Day 14
Our orders from dBay have arrived so we head over to the Buddy Express post office first thing in the morning, stopping along the way to get some Hot Buns.
Later today, in the evening, we'll open a Peddler Stall for the first time. While at the post office we take the opportunity and buy some recyclables, filling our backpack to the brim.
The Auntie at the Recycler doesn't seem her normal self today; she's reluctant to sell the Recycler and move in with here son but she knows her son was right, for her safety.
She offers to sell the Recycler to us for 20k Yuan but we can't afford it. She goes on to say about how the business makes decent enough money; decent enough to have paid for her son's superior education.
Perhaps we could pay for YaoYao's education this way, too. While we can't afford to buy the Recycler now, we ask her for some time; who knows how quickly our fortune might change.
She complains about how if her husband were still alive he'd be able to help her, and how she'd be able to carry on working. She tears up as she thinks of her recently deceased husband, but quickly composes herself, assuring us that we can have some time. We feel for her but we need to continue with our day, so we sell her some scrap and go on our way to see Mr. Cao.
Each person we meet has a storyline we can finish by interacting with them along the course of the 30 days. Let's speak to Mr.Cao and finish our story with him.
Arriving at the construction site we strike a conversation with Mr. Cao. He asks us about work, to which we jokingly reply that at least we haven't gotten any more beatings. He asks what happened and we tell him about how his foreman extorted money from us, on our first day, and then beat us to the ground.
Mr. Cao's not happy about things like this happening, so we enter the construction site and
he confronts the foreman, Yang, who cowers from Mr. Cao's rage, being called an "everlasting fuck up".
Mr. Cao orders the foreman to give us back the money he extorted from us and, on the spot, fires the foreman. We decide that receiving the money is suffice and tell him that there's no need to fire anyone because of us. Yang cowardly thanks us and hands us an extra 600 Yuan as a "thank you". Mr. Cao takes the lead, telling Yang and everyone else that if this type of shit ever happens again, people will be fired. He then quickly orders his workers to go back to work.
After the altercation at the construction site we head to work. Day two of three, doing the Inventory Sorter job, so we can get that bonus. The work day goes smoothly this time, with no injuries.
After work we head over to the Disco Joint and set up our Peddler Stall, right outside it's doors.
Each Peddler Location on the map hints us as to what items we could sell there and that people would buy.
We had ordered a small amount of items that will likely attract "disco-goers". It's the first time setting up a stall and we should be prudent with our spending before knowing about the possible earnings.
"Wonder if we'll make a good profit."
We make 150 Yuan profit in 2 hours. Not bad, but not the type of money we were hoping for.
There's several things to consider which can backfire on us and waste our time; Peddler Stalls can only be open during the 4 hour period of the Evening. Secondly, the demand for each item we sell reduces if we keep selling the same item at the same location. And thirdly, taking the items we already bought and selling them at other locations will see their demand possibly be low. It feels like trial and error, and a bet, using the very little money and time we already have.
Still, we'll try again and buy different items and set up a stall at another location to see if the profits are much higher in that other location. If not, maybe using our free time to buy Recyclables is a much safer way to earn money, as it's not so much of a hassle.
We close the Stall an hour early, before the evening period is over because we still have things to do. We should take care of YaoYao's college education so we need to go and purchase her college books.
We grab some Stinky Tofu along the way and ponder that name, until we reach the Bookworm book store.
Entering the cozy store, we're hit with an all so good scent of paper and ink; we spot the storekeeper and ask them about the books we need, if they can ship them and the cost. Costing a mere 50 Yuan for the books and shipping we go ahead and place the order.
The store owner tells us how we can visit the Bookworm and read any book for free.
We can spend time reading books at the book store to increase our Smart and Keen abilities.
Day 15
While Life Goals unlock better paying jobs, they also come with Expectations, which can hinder us.
We'll start loosing stats (Cool, Mood) if we don't meet our current Life Goals' Expectations, so moving onto higher Life Goals needs to be carefully thought out. Case in point: in order to save money we're renting the cheapest, shared room. But our current Striver Life Goal expects us to move into an apartment, which is much more expensive, greatly reducing our savings. Something we don't want. And this will incur in stat penalties for as long as we don't meet the expectations.
We don't feel cool living in a shared room but we're still not earning enough to splurge on an apartment so we begrudgingly read the news: The historical downtown area of the city is now opened, after restoration.
This might open up new job opportunities so we'll visit the area after work. [It's a rewarding task ].
