The male supporting character was actually myself.

Chapter Six has all become a pipe dream.

As Jiang Chen examined the crossbow, the figure of Lin Ruochu, a master weapon maker who had kept a low profile, gradually emerged and materialized in the temple of an ancient village.

"What I feared most has come to pass!" Instead of summoning her pet, she immediately checked her personal equipment interface and notification messages.

Sure enough, the weapon inventory was empty;

One badge is missing from the accessories section.

Lin Ruochu sat weakly on the steps of the main hall, dragging her newly reborn body. She was used to dying in the virtual game, and it was only a little uncomfortable at the time. After being reborn, her health bar was full and she would not be in a weak state.

But she is really tired right now, both mentally and physically!

Heaven knows how much effort and how many days and nights were spent creating the Jingzhe crossbow. Finally, the new crossbow was manufactured, with enough firepower and lightness to try it out on Treasure Island. But then, things went wrong, and of all things, the Jingzhe crossbow was lost from all the equipment.

She naturally didn't know that this was a forced attack, a setup by the script team to pave the way for the male lead's appearance. At this moment, Lin Ruochu didn't want to do anything; she just wanted to space out and be quiet by herself for a while.

I didn't have time to rush back to find Jingzhe...

I chose to be born in a small village in the far corner of the continent. Even with a teleportation scroll, I could only teleport to a higher-level city. Then I had to teleport to the capital to buy a ticket to Skull Island and teleport there. My safe house was not registered with the teleportation point to avoid being screened by M Technology Company. It would take at least an hour to run back to get equipment and fight my way back. By then, it would be too late!

The blueprints are available; starting over means we don't have to do the design again.

But how to gather enough of the rare materials needed is a big problem. G Technology Company won't reimburse them, and some of them are truly rare and hard to come by, even if you have money, you can't buy them.

If too much time is wasted, all of my efforts will be wasted if someone successfully clears the final level of Treasure Island.

She opened the weapon ranking list and looked at the unremarkable-looking Jingzhe weapon with mixed feelings.

The people on the helicopter were probably just passing by, right?

After all, the other party didn't even make any move to prepare for landing, and with so many monsters surrounding them at the time, it's very possible that they would just flash by and not even see any equipment drop.

Even if they saw it, would that player risk being surrounded and attacked to land and pick it up?

The helicopter is so loud it will definitely attract a lot of monsters. Besides, players who can afford a helicopter are definitely not short of money. Who would risk picking up an item whose value is unknown and who wouldn't even be willing to bind it?

If no one picks it up, the Awakening of Insects will completely disappear in ten minutes, and it will no longer appear on the list...

"You've learned your lesson! Be more careful next time! Remember to buy a binding charm!" Lin Ruochu patted her face and muttered to herself to ease her bad mood.

Silently watching the Awakening of Insects and calculating the time, her heart ached terribly.

"Huh? It didn't disappear?" Ten minutes of agony felt like an eternity to Lin Ruochu. However, after the timer in the upper right corner showed that she had returned to the resurrection point, the timer for the destruction of the dropped equipment had expired, but Jingzhe was still hanging high on the weapon leaderboard and had not disappeared!

That means someone picked it up.

Could it be a player who flies a helicopter?

The hope that had risen in my heart gradually cooled down. This was a virtual game that was very close to the law of the jungle in the real world. Whoever picked it up kept it. It was the famous Jingzhe. Who would be willing to return it?

Even if you manage to find the other party and persuade them to sell, you'll have to pay a hefty price to get it back.

"What bad luck!" Lin Ruochu stomped her foot, looking helpless, but she quickly composed herself.

There's no point in wallowing in despair. Perfect World is just as cruel as the real world and is unaffected by personal will. The absurd notion in other games that love can overcome everything doesn't work here. If you want to take back what's rightfully yours, you have to find the person who found the weapon first.

If it could be resolved with money, she would steel herself and pay the price for her carelessness;

If the other party refuses to sell, then we need to hurry up and rebuild it.

Anyway, I have the blueprints to make the most powerful crossbow. Even if the opponent has the Awakening of Insects, they won't be able to unleash the same power. I still have a chance!

By the time Lin Ruochu had processed her frustration and prepared to leave, Jiang Chen was already loitering in her safe house.

Virtual games have all sorts of items, but items like binding charms and protection charms that lock onto your own belongings can only be purchased from the store. They are not only expensive but also have time limits.

Unless there is very important equipment in the safe house that needs protection, people will generally just lock the doors and windows when leaving the house, just like in the real world.

As a result, robbery gangs specializing in raiding safe houses have become rampant.

