Chapter 53

Chapter 53: Period

“Want to make money?”

After a brief hesitation, Mei Fang asked Lin You Xi, “Why did this idea suddenly pop up? Is something happening at home? Tell me about it.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Lin You Xi shook her head. “I just think my dad works very hard and I don’t want to ask him for pocket money. But every time I go out with you and Yuanyuan, the expenses are still quite high. I don’t want to always rely on Yuanyuan either; she has taken care of me for so many years. And then there’s…”

Lin You Xi lowered her head and replied, “Now I have things I want to save up for.”

“What do you want to buy?”

Lin You Xi shook her head again. “I don’t want to tell you; if you knew, you’d buy it for me. Last year’s MP3 player was like that…”

“You still returned it!”

Last year, Lin You Xi had mentioned wanting an MP3 player. Without hesitation, Mei Fang gave it to her as a birthday gift.

He thought this surprise would make Lin You Xi happy for a long time, but the clueless Mei Fang ended up being heavily rejected by Lin You Xi instead.

She said children shouldn’t give such expensive gifts, so she returned it. In the end, Mei Fang could only keep it for himself.

To Mei Fang, this outdated electronic product held little interest; he only used it occasionally to listen to music. Lin You Xi often used his MP3 player to download things and read novels when she visited Mei Fang’s house. The songs were all ones she liked, and although it wasn’t hers to take home, it felt like it belonged to her.

In this sense, since she didn’t want Xia Yuan to treat her specially, it was also impossible for Mei Fang to directly give her money.

However, this was Lin You Xi’s attempt to start breaking away from her dependence on Mei Fang and Xia Yuan. Mei Fang had to support her.

He thought for a moment and said, “If you really need money, you can sell some items from your ‘Fantasy Westward Journey’ account on the Treasure Pavilion.”

“That won’t work; that’s our shared property! By the way, if it weren’t for me and Yuanyuan stopping you last time, you would have sold it long ago, right?”

“Oh, this time it’s not selling the account, just a few mutated babies!”

“That’s not acceptable either! We spent so much time raising those mutated babies; we have feelings for them! I wouldn’t even sell them myself, and if Yuanyuan found out, you’d be in trouble.”

“Alright…”

Here, one must mention what happened during the 2006 World Cup period.

Due to the incompetent reborn Mei Fang only remembering that Italy won the championship in 2006, he chose to participate in online betting for convenience, with Italy’s odds at 1:9 that year.

Originally, Mei Fang could recover about 8,000 yuan from selling the ‘Fantasy Westward Journey’ account, and flipping it would result in 72,000 yuan.

This should have been a sum of money that Mei Fang could freely manage, but due to Lin You Xi discovering his plan to sell the account and informing Xia Yuan, they stopped him with the reason that the account was filled with memories of the three of them.

Mei Fang later dared not secretly sell anything that would hurt Lin You Xi and Xia Yuan’s hearts. These two girls would check the account later, so he could only use his own savings to sell some old game accounts to raise 1,000 yuan to buy lottery tickets.

Now, his personal assets were around 10,000 yuan, which was far less than he imagined, but since his parents didn’t know, it was under his control. This could be considered his first true pot of gold. With this amount, he could invest in Bitcoin, which could potentially yield returns over 800 times higher.

Since Lin You Xi refused to sell the account or the mutated babies, and didn’t accept Mei Fang’s help, Mei Fang could only explain to her the actual ways she could earn money.

“If you don’t want to sell the account… you can try leading raids. Our characters are strong enough, and many dungeons we’ve cleared before can be completed in two-player mode. Leading others’ characters can earn you at least 10 to 20 yuan per week. As for coding to earn money, your current skills aren’t sufficient to handle outsourced projects, so you can focus on that later.”

“Does this mean you’re currently working on coding projects?”

Mei Fang shook his head. “Not really… I’m just developing a small game.”

“Why haven’t you ever mentioned this before?”

“I just started planning it; it’s still early days.”

Lin You Xi looked full of anticipation. “Let me see it tomorrow; I want to learn.”

“Should we learn this first, or start with game coaching?”

“Then… let’s start with coaching.”

Lin You Xi sighed in relief, then looked at Mei Fang. “But don’t rush; I still want to work on games together with you.”

“I might not make the kind of game you like,” Mei Fang said. “It’ll be a simple casual game.”

“That’s not the point…”

Lin You Xi pouted.

“Then what is it? Tell me.” Mei Fang smiled slightly, teasingly. “Could it be… you want to work on games together?”

Unable to resist, Lin You Xi gently kicked Mei Fang, then silently headed home.

Although she appeared cold in front of others, she seemed somewhat cute to him, making it hard for him to deal with her.

It had been six years since Mei Fang came back to life in this world.

During these six years, he never forgot his初心 (initial intention) to make games.

After years of research and learning, Mei Fang had become a highly knowledgeable Java programmer and a rising star in C#.

There were many resources available for learning Java, and Mei Fang found it easy to learn online. Although creating key machine Symbian games felt like joining the G army in 1949, Java could still be used for web design and office automation systems, making it widely applicable.

As one of the earliest Chinese internet users to encounter C#, Mei Fang had some influence in forums and message boards.

Especially in 2007, after the first generation of iPhones was released, the Chinese internet began repeatedly mentioning a term that Mei Fang was extremely familiar with from his future life—smartphones.

The advent of smartphones marked the official beginning of the mobile internet boom.

Standing at the forefront of this era, there was no time to waste.

If Mei Fang waited until he finished high school to start making mobile games, it would already be 2014, and most of the market would have been taken. After that, platform dominance would reign, and development would only be suitable for employment. It would be too late for him to do anything then.

So, now was the perfect time. It would be best to achieve results around junior high, as high school would be too busy.

The Unity3D 2.5 version was officially announced to be released in March 2009, supporting the development of Windows system applications. By then, it would be possible to truly use U3D to package and generate computer games.

The final semester of elementary school quickly arrived. Unlike the pressure of preparing for the high school entrance exam, everyone went through each day normally, gradually getting used to passing notes or circulating a type of notebook called a yearbook.

Such yearbooks needed to include names, zodiac signs, hobbies, mottos, and other information. Everyone would stick large stickers on them, and Xia Yuan enjoyed this process.

Boys competed to fill Xia Yuan’s graduation yearbook, while Mei Fang quietly observed the human behavior of young boys.

These kids, one by one, may have caused trouble for Xia Yuan in their daily lives, but deep down, they must have harbored some affection for her.

Just that children are simple and don’t know how to express themselves.

As a result, Mei Fang didn’t feel any competitive pressure throughout his six years of elementary school.

Xia Yuan collected everyone’s graduation messages, flipping through the pages and laughing occasionally. Seeing this, Mei Fang tugged at her arm.

“Why didn’t you write one for me? Write one for me too!”

Mei Fang urged Xia Yuan, but she refused, saying disdainfully:

“What do you want me to write? I can fill everything in for you. Zodiac, age, height, hobbies, favorite foods—there’s nothing you have that I don’t know.”

“That’s true…”

Feeling drowsy, Mei Fang rested his head on the desk. Xia Yuan closed the yearbook and propped her chin up, tilting her head to look at her classmate Mei Fang.

She reached out and poked his cheek, and Mei Fang just pursed his lips.

A gentle smile formed on Xia Yuan’s lips.

The cicadas chirped, and summer arrived in full force.

Their primary school story was finally coming to an end.

Although they were both 12 years old, now it was truly time for graduation.