Global Collapse

Chapter 691: About the Mid-Autumn Festival storyline I wrote during the Spring Festival

At the start of the global game, the NPCs happily roamed the instance, completely unaware of anything amiss.

"We can't possibly encounter danger in the game"—that's what everyone thinks.

Until a man with a gender marked "?" appeared.

He immediately destroyed the first instance he was matched with. Although this attracted the attention of the NPCs, no one paid much attention to it.

Everyone thinks it's reasonable for a game to have flaws, and that particular dungeon must have had a design flaw that caused it to crash.

But then, a second copy of the crash appeared.

Coincidentally, this instance also features the man whose gender is a mystery.

Some people began to realize the danger, while others still believed it was a coincidence.

The savvy supermarket manufacturer immediately seized the opportunity and quickly launched a tag that everyone might need in the future. The manufacturer's decision proved to be brilliant; subsequent copies failed one after another, and the tag sold out quickly.

Initially, the game developers would try their best to salvage instances when they crashed. However, as more and more instances crashed, the game's salvage measures became increasingly passive, eventually leading to a near-complete collapse.

The NPCs who were watching the commotion realized the seriousness of the problem.

"If I don't come out and condemn the game developers' negative attitude now, then when Gu Mian, that bastard, enters my instance, no one will stand up for me."

The NPCs united to protest.

In response to popular demand, the game developers recently released the "Labor Protection Contract for Dungeon Monsters".

NPCs can sign this contract with the game developers by paying a certain price. The contract guarantees the personal safety of the signatories and ensures that if they are attacked by Gu Mian, the game developers will promptly shut down the instance and remove the source of the danger.

Accompanying this labor protection contract is a "Copy Accidental Injury/Death Insurance".

Forcibly closing a dungeon will inevitably cause some damage, requiring financial repairs. However, with accidental death insurance, if the insured's dungeon is damaged due to unforeseen circumstances, the game developers will provide most of the compensation, greatly reducing the burden on affected NPCs to earn money for dungeon repairs.

It is said that an NPC surnamed Che, after hearing that the game had launched "Insurance for Accidental Injury/Death in Dungeons," cried out that his fate was full of misfortune and that the world was unfair, and then ran away crying.

Of course, Gu Mian knew none of this.

He only heard the ghost beneath him pull out something paper and call out in a hoarse voice, "I have a labor contract!"

What kind of labor protection contract?
Before Gu Mian could react, a semi-transparent game panel appeared in front of him. He was familiar with this panel; it would pop up every time a dungeon crashed.

But the content on the panel is slightly different this time.

[A signatory to a labor protection contract has been detected as being in danger. The game will forcibly close the instance containing that signatory and kick all players from the instance within ten seconds.]

"What is this thing?" Gu Mian looked like she had eaten shit.

At this point, the countdown on the panel had already begun.

【8, 7, 6...】

A few seconds later, Gu Mian reappeared in the ticket booth.

The ticket seller seemed oblivious to Gu Mian's return. He was behind the counter, holding a microphone and talking to someone: "...Is this Sunshine Insurance? No, no, no, I don't want to buy accidental death insurance. I want to ask if you have insurance for ticket sellers, for example, if someone threatens my personal safety with a saw, can you send someone to protect me..."

At this point, he finally saw Gu Mian, who had just come out of the dungeon.

The man in the white coat smiled gently at him, revealing a row of gleaming white teeth.

The ticket seller was so startled by the row of teeth that her hand trembled, and the microphone fell to the ground with a thud.

"Spit it out, spit it out now! It's not cooked yet!" Gu Mian had just returned to her front door when she heard the fat man's roar from inside.

He opened the door, and a raw mooncake flew in and hit him on the forehead with a "smack".

Chu Changge, standing nearby, took two steps back to avoid suffering the same blow to his forehead.

Gu Mian silently removed the mooncake that had been slapped on her head and looked towards the living room.

There, hanging from the luxurious chandelier in the living room, was Xiao Hong, holding a mooncake in one hand and chewing something with relish.

Below is the chubby guy in a great hurry. He is standing on tiptoe under the chandelier, trying to snatch the unbaked mooncakes from Xiao Hong's hands.

There was also a little girl named Qiao in the kitchen who came to steal things every day. At this moment, she was furtively opening the oven and reaching in to take the half-baked mooncakes inside.

What a joyful welcoming ceremony!

The welcoming ceremony ended with Xiao Hong and Xiao Qiao each getting a beating from Gu Mian.

Because of these two things, it was already past 7 p.m. when the fat man finished baking the mooncakes.

"It's a bit late, but it's perfect for enjoying the moon while eating mooncakes," the fat man said with a smile as he placed a plate of freshly baked lotus seed paste and salted egg yolk mooncakes in front of Gu Mian.

As he spoke, he took out a few sheets of oil paper and wrapped several portions of mooncakes: "I'll go and deliver some to Miss Coco and the others downstairs."

After saying that, he happily carried the mooncakes away.

Xiao Qiao and Xiao Hong, who were standing nearby, had already started fighting over the red bean paste mooncakes from the previous batch. During their fight, they even slapped away the special "sister mooncake" from the brother's hand.

The fat boy specially made a mooncake for his brother with the word "sister" printed on it. The brother was holding it with great affection when they suddenly swatted it away.

So he joined this war between women.

Gu Mian had no interest in paying attention to them.

He picked up a lotus seed paste mooncake, took a bite, and found it delicious.

Chu Changge didn't seem to like eating this; he just picked it up and took a couple of perfunctory bites.

"By the way, before you were kicked out of the instance, you saw that 'Labor Protection Contract,' right?" Gu Mian said while watching the battle.

“I see, it seems the game has introduced something new.” Chu Changge put down the mooncake. “I guess it’s similar to insurance in the real world. If an NPC who has signed an agreement unfortunately encounters Gu Mian, the game developers must take countermeasures.”

Is meeting me such an unfortunate thing? I'm obviously very likable.

"I hope everyone has a guarantee contract. If that's the case, we won't be able to get anything out of the NPCs," Gu Mian thought. "From now on, whenever they see me, they can immediately pull out this contract and shout 'I have a guarantee contract,' and then the instance will kick me out immediately."

How tragic this is!

"It doesn't have to be like that. I think this contract only becomes effective when the signatory is in danger. In that dungeon just now, didn't you pin the ghost to the ground and choke him? He only pulled out that contract when he was almost choked to death." Chu Changge pushed up his glasses.

That's true.

Gu Mian nodded, holding the mooncake, and thought to herself, "It seems that from now on I will have to use gentle methods to get information from ghosts."

Waaaaaah, I want to write a Spring Festival side story! Waaaaaah!
Thank you Xia Yu for the generous donation! (づ￣3￣)づ╭～

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(End of this chapter)