>Congratulations! You have received: [Purification tag x1 (single use)] [The Witch’s Broomstick] [IT WILL WORK tag x1] Please retrieve at your leisure.
A two star, three star, and one star prize, but the one star is also something she always wants more of.
It’s trying to convince her that sacrificing rolls will always be the wrong call, because the rewards will be so much better if she just trusts her luck. And so polite about it, too.
Zan Xinyi laughs coldly, hands clenching on the wheel.
That’s what the casinos all want you to think.
“Are we almost there?” Jiang Jin asks, squinting at the surroundings. Zan Xinyi had thought her eyesight was somehow damaged when the rubble collapsed, but it turns out that Jiang Jin simply needed glasses to see long distances, and her glasses had broken weeks ago.
It happens.
And the squinting and flinching couldn’t possibly be related to how every time Zan Xinyi so much as yanks the wheel, she screams and clutches onto her seatbelt for dear life.
“One second,” Zan Xinyi says, and directly parks and abandons the car in the street in front of the apartment. “Now, there’s just five flights of stairs to go.”
“Wow, only five!”
It’s difficult to tell if Jiang Jin is joking.
Before leaving, Zan Xinyi had taken the crystal cores out of the few zombies who she’d killed and fed two to Jiang Jin, which seemed to do a little to heal her and stop the worst of the bleeding, but the bird woman was still in incredibly rough shape.
All this taken into account, dawn is breaking on a wet and miserable day as Zan Xinyi knocks on the door to her own apartment.
“Hey, Wei Shengyuan! I’m back!”
“Oh, you live with someone?” Jiang Jin says in a very gossipy tone of voice.
“My first employee,” Zan Xinyi says as the door opens remarkably fast. Was he waiting at the door like a wheelchair bound dog? Doesn’t he know fish are meant to be cold-blooded and indifferent to whoever feeds them. “He’s going to deal with your wounds.”
“I’m going to what?” Wei Shengyuan says. “Zan Xinyi, who is this?”
“My second employee.”
She pushes Jiang Jin forward.
Jiang Jin waves with her one good hand and bobs into a short bow.
“Hi! I’m Jiang Jin, but you can call me JinJin! I’m going to make your game world renowned for its music!”
Wei Shengyuan looks right past her at Zan Xinyi, as if he’s expecting a further explanation of some sort.
“I think she’ll have to live next door,” Zan Xinyi says. “There’s extra sheets, and I’ve been showering and using their laundry machines anyway. It’ll be too annoying to have three people in my apartment. Wei Shengyuan, she’s been impaled by something rusty, so watch out.”
“Impaled?”
“You guys have working showers?”
“I’m going to sleep,” Zan Xinyi says, taking no more questions. “Ask Wei Shengyuan about everything, and then there will be a game development meeting when I wake up. Good night.” She navigates quickly around the wheelchair and makes it to her bedroom, where she can slam the door in their face.
Later, in the dreary afternoon, she sees Jiang Jin in sunlight for the first time.
She looks slightly younger than Zan Xinyi, being not quite thirty instead of just past it. Bob cut hair with a couple of brown feathers in it, dimples visible in her smile.
Bright blue and orange feathers flutter around the giant bandage wrapped around her abdomen, only outshone by the sparkle of excitement in her eyes. She’s got a notebook and pen clutched in her working hand, and is wearing a long skirt. Where did she get that? Zan Xinyi doesn’t wear those.
Next to Jiang Jin, the dark circles under Wei Shengyuan’s eyes look even worse.
“Didn’t you have younger sisters?” Zan Xinyi says, vaguely remembering something. “Jiang Jin can’t be harder to deal with than them.”
“I haven’t spoken to my family in years,” Wei Shengyuan says grimly. “Either side of it.”
That’s right, she forgot about the divorce. Wow, that was messy. Their senior year he’d missed a lot of class due to court appointments. Just when she’s deciding to get serious about applying for scholarships, and he starts getting unreliable on her.
“I last spoke to my mom a month ago!” Jiang Jin contributes. A light flute accompanies the sentence.
“Good for you.”
“But now, everyone’s dead except for me.” The flute slips away.
“Bad for you.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Wei Shengyuan says, shooting Zan Xinyi a dirty look.
Zan Xinyi opens her laptop and pulls up her notes.
“For the first level, you don’t need to think too hard about the music,” she says. “It’s a dark forest, and it’s cloudy until the battle starts, and then it’s dawn but still cloudy. Anything will work.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“But doesn’t there need to be different music for the environment and the battle? And what about the emotion? Are the characters scared? Excited for a new adventure? Bloodthirsty? Wei Shengyuan showed me the Witch, and she looks awesome. I want to design a theme song for her. Shouldn’t all gacha characters have their own theme song?”
“No. It doesn’t--”
“Yes, he was saying It doesn’t have to be good, but it has to be awesome! Since you guys have working showers and laptops, could I have a recording studio? I’ll need soundproofing to produce my best work, and I’ve always wanted a really expensive microphone. Games live and die on their sound, you know?”
Wait, she can’t say that. The system might take her seriously.
>Subtask generated: Procure Equipment
>All Subordinates will have their exclusive equipment that they need. Procure it for further rewards! Can only be completed once per Subordinate.
“--I will see what we can do,” Zan Xinyi says, to Wei Shengyuan’s evident shock. She’s allowed to change her mind halfway through a sentence if she so desires. “This isn’t published yet, so consider it a demo and make music with that understanding. It needs to be uploaded to my computer and play properly in...”
