Taking Liu Yifei back to Northeast China for the Chinese New Year has sent the entire internet into

One o'clock in the afternoon.

Sunlight filtered through the leaves of the plane trees lining the street, casting large, dappled shadows on the sidewalk.

Fang Yu and Liu Yifei walked out of the seafood restaurant side by side.

The two put their hats and masks back on and walked briskly.

Liu Yifei was still holding the chilled plum juice that the restaurant had given her, biting the straw, her eyes crinkling with a smile.

Across the street, in front of a 24-hour convenience store.

Old A and Old B squatted on the steps, each with a box of instant noodles in their hands, showing off their food.

"Slurp—"

Old B swallowed a big mouthful of noodle soup, stared at the seafood restaurant across the street, and almost broke down on the spot.

"Brother A, this is unbearable."

He pointed to the restaurant sign with a plastic fork.

"Someone spent 1,888 yuan on a seafood feast on May 20th without spending a single penny."

"We've been running around like crazy, and all we get for lunch is a five-yuan bowl of pickled cabbage and beef noodles."

Old A pushed up his glasses, shoveled the last bite of noodles into his mouth, not even leaving a drop of soup.

"You don't know anything."

He threw the instant noodle box into the trash can and wiped his mouth with a tissue.

"That's called professional ethics."

"Besides, didn't you see the footage from this morning?"

"Any random excerpt from this story would be enough to trend on social media for days."

Old A stood up and patted his trouser legs.

"Eat quickly, and then continue eating."

"I'd like to see what kind of tricks Brother Yu can pull this afternoon."

Old B instantly perked up, quickly finished his instant noodles, and wiped his mouth.

"Here it comes!"

The two carried the equipment and followed from a distance.

……

Fang Yu led Liu Yifei into a large shopping mall.

A blast of cool air hit me, instantly dissipating much of the muggy heat of an early summer afternoon.

The two took the escalator down to the basement level.

The next second, deafening electronic music and game sound effects were blasted directly into my ears.

A huge arcade came into view.

The neon signs were flashing incessantly, and the place was packed with people, mostly young couples on a date on May 520th.

Fang Yu walked to the front desk, took out his phone, and scanned the QR code.

"Hello, please redeem a group-buying package."

After the receptionist confirmed the order, she handed me a small plastic basket.

Inside lay thirty shiny game coins, lying quietly.

Have fun!

Fang Yu turned around, carrying the small basket, and raised an eyebrow at Liu Yifei.

"Come on, I'll take you shopping."

Liu Yifei looked down at the thirty game coins and immediately started calculating in her mind.

"The claw machines here basically cost three coins per try."

"Thirty coins are enough for ten tries."

"With that kind of deceptive claw strength, catching one out of ten times is already considered extremely lucky."

She looked up, her face full of heartache over the thirty yuan.

"How about we go play the basketball shooting machine?"

"Two coins can keep you playing for a long time, and they can also help you exercise."

Fang Yu burst out laughing.

Ever since the "two hundred dollar date budget" was accepted, the fairy sister has automatically switched to a homebody mode.

Even game currency has to be carefully calculated.

"I definitely have to practice shooting."

Fang Yu carried the basket inside, but his tone was very arrogant.

"But since we're here today, we have to try everything in the arcade."

Liu Yifei followed behind, her face full of confusion.

"The entire audience?"

"You only have thirty coins, how are you going to play the whole game?"

Fang Yu did not explain.

He walked straight to the row of machines in the center of the arcade.

Coin pusher machine.

Inside the transparent glass case, game coins were piled up like a small mountain.

The upper metal pusher plate inside moves slowly back and forth at a fixed frequency, pushing the falling coins to the lower layer. The coins on the lower layer are then squeezed and pushed towards the exit.

The coins on the edge looked precarious, yet they always just missed falling.

Several young men were gathered around, frantically tossing coins into the container.

"Let it fall!"

"One more! It's about to fall!"

"Damn it, it swallowed ten of my coins again!"

The machine swallowed the coin without mercy.

Forget about a cryptocurrency explosion, we haven't even heard a decent bang.

The boys left cursing and swearing, leaving behind only resentment on their faces.

Liu Yifei tugged at Fang Yu's sleeve and whispered a reminder.

"Have you thought this through?"

"This thing is a coin-devouring beast."

She pointed to the coins hanging halfway along the edge of the push plate.

"It looks like it's about to fall off, but it's actually stuck very tightly."

"If you throw those thirty coins in, they probably won't last even a minute."

Fang Yu's lips curled into a smile.

"Others throw it in just to hear a bang."

He stood in the spot that had just been vacated.

"I invested it to purchase goods."

As he spoke, Fang Yu took a deep breath and made a thought.

[Intermediate Mechanical Engineering Skills, Initiated.]

The skill I obtained when making the cotton candy machine is now active again.

In an instant, the coin pusher in front of me was no longer just a game device.

The time difference of the pusher's movement, the friction of the stacked coins, and the path of force transmission were all clearly laid out before him.

"Click-click-click"

The upper push plate moves forward and backward.

Fang Yu picked up three game coins and glanced at the dense array of coins below.

The reason why the coins on the edge don't fall is that the coins in the middle are interlocked, forming a hidden "arch structure" that distributes all the thrust transmitted from the upper layer to both sides.

To break this deadlock, we cannot blindly insert coins; we must concentrate the thrust at one point.

Fang Yu stared at the upper push plate.

The push plate begins to move backward.

Just one tenth of a second after the push plate had retreated to its deepest point and was about to turn back forward.

Fang Yu flicked his wrist.

The three game coins slid down the central slide in quick succession.

"Ding! Ding! Ding!"

The three coins landed precisely in the same spot on the upper push plate, forming a perfect stack!

Liu Yifei was stunned.

When ordinary people insert coins, the coins are scattered all over the push plate. Fang Yu's technique is so precise, it's like a machine.

But it's not over yet.

The push plate begins to move forward.

Just as that stack of coins was about to be pushed off the top shelf.

Fang Yu's fingers moved again.

Five more coins slid rapidly down the slides on either side.

"Ding ding ding ding ding!"

The five coins landed on the edge of the push plate, forming a perfect inverted triangle pushing surface with the stack of coins in the middle.

"Click".

The push plate was pushed to its limit.

The coins in the inverted triangle formation were simultaneously pushed down to the lower level, landing precisely on the core stress point of the "arch structure" on the lower level with concentrated force.

"Click."

A very faint sound of a coin shifting could be heard coming from inside the machine.

The arch bridge structure that was tightly blocking the thrust collapsed instantly!

next second.

The lower array of coins, having lost its support and balance of forces, resembles a toppled domino.

boom!

The coins that were originally stuck on the edge slid off in a bunch and rushed through the exit in an instant.

"Splash splash splash splash—!"

The dense clanging of metal blended together like a waterfall.

The coin slot below the coin dispenser was quickly filled.

A few more game coins rolled off the edge and landed on the ground with a clatter.

Everyone around turned their heads away.

"Holy crap?"

"Did you issue the coins?"

"This is way too much!!"