After another bustling day, Zhen Yu, having finished washing up, lay on her bed and began to ponder over matters related to the system.
Her ability points were nearly depleted, and there was only half a semester left before the middle school exams! From today on, she mustn’t use her ability points to buy anything from He Baihe! Otherwise, Bai Xue’s middle school exam results would be in jeopardy...
But if not with ability points, what else could she use? She had already spent all her Mall Points once, and hadn’t managed to save up many in the past few days!
Even if she dealt with the male celebrity matter properly, she probably couldn’t exchange it for many computers. After all, He Baihe would also have to spend money to buy computers for Zhen Yu, and being obsessed with celebrities couldn’t put food on the table, there had to be a limit to letting someone spend money for nothing.
Almost like a stroke of genius, Zhen Yu suddenly remembered the "gold and silver treasures" mentioned by Lu Huai!
"Gold and silver, treasures!" Zhen Yu felt as though she’d grasped a thread of opportunity, yet it was still somewhat hazy and indistinct.
"Ah! The price difference! How did I only think of this now! Even if I sold the Gold at face value and exchanged it for computers, it would be worth it! The computers over there are cheaper yet better configured! How did I just realize this?!" Zhen Yu abruptly sat up, put on her shoes, got off the bed, and turned on her computer to check the current gold price, which displayed as 73 yuan per gram.
"System! Connect to Plane 1!"
[Ding! Plane 1 is now connected!]
He Baihe: "Eh? Why haven’t you gone to bed yet? You must have something important to discuss, calling me at this hour? Spit it out!"
Zhen Yu was straightforward and immediately asked: "What’s the current gold price per gram over there?"
He Baihe: "Let me check... Oh! One hundred and forty-eight!"
Just as expected! More than doubled!
At this moment, Zhen Yu could almost kick herself! If only she had waited a bit longer to buy those twenty computers...
Ah! No more! If she kept thinking about it, she’d get so angry she might as well strangle herself!
This really was Zhen Yu’s most disastrous fall since her rebirth!
"Senior He, how much does a mainstream configured host cost over there? And the monitor?"
He Baihe: "Let me check for you..."
He Baihe: "The one I configured for you last time was the best host! A large hard drive with an LCD screen for a total of six thousand yuan! Ah... Most of the computers listed on the website range from three thousand to three thousand five hundred!"
Zhen Yu frowned, "The host?!"
He Baihe: "Of course not! I mean a whole set! A mainstream configured case with a 17-inch LCD screen!"
Zhen Yu vaguely remembered that in her previous life, when she had just graduated college, CRT monitors hadn’t exited the stage of history yet! Not only were they very affordably priced, but their screens were also much larger than in ’98! Whereas LCDs that year were indeed expensive!
The CRTs, which were on the verge of being phased out in 2005, would become top-notch stuff if brought to Zhen Yu’s world! So why would Zhen Yu not want CRTs and insist on choosing LCD screens?! She wasn’t a fool...
Especially since it was only 1998 in her world! LCD screens definitely didn’t fit to be widely seen in internet cafés!
If such an abnormal situation were to occur, even if Zhen Yu had mouths all over her body, she wouldn’t be able to explain it away.
"Senior He! I just want to know the price of a standard configured host without a monitor! Also, could you help me check how much those big-butt CRTs cost per unit?"
He Baihe: "No problem! It just so happens that I’m online right now! Very convenient! But why did you start off by asking me about the gold price?"
"We’ll talk about that later! Have you checked the prices?"
He Baihe: "Done! Most standard configured hosts on the market are priced between 2000-2500, and 2300 has a really good price-performance ratio! Those big butt CRT... a 19-inch is eight hundred! 17-inch is even cheaper, only six hundred!"
Seeing one super low price after another popping up, Zhen Yu was extremely excited!
"So, a standard configured host with a 17-inch CRT can have a retail price as low as two thousand six hundred yuan! If it’s wholesale, it could definitely be reduced to below two thousand five hundred!"
He Baihe: "That should be doable! Have you decided to exchange it for ability points? I’ll have to think about the pricing then! Oh my! The key issue is... I might not have enough money to buy the computers and exchange them with you!"
"Not at all! Senior He! I’ve run out of ability points!"
He Baihe: "Ah? No ability points and you’re still wide awake late at night, asking me all these random prices, what the heck for? Ha..."
"Senior He! Is the handling fee for gold recycling high over there?"
He Baihe: "Gold recycling? The handling fee here should be between 10 to 20 yuan per gram, I’ve actually sold it once before..."
He Baihe: "Ah!!! I really want to crack open your head and see how it works! How come I never came up with such a good idea!"
Even though this comment made Zhen Yu feel a chill down her spine... she still silently smiled in the darkness.
"You understand? In that case, I’ll help you collect all kinds of information about male celebrities unconditionally until you pick your target! You help me exchange Gold for cash, then use the cash to buy computers, how about that?"
He Baihe: "It seems like both of us are exerting effort without spending the other’s money... But what if I have chosen my target later?"
"I’ll continue to help you collect free information, and for any information that comes with a fee, you’ll have to pay for it yourself! How does that sound?"
"Deal! Hehehe... My ideal man from a Different Plane!"
"...Senior He, I’m guessing you must have crossed through quite a few Different Planes, haven’t you? Why did you only think of chasing stars in my Dimension? And the money you mentioned... You’ve been bound to the system for so many years, how could you be out of money?"
Zhen Yu took this opportunity to voice the doubts that had been pressing on her mind.
He Baihe: "Hey, don’t bring that up! I don’t know if I’m just unlucky or what! The Planes I’ve connected to are all weird! The first one was the primitive era, so forget about celebrities! Other than giving me two lousy flowers, they just had raw meat and animal hides! What am I gonna do with that stuff! I barely made it until the second Plane opened up, and guess what? It turned out to be a Ghost World! My biggest fear is this stuff! I asked them what they had, and they told me they have skulls! I was so frightened, I immediately cut off the connection! After that, it was either Cultivation worlds or zombie apocalypses, or else it was the ’60s and ’70s! Finally encountering a Plane from the year 2050, after I exchanged for some new technology, I asked for photos of male celebrities, and they tossed me a little PAD, inside of which all the people had the same face!"
He Baihe: "Damn it! You didn’t see it, it was freakishly shocking! Just change their hairstyle and clothes and give them a different name, and they become another person! Can you imagine that? And these people all of different ages!"
"...Plastic surgery?" No sooner had Zhen Yu finished the sentence did she feel she might have guessed wrong.
He Baihe: "No! She said it was cloning! All cloned from the genes of a super mega star! These people with the same face start their own careers in the entertainment industry at the age of 18, simply because people all over the world love to see that face!"