Most players are willing to spend money to expand their backpacks so they can carry important items with them.

Lin Ruochu was no exception. Her self-built safe house, suspended on a cliff, was cluttered with various cheap, common equipment and a bunch of messy tools.

A pot of roses in full bloom sat on the windowsill, bathed in golden sunlight streaming through the rusty glass, giving it a golden edge.

"We don't know when the female lead will be back, so shall we just wait here, meow?" The fluffy ball yawned, found a comfortable blanket in the corner, and curled up. "I wonder where the main characters have gone. As long as we don't let them run into each other beforehand, everything will be fine..."

Jiang Chen sat in a chair and finished reading the script, then opened the Home Social Circle interface to check the trending topics.

Si Anrui, far away in the capital, was very annoyed.

He never expected to be killed in this way. The overwhelming impact of entering the game had made him too excited, and he was single-mindedly thinking about showing off and making a name for himself in the new world.

After being killed and returning to his birthplace, the overwhelming sense of defeat washed over him like a tidal wave, leaving him utterly defeated. Only then did Si Anrui calm down and carefully review the "Perfect World" guide for new players.

To avoid being tricked again due to ignorance, he read it very carefully.

Before he could even learn how to cultivate connections within the community's social circle, the mocking short video and photos that were trending at the top of the hot search list had already spread.

"Ah Duan! Ah Duan, look at this video!"

In a repair shop filled with messy, oily, and broken parts, a woman in a leather protective suit hurried around the mountain of parts and found her colleague who was busy wiping the oily parts with ointment.

Before she could respond, the impatient woman snatched the tools from her hand and projected the video into the air, saying, "Look, isn't this your nephew?"

"An Rui?" Si Suduan looked up and was stunned. The boy on the screen, who was being tied up and mocked and humiliated by the crowd, had a face that looked exactly like her nephew's!

Seeing the other person's expression change, the impatient woman immediately realized that the boy must have also entered the game, and she slapped her thigh and cursed, "What a troublesome brat!"

Look at this skin! It's a free gift with the latest helmet, which costs 100,000 yuan!

Where did he get so much money? Could he have been scammed by those thugs on the street? You'd better go find him quickly, or you'll be in big trouble if you end up with some loan sharks!

Their two families were neighbors, both living in a slum.

Si Suduan lives on the tenth floor with her nephew; the impatient woman lives on the third floor with her sick mother. The two are about the same age and help each other in their daily lives. Even this job was introduced to her by the impatient woman.

The virtual world allows players to freely customize their characters' appearances, resulting in a plethora of unusual and attractive male and female figures in games.

When everyone can easily obtain a good appearance, the resources for appearance and gender are practically zero. For honest people who adhere to their principles, surviving in a more brutal game world and earning enough money to support their families will only be more difficult than in reality.

Fortunately, 80% of the people in "Perfect World" are so engrossed in it that they have more job opportunities than in reality.

Women like them, who are unwilling to sell their dignity by engaging in petty theft, drinking, or seeking pleasure that cross moral boundaries, lack sufficient capital to start a business, and are not skilled, knowledgeable, or technically proficient, can only live at the bottom of society in the virtual world, relying on selling their labor and time to earn money.

Having witnessed the cruelty of life here and seen too many examples of people becoming rich overnight only to go bankrupt overnight, Si Suduan painstakingly taught her nephew that he must study in order to turn his life around.

Virtual reality is based on reality. No matter how popular "Perfect World" becomes, it cannot escape its fundamental nature as just a game and cannot be expanded to replace the real world. Once it becomes outdated or is replaced by other games, what one gains in the virtual world will ultimately be nothing but emptiness.

In reality, having cultural knowledge can lead to entry into technology companies, and only by being able to control virtual games, regardless of how many generations of changes occur, can one enjoy a long and stable life.

She had always thought her painstaking guidance had worked; recently her nephew had been studying diligently and hadn't been asking for a game helmet anymore. Who knew he would actually…

"Oh no!" Si Suduan suddenly remembered the money she had saved up, the money she had intended to use to buy a house in a proper community!

She jumped up and said in a panic, "Sis, please ask for leave for me. I need to log off and check if it's really An Rui."

"Hurry up and go! I'll cover for you and try my best not to let the boss find out and dock your pay!" The impatient woman looked around to make sure no one was watching, then waved her hand and said, "There are no security cameras here. Hurry up and come back, or you'll have worked for nothing today!"

To more closely resemble the real world, Perfect World adopts maximum freedom within the game.

