Chapter 4: I Love a Hard Nut to Crack
Who's there? That hungry for crab?
Chen Sui instinctively looked up and saw a group of strangers walking toward him. They wore fish-skin clothing — different from the beginner hemp cloth — and their shoes made a creak-creak sound with every step on the sand.
Names floated above their heads. Players. They'd probably been playing for a few days already.
Chen Sui's gaze swept quickly across their faces. Every one of them had their eyes locked on his newly acquired Red-Mantled Tide Crab, a gleam of keen interest flickering in their expressions.
His Red-Mantled Tide Crab must be quite valuable — at the very least, extremely valuable at this stage of the game.
So they were probably after his crab?
Well… if the price was right, that wasn't entirely out of the question.
Chen Sui sized them up with a glance, and already had a read on the situation.
"Holy shit, Brother Hao, a mutant crab! I've only ever heard of NPCs having mutant sea beasts — never heard of a player having one."
"We're rich, we're rich! If we can get our hands on that crab, the Qihai Studio is going to take off!"
The members of Qihai Studio suppressed their excitement and spoke in hushed voices.
"Keep it down, all of you."
Zhang Yuhao said with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. That crab — no matter what — had to be obtained. He did his best to suppress the excitement on his face and strode up to Chen Sui in a few quick steps. "Buddy, nice crab you've got there."
Chen Sui nodded.
"Right? I think so too. It looks completely different from other crabs — that jet-black, glossy shell. You can tell just by looking that it's something special."
"Hiss… Are you a newbie?"
Zhang Yuhao asked, feigning casualness.
"This game only went into open beta a few days ago, hasn't it? If we're talking newbies, aren't we all newbies?"
Chen Sui smiled. "I might have played just a little bit longer than a newbie, I suppose."
At those words, Zhang Yuhao's eyelid twitched. From that one sentence, he could tell this person wasn't easy to fool — every word was airtight, not a single thing to latch onto. He smiled and adopted a sincere tone:
"To be honest with you, brother, I won't hide it — the few of us here run a gold-farming studio. Right now, in the early game, we're grinding hard and actively buying rare sea beasts at high prices. Are you thinking of selling that one?"
Chen Sui said:
"Sure, I'm just playing for fun anyway. Making some money on the side sounds fine. How much are you offering?"
"Brother, I won't lowball you. Your Red-Mantled Tide Crab is Common quality — you can check the trading market yourself. Most sea beasts of the same quality go for a few hundred to a thousand. Mutant sea beasts are rare, and we really need one, so I'll give you…"
Zhang Yuhao furrowed his brow dramatically, as if steeling himself for a painful decision, and held up three fingers. "Three thousand five hundred!"
"Seventy thousand."
Chen Sui pinched his fingers together like a beak.
The sudden counter-offer left the Qihai Studio members stunned for a moment.
Zhang Yuhao's eyelid twitched violently.
"Buddy? Who haggles like that? You just jumped it up twenty times over?"
He had deliberately left room in his opening offer — even if Chen Sui doubled it, buying at seven thousand would still have him laughing all the way to the bank.
But who could have expected Chen Sui to go twenty times over?
"Final price. Take it or leave it. If you're not buying, get lost — I've got other things to do."
Chen Sui said.
He wasn't some fool. This was a game, not another world — if he wanted to know the price, he could just check the trading market himself.
Chen Sui searched the Red-Mantled Tide Crab in the trade history and found that the most expensive ones had sold for around ten thousand. And those only had the Hardened talent — a 30% defense boost.
Not to mention that the higher the tier, the more the price grew exponentially.
But no matter how you looked at it, three thousand five hundred was absolutely out of the question.
Zhang Yuhao let out a dry laugh. "Buddy…"
"Who the Fucking Hell is your buddy?" Chen Sui sneered coldly. "Trying to play me for a fool, are you? Get lost. I'd rather steam it and eat it myself than give it to you lot."
He had never had any patience for people like this.
"What did you just say?! Watch your mouth! Brother Hao, he dares talk to you like that — let me beat him to death!"
Wang Kai pushed through the group and stepped right up to Chen Sui, glaring at him with open hostility.
"Did I say anything to you?"
