Chapter 239: Sunflower

Perfect-grade items are rare and hard to come by; just as Li Cheng uploaded the information to the auction house page on the player forum and hadn't yet decided on a starting price, a customer service representative from the auction house proactively contacted him.

Customer Service: 【Hello, respected Mr. /Ms. /Non-binary individual, we have noticed that you have uploaded information regarding a perfect-grade item; the auction house suggests that you had best hide details such as the item's special effects, consumption, and cooldown time, marking it simply as a perfect-grade piece of armor.】

Li Cheng: 【Hm? Why?】

Customer Service: 【It is like this: for perfect-grade items, by convention the auction house sets a bidding threshold; bidders must deposit 10,000 game coins into their accounts in advance to demonstrate purchasing capability, and only then will the auction house display the full item information to them.】

Customer Service: 【Doing this protects the rights of both seller and buyer, preventing the item's weaknesses from becoming known to the outside world.】

Li Cheng: 【Are you sure? The side effects of this item are quite strong; bidders might be deterred and step back.】

Customer Service: 【You need not worry about this point; perfect-grade armor in the auction house is rare and hard to come by, so there is absolutely no concern about sales.】

To increase persuasiveness, the customer service representative on the other end, using a rather tactful tone, recounted an old piece of news.

Back when the Killing Field Game had just begun, a small guild, through tremendous effort during a script mission, managed to obtain a genuine 【Sunflower Manual】.

Since ordinary people could cultivate it and the threshold was extremely low, this item was immediately bought out on the black market by an agent of the US military for a fixed price of 100,000 game coins.

Afterwards, a notorious scene from a hellish joke emerged—a group of elite special forces kings from the Navy SEALs, Delta Force, Green Berets, and Rangers, inspired by the American national anthem, queued up with determined eyes to walk into the operating room,

collectively getting their chickens cut, with the second one at half price.

However, only after they had been cut did they discover that while the threshold for the Sunflower Manual was low, to master it and truly possess combat power on the level of Wu Xia masters required extremely high talent from the learner.

Even with sports nutritionists, exercise physiologists, and a medical team providing round-the-clock, twenty-four-hour care,

out of one hundred elite soldiers, fewer than ten actually succeeded in mastering it,

their final strength roughly falling between Mei Chaofeng and Zuo Lengchan from Jin Yong's novels, with internal energy capable of injuring others with falling leaves or flying flowers, lightness skills leaving no trace on snow, and physical strength sufficient to split stone tablets.

After being fully armed, they barely qualified as super elite soldiers, capable of altering the situation in a small-scale battlefield.

The rest all became a classic dish—white-cut chicken.

This scandal was ultimately exposed by a former special forces soldier who had failed to cultivate the Sunflower Manual, required long-term medication after being cut, suffered from an immune system disease, was abandoned by the US military, and ended up wandering the streets.

The reason the auction house customer service went to such lengths to tell this story was to explain to Li Cheng that one really shouldn't overestimate the moral integrity of the player community and the participants in the profit chains surrounding the Killing Field.

A mere piece of lingerie armor is truly no big deal.

Since the customer service representative had put it this way, Li Cheng followed the advice and began the auction according to procedure.

The starting price of 4,000 soared past six thousand, eight thousand, and ten thousand, only slowing down once it reached fourteen thousand.

In the end, this piece of erotic lingerie—ah, no, 【Sigh of Athel Loren】—was sold for a full 17,000-plus game coins to an unnamed buyer.

What can I say; for those glass-cannon transcendent beings, defensive items must command a higher price, after all, only by staying alive can one deal damage.

"The Shangcheng original price of 【Sigh of Athel Loren】 was 10,000 game coins; buying it at a 50% discount cost 5,000, which means I made a net profit of 12,000 just by reselling it."

Li Cheng sighed with emotion: "This damn well makes money faster than robbing a bank."

Just this single wave of transactions made up for the expenses of the Skull-Crushing Power Hammer.

Adding in the profits from buying low and selling high on other discounted items, and deducting the auction house intermediary fees, he earned another 3,000, bringing Li Cheng's personal treasury to a massive 20,393.

Congratulations, congratulations.

Feeling completely refreshed, Li Cheng leisurely walked over to his computer, browsed the player forum, scanning the item listings in the auction house while checking for any recent news from the Killing Field.

【With the US presidential election approaching, suspicious forces are suspected of bribing hospitals and funeral homes to temporarily resurrect some corpses in key swing states, sending them to voting stations to cast ballots as US citizens; a spokesperson for the Evil Scientist Alliance claims they have nothing to do with this matter.】

Li Cheng's eyelid twitched. "Good heavens, actual dead men's votes, is it? What a case of ghost soldiers borrowing the path."

【A large-scale kangaroo attack incident has occurred in Australia; over a dozen kangaroos appeared on the streets of Melbourne attacking humans, causing seven deaths and nineteen injuries; suspicious forces are suspected of distributing kangaroo feed laced with stimulants in the wild. The Laughing Troupe has claimed responsibility for the incident first and threatened that if the Australian government does not pay one billion Australian dollars, their next step will be to teach the kangaroos Wing Chun.】

"Why Wing Chun and not some other martial art, hey? Is it because kangaroos have short arms and can only use short strikes? Why not just issue guns to the kangaroos?"

Li Cheng complained as he continued to scroll the mouse.

【A player, playing as the youngest son of a serf family in an old XZ script mission, was actually patted on the head by a Gao Seng, who highly praised that this child was destined for great things.】

Wait a minute, hold on, old XZ? Damn it, is this what 'destined for great things' means?!

Li Cheng's eye corners twitched wildly; the news section of the player forum contains advertisements, and every time a post is opened, the poster receives money, so there are many water armies who specifically craft eye-catching news headlines.

Thump, thump, thump.

Just as Li Cheng was reading with great interest, a knocking sound suddenly came from outside the room door.

"Old Cheng, open up."

Han Letian's voice came from outside the door; Li Cheng was first startled, then remembered.

Before becoming a player, he, Han Letian, Mu Yulu, and the others often went out to play together, visiting the Shangcheng, attending comic conventions, and occasionally going to Han Letian's house to watch movies.

Now that Li Cheng had moved to a quiet apartment building, these two were always plotting to come over and mooch a meal.

"Is it today, actually?"

He tapped his head, hurriedly turned off the computer, and put away the three-dimensional warehouse set up in the living room,

then turned his head, only to see that girl Hui Yu, who knew not when, had changed into a form-fitting golden evening gown, wearing a diamond necklace around her chest and pearl earrings on her ears, looking exquisite and luxurious.

Li Cheng looked completely bewildered. "What are you doing?"

"As the lady of the house, isn't managing the banquet for the master of the house part of my duty? I've seen it played out this way in TV shows and movies."

Hui Yu struck a pose of self-evident righteousness, pulling open a kitchen drawer to find wine glasses while speaking in an accent from who-knows-where, "My darling."

"Darling my foot."

Li Cheng wore a pained expression, took out the electronic pet egg, and said, "Please, esteemed one, cease your divine powers; how about I clear your shopping cart for you?"

"Sigh, fine then. I want grape-flavored electronic cigarettes."

Hui Yu hopped her leg into the pet egg, still muttering incessantly, "Why does this feel like I'm a mistress kept by a tycoon, hidden away in a golden house within a high-end residential compound?"

(End of Chapter)