Up until now we hadn't needed to worry so much about keeping our Cool high due to our Saveholic Trait (+20 Cool points), which we usually get every morning. But now, due to not following the Expectations of our Life Goal, that Trait's Cool buff is being negated, so keeping our Cool is gonna make the game tougher.
We head to work. Entering the warehouse, were we'll complete our third and final day working the Inventory Sorter job, we hear a familiar voice.
Yang. The construction site's foreman who extorted money from us is the warehouses' owner's brother. And he's here, pestering his brother to invest in a business. "Possibly another fuck up of an ordeal". Some family drama goes on and we want nothing to do with it, swiftly moving out of the way of Yang as he's ordered to leave by his brother.
We move forward and speak with the owner about the job. He notices us quickly moving away from his brother and asks us if we had met him before. We tell him everything that went on in the construction site and with Mr. Cao. He nods, in disapproval and becomes friendlier [ Relation increase ], opening up more job opportunities for us.
We do our final day as Inventory Sorter and earn our 600 Yuan bonus.
We're still ways off of 10k but every bonus helps.
After work we head to the Downtown area and visit the newly restored area.
We quickly pop in and out of a few businesses. Coming out of the Holiday Escapes travel agency we encounter Li Yuran, the pretty girl from the Job Center, who had been informing new workers about the Vocational Training Centre.
It had started to rain heavily and she's soaking wet and shivering, taking shelter near the building. We call her name to get her attention and although we remember her, the feeling doesn't seem mutual. We try to get her to remember us, telling her about how we met and we spoke on the phone, but not short after we start to feel the awkwardness of the situation, feeling like a complete dumbass, as she's not realizing who we are.
She finally realizes who we are; she remembers handing us the vocational test, back at the Job Center.
We talk about the weather and she says it's not good, even more so because she needs to get to class. We offer her our umbrella. She asks if we have another. We don't but we tell her we don't mind waiting for the rain to stop. She thanks us and insists that she give it back, so she gives us her WasApp so we can meet later.
We're into her, so getting her WasApp is great. But as we try to unlock our phone we realize it's damaged and won't turn on. She asks if it's broken. It's possible. We tell her that we had dropped it earlier so perhaps it did break. She writes down her WasApp on a piece of paper, handing it to us, so that way we can then add her later.
We hold dearly onto that piece of paper!
As soon as the rain stops we rush over to Washion Comms phone store to get the phone fixed.
The screen is busted and the cost of a new screen is way to high; 600 Yuan. We ask for a discount but the owner says he's already getting minimal margins for fixing it; he points us to Gadgetplex, a large shopping center of electronics, parts and services where we might find cheaper service.
It's almost night time and Gadgetplex is in another district so we'll go there tomorrow. We set up our Peddler Stall for a couple of hours, instead.
Night falls, and feeling low and extremely hungry we decide to visit a café we'd seen in the "High-End" part of town, the Readers Café. The meals are expensive but they serve a huge Desert Medley which we've heard is extremely satisfying. It also has live music which will surely lift our spirits.
We're still thoughtful about Li Yuran. We try to get of our mind and request a few songs from the performer, before we head home for the night.
Day 16
We take the morning bus over to Gadgetplex to get our phone fixed, hopefully for a reasonable price.
It's a two hour drive, forth and back, but we'll get back in time to find job openings.
As soon as we enter the complex, a store gets our attention.
"Fixitall sounds about right!"
We're greeted at the counter and inquire about fixing our phone. The guy tells us he has salvaged screens that are in perfect condition, which cost half the price of new ones. We try one and tell him to go ahead and replace the screen.
"That was easy."
With our phone fixed, we add Li Yuran on WasApp and our request is immediately accepted. We have little time to rack our brains for an appropriate conversation starter but before we can Li sends us a message.
She says she'll be leaving town for a while and that she won't be able to give us our umbrella back anytime soon. She offers to buy it from us to which we reply that she can just return it when she comes back.
We ask her when she'll be coming back; it'll be a week before we can see her again. We send her an unhappy face. We start to feel she has no interest in us as she shifts to speak about the Vocational Centre and that how she's obliged to tell us that we should go there if we need training. We thank her and she says "You're welcome. TTYL". We reply; "TTYL, Bon Voyage".
We put our fixed phone away and quickly head back to the city center, to work.
Back in the city, we take on a new job; Heavy Lifting.
We've balanced our virtues a bit more at this point, but we'll increase the Tough virtue to level 4, doing the Heavy Lifting job so we can access the Chef Aid job, a better paying job in the more advanced Striver Life Goal.
Heavy Lifting is just a 5-hour job, as opposed to the 8-hour Inventory Sorter job.
