his homework and hopes to get your help.

She clicked on the exclamation mark next to the little figure's head that read "Distressed".

[Suppose there is a Pokémon inside a black box, and you can only determine its type by attacking it repeatedly. Each attack will result in one of four outcomes: "Excellent," "Average," "Poor," or "Ineffective." What is the maximum number of attacks you would need to determine its type combination?]

Note: 1. Pokémon abilities are not included in the calculation.

2. Freeze-drying and heavy pressure during flight are not considered.

[Enter the answer——]

Just a few glances and Qishu felt like his head was about to explode.

What kind of ridiculous question is this? She takes forever to calculate even three-digit addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, so this question is even more like gibberish.

"No wonder a bunch of people were standing there motionless, were they competing to see who could search for the question the fastest?"

"Summon the Polygon!"

"Luckily, I chose to go on a trip. So those trainer schools do these kinds of problems every day?"

"A second-year student from Blueberry Academy refuted the rumor, saying that even the most difficult question on our exam was not this hard. The person who set the question must be mentally disturbed."

"Difficulty is not the key point; you can calculate it by listing. But spending so much time on it during the exam is not cost-effective at all."

The discussion in the comments section completely went astray.

Qi Shu closed the detailed page of the question; she still had a lot of money to spend, and the city needed to be expanded.

It's necessary to let players experience Night City 2.0.

Time is about to accelerate.

Chapter 138 Who put this article on my phone?

A large influx of funds yielded immediate results.

As the first rays of dawn swept across the mayor's statue standing in the central square, Night City, like a newborn behemoth crouching on the ground, emitted a deafening breathing sound.

People of all kinds walk on the streets or take buses or private cars to their workplaces.

As they took their positions, thick chimneys in the industrial area billowed white smoke, shop curtains rustled open along the street, figures flickered in the office building windows, and groups of students lingered at the school gate...

"It looks so vibrant that you can't tell at all that this city is burdened with huge loans."

Qi Shu stroked his chin.

She frantically sifted through the comments and expanded the city, and although there were still shortcomings, at least the city was running in a not-too-ugly fashion.

"The streamer is deceiving himself again."

"Promise me, you can fool your brothers, but don't fool yourself too."

"Hey streamer, why is that line of red text in your bottom left data panel constantly flashing?"

Qi Shu's gaze shifted to the "funds" section, where a shocking string of deficits kept flashing.

It's hard for anyone not to notice it.

"Loan interest rates are constantly increasing..."

Qi Shu opened a floating mini-program, blocking the funds section in the lower left corner, and laughed, "No problem, the game continues."

This act, which was tantamount to burying one's head in the sand, drew another round of groans from the live chat.

"If you can't see it, it doesn't exist."

"Your position determines your perspective," and Qishu had naturally assumed the identity of the gym leader of Night City.

She doesn't connect with reality, and she acts without any taboos.

“I have a brilliant idea: if we can’t repay the loans, we’ll demolish all these banks the day before the repayment date. Night City seems a bit too urbanized.”

The comments section was completely overwhelmed.

"It has to be you again, brilliant, absolutely brilliant!"

"Bank: Hello, Officer Jenny, I need to call the police!"

"Once the thought of defaulting on a debt arises, the world suddenly becomes vast. We'll lend him another sum after the demolition and reconstruction!"

Qi Shu chuckled. She didn't really think the game had such a big loophole for her to exploit; what goes around comes around.

The constantly fluctuating red numbers still put pressure on people, so she raised various taxes, water and electricity fees, and gas fees in Night City.

Imposing additional taxes is a standard practice when the national treasury is empty. I wonder if this game allows selling official positions.

The police station could easily have several deputy chiefs, so she figured the Pokémon Center could easily house a dozen or so deputy chiefs.

The NPC citizens haven't noticed any changes yet; the first to react are the working players.

After leaving the mine, the rewards from the mini-game settlement decreased slightly.

Players who were extremely sensitive to Skycoin immediately noticed something was wrong and started discussing it outside the mine.

"Why are the profits from mining so low? I told you not to hype up miners, now they're being treated like a high-paying profession and getting ripped off."

"It's not just miners; the profits of all professions have been slashed. It's only a matter of time before convenience store bread prices go up."

"The server hasn't even been open for a little over an hour, and they've already added the taxes. I think this Qishu is just a lazy bum; he should be replaced!"

The second group to suffer were the business players who had already made their first fortune, rented premises and shops, and were preparing to make a big splash.

Animal breeding houses, restaurants, retail stores, and even clothing stores.

I had only been playing the detailed simulation game for a short time, and I was preparing to recruit more staff to improve our competitiveness, when the utility bills went up.

"This is a major nerf to players who focus on management skills. These players who only work don't need water or electricity, it's unfair!"

"I won't say a word until Qishu adjusts its taxes."

The protests against the tax increase have reached the live streaming room.

Qi Shu frowned and explained, "I didn't just add things randomly. Urban infrastructure requires money, and where does that money come from? It can't just appear out of thin air, can it?"

"Those of you who made your first fortune should understand the importance of helping others get rich and improving the average gaming experience for all players."

She was too lazy to explain, but some chattering comments kept coming up, so she had no choice but to say helplessly, "Okay, the tax will be adjusted back."

"It's not that there won't be a pullback, but rather a slow and gradual pullback, a pullback in an orderly and regulated manner."

Since there will be a pullback, everyone can rest assured.

Seeing the red numbers increase at a slower rate, or even begin to decrease, Qi Shu was no longer worried about the loan.

The glamorous exterior of Night City has been built, and the players provide it with life and vitality.

She took a photo from a god-like perspective and uploaded it, showing a visible increase in the number of NPCs arriving daily. Leveraging was the right thing to do!

However, the good times didn't last long. A few tens of minutes later, the tax revenue line chart, which had been rising steadily, suddenly went flat.

"what's the situation?"

It's clear that the problem isn't with economic development; the city is still functioning normally.

She spied on the players' chat channels and discovered a clue.

"Accounting profession greatly enhanced! A must-have for every management game player, those who know, come join!"

"Electric-type Pokémon get a huge boost! What's with all that chatter about electricity bills? A hundred thousand volts consumes a small cookie."

These players have a very strong competitive mentality.

Taxation is only one aspect; another is that the crime rate among players is a bit high.

There are players who play normally, but there are also quite a few who want to take shortcuts and find shortcuts.

Theft and robbery are commonplace, and usually, players playing the role of police officers step in to confront and arrest them.

This cops and robbers game can go from the city center all the way to the suburbs, with both sides' Pokémon battling until the main road is completely destroyed, otherwise it won't be satisfying.

The result was that the paving stones and streetlights on the street were damaged. I don't know why they made it so realistic.

Qi Shu was already having a headache. These police players didn't see themselves as police, and the thieves didn't see themselves as thieves either.

"I suddenly realized that the operation frequency required for a city dojo owner is quite high."

"Answerer, the residential area to the east is complaining about insufficient power supply. Huang Biaoliang has been doing this for a long time."

"The fire station is stuck in traffic. It seems there's a problem with the road planning. I suggested building a ring road interchange back then."

The chaotic players and demanding NPC residents, along with the high frequency of actions, left Qi Shu sweating profusely, like a patcher mending and patching up the flaws.

She had just resolved the power supply issue when the residents who had complained about air pollution from thermal power plants started complaining about noise pollution from wind power generation.

The traffic congestion isn't entirely a design flaw; these NPCs always take the shortest route, unwilling to walk a few extra steps to another road, even if it means waiting in long lines.