There should be a day taken off so that Zan Xinyi can handle emergencies.
“Twelve days.”
Jiang Jin’s mouth drops open.
“You’re really optimistic, Yiyi! I thought that was just when it came down to life or death, but it turns out you’re that optimistic about everything. I really respect you!”
“I’ve already said not to call me that.”
Zan Xinyi turns to Wei Shengyuan and pulls the third zombie core out of her pocket and tosses it to him.
“Souvenir from the trip,” she says. “Jiang Jin says they improve superpowers, yet you’ve never shown me any. Holding out on me?”
Wei Shengyuan grabs hold of the crystal with dexterity he rarely exhibits, staring at it hungrily. He slowly drags his eyes off of it to look back at her.
“I can move water very slowly,” he says. “About the amount and speed in which you could transport water using a bucket.”
“A water element!” Jiang Jin exclaims. “Do you think you can purify the water-- what am I talking about, you guys have showers. Of course you can purify water. That’s amazing! Everyone’s struggling so much just to get water to drink, but you guys are taking heated baths.”
Wei Shengyuan gives his water purifier a thoughtful look. Then he looks back at the crystal in his hand.
Zan Xinyi looks over at the fridge, where she gets cold water from the water tap whenever she wants as long as the red tag stays on it, and her shoulders lower a little. That’s right... working on this game isn’t just deadlines. There are benefits. Good benefits.
But it is mostly about deadlines.
“Figure out superpowers when you’re done with my UI templates,” Zan Xinyi says. “And Jiang Jin-- we can find a recorder for you, I know a computer store that will have something workable, but there’s no specialized music shop in Zone A. So just make do for now.”
“Right, until we can trade for it,” Jiang Jin says brightly. “A lot of the different scavenger crews sell to one another and to the big military base, after all. My crew-- my former crew-- sells to a guy who’s been trading between everyone. He hangs out on the broken bridge by the river.”
“Wouldn’t someone just beat him up and take his stuff?” Even as she’s poking holes in the statement, Zan Xinyi’s world is expanding. That’s right. Just because the world’s fallen apart doesn’t mean she has to do everything herself.
“He must have some way of defending himself, because he’s been fine on his own for weeks.” Wei Shengyuan says.
“Maybe he lives under the water and dives back whenever he’s threatened,” Zan Xinyi says. “Other people’s lifestyles don’t matter. You two-- make a list of things you want, and we’ll see what we get.”
“Trading such pure water might be dangerous,” Jiang Jin says, brow furrowing. “I don’t want to get you guys in trouble...”
“There’s other stuff,” Zan Xinyi says, casually gesturing at the soda cans in the snack basket that always replenish after she takes some out. “We’ll be careful about the water. Alright, that’s enough discussion. Everyone’s dismissed.”
“I’ll go with you,” Wei Shengyuan says.
“Hm?”
“Jiang Jin said he’s by the river. So I’ll...”
Ah, he’ll be a real mermaid for a bit.
“There’s no need to swim there, the water will definitely worsen your mutation. I hijacked a car, so you can be in the passenger seat.”
“No.”
Hey.
“You still won’t get in a car with me?” Now he’s right to not want to get in a car with her, but it’s still annoying. He doesn’t even know about the crash!
“No one in their right mind would get in a car with you!”
Next to him, Jiang Jin coughs.
“I think Xinyi is a great driver,” she says. “We got all across the neighborhood super fast! She can drive me any time.”
That’s too much approval. Zan Xinyi hates driving.
“Get out of here unless you want to start learning to code,” she says.
Wei Shengyuan is really getting faster at moving around in a wheelchair.
Zan Xinyi is three hours into figuring out why one of the enemy shadows isn’t taking damage from the Siren’s attack ability when she remembers she forgot to go to the first floor and nail some plywood over that window.
She jams her fingers into the next key viciously.
They’ll have to see if Jiang Jin’s trader has enough spare parts to hook the elevator system up to a spare generator. Her refusal to permanently risk a tag down in the basement hasn’t ended, but every single trip up and down is wearing her stubbornness a little more.
There has got to be a better way.
Inside her set up, the Witch’s damage up support ability also fails to trigger.
Zan Xinyi starts imagining every staircase in the world simultaneously erupting into flames, and then starts progressing to imagining every elevator also bursting into flame as her first, second, and third fixes all fail to work.
Then she begins to hear Jiang Jin start up music production in the apartment next to hers.
Headphones aren’t enough. Earplugs aren’t enough. Cutting her ears off wouldn't be enough.
She knocks on the bathroom door.
“I changed my mind,” she says. “There’s no reason why this trader would even have sound proofing available immediately, so we need to head down there and set an order for our various needs as soon as possible. Prepare to leave tomorrow at dawn-- start packing things for me to bring down and show as trade goods.”
There’s a response that could have been ‘can’t you do all that?’ But surely wasn’t, and then a loud splash.
Oh, there is something else she forgot to tell him.
“If you ever feel like your mutation index is rising to the point where you can’t work anymore, I’ve got a one time emergency solution that will help,” she says. “You’ll get it as a bonus at the end of the month, but since you’re my first employee, I can give out benefits in advance. When necessary.”
Dead silence.
Then, muffled through the door, she hears a muffled, sobbing sort of laughter.
“Zan Xinyi....I really don’t like you.”
Many people have said this to her, expressions of their heartfelt, honest sentiment.
Still, she doesn’t like to hear it.
Living with people really isn’t easy.
Proof of Existence today!
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