Chapter 9: Discount?

Qin Yueran sprawled on her bed, pulling up the system to see what had been unlocked after her level-up.

"Oh! I can unlock the farm, pasture, orchard, and fishery now!"

However, when she saw the points required for these unlocks, her excitement withered instantly. The display clearly read: 50,000 points required. Although the 14-day new manager trial period had discounted the cost to 5,000 points, Qin Yueran looked at her account balance of 327 points and felt a deep sense of inadequacy.

Never mind. She didn't deserve it.

The hotel also offered new room unlocks and renovations for rooms 201 and 202. Heh, those required points too—she still didn't deserve it!

The next level required 10,000 in turnover. Hmm... that didn't seem easy either.

There were new recipes for the restaurant, which had to be obtained through gacha pulls or unlocked with points... Wait? Gacha pulls?

Qin Yueran rubbed her eyes, suspecting she had misread. Not only could recipes be pulled, but furniture could be as well. A gacha interface had been added to her dashboard! Good grief, why was there no escaping the gacha mechanics even here?!

Stunned, she kicked her legs on the bed. "Detestable! Why is the malice toward a 'non-chief' player so strong? I only have three hundred points!"

"You can do three pulls, Xiao Ran," Huhu said. "You don't have anything yet, so three pulls will guarantee three new items!"

"Thanks, but I'll pass," Qin Yueran replied expressionlessly, refusing to fall into the gacha trap. "I need to save my points to start the farm!"

With a firm gaze, she looked at Huhu. "So, why can managing a hotel unlock farms, pastures, fisheries, and orchards?"

Huhu licked its paws. "To facilitate self-sufficiency; they all provide resources for the restaurant. The unlimited supplies only last a month as a beginner's perk. And," Huhu patted Qin Yueran's cheek, gesturing toward the farm section, "this one is free."

Qin Yueran: "! Really!"

"This comes from the original auxiliary system. Don't you have a hoe? Just go outside, find an empty plot, and dig twice like you're playing a game, and a piece of land will appear," Huhu stretched. "Though you'll need to designate an area for the farm."

"Is there a layout plan?" Qin Yueran whimpered at the thought of picking the spot herself. She couldn't design layouts! Whenever she played games, she just copied the official designs or someone else's work.

She fluttered her eyes at Huhu. "Huhu~ Lord White Tiger~ I want a layout plan~" She then buried her face in Huhu's fur for a good sniff—painless cat-huffing, heh heh.

"Oh, alright, alright. I'll upload a topographical map and let someone else plan it for you," Huhu struggled to stand up.

"Does it cost points?" Qin Yueran asked—a very practical question.

"It's fine," Huhu patted its chest. "Leave it to me; I still have some points saved up."

"Thank you, Huhu!" Qin Yueran beamed and hoisted Huhu up. "Take—take the basin~ Mommy's~ Chihuahua~"

Huhu: "???"

Huhu was full of question marks. "Xiao Ran?"

"Heh, nothing. Muamua~" Qin Yueran kissed Huhu twice. "Go to sleep early. We'll go open the farm tomorrow if the layout plan is ready."

Turning off the lights, Qin Yueran said goodnight to Huhu and closed her eyes. Huhu lay to the side and whispered, "Goodnight, Xiao Ran... sweet dreams."

She had a wonderful night's sleep. After breakfast, Qin Yueran sat on the sofa in deep thought. She wondered if she was just too busy lately, as she fell asleep the moment her head hit the pillow. She used to suffer from insomnia until two or three in the morning, waking up at six or seven and unable to fall back asleep...

It was then she remembered to ask Huhu if her world could provide some sort of notification device. She didn't want someone looking for her while she was on the island, only for the police to show up and—oops!

Huhu, of course, replied that it was possible. There were mini-monitors, and if someone knocked on the door, the system would notify her.

"Oh, that's good. Let's go downstairs," Qin Yueran said, stretching.

As she sauntered down, she ran into Cheng Shuangshuang and the injured girl she had been carrying—since she hadn't registered as a member yet, the system hadn't recorded her name. However, she would find out soon enough, as Cheng Shuangshuang was currently operating the point-conversion machine with her.

Shi Qingyu and Cheng Shuangshuang pricked up their ears and looked toward the sound.

Cheng Shuangshuang greeted her and introduced her senior sister. "Morning, Boss Qin."

"Morning, Miss Cheng and..." The system notification arrived just in time. Qin Yueran smiled, "Miss Shi."

Another potential big client! Look at those hundred-thousand-plus points! They would all be hers in the future!

But... was the pricing too cheap? People were spending tens of thousands of points so easily; was it reasonable to sell items for only a few points?

Qin Yueran pondered, Qin Yueran was confused, and Huhu provided the answer.

[The pricing can be changed. That was just a suggested price.]

[Ah! Why didn't you tell me sooner!] Qin Yueran wailed.

[Because previous planes didn't exchange so many points at once, so I didn't anticipate it.] Huhu replied guiltily, [Besides, previous hosts handled everything themselves; I was just there to assist in preventing guests from causing trouble.]

[Oh, your system has such high freedom! No wonder you...] Qin Yueran stopped herself from hurting Huhu's feelings and turned to say, [Can you take care of everything you can from now on? I just want to be a salted fish; that is my lifelong dream.]

[Oh, okay. Do you want to change the prices now?]

"Boss Qin? Boss Qin?" Cheng Shuangshuang called out several times, snapping Qin Yueran back to reality.

"Hmm?"

Cheng Shuangshuang said, "I wanted to ask, is the restaurant open? We're leaving tonight and wanted to buy more food."

"Can't you stay a few more days?" The big client was running away?! Forgetting about the pricing issue, she asked anxiously.

Cheng Shuangshuang and Shi Qingyu exchanged a look and sighed. "We would like to stay longer, but that panel showed a warning countdown. We can't leave the domain for more than twelve hours, or we'll be erased instantly."

"Ah..." Qin Yueran felt it was a pity; she would have to rely on selling food.

The atmosphere grew heavy until Gu Yuanyuan ran down shouting: "It's bad, it's bad, that panel..." He ran up to Shi Qingyu and Cheng Shuangshuang. "The panel, the countdown!"

"We already know, so we plan to buy more food."

"The restaurant is open. You can go inside to order or order through the system..." Qin Yueran said. She suddenly tapped her head and asked Huhu, [Does the automatically produced food retain the health and mana recovery buffs?]

[It does, though it doesn't recover as much as the food you make yourself.]

[That's fine. I think they really need this.]

"Alright, thank you, Boss Qin," Cheng Shuangshuang thanked her.

Qin Yueran took the opportunity to adjust the pricing. She could label the current prices as an "opening promotion," which would give her a reason to raise them later: restoring the original price.

Heh, Qin Yueran gave herself a mental pat on the back: she really was a little genius!

She sent out the notice, and Cheng Shuangshuang and the others received the update simultaneously.

[Notice: The 75% off opening promotion only has two days left. The original prices will be restored after two days. Please take note, dear guests.]

Qin Yueran stood with her hands on her hips: Done!

Now she could make a killing once the prices returned to normal. However, she needed to let the current guests introduce her hotel to others. Thinking this, Qin Yueran looked at the backs of the three as they headed to the restaurant with a benevolent gaze.

The three of them felt their hair stand on end, as if they were being watched by something.