SMMW | Chapter 1

[Challenge: Clear a Cash-Grab Game Without Spending a Cent]

Unemployed and staying at home, Song Hao typed out that slogan. He only streamed games once in a while whenever the mood struck and had never seriously treated it like a side hustle. Now that he finally had time, he started wondering whether he could build up the account and earn enough for a takeout meal. If he let himself daydream a little more, maybe he could even blow up overnight and never have to work again.

Back to reality, though, he was just a tiny streamer with fewer than two hundred followers and a live room audience of 8.

The most important thing right now was piggybacking on traffic, and the game Song Hao chose was the recently revived Orange Light 3D game, Dynasty.

Although it had elements like 3D face customization, voice interaction, and random NPCs, at its core Dynasty was still an outdated text-based interactive game. It had once been hugely popular, and the reason it had become popular again recently was because a major company was planning to acquire and remake it, which stirred up a wave of old players returning.

As a highly freeform text-based interactive game, Dynasty combined battle, court intrigue, management, farming, and harem elements all in one. It offered many different routes and playstyles, such as emperor, powerful minister, wealthy merchant, grandmaster, wandering hero, and more. Among them, the most popular route was the emperor line.

The player would take on the role of a prince stranded outside the palace, and through the imperial examinations, the battlefield, schemes, and other means, be acknowledged and brought back by the emperor. Along the way, he would also encounter all kinds of romantic interests, and in the end walk toward a complete and satisfying life of unifying the realm and keeping a harem of three thousand.

The game was popular, and the official methods of squeezing players for money were just as varied, leaving players groaning nonstop. So a slogan like “clear it without spending a cent” really could pull in quite a bit of traffic.

“Welcome, ‘What Bullshit Is the Streamer Bragging About,’ to the stream. I’m not bragging, I really am going to challenge this with zero spending, because I genuinely have no money.”

[Hahahahahahahaha]

[If you’ve got no money, sell a kidney]

[How about xx loan]

[What’s there to challenge? You can clear it with a guide too]

[The devs won’t let you off]

“It really is my first time playing. I’ve only read the game summary. I won’t be looking up any guides, that’d be boring. Feel free to keep an eye on me.”

[ok]

[This is gonna be good hehehe]

[Still too young]

[Let me pity you first [Free Flower x1]]

[When are you starting?]

“Thanks to ‘xdf’ for the flower. Starting now.” Song Hao glanced at the online viewer count. 156. It really was more than usual. Riding the trend really worked. “If I say I’m not spending money, then I really won’t. Let’s see whether the officials are stingy or whether I’m just poor.”

Song Hao clicked Start, chose the emperor route, and the game began to play the opening cutscene.

〖In the twenty-third year of the Great Hong Dynasty, the court debates the matter of succession, and hearts are restless.

Can an unknown scholar from a remote village really stir the tides of fate?

Will he, as imperial blood left wandering outside, ascend the supreme throne;

Or will he become a pawn restrained and manipulated by others, his blood staining the streets?

Everything, only just beginning.

……〗

To be fair, the voice acting really was pretty bluffing. It had that whole sinister god-of-space vibe to it. After the opening animation, it moved into the naming phase. Because of the plot setting, the surname “Yuan” was fixed, and the player could only choose the given name.

“Too lazy to think about it. I’ll just type something random.”

To make it feel more immersive, Song Hao directly entered the character “Hao” from his own name, and his in-game character became “Yuan Hao.”

The next step was face customization. The system default was a completely unremarkable passerby face, but thoughtfully provided as many as fifty appearance adjustment buttons.

Song Hao could not understand why appearance had to be made so complicated. Wouldn’t random generation be enough? He tried making the skin tone lighter, and the character immediately turned into a “fair-skinned passerby.”

Then he tried raising the nose. From the front it looked fine, but once the face turned sideways, it was practically a skyscraper rising from flat ground, comparable to a rhino horn.

If he wanted a harmonious face, every feature had to fit together. Clearly, Song Hao was not one of those face-customization experts. After randomly messing with it for a while, he looked at the monster on the screen and thought that if this character were dropped into a zombie game, it would actually make a pretty decent NPC.

Regretfully, he restored the default settings. At this point, even the passerby face looked a lot more pleasing to the eye. He sighed and said, “Let’s just use the original settings. Kings, nobles, generals, and ministers, are they born that way? What matters when walking the world is brains, not looks.”

After that impassioned speech, Song Hao moved the mouse and was just about to click confirm when the comment section panicked first.

[Stop!!!]

[Adjust it seriously ahhh this is directly tied to appearance value]

[Just wait till your appearance value hits 15 and characters start losing favor the moment they see you]

[Go with your rhino-man, that’ll definitely work haha]

[All of this is paid for in blood and tears, changing it later costs money]

[There’s a trap at every step, and you still want to do this without spending?]

Song Hao’s whole thing was listening when people gave advice. Regretfully, he stopped, and under the guidance of the comment section, used the photo generation function instead. A sudden idea struck him, and he searched up a publicity photo of a currently popular male star and uploaded it. He had just been about to praise his own cleverness and fish for a few gifts when the system immediately warned him about copyright infringement.

[Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha]

[Maybe learn about portrait rights protection]

[Sleepy already. Stop playing and go to bed]

[You can’t even get into the newbie village]

[I’ll give you five minutes to search a guide. I can pretend I’m blind]

Left with no choice, Song Hao pretended not to see the mocking sarcasm in the comments and shamelessly uploaded a photo of himself. The system quickly generated a face that looked eighty percent like him and then offered a one-click beautification feature. After clicking it, everything was indeed subtly adjusted here and there, and his whole face instantly became a level more handsome. It would not be an exaggeration to say he could debut on the spot.

