Chapter 1

Reality can be a beautiful, gentle girl, letting you experience all the wonders, or it can be a fat, fierce woman, weighing you down until you can't breathe. It all depends on how much money you have in the bank.

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The scorching sun of August made people's hearts restless.

Youcheng County.

A place where the average salary is 3,000 to 4,000 yuan, and the average house price is 12,000 yuan—a truly frustrating place.

In a small fruit and vegetable shop, Qin Lin smiled and handed a vegetable to a middle-aged woman: "Auntie, here's your vegetable. Hope to see you again."

After the customer left, he had to chase away a few annoying flies with a flyswatter.

After the battle, he cut down a few corpses.

Qin Lin sat behind the cash register, took out his phone, and opened a new nostalgic game, *Stardew Valley*.

This is a farming simulation game with high openness and doesn't require much skill, making it perfect for passing time while running a store.

It had been a year since he graduated, and he still hadn't achieved anything. A tourism management major, he was now selling fruits and vegetables, but reality often leaves no choice.

His family had been poor for three generations. A few years ago, his grandfather fell ill, and his father worked tirelessly at the fruit and vegetable shop to cover the medical expenses and household costs.

Life seemed to mock them. After his grandfather passed away, his father, exhausted from years of hard work, was diagnosed with cancer a year ago.

His mother barely managed to keep the small fruit and vegetable shop running. Even after selling their house and borrowing hundreds of thousands of yuan, she couldn't save his father.

His mother, worn out from the stress, also developed health issues and needed care.

So, even though he had the opportunity to stay at a large company after graduation, he had to return to take care of his mother and take over the small fruit and vegetable shop, including the family's debt.

If most people start at zero, he started at a negative few hundred thousand.

Life isn't fair.

He hadn't given up on looking for opportunities while running the store, but as a recent graduate, he lacked both social experience and capital.

With the store's income, he could barely cover the expenses, his mother's nutritional needs, and a small portion of the debt each month. His bank balance was less than 4,500 yuan.

He couldn't even afford to go to the hospital for a cold.

He couldn't achieve the kind of success he saw on social media, where someone could earn 100,000 or even a million yuan a month from a 30-square-meter fruit shop. That was a place where everyone was a millionaire.

Before his mother's health improved and she no longer needed care, he was stuck in this small shop, just trying to survive.

Sighing, he controlled the game character to walk out of the house. In front of him was a plot of land with six squares of watermelon. He had just started the game and only opened these six squares.

Weeding and watering!

After a while, the watermelons on the six squares matured one after another. Time in the game moved differently; watermelons that took months to mature in reality could mature in just a few hours in the game.

Each plot could produce 15 to 20 watermelons.

Qin Lin was about to control the character to harvest the watermelons when his phone suddenly emitted a current, paralyzing him instantly.

Electrical leakage?

Qin Lin instinctively wanted to curse.

He didn't have a Samsung phone, and the electrical leakage shouldn't have such a strong effect.

"Beep! Special game channel activated, locking onto *Stardew Valley*. Please wait..."

"???" Qin Lin rubbed his head.

Was he hallucinating from the electric shock?

"Beep! Special game channel connected, linked to *Stardew Valley*. Is this your first time entering the game?"

A very surreal scene appeared in Qin Lin's mind. It was a farm, with six squares of mature watermelons.

Is this the game scene of *Stardew Valley*?

The game character was still standing in front of the watermelon field, ready to harvest the watermelons.

More surprisingly, with a thought, the game character moved forward and picked a watermelon.

Can he control the game with his mind now?

Then, he noticed a special prompt at the top of the scene: "Enter?"

"Yes!"

Qin Lin, recalling the previous prompt, found it incredible but decided to try.

A strange suction appeared, and almost instantly, the scene in front of him changed.

In front of him was a vast field of watermelons.

The air was filled with the special fragrance of watermelons, and he was holding a watermelon in his hands, as if he had replaced the game character.

"This isn't a hallucination?" Qin Lin was amazed. The watermelon in his hands felt incredibly real, and there was a floating message:

[Seedless Watermelon: Quality 1].

[Note: Although not a special type of watermelon, it is produced by the game and is the best among ordinary watermelons.

Delicious +1, Sweet +1, Texture +1.]

The watermelons grown in *Stardew Valley* had different qualities. The higher the quality, the more delicious and valuable they were.

However, the note was different from the game, with attribute bonuses.

Qin Lin put down the watermelon and picked a few more. The same information appeared, with each one having the same note and the same attribute bonuses.

He looked around, seeing the windmill, storage room, and fences...

Everything was the same as in the game.

The only difference was that the land in front of him was much larger, filled with watermelons, not the small squares in the game, and the number of fruits was represented by numbers.

Moreover, checking the time on his phone, he found that the game time had returned to normal after he entered.

Then, Qin Lin remembered something and quickly looked at the scene in his mind.

He was afraid he couldn't return, and his mother would be worried sick.

But the scene in his mind had changed, showing the inside of the fruit and vegetable shop, with a new prompt: "Exit?"

