I am a Big Player
Chapter 201 - 199, A Deal (First Update)_1

Chapter 201: 199, A Deal (First Update)_1

Ren He sat at home, chin in hand, watching TV, but his thoughts had already drifted off to who knows where. Yang Xi was coming soon—how could he make his appearance in front of her interesting?

By evening, Ren He could already see the game Kunlun starting to pick up steam. On the forum at No.4 Middle School, classmates were already posting to look for teammates...

The reader base for Kunlun was actually quite massive, and the game planners’ conventional estimate of 200,000 concurrent players in a few months seemed too small—that was conventional, not Kunlun.

The game Dream Journey to the West once dominated the Chinese gaming scene and had far more potential than that. Ren He waited for its true rise to bring him a substantial accumulation of wealth—his dream of becoming a rich and idle person seemed not too far away now.

Previously, after playing the Croatian Rhapsody, Ren He had a formal conversation with the Divine Punishment System because he was worried that the difficulty of the tasks would become harder and harder, requiring at least a week to complete one task. How could he continue schooling then? And if the tasks were within the school’s scope, what kind of difficult task could there be?

Probably none by now, he had even managed to free climb UP Building. The rest of the buildings basically posed no difficulty.

So, if the difficulty of the tasks were to be raised again, it would inevitably mean going to more special environments, which was quite unrealistic. Although it seemed that the Divine Punishment System didn’t always increase the difficulty when issuing tasks, for example, exposure to the sun for three hours was much easier compared to climbing UP Building, at least it didn’t pose a life-threatening risk.

But to be on the safe side, Ren He decided to have a more in-depth communication with the Divine Punishment System, "You want to use the culture of parallel worlds to fill in the gaps in this world, and I really want to bring those cultures here, too. The current problem is, I’m also willing to do those truly adventurous tasks, but I can’t possibly have that much time. Can’t it be like this—for things like playing the Croatian Rhapsody, where I don’t intend to profit but just want to recreate them in this world, can such tasks be canceled?"

Ren He was always nervous whenever negotiating with the Divine Punishment System, first, he had to meet the other party’s needs before he could discuss his own.

"No," the Divine Punishment System rejected him outright, leaving no room for negotiation!

It looked like there was no room for discussion. After thinking it over, Ren He said, "Then how about this: can we reduce the difficulty of these types of punishment tasks slightly, or make them more diverse?"

"Approved."

It was actually approved? At the moment he stood beneath the piano room, Ren He was ecstatic. Every negotiation with the Divine Punishment System brought a little surprise—had he not strove for his cause, he would probably have been worn out by now.

"Task: Perform on stage at the welcome party, punishment for non-completion: host dribbles saliva for one month."

Damn it, dribbling saliva for a month, wouldn’t that make me the first idiot in No.4 Middle School? Talking to people without wiping my mouth first, drooling as I speak? If it’s with girls, maybe they think I’m fantasizing about something, but that’s the better scenario, right? What if it’s with guys—how frightened would they be?!

If Ren He saw Jiang Haoyang or Liu Bing constantly dribbling saliva at him, he would be scared too!

That evening, as Ren He sat in front of the TV, he pondered what kind of act he should prepare if he really needed to perform at the welcome party.

At that moment, his eyes suddenly lit up—it seemed he had found a way to tackle the task and give Yang Xi a surprise at the same time!

The next day, after the afternoon military training ended at school, all the classmates gathered to discuss which performance to prepare. At this time, everyone was harboring their little schemes. Each class only had two slots, and while in an ordinary school it would be a matter of shoving the responsibility onto others, it was different at No.4 Middle School. Quite a few people were eagerly hoping to seize this opportunity.

Moreover, these two selected slots weren’t guaranteed a spot in the show; they still had to compete against other classes, and only 15 acts would be chosen in the end. The senior students would also produce 15 acts, and together, they would make up a three-hour evening gala with 30 acts total.

Thirty classes per grade, each class nominating two to compete, and only 15 final winners—this meant a 75% chance of getting eliminated. Those odds were high.

No.4 Middle School was such a place, where everyone strove to shine and enter the top echelon. Even Jiang Haoyang and Liu Bing, the study-oriented duo without many special talents, wanted to drag Ren He into performing a crosstalk. Having a knack for jokes, Liu Bing naturally thought of the crosstalk format.

Everyone was very enthusiastic about the evening gala, but as time went on, some became demoralized and self-exiled under the pressure of the prodigies’ halo.

Perform crosstalk? Ren He pondered and decided to drop the idea. Yang Xi was bound to be the grand finale, and if he went on stage too soon, where would the element of surprise be?

However, at this moment, an idea struck him, "I’ll write a crosstalk script for you two. If you think it’s good, use it. In exchange, mobilize your fellow alumni to do something for me!"

Ren He still felt it wasn’t safe to go at it alone, so he had to enlist Jiang Haoyang and Liu Bing. One was the top scorer from the junior section of No.4 Middle School, and the other a physics whiz from Experimental Middle School. Both had lots of former classmates at No.4, making them perfectly reliable for this task.

Liu Bing was somewhat proud, especially about jokes—he had never been outshone. When Ren He mentioned writing a crosstalk script for them, Liu Bing seemed unimpressed.

Reading Liu Bing’s expression, Ren He understood. He smiled and said, "Fine, I’ll perform a piece for you two in dual roles, and you can judge it yourselves!" If it weren’t for the fact that he couldn’t accomplish this alone, he wouldn’t have been so quick to provoke the Divine Punishment System. Ren He then improvised a crosstalk by Guo Degang; with his advanced-level acting skills, he even mimicked Guo Degang’s expressions to a tee.

As for the crosstalk artist Guo Degang, Ren He only enjoyed some of his work—some parts were funny, some not so much. So he chose what he considered the most classic piece to perform for Jiang Haoyang and Liu Bing. The result? They were laughing so hard they were practically incapacitated. Opinions of Guo Degang were always mixed, and as an outsider in his past life, Ren He didn’t judge these matters, for without full understanding, one had no right to speak. All he could do was affirm that Guo Degang’s work was indeed excellent, and his popularity was no fluke.

"Is it a deal?" Ren He raised his eyebrows.

"Deal! You really hid your talents, brother," Liu Bing exclaimed. "I thought I was the only one in our class with a sense of humor. I concede defeat!"

However, making a deal came with a price. Just as Ren He finished writing out the crosstalk script, the Divine Punishment System issued a new task: "Task: Receive the applause of 2000 people during the welcome gala. If not completed, the host will suffer from smelly feet for one month, and no object will be able to block the odor."

That doesn’t seem fair, does it? Just thinking about the foot odor the Divine Punishment System might punish him with was enough to realize how awful it could be, with no way to block it. If he really got hit with such a punishment, would he become the first student in No.4 Middle School to be asked to leave because his foot odor was so intense that other students couldn’t focus in class?

But could he get the applause of 2000 people? He should be able to, right? With a thousand-plus audience, and with the sophomores and seniors joining by the time of the welcome gala, the whole school with around 4000 people would be in attendance. That meant he needed just half of them to applaud.

Should be... no problem, right?!