Interstellar Travel: Becoming a Dress-Up Game Designer

Chapter 178

Lin Shuying has decided to increase the difficulty because the limited edition items that everyone has are becoming too common and their value isn't increasing. The "Qingfengyi" style must continue to be popular so that more people can see it and pay attention to it!

This task is very simple: either pick 600 jin (300 catties) of tea, averaging 10 jin (5 kg) a day (not difficult for those with fast hands), or you'll receive an exclusive outfit upon completion. It's that easy.

There are tons of tea plantations in the instance; you can pick as much as you want. After picking ten pounds, you'll still have plenty of time to do other things. Very skilled players can finish in half a month, picking forty pounds of tea a day. That would require a whole day of intense work.

During this period, 100 square meters of self-cultivated tea land can be used to purchase 50 kilograms of tea leaves, with a maximum of 600 square meters of tea land. After all, the instance area is only so big, and giving each player too much would be insufficient. This condition further reduces the grind and makes the task easier.

Lin Shuying is truly sharp-tongued but soft-hearted; she says she wants to increase the difficulty, but she can't bear to make players grind. Ultimately, she's holding back her initial intention: she believes a game is a game, its essential purpose is relaxation and stress relief; making it like a workday would be incredibly boring. She hopes players can focus more on experiencing the unique scenery, culture, and terrain of the dungeons, or playing with friends.

The second way to acquire tea is to become a tea merchant, collecting tea from various places. There are many options here. There are advanced tea merchants, such as opening shops on a commercial street to collect and sell tea, or engaging in tea transportation between different regions. This requires earning five million taels of gold or unlocking all the Tea Horse Road maps, which is quite difficult and can be considered a challenge-based gameplay. Lin Shuying is a little worried that players won't accept this gameplay, resulting in no one completing it, which would be rather awkward.

Intermediate tea merchants are those who buy and resell large quantities of fresh tea. These merchants also have a side quest to unlock the Tea Horse Road, which requires earning 300 million taels of gold or unlocking all Tea Horse Road illustrations to obtain exclusive items.

Low-level tea merchants are simply people who go to tea fields and shout to buy tea. These people only need to obtain 100,000 taels of silver or 10,000 catties of tea.

The requirements are very low.

To balance the game currency data, the initial capital is set differently. Players who do not choose to become tea merchants have no initial capital, while advanced tea merchants have 10,000 taels of silver, intermediate tea merchants have 500 taels of silver, and low-level tea merchants have 10 taels of silver. If players take too big a step and cannot support themselves, they will have to pay out of their own pockets. The exchange rate between players' gold ingots and dungeon silver is 10:1. This is because Lu Yunzhi calculated the price differences to be at this level.

After learning how to play, players excitedly rushed into the dungeon, and most of them chose to pick tea leaves. Ten catties a day, plus 600 square meters of tea fields, it's really super easy.

Upon entering the dungeon, the first thing you see is a cutscene:

The scene begins with wisps of smoke rising from the chimneys of a few houses, the early morning sounds of roosters crowing and dogs barking, adults calling children to wash their faces. The sound of washbasins hitting the stone counter echoes from one hilltop to another, and voices from the courtyards reverberate through the valley, sometimes whispers barely audible, sometimes loud shouts audible to all. This scene underscores the tranquility and peace of the entire village, leaving the StarCraft player somewhat stunned.

The sun slowly peeked out from behind the mountain saddle, shining on the dew on the grass and causing a thin mist to rise. How beautiful!

Emerald smoke rises from the peaks, fooling three or five families.

The young boy urges the child to bed late, while the rinsing basin is filled with the sound of a thousand grains of rice

Busy tending the grass and leading the ox, a tea basket swayed at his waist.

Why the hurried steps? It's because spring is in full bloom.

The child sat on the back of an ox, walking up the mountain along the path, whistling and shouting as he went. His voice echoed through the valley, and soon the other children responded. They seemed to have a tacit understanding, and together they arrived at their usual spot. The ox was tied to a large tea tree, and the child, carrying a water bottle and tea basket, headed straight for the best tea bushes.

The morning dew was still quite heavy, and the children's trouser legs were wet. Their soft little cloth shoes, made by their mother, were soaked through, making a squeaking sound as they walked.

After picking tea for about an hour, a shout came from the other side of the mountain: "Time to collect tea leaves!"

The children were immediately excited and began shaking the tea in their baskets, trying to make the tea leaves stand up to make it seem like there was a lot. Then they led the ox over there, and when they saw the people, there were already quite a few there. The tea buyers were busy weighing the tea and then paying them.

........

Players have never seen such a beautiful, peaceful, tranquil, and refreshing scene before; it is so captivating that they are reluctant to leave.

However, there won't be many cutscenes, just two minutes.

Afterwards, players enter the instance, where they are greeted by hazy green mountains stretching into the distance. Players who choose the path of the great tea merchant will spawn in a city, and quests will guide them to buy shops, open tea shops, and so on.

Intermediate tea merchants are typically born in small towns or villages with many households. They rent houses from villagers or buy land from the village chief to build a house as a shop.

