"Creak" "Creak"

Gu Mian was quite resourceful. After a day and night of hard traveling, he finally arrived at "NPC Street," riding a bicycle that was about to fall apart.

As for how he got the bicycle...

In the eyes of the Upper Class People, the lower-class were no different from garbage, and the areas near the lower-class residences in the city became dumping grounds for the Upper Class People.

The lower-class people living in the area usually survived on bits of food scavenged from the garbage heaps.

Anything with even slight value would be reclaimed by the Upper Class People and would not be thrown into the dumpsters near the lower-class people.

But there are exceptions to everything.

Yesterday, a group of Upper Class People found an almost scrapped bicycle while rummaging through the garbage mountain. They were delighted. The lower-class people didn't even know what it was, having only seen people riding these things from afar in the Upper Class People's district.

"We can try the things of Upper Class People too!" — Gu Mian guessed that this must be what they were thinking at the time.

But the lower-class residential area was not a harmonious and loving family. Very soon, two groups of lower-class people were fiercely fighting over the broken bicycle. The number of people joining the bicycle battle kept increasing, and the scene was extremely chaotic.

Gu Mian happened to pass by, seized the opportunity to hop on the cracked bike seat, and pedaled hard to ride away with the bicycle.

By the time people realized the bicycle was gone, even the shadow of Gu Mian was long gone.

Riding a bike is faster than walking on two legs. Gu Mian pedaled day and night, finally reaching NPC Street by dusk the next day.

The poor bike, after a day and night of intensive work, finally fell apart and could no longer be ridden.

Gu Mian stood on the street, looking at the bicycle's shattered remains, mourning for it in silence for three seconds.

After a perfunctory three seconds, Gu Mian began to look up and take in the novelty of NPC Street.

007 said her Game City was like a commercial plaza.

Gu Mian assumed that NPC Street would be similar to the commercial streets on Earth.

But reality was not like that.

The architecture here was bizarre, with irregular heights. The abstract buildings clustered together almost looked like two rows of teeth in desperate need of braces at first glance.

The ground underfoot was strange too.

It seemed like every store had its own idea for the pavement in front. Every few meters, the ground style changed. Looking down the road, all kinds of colors could be seen, reminding Gu Mian of the rainbow rubber band candy he had seen in supermarkets as a child.

This rubber band candy—no, this colorful street wasn't long; only about twenty to thirty shopfronts.

Gu Mian was standing on a green grass sward pavement, with a layer of turf and some yellow and white small flowers, matching perfectly with the shop next door bearing a "Green Plant Module Garden Shop" sign.

This shop was shaped like a giant flower pot, with a crooked stick inserted at the top, and a leaf-shaped signboard hanging at the end. It really looked like a giant potted plant.

He looked for quite a while before finding the shop's door—a 20-centimeter high arched opening at the bottom of the flower pot, not much different from a dog hole.

This dog hole was the garden shop's door. Do you have to crawl through this hole to buy something?

Gu Mian bent over to see through the dog hole.

Bending down, he found that the shop was closed and locked, unable to see inside.

Upon closer inspection, a thin layer of dust had settled on the lock. He reasonably guessed that the shop had gone bankrupt and closed for some time due to poor management.

After all, customers who love to crawl through dog holes were rare.

A couple more steps forward and the ground turned into uneven glass. Under the glass, the land was chiseled into an irregular oval, with a few unhappy-looking fish drifting around inside.

Naturally, the shop next door sold fish.

A giant fish head was facing Gu Mian, its mouth wide open.

If not for the two-page door in the fish's mouth, Gu Mian would almost have thought this was a real fish head.

The fish shop was also locked, possibly closed along with the adjacent shop.

Surveying the surroundings, Gu Mian found all the shops in sight were locked, no wonder there wasn't a soul on the street.

What happened?

Has the whole street gone bankrupt?

Now what? Where could he find a sympathetic NPC to borrow a means of transport?

Gu Mian, still hopeful, continued forward.

After passing a few strange shops like "Red and Purple Instance Ribbon-Cutting Chain Store," "Teleportation Array," "Chased with Hope Awkwardly Strive Translation," Gu Mian finally saw a store with an open door.

Theoretically, it wasn't even a store, but more like a street stall—a sparsely-haired person sitting on a shabby little stool, holding a flagpole, much like the banner a fortune-teller in TV dramas would carry around.

The flag bore a very modern script.

3——2—Divination.

"Three... dash, two one divination," Gu Mian read the script on the flag.

"It's 'Three Long and Two Short Divination'! Hmm... Who are you?" The person on the stool instinctively corrected Gu Mian's mistake, only realizing afterward that there was someone beside him.

He scrutinized Gu Mian up and down, hesitantly saying: "A person from another world?"

The "Eight Characters" Moustache the Evil God gave was really effective, it could even fool an NPC. Gu Mian suspected the moustache helped block his game panel, otherwise, how would the person in front not recognize him as a player?

Gu Mian started smoothly fabricating an identity.