This clearly meant he could enter and exit freely.

Qin Lin silently chose to exit, and the same strange suction appeared, bringing him back to the shop with a watermelon in his hands.

To confirm its reality, he took a knife, placed the watermelon on the cutting board, and cut it in half. The red flesh was revealed, with no seeds.

This was a real watermelon!

Qin Lin took another half, cut it into several pieces, and was about to taste it but hesitated, fearing any issues given the watermelon's mysterious origin.

Walking to the shop door, he saw a dirty black dog rummaging through a trash can.

This was a market street, where stray dogs often appeared, as the authorities couldn't keep up with the new ones that came.

This was partly due to people who impulsively adopted dogs without the means to care for them.

Qin Lin threw a piece of watermelon to the dog, which pounced on it, pressed it down with its paws, and looked around before eating it.

After some time, seeing no adverse effects on the dog, Qin Lin took a piece and tasted it.

With one bite, his eyes lit up.

He understood the note more clearly.

Incredibly sweet, juicy, and refreshing, with a very high sugar content.

This watermelon was much better than the ones he usually bought.

Was this due to the +1 attributes for deliciousness, sweetness, and texture?

As someone in the business, he knew that such high-quality watermelons were rare, and every one in the game was like this.

After finishing a piece, Qin Lin eagerly took another.

Selling watermelons wasn't very profitable. Even though the price was 2 yuan per pound, the cost, labor, transportation, and markup by wholesalers left him with little profit.

But if the watermelons had no cost? If every sale was pure profit?

Qin Lin thought about the field of watermelons in the game, and his eyes lit up even more.

A watermelon weighing 10 pounds, sold at 2 yuan per pound, would bring in 20 yuan, and ten watermelons would be 200 yuan in pure profit.

If he sold 20 watermelons a day, he would earn 12,000 yuan a month, more than he made from selling fruits and vegetables.

And there were hundreds of watermelons in the game, and the land could be replanted every 10 hours.

"Woof woof!"

Qin Lin was thinking when a dog barked. The black dog was sitting at the shop door, staring at the watermelon in his hand.

The dog was clearly getting greedy.

But he was in a good mood and threw another piece to the dog, then closed the shop's roller shutter.

This way, no one could see inside.

He took a basket, and with a thought, entered the farm again.

The field was still full of watermelons. Qin Lin didn't hesitate, picking up watermelons and putting them in the basket.

After 15 watermelons, the basket was full, and he returned to the shop.

Looking at the full basket, Qin Lin was excited.

He was going to get rich.

Looking at the game scene in his mind, one plot of land was now empty, with the vines withered, and a prompt to remove and replant.

In the game, crops could only be harvested once and wouldn't regrow.

But Qin Lin, seeing the prompt, immediately controlled the game character to harvest the other plots.

In a moment, the other plots were harvested.

Entering the game again, the plots were empty, with only the withered vines.

He walked to the storage room and saw hundreds of watermelons inside.

He realized he could have just taken the basket and filled it, but he had been busy for nothing.

A sign stood in front of the watermelons.

Seedless Watermelon: 85 (Quality 1).

So, there were 85 watermelons, each weighing over 10 pounds, worth at least 1,700 yuan.

With a thought, Qin Lin returned to the shop, took the basket, and entered the game again, filling it with watermelons.

He discovered that as long as he touched the basket and exited the game, the basket of watermelons would appear in the shop.

He spent some time moving all the watermelons out, piling them in a corner of the shop.

Including the first basket, there were 105 watermelons.

Looking at the game scene in his mind, the plots were now empty, with the vines withered and a prompt to remove and replant.

He immediately removed the vines and planted new seeds.

In 10 hours, another batch of watermelons would be ready.

Now, he needed to sell them.

Qin Lin opened the shop's roller shutter. The black dog was lying by the door, looking at him and then licking its paws.

The dog wasn't leaving?

But he wasn't concerned. He placed the basket of watermelons on the fruit stand and looked at the 2 yuan per pound price tag.

This was his normal selling price, but at this price, he usually sold only a few watermelons a day.

Looking at the watermelons from the game, he changed the price to 1.5 yuan per pound wholesale, as the watermelons had no cost and would sell better.

However, things didn't go as planned. By the end of the afternoon, he had sold only a few watermelons, not because they were bad, but because there were only so many customers who needed watermelons.

Thinking about it, Qin Lin slapped his head, realizing he had the wrong target. At 1.5 yuan per pound wholesale, he didn't need to sell them one by one in the shop.

He immediately took out his phone and logged into a WeChat group.

This was a group for fruit and vegetable shop owners in Youcheng, initially created to share information and avoid being cheated by wholesalers.

Usually, there wasn't much interaction, except for a few active members.

Opening the group chat, Qin Lin sent a message: "My second uncle's nephew's uncle's son has grown a batch of seedless watermelons. They are sweet and juicy, available wholesale at 1.5 yuan per pound, delivered to your door. Welcome to try them."