Chapter 24: The First Player
The next day, 10:00 AM.
Chen Mo had already finished breakfast and was waiting in the experience store.
Yesterday, throughout the entire afternoon until the store closed at 8 PM, not a single real player had shown up. Everyone who came in was just looking for an internet café; when they found out it was an experience store charging 5 yuan per hour, they silently turned and left.
Of course, the fact that the store was completely empty of customers was also one of the reasons they lost interest.
Chen Mo was starting to doubt his life choices. Was it really this tough?!
His game was supposed to shake up the entire gaming industry, and now he was letting people try it out early for just 5 yuan an hour, and they still weren’t satisfied!
Chen Mo refused to accept this, so he opened the store on time the next day.
He even specially prepared a cup, planning to give the first customer a free coffee.
But he also began to think: what if no players showed up for an entire week?
If he couldn’t collect enough player feedback, he’d have to upload the game to the app store for testing, making changes as he went along.
Relatively speaking, Chen Mo preferred face-to-face interactions with players in the experience store.
As Chen Mo was lost in thought, a tall, slender girl walked in through the door.
She had long black hair, stood about 172 cm tall, and was wearing high heels. Fortunately, Chen Mo was sitting down, or he might have felt intimidated.
The girl’s face was quite pretty, but she carried an aura that screamed “stay five meters away,” as if even a fly that got too close would be killed.
Basically, if you handed her a long sword, she could easily cosplay as Saeko Busujima from *Highschool of the Dead*.
The black-haired, long-legged girl scanned the store and finally locked her gaze on Chen Mo.
Chen Mo felt a chill run down his spine and said, “Hello.”
The girl asked, “Is this a game experience store? Just opened?”
Chen Mo nodded. “Yes, opened yesterday.”
The girl looked at the empty seats on the first floor. “A bit quiet, huh? No customers?”
Chen Mo was speechless.
Did she have to rub it in? Wasn’t it obvious at a glance whether there were people or not? Why ask? Did she expect him to conjure up customers out of thin air?
Or was he supposed to answer, “No, there are plenty of people—you just can’t see them”?
Seeing Chen Mo’s lack of reaction, the girl asked again, “Is it because your prices are too high? Or too few games?”
Chen Mo replied, “Five yuan per hour.”
The girl nodded. “Yeah, that’s more expensive than an internet café. No wonder no one’s here.”
Chen Mo: “…”
The girl changed the subject. “But the environment here is pretty quiet, not like those smoky internet cafés. Alright, I need some peace and quiet anyway. I’ll play for an hour.”
With that, she pulled out her ID card, swiped it at the counter, scanned a QR code with her phone, and sat down at a machine.
In this world, internet cafés were mostly self-service; you just swiped your ID card, and all payments were handled via phone QR codes—very convenient.
By the time the girl sat down, Chen Mo snapped out of it.
What? His first customer had just walked in? Wasn’t it too sudden?
Suppressing his inner joy, Chen Mo grabbed the pre-prepared cup, brewed a coffee, and placed it on the girl’s desk.
“What’s this?” the girl asked.
Chen Mo replied, “Since you’re the store’s first customer, here’s a complimentary coffee.”
The girl raised an eyebrow. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Opened yesterday, and today’s your first customer? Boss, you’re really struggling, huh? Sigh…”
Chen Mo: “…I’ll take the coffee back.”
The girl chuckled. “No, leave it. Boss, you’re pretty good-looking, but why are you so petty?”
Chen Mo: “Heh.”
Chen Mo returned to the counter and checked the girl’s info on the experience store’s management panel.
Wen Lingwei, 21 years old.
At that age, she was probably a university student from a nearby college, maybe a sophomore or junior.
Her name sounded gentle, but why was her tongue so sharp? Probably because she was good-looking, so everyone spoiled her…
Wen Lingwei’s sharp tongue had left a bad first impression on Chen Mo, so he didn’t pay her much attention and went back to his own work.
Still, having his first player was a good thing, and Chen Mo was pretty happy.
Wen Lingwei turned on the computer. There was only one game on the desktop, with an interesting icon: a dirty hand emerging from the ground, holding a small flower.
“*Plants vs. Zombies*?”
The name struck her as a bit mismatched, like pitting Guan Yu against Qin Qiong, but it also piqued her curiosity. How exactly could plants fight zombies?
She double-clicked the icon and started the game.
The Thunder Game logo flashed by.
Soon, a loading screen appeared before Wen Lingwei. In the center was a road; on the right side, many zombies had broken through a wall, while on the left, various plants stood ready in formation.
The entire scene was cartoonish. The zombies were ugly but not disgusting, while the plants were all round and had anthropomorphic features, giving off a mysterious cuteness.
“Huh, not bad.”
Wen Lingwei was a bit surprised. She had assumed that a newly opened experience store run by an unknown game designer wouldn’t produce anything decent, but as soon as she entered the game, she was drawn in.
The UI was filled with zombie-related elements, with many interface styles resembling tombstones. But these tombstones didn’t feel out of place; they blended well with the background trees and houses.
A pop-up appeared, prompting Wen Lingwei to register for a Thunder Game account.
She frowned, finding it a bit troublesome, but she went ahead and registered anyway. She didn’t fill in her phone number or ID number.
After registering, she clicked the top option, [Start Your Adventure], and entered the story mode.
With a low, eerie laugh, a zombie’s hand suddenly burst out of the ground in front of a tombstone, startling Wen Lingwei.
“…What a twisted sense of humor,” she muttered, then entered the game.
The entire screen showed a large patch of ground, looking like the backyard of a house. In the center, a green lawn stretched from left to right, taking up about a fifth of the empty space.
The tutorial was simple. An arrow appeared on the screen, guiding Wen Lingwei to click on a card in the top bar. The card depicted a green plant called a Peashooter.
She clicked the Peashooter and, following the instructions, planted it on the lawn.
Just then, a small sun floated down from the top of the screen. Wen Lingwei clicked it as instructed, collecting 25 sun points.
As she planted a second Peashooter, a zombie appeared, letting out a “Wah-wah” cry as it limped along the green path toward the two Peashooters.