Chapter 29: Heartbroken Sweet Potato

"Anyway, I don't know what to do right now. My head's a mess." Wang Di wanted to say that Xiaoyu was his first love, but couldn't bring himself to say it out loud.

"Yeah, it's a tough situation." After hearing all the gossip, Liu Kongkong's mind had already drifted back to the Madji chicken wings waiting at home — they should still be warm if he went up now. As for Wang Di's problem, he'd always respected other people's choices. Even if Wang Di said he wanted to be Xiaoyu's lapdog, Liu Kongkong would raise his hand in support. And that was only because he was fairly close to Wang Di — for anyone else, he wouldn't have even bothered coming downstairs.

It was precisely this personality of his that meant he had no close friends — and he didn't need any. The root cause was simply that he loved quiet and solitude. Even as a kid, he'd sit alone on the doorstep and space out for hours. If it was raining outside, he could watch it all day long. But playing with other children for just a few minutes was enough to make him restless.

A moment of silence passed between them.

"Digua." Liu Kongkong, who had been staring up at his own building, suddenly spoke. Wang Di had already noticed he seemed a bit distracted and was about to leave, but hearing his name, he turned back around.

"Whatever you decide, it's your call. As long as you feel it's right, it doesn't matter what anyone else says."

"Yeah." Wang Di responded blankly, then watched as Liu Kongkong gave him a small smile.

"Just don't do anything stupid. I think love isn't the whole meaning of life."

Wang Di was taken aback for a moment, then smiled. His eyes stung a little, but he nodded.

Like Liu Kongkong, he lived alone in this city that felt both familiar and foreign. The bittersweet struggles of daily life were his alone to know. The love of his family existed somewhere across a thousand mountains and rivers — he knew it was there, but it felt hazy and distant. Yet the concern from the person standing in front of him, he felt that clearly and completely.

"Thank you," Wang Di said sincerely.

Liu Kongkong smiled, gave a wave, and turned to head upstairs — after all, he still had chicken wings on his mind.

"Not bad, still warm." Liu Kongkong resumed his dinner, and while eating, he opened the official Hunt Heaven forum and typed in the keyword "0113." A flood of posts immediately appeared. The most eye-catching one was titled: "Designer of 'Path of Reincarnation,' Are You Asleep? Because I Sure Can't Be."

Just as expected.

Liu Kongkong casually opened it and found that after a brief description of the dungeon, the poster had spent a full three thousand words cursing out his entire family.

"Doesn't even sting." He scrolled to the comments — same story, a torrent of curses. For a lot of people, the real reason they were angry wasn't the dungeon's traps, but the equipment drops. After all, in-game currency was worth real money at this point. Losing a piece of gear was the same as losing actual cash.

"Oh? This game has solo players?" Liu Kongkong had been about to close the post — the insults were all the same and he was already bored of them — when he spotted a player with the ID Long Wind going on a furious rant. Long Wind complained that the game was completely unfriendly to solo players, that he still hadn't cleared the combination trap by the time he logged off, and that all his equipment had dropped, leaving him with no money to buy replacements.

"It's wrong that this game can't be cleared solo. Is it my fault I have no friends? If Hunt Heaven's developers don't compensate me for my losses and fix this, I'm quitting!"

How novel. Liu Kongkong almost laughed out loud. He'd run into the problem of solo dungeon runs being brutally hard himself — more than once. Most online games didn't support solo clears, though level suppression was a different story. The more players a dungeon required, the harder it was, but the better the gear and item drops. Liu Kongkong, who made his living grinding, had thought of countless workarounds, but in the end had always been forced to give up due to hardware limitations or mechanical constraints.

But that ID felt familiar. Liu Kongkong thought about it for a moment. Wasn't this the Bastard who'd been talking trash behind his back the other day? He hadn't seen this person come to his shop in the past few days. Apparently this guy had been attempting the Path of Reincarnation. If he ever managed to find a party and clear it, the "mystery box" would need to be arranged just right for him.

Long Wind was out of options.

He'd checked out the other dungeons — they were basically all mob rushes. Against same-level dungeon monsters one-on-one, he might have a chance, but two or three at once? No way.

The Path of Reincarnation was different. Sure, it was full of traps, but the monsters only appeared one at a time. After dying several times, he'd even caught a glimpse of the boss. He obviously couldn't beat it head-on, but noticing the abyss below, Long Wind had wondered if he could trick the boss into falling off. Unfortunately, while there were no invisible walls around the area, the boss was smart — it simply wouldn't take the bait.

After losing every last piece of his equipment, Long Wind left the dungeon in a huff, vented on the forum, and got laughed at by a crowd of people.

Liu Kongkong scrolled through a few more complaint posts. They were all full of rage, but the smile on his face only grew wider.

Hm? What's this.

Liu Kongkong had been about to switch to watching videos or a movie before bed when a post caught his eye.

"After Playing Hunt Heaven for Two Days, Some Changes Have Happened to My Body"?

Oh? Liu Kongkong curiously clicked it open. The gist was that the poster had recently recovered from a bone fracture and had some muscle atrophy, but after two days of playing Hunt Heaven, the muscle in their leg had returned to normal. The comments section was filled with similar firsthand accounts.

He'd had some theories about the Game Pod himself, and he was also curious — why was something like this only selling for 2,999 yuan?

And if low stats made you physically weak, then once stats got high enough, wouldn't everyone become...

But that was a problem for later.

He watched a movie and scrolled on his phone. His mom's birthday was the day after tomorrow — he'd need to head home. He bought a ticket on the spot. He mentally reviewed the shop's inventory: he'd be staying at least one night, and while the shop manager could handle things, the blacksmith shop's stock needed to be fully stocked. He'd crafted quite a bit during today's level-up session, so there shouldn't be any issues.

As for having the shop manager attend the daily meetings in his place, he wasn't worried about that either. When the System had given him the shop manager, it had been very clear that it was meant to maintain shop operations — and attending meetings obviously fell under that.

"I still have one more day tomorrow to prepare more stock. Players have already cleared the dungeon, so player levels should start rising significantly soon."

There weren't many quests in Hunt Heaven's Starter Village. Compared to endlessly hunting monsters in the wild, cycling through dungeons was clearly the fastest way to level up. The other dungeons didn't give as much EXP as the Path of Reincarnation, but 500 EXP per run was still decent, and there were bonus equipment drops on top of that — some of which could even be sold to the general merchant for in-game currency.

For players, this was good news. For Liu Kongkong, it was the exact opposite.

A lower exchange rate for in-game currency combined with a flood of dungeon equipment meant that in the coming days, his income was going to take a serious hit. Fortunately, he'd made some preparations for this.