"Hello, I'm an employee of Squid Express. My vehicle broke down, could I borrow a car? I'll give you ten pennants when I finish my deliveries and come back."

"Ah, Squid Express?" The person on the stool pointed into the distance, "There is a delivery point over there, the packages piled up for half a month without being delivered, and the boss lady ran off yesterday because she couldn't pay the rent."

Couldn't afford the rent and ran off... It seems everyone here might have run off because they couldn't afford rent, except for the street vendor in front of me who doesn't need to pay rent, so didn't run.

Gu Mian followed his finger to look.

He saw a tent set up in that direction, with packages stacked like a small mountain underneath it. A wooden sign hung at the top of the tent, with crooked writing that read "Bird Bandit Express."

Seems like there's an extra point, but that's not important.

Gu Mian noticed a delivery truck parked next to the tent with the keys still in the ignition.

Beside the truck was a package sorting robot, or rather a machine dog.

This contraption was about the size of a dog, with a camera topping the place where its head should be. It was busily using its two front mechanical arms to load packages onto the delivery truck.

However, it seemed to have some malfunction, asking each package, "Are you happy?" each time it picked one up.

The packages felt bitter inside, but had no mouth to answer.

Not receiving any answer, the machine dog would wait for a while before tossing the package onto the truck, then pick up the next one to continue the questioning.

Seeing Gu Mian watching the machine dog load packages, "Oh, that's a happiness survey robot the boss lady pilfered from another place and repurposed into a package loader." 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

"So irresponsible," Gu Mian declared righteously, quickly striding towards the delivery truck, "Let me deliver all these packages!"

While speaking, he picked up the machine dog still asking, "Are you happy?" from the ground and threw it into the truck without a door.

Then he plopped onto the front seat, twisted the throttle, and drove towards Crazy Game City.

The fortune teller shouted from behind, "You're going the wrong way! You're supposed to head south and west; those packages are for there!"

Gu Mian responded with a "yeah, yeah," firmly twisting the throttle to keep heading east.

The man behind ate a mouthful of dust, looking at the silhouette of the delivery truck muttering, "Uh-oh, he seems a bit deaf."

As expected from a Bird Bandit Express truck, it sped along rapidly. Gu Mian felt that at this speed, he could reach Crazy Game City in just an hour.

At this moment, the machine dog in the truck jumped to the side of Gu Mian's seat, raising its camera to keep asking, "Are you happy?"

Gu Mian ignored it and focused on the small map placed on the dashboard.

The previous courier probably wasn't familiar with the terrain, so they specially put a map on the dashboard to help find locations anytime; next to the map was a compass.

Gu Mian kept driving while glancing at the map.

"I am currently at NPC Street, and if I keep heading east through the lower-class Spider Area, I can reach Crazy Game City. Right, the manager mentioned that Inferior Sightseeing Park and Crazy Plastic Surgery are near Game City, let me find them..."

Soon, Gu Mian found these locations on the map, indeed not far from Game City. When he got there, he could conveniently complete the delivery tasks for these two places.

"Let me search the map further to see where else can match my ninety-nine delivery tasks."

Thinking this, Gu Mian quickly browsed the map.

He promptly spotted a familiar name—"Carnival Abandoned Factory."

This was also one of the ninety-nine delivery addresses.

Upon seeing the position of Carnival Abandoned Factory, Gu Mian paused then suddenly slammed on the brakes.

"People's physical fitness is declining, going deaf at such a young age, but driving recklessly ..." In NPC Street, the man sitting on the little stool was lamenting when he heard a "boom" from afar.

Someone seemed to be driving towards him.

He curiously raised his head, seeing the young man driving the delivery truck back.

Due to the excessive speed, deliveries scattered along the way from the truck.

But the young man didn't mind, accelerating with roaring thunder until sharply braking at his stand, and the man swallowed another mouthful of dust.

"Hey, do you know the area's layout?" Gu Mian waved the map in his hand at him.

"What... what 'hey,' am I that old? You should call me..." The man considered for quite some time without finding a suitable title.

Looking at the man's slightly balding head, Gu Mian thought to himself he didn't want him to call him "brother," right?

"Hey," at this moment, the machine dog beside Gu Mian suddenly turned its camera toward the man, "Are you happy?"

What's going on? This machine dog was rather polite before, why did it suddenly start calling people "hey"?

"Forget it, forget it," the man seemed to give up on the title, "I'm very familiar with the surrounding terrain; which area's route are you not sure about? Let me tell you."

"I want to ask," Gu Mian looked at the map in his hand, "Carnival Abandoned Factory, Evil Eastern Valley, Up-and-Down Boundary, Prisoner Cave, and Secret Forest are to the southwest, right?"

These five locations are among the ninety-nine delivery task addresses.

Gu Mian circled these five locations on the map, finding they were all in the southwest, relatively close together, almost adjacent.

Moreover, the goods needed to be delivered were quite simple, items like "stones" and "twigs," common things.

Not delivering them was simply unjustifiable.

However, there's a bit of a tricky point.

The man scratched his somewhat balding head, "All those places you mentioned are within the blocked area."