Chen Sui looked at him. "Weren't you the ones who came here acting cheap? And now I'm not even allowed to say so?"
"What the Fuck are you playing at?"
Ajian stepped forward, completely unreasonable, jabbing his finger for emphasis with every word: "Do you know who we are? Believe me when I say we can make sure you never get anywhere in Azure."
"Oh, really?"
Chen Sui laughed. Getting run out of other games might be one thing — but in Azure, he was literally cheating the system!
"Enough."
Zhang Yuhao called out to stop him.
"Brother Hao."
The fire immediately went out of Wang Kai's expression by a few degrees as he turned back to look at Zhang Yuhao.
Zhang Yuhao's own expression was none too pleasant either. He fixed Chen Sui with a cold stare. "This isn't over. I hope you won't regret it."
With that, he turned and said, "Let's go."
Ajian glanced back at Chen Sui with a cold smirk. "Kid, just you wait."
The group walked away, their shoes crunching over the sand. They hadn't taken two steps when Wang Kai's body suddenly lurched as though struck by some tremendous Brute Force — a muffled boom erupted from within him, and he was sent flying, crashing into a reef at the water's edge and crumpling motionless.
"Wang Kai!"
The other three spun around. What greeted their eyes was a dull-faced, vacant-looking Fishfolk slowly pulling back its fist, its body reeking of a thick, fishy stench.
In its lifeless, dead-fish eyes flickered something strangely cruel.
"You throw out your threats and then just walk away? Have you guys played so many games your brains turned to mush?"
Chen Sui tapped his temple with a finger, staring at them with an odd expression.
"What do you think you're doing?!"
Zhang Yuhao shouted in fury, his expression visibly panicked. If they died, they'd be locked out for a full day — and in this early-game pioneering phase, that was a massive setback to their progress.
Not to mention that dying meant dropping items.
"What am I doing? You already said you weren't going to let me off the hook — what else am I supposed to do?"
Chen Sui waved his hand. "Wavecrest, kill them all."
Wavecrest was nothing short of a merciless killing machine. One punch caved in the head of another studio member — but thanks to the game System's all-ages filter, the exploding head turned into a burst of cloud puffs.
Player "Qihai Huhuhuh" has been slain. Obtained Fish Coins ×3.
"Hey, it even drops loot!"
Chen Sui's eyes lit up.
"Stop! Stop!"
Zhang Yuhao screamed. He was completely panicking now. "We'll pay you back — isn't that enough?!"
He still had something in his Inventory — something that was the key to Qihai Studio's future success. It absolutely could not drop.
"That won't do. In-game matters get settled in-game. If money changes hands in real life, that gets into legal territory — and if you turn around and report me, I'd be the one in trouble."
Chen Sui smiled.
Wavecrest, having received no order to stop, threw another punch and reduced Ajian and his pet to a spray of blood mist.
Player "Qihai Ajian" has been slain. Obtained Fish Coins ×2.
In the blink of an eye, only Zhang Yuhao remained standing on the beach. He was trembling with rage. "You — you… Kid, I will absolutely destroy you. Just you wait, you piece of—"
"Still talking tough?"
Chen Sui grinned. "I love a hard nut to crack."
Bang!
Wavecrest raised its fist and drove it straight at Zhang Yuhao's head. With a thunderous crack of displaced air, a shockwave burst outward.
Zhang Yuhao's head exploded into a cloud of puffs.
"Hard nuts really do feel satisfying to crack."
Chen Sui felt thoroughly refreshed.
Player "Qihai Haowang" has been slain. Obtained "Mysterious Horn" ×1.
"Huh? What's this that dropped?"
[Mysterious Horn]
Quality: Perfect (Gold)
Possess one Ragetide-class sea beast to use this horn and unlock the hundred-player instance — Inheritance of the Deep Blue Bloodline.
"Deep Blue Bloodline? If I remember correctly…"
Chen Sui froze for a moment and looked over at the dull, vacant Fishfolk beside him — Wavecrest. Its description clearly stated: contains the Deep Blue Bloodline of the sea.
"Wavecrest, you just farmed the Inheritance for your own clan?!"
"Holy shit! A mutant crab?!"
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Edited by Fat Goose