Low-level tea merchants are born directly in their own homestead, which is temporary and not linked to the player's homestead. They also have some land, but the player must purchase the remaining 600 square meters separately.

Then there's the map.

There are no NPCs here, only players. Everyone in the village is a player too.

A house can accommodate families of four or six, but no more than twelve people. However, family members must be registered to live in a house, which players should consider carefully.

Lin Shuying's original intention was to provide opportunities and venues for interstellar players to connect with family and friends, since Qingfengyi is a highly social game. Under Lin Shuying's management, this social aspect leans more towards interactions between family and friends. This seems to have been rare in her previous life, where most games involved refusing to be played with family, or perhaps lacked such strong guidance.

Because most family games involve interaction between toddlers and their parents, no one thinks that teenagers, 20-year-olds, or even 40- or 50-year-olds also need to communicate with their parents and play games together.

But it's difficult because of the generation gap.

And nobody seems to have thought about this issue.

Furthermore, a game that can be played by two or even three generations must be incredibly amazing; all she knows are cards and mahjong. However, many young people don't play these games, and with the overprotective approach to children's education, a large number of parents don't allow their children to play mahjong or cards.

They practically want to keep their children hidden inside their bellies forever, shielding them from the dangers of the outside world. The children are overprotected, developing severe rebellious tendencies. Then the internet unleashes a tsunami of garbage upon them, instantly polluting them. And then they blame the internet, blame weak policy controls, etc...

After getting a general understanding of the situation, players quickly adjusted their team formation, bringing in their friends and family to form families. They built small houses in the village, where they could sell tea to earn silver to buy blueprints from the shop, or they could collect materials from the mountains to build the houses themselves.

Most players who came with family and friends chose to build their own houses. The dungeon provided by Qingfengyi has a long duration of two months, and the tasks are easy, giving players plenty of opportunities to experience the joy of building houses.

The house design is provided free of charge, or you can design it yourself.

There are thatched huts, stone houses, large brick and tile houses, walled courtyards, and super mansions. Each person is given 200 square meters of land. If you want a larger place, you have to go to the city's homestead and farmland exchange office to exchange for land.

The players busily built houses, each one bigger than the last.

After settling into their living quarters, they needed to start planting. The first step was to find tea seedlings, which were simply dug up from the tea plantation. Some clever people remembered the sayings about tea trees: early budding, good budding, and good plant shape. So they went to the notice board and carefully studied the announcements, learning how to select excellent tea seedlings. After learning, they grabbed their small hoes and set off!

The instance operates on a five-day cycle, with all cycles following a spring-to-summer transition. This gives players ample time to observe the growth and sprouting of tea leaves, allowing them to easily obtain two tea seedlings with a single stroke of their hoe when a promising one appears.

Deng Yijun is a top student among the masters. After finding the tea seedlings, he didn't plant them in the instance, but instead withdrew the money and planted them in his instance.

Then plant the tea leaves in the instance.

Yes, despite being a wealthy tycoon, he didn't choose to become a major tea merchant, but rather a tea farmer. This choice greatly surprised the members of Jin Yu Man Tang.

The secretary couldn't help but ask, "Boss, what are you thinking? With your abilities, wouldn't it be more worthwhile to become a large tea merchant?"

Deng Yijun said, "Enjoy life."

This is the truth. Since entering the game, he had always been focused on accumulating rare items and acquiring dungeon items. But upon entering this dungeon and witnessing the village cutscene, he suddenly had a different thought.

After a moment's thought, the assistant said, "This event by Qingfengyi really encourages people to retire from public life."

The entire atmosphere was created with a misty, ethereal, and otherworldly feel. This kind of atmosphere could easily evoke feelings of desolation, remoteness, and barrenness, but the moment the scene transitioned, the atmosphere was instantly transformed for the better. I really wanted to live here in seclusion for the rest of my life, just an ordinary person. Stepping outside, I'd see beautiful mountains and clear waters; entering my home, I'd see a happy family—how wonderful!

Interstellar people tend to have less contact with their family and friends. It's not that they don't value their families, but they just don't know what to say when they contact them often.

There's no need for that.

Lin Shuying sometimes wondered if this was what they called effective social interaction back then, and that the Star People had extended this idea to relationships between family members.

However, the human longing for a home is innate, and Lin Shuying believes this is an inheritance that cannot be evolved away or disappeared. It must and will be engraved in our genes and passed down through generations.

Primitive humans formed families and groups, which gave them a greater advantage in securing resources for survival. As society evolved into the feudal era, the family system maintained a system of honor and disgrace among members, enhancing their ability to acquire resources.

The family unites resource acquisition, benefit distribution, and emotional connection; it is impossible for it to disappear.

Even interstellar travel wouldn't be able to do that.

Players planted tea trees and began harvesting. They had reserved many good tea trees while searching for seedlings, and now was the perfect time to pick them. However, the instance was overcrowded. A single village might have over two hundred households, and even if each household consisted of only one person, that still amounted to two hundred people. With limited tea plantations nearby, the competition for tea trees erupted five days later. Players fought on the ground, and much tea was thrown away after being picked. The stolen tea trees wilted from the collisions and occasional blows.