We need some time off today for some recreational activities so we won't do a double-shift. Instead we'll do multiple Recyclable rounds, going to all the businesses in the same day; something we haven't done yet.
In the evening, we look for a different location to set up our Peddler Stall, and what items to buy.
So we place another order from dBay; this time for house-hold products. We'll sell these near this "high-end" residential area; our earnings might be higher.
We'll spend the rest of the day taking care of our basic needs and selling to the Recycler.
We've upgraded our backpack to be able to carry more, as well.
The Historical Downtown area is where we head last, to have some fun, playing some Billiards, right until night falls.
As we exit the Billiards hall, we receive a text from YaoYao. She tells us that she passed her graduation exam but she's not sure about getting into college.
She speaks of friends who didn't even have to finish school and are able work. We stop her in her tracks, telling her not to think about her hopeless friends. We tell her that she's on a different league and that she actually has a chance at getting into college! She says she can't let us take care of the debt by ourselves, that she doubts that we can even come up with the tuition fee, and that a college diploma doesn't even guarantee a well paid job these days.
She goes on, telling us to listen to her as we rebuttal, and, frustrated with the situation, she hangs up the phone.
We start to doubt all this college thing ourselves and we're left with uncertainty about what's best for YaoYao.
Day 17
Feeling the pressure of it all.
Whether YaoYao ends up going to college or not, we need to secure enough money to pay for her tuition, just in case; 3K Yuan. And on top of that we still need another 10k to pay off the debt.
We've been in the city for 17 days and have roughly 1200 Yuan in our pocket. Not even close to half of what we need for the tuition, let alone for the debt.
And we only have 13 days to make due of all these financial responsibilities. Our dead-beat of a father, who lefts us with the debt would be wise not to ever show his face around us ever again, for putting his family in this situation.
We head into work, as Inventory Sorter. We're earning around 300 Yuan from this job. In the Evening we peddle some more items in front of the Disco Joint and earn another 100 Yuan. 400 Yuan a day will only get us 4k Yuan in 10 days. And we have 13 days left.
We desperately need to start earning more money somehow.
Day 18
Morning, and we go directly to the Recycler. To our surprise, the Auntie is no longer there. Instead, an old man sits where Auntie used to spend her days.
Auntie has gone ahead and sold the Recycler. We could have never afforded it anytime soon, anyway.
We sell our recyclables and earn 150 Yuan. Selling Recyclables brings more money that peddling, taking into consideration the time is takes to make the 150 Yuan. Plus, the price of scrap doesn't decrease like the peddled items do, over time (apart from the occasional, minor fluctuation in scrap prices). We'll have to see how much profit we can make from the new Peddler Stall location we're setting up today, in the "High-End" residential area.
But we don't get our hopes high.
We do another 8 hour shift as Inventory Sorter. It's the highest paid job we have now. Today we'll put all 4 hours available to Peddle, in the evening to see what comes of it.
"Pff."
We need to move onto a better paying job as soon as possible if we want to reach the highest Base Wage the job can offer, in the remaining time we have to pay the debt. This will be the last new job we'll move on to.
The Mascot 5-hour job would allow us to do double-shifts in a day, taking up 10 hours of the day, leaving us with very little time for Recycling or Peddling (whichever turns out to be more profitable), and to take care of our basic needs, [ which are now taking a hit from the Life Goal unreached Expectations].
The Usher job, a 9-hour job would gives us an extra hour in the day, which would help.
After work we rush to the Buddy Express post office to pick up the newly arrived items from dBay.
And we set up a Peddler Stall near the residential area.
We lay out as many items as we can.
One hour later and we make 100 Yuan profit. We get a hint at what "sells like hot cakes" but we don't make anywhere near as much profit as we'd hoped for. And we get honest to ourselves; this is not work that we're built for; managing inventory, calculating profits, margins, price fluctuations!
We were built for simple jobs.
We can't think about any more work today, so we whip out our phone and check Li Yuran's social updates.
We see some of her posted pictures.
It feels surreal how we both live in the same city but belong to different worlds; we're unable to come up with an appropriate comment so we leave a like instead.
We head home, in the dead on night, stopping only for some Braised Meat.
We're starting to feel Sloppy, due to low Cool levels, decreasing our Job Earnings by 30%, and our Mood in not great either. We need the extra hour that the Usher job will give us in comparison to the Mascot job, even if it means we'll be making less money.
Tomorrow will be a tough day. We need to take care of ourselves. We need to make money to pay the debt debt. We need to get our mind off Li.
If nothing else comes from our efforts, at the very least, YaoYao's tuition fee needs to be secured, so that at least she can have a chance at making it.
To be Finalized.