Players can research and manufacture weapons themselves, but the related equipment, professions, and parts need to be purchased from the store or second-hand equipment that is disassembled and reused.

All vehicles, equipment, weapons, etc., also have a wear and tear schedule, and once they reach the point of being scrapped, they require professional repair to restore them to their original condition.

This has led to the emergence of repair shops of all sizes. As long as the owner has a fixed customer base, they can make a fortune from repairs. Meanwhile, low-level workers like Si Suduan, who have no technical skills and rely solely on hard work, can only earn a meager income based on their workload.

"Ten thousand yuan, tsk tsk! That heartless ingrate is really willing to spend money!" The impatient woman couldn't help but curl her lips and shake her head as she watched her figure disappear in front of her, commenting, "What a spendthrift! Indeed, you should never raise a child who isn't your own, even if it's your own brother's son. Who knows what kind of inferior person he'll become if you raise him from a young age!"

Exiting the game, Si Suduan opened her eyes in the small, dimly lit room and took off her slightly worn old-fashioned helmet.

Perhaps due to not moving for a long time, she felt a little dizzy and lightheaded. It took her a few seconds to stand up. Her dark gray top and black shorts made her thin, bony skin appear excessively pale and bloodless.

The monthly rent for a room in the slum is not much, but it's just a pigeon coop made of steel structure and discarded metal boxes. It's sweltering in the summer and freezing in the winter. Because it's too close to the slum building in front, the room is dark all year round and rarely sees the sun.

Even when sunlight shines in, its yellowish glow seeps through layers of smog, making the atmosphere feel even more stifling.

It was quiet outside the window. At this hour, most people were struggling to make a living. Apart from the children who couldn't play games and had no school to attend, who were playing in the garbage dump not far away, there were hardly any people on the street.

Si Suduan drew the curtains to prevent anyone from discovering her secret.

After making sure no one would notice, she walked to the cabinet piled with miscellaneous goods, struggled to move the metal cabinet to reveal a narrow gap, and squatted down to reach in and touch it for a moment, her face turning even paler.

"Gone...all my savings..." Without even touching a single coin, all her strength drained away, and she collapsed to the ground, muttering to herself, "It's all over..."

I'm almost ready to save enough money to move out of here!

We were so close to living in a clean and tidy house and getting rid of our cramped living quarters and garbage dumps!

She had fantasized many times about how to save money to buy what kind of furniture; she imagined sitting on the balcony, enjoying the fragrant aroma of tea while watching the green plants below; she even traded breakfast bread for a half-used cookbook, dreaming of one day being able to make delicious food with a wonderful aroma in a clean and bright kitchen.

But now, everything has vanished!

Si Suduan saw a scene flash before her eyes: Si Anrui screaming in anguish that the equipment he bought for 60,000 yuan had been stolen.

The helmet cost 100,000; the equipment cost 60,000, totaling 160,000, which was my savings accumulated over more than ten years by working day and night!

Suddenly everything was gone. Overwhelmed by immense despair, Si Suduan couldn't withstand the blow and collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

"Why isn't he back yet?" The impatient woman craned her neck, looking around anxiously, afraid that her boss would suddenly come over and find that A-Duan was not there. She was also eager to know whether that spendthrift son was Si Anrui or not.

What if it's just someone whose face looks like another person?

Although the probability is very low, there are so many people in the world, it might just be a misunderstanding.

The video is still trending, attracting more and more attention and comments. At first, it was just mockery, but later the trend changed for some reason. Someone even suggested starting a photo check-in event, and what's even more outrageous is that players who love to watch the drama responded enthusiastically.

As its popularity grew, so did its reach, and soon people who knew Si Anrui started popping up in the comments section.

"Hey? Isn't this the narcissistic king Si Anrui? He's my elementary school classmate. He lost his parents a long time ago and lives with his aunt."

"How narcissistic! He didn't even bother to reshape his face. Hahaha, so confident in his looks!"

"Has this kid struck it rich? How can he afford the latest helmet?"

"Get rich my ass. I saw him living in a slum yesterday. His aunt works hard at a pomelo repair shop to earn money. It's probably a coming-of-age gift for him."

"Living in a slum and willing to spend 100,000 yuan on a helmet as a coming-of-age gift? Are you kidding me?"

"That's not necessarily true, his aunt is super nice to him!"

…………

The conversation was going very well in social circles, and the search program that Jiang Chen had set up in the background quickly detected key information and issued an alert.

"Pomelo Repair Shop?" He glanced at the reply and began searching the backend for all repair shop registration information containing the word "pomelo" in "Perfect Kingdom".