Chapter 322 - 312: Digging Their Own Grave

Kai York’s face filled with anger the moment the topic came up.

"You have no idea. I don’t know what’s up with that shop, but they blacklisted me, Boss, and Hugh Finch—all three of us."

"Blacklisted?" Moira Lynch looked confused. "Why would they blacklist you? Did you do something to offend the shop?"

"No way. We didn’t even know who was behind the shop before this, so how could we have offended them?" Kai York said indignantly.

Shane Rhodes said, "It’s not just us. I heard a lot of people in the base were blacklisted, and many on the game forums are saying the same thing. They all have one thing in common: they’re all from Cathaya, and they’re all strong, well-known players."

"So you’re saying the owner isn’t targeting us specifically, but all of Cathaya?" Kai York said, his eyes wide.

Hugh Finch nodded. "You could say that."

"How did you find out you were blacklisted?" Moira Lynch asked curiously. "Were you denied entry?"

"Not exactly," Kai York explained. "To enter the shop, you have to input your game username and pay a one-thousand-Gold-Coin security deposit, right? For regular players, the system shows the deposit is refundable. But for blacklisted players, while you can still get in, your deposit becomes non-refundable."

"At first, I didn’t realize it meant I was blacklisted, so I went to the game forums to complain about what a scam shop it was. But then I saw a lot of other people talking about the same shop, and that’s when I realized something was off."

After hearing Kai York’s explanation, Moira Lynch fell silent. "So that raises a question. Why were the three of you blacklisted, but not me? We’re always together."

’Three out of the four of them were on the blacklist, leaving only her. Was she supposed to be happy about that?’

Seeing the unhappy look on Moira Lynch’s face, Shane Rhodes explained, "It’s probably because you’re too low-key in the game. This time, almost every single Cathayan player who was blacklisted has some level of fame in the game."

With Shane Rhodes’s explanation, Moira Lynch grudgingly accepted this reasoning.

"Still, I think what they’re doing is completely pointless," Hugh Finch said.

"How so?" Moira Lynch asked curiously.

Hugh Finch explained, "Look, you need to pay a thousand Gold Coins as a security deposit just to prove you have purchasing power. Under the current circumstances, how many people can even come up with that kind of money?"

Very few people could meet their requirement in the first place, and now they’re turning even more away.

It’s not that they left no options at all, but the option they did leave feels like a deliberate taunt. It would have been better to leave no option at all.

People usually burn their bridges after they’ve crossed the river or kill the donkey after the grinding is done. But these guys are already burning bridges and killing donkeys before they’ve even gotten started.

If you were the only shop of your kind, sure, you could get away with it. Forget a thousand Gold Coins—even if it were ten thousand, people would probably grit their teeth and pay up.

But don’t forget, SoySauceDrunkard was here before them.

When there’s a choice, people will subconsciously pick the option that benefits them more.

So, in Hugh Finch’s opinion, the owner of this new shop was just digging their own grave.

"Is that so? But when I went in earlier, it seemed pretty crowded."

’There are so many rich people in the world,’ she had marveled at the time.

In reality, what Moira Lynch didn’t know was that a large portion of the people she had seen were invited there for a free tour.

If you were to exclude that group, you’d find that very few people actually got in on their own merit.

And among those people, even fewer actually bought anything.

After browsing the shop, these people would go home and start enjoying the delicious food they had bought from SoySauceDrunkard’s [Don’t Miss It] shop.

"By the way, Moira, you’ve already been inside, right? What’s in there that’s worth them going to all this trouble?" Kai York asked curiously.

Moira Lynch described what she had seen inside.

"They managed to bring so much stuff out of the game? How on earth did they do that?"

Shane Rhodes and Hugh Finch also looked curious.

"Money power." Moira Lynch slowly uttered two words, leaving the three of them speechless.

Shane Rhodes seemed to recall something. "After the third round of the game ended, the top ten players got a lottery draw, right? After the game, I saw someone on the forums showing off the prize they won."

"I remember someone got a wallet. Its ability was to produce a continuous supply of money. At the time, the person thought the item was useless and wanted to trade it for a weapon."

’Everyone is just scraping by right now. If someone really has that kind of money power,’ Shane Rhodes thought, ’that’s probably the only way.’

To think that an item once mocked by everyone as useless could be used like this.

After a moment of reflection, Shane Rhodes remembered something else. "Moira, you mentioned seeing nutrient liquid in there. They sell nutrient liquid too?"

Moira Lynch nodded. "To be precise, it’s near-expired nutrient liquid. Most of the nutrients have already degraded."

"Boss, why do you care about that? Do you think someone who can casually drop a thousand Gold Coins would buy that disgusting nutrient liquid?" Kai York said.

Just like them.

They had a decent supply of nutrient liquid, and even Energy Bars, but they rarely ate that kind of stuff.

For one, those items were saved for emergencies, for when they were in a pinch.

For another, compared to nutrient liquid and Energy Bars, they much preferred normal food.

After lunch and a short rest, Moira Lynch went through another training session.

After going through all the modes, Moira Lynch was completely exhausted.

Even though the indoor temperature was dozens of degrees below zero, she was covered in sweat. Her heart was pounding, and her body temperature was rising rapidly.

Just then, Shane Rhodes walked over, picked up the report printed by the machine, and glanced at the data. "Not bad. You’ve improved in every area."

If you listened closely, you could even hear a hint of envy in Shane Rhodes’s voice.

Among the four of them, Moira Lynch trained the least, working in fits and starts.

But even so, with every test, her ability and physical fitness continued to improve.

’Is this the advantage of being young?’

If Moira Lynch had heard his inner complaint, she would have definitely told him that this wasn’t the advantage of being young, but the advantage of having a cheat.