No wonder it had become popular. The officials really did have some tricks.

Song Hao smiled and nodded. Song Hao happily saved it. Song Hao got hit with a pop-up telling him he needed to pay 12 yuan.

“Holy shit!!!” Song Hao stared with his eyes wide open. “How did it become 12 already?! I haven’t even started playing yet. I haven’t even entered the newbie village!”

[That’s the beautification fee, dear customer~]

[This game’s reputation for squeezing players dry wasn’t shouted for nothing]

[My reaction was exactly the same at the time hahaha]

[Rhino-man it is, then]

[No wonder portrait protection is so strict, tsk tsk tsk, you can’t beat capitalists]

[Poor thing, here, have a gift [Free Flower x1]]

Refuse, your own face.

Agree, debut-ready handsome guy.

Song Hao looked at the title of his stream, remembered his original goal, and furiously gave up the beautification option and entered the game directly. “Even though the auto-generation only restored eighty percent of my looks, it’s already good enough.”

Song Hao talked to himself as if it did not matter at all, but after the character was generated, he still immediately opened the status panel.

〖Appearance: 63〗

That could barely be considered a passing score.

“…It’s fine. What we’re after is conquering the realm. Face is the least important thing of all.”

[Who asked you?]

[This is what happens when you don’t recharge]

[Your mouth is harder than stone]

[Regretting it now? It’s not too late to restart]

[Cry if you want to]

Song Hao comforted himself and began going through the story. In the first scene, there was an elderly woman. The system showed that this was Yuan Hao’s mother, Su-shi.

His mother was advanced in years and currently bedridden with illness. In a frail voice, she said, “Mother is already old. Although your looks are plain, you make up for it by being hardworking. As long as you study harder, you will definitely be able to pass the county-level exam seven days from now and become a xiucai. That is also Mother’s greatest wish.”

Sitting by the bedside, the scholar in a worn blue robe, namely the protagonist Yuan Hao, said with tears in his eyes: “Mother, don’t worry. Your child will definitely study diligently and pass the exam to become a xiucai.”

〖Quest: Pass the county-level exam and become a xiucai.

Condition for completion: Literary Talent value > 60〗

This was the newbie village quest. To complete it, it only required one stat.

“Plain-looking? Mom, you can barely speak and you still have to mock me?”

While grumbling that the officials’ ugly cash-grab over the 12-yuan face-edit card was hard to watch, Song Hao opened the status panel again and found the Literary Talent stat.

〖Literary Talent: 12〗

“……”

“Bro, did you seriously study properly? The exam is in seven days and you’ve got 12 points! How did you even study? When I was in school, even blindly guessing got me 30!”

Song Hao felt disappointed that the character was not living up to expectations. Grumble or not, though, the game still had to go on. The system told him to arrange tonight’s schedule, with two options, Study and Rest. Song Hao of course clicked Study.

〖After a whole night of serious studying, ※ Literary Talent +4, Fatigue +2〗

The game entered the second day. The system prompted that each day could be arranged into three time slots, morning, noon, and evening. The only current schedule options were “Study” and “Rest.” Choosing an action would always increase Fatigue by 2, while Rest would reduce it by 5. When Fatigue went over 20, actions would no longer be possible.

As expected of an old game, later on all it really required was doing some simple stat calculations.

“Our Literary Talent is 16 right now, Fatigue 2. There are seven days left, which means 21 action opportunities. Literary Talent gains should be random, probably around 1 to 5. Assuming the average is 3, we need… 12 Study choices. That leaves 9 actions. It’s fine even if the Fatigue gets up there, we just need to rest twice in the middle. Calculated like that, we get 7 free actions. If I keep save-scumming to reroll Literary Talent gains, I’ll have even more free actions, but for the sake of the gameplay experience, I’ll retry anything below 3.”

“ok, the newbie village is still pretty simple.”

Song Hao confidently spoke out his strategy. The comment section, meanwhile, simply responded in tacit agreement by spamming smiling faces, giving off a strong “just you wait, kid” atmosphere.

〖Day Two〗

“Hm???” Song Hao leaned closer to the screen. It really did just say “Day Two.” So the opening had counted as Day One. Calculated like that, he had directly lost three actions from his original plan. He cursed the officials for being underhanded, but still kept playing while pretending nothing was wrong.

The “Study” button he had expected never appeared. The screen jumped straight into the plot.

〖Bang bang bang! Urgent knocking sounded. Yuan Hao had just opened the door when he saw a girl in yellow with a medicine basket on her back slip into the room. With tears in her eyes, she rushed to Mother’s bedside.

“Auntie, are you feeling any better? Xing’er came to see you.”

“It’s nothing. An old illness has flared up. I just need to rest a bit.”

Su-shi and Xing’er chatted for a while. Before long, Su-shi’s energy gave out, and she grew drowsy.

Seeing this, Xing’er tucked the quilt around Su-shi more carefully and softly said her goodbyes.

She withdrew into the yard, her eyes wet and red. “Cousin, these past few days I’ve only found tongcao, so for the next little while I’ll be gathering herbs on the [Back Mountain]. If I manage to find [Golden Vine Flower], which can treat Auntie, I’ll bring it down. If you need anything, you can come up the mountain to look for me.”

Yuan Hao: Alright. Be extra careful on the mountain yourself. If I get the chance, I’ll go up the mountain too and look together with you.

※ Xing’er Favor +2, Tongcao x1

Afternoon action choices: Study / Rest / Back Mountain〗

“The first romanceable character has appeared, the traditional childhood-sweetheart type. Back Mountain is the place for farming favorability. Then this afternoon… Back Mountain.”

Since it was a harem game, he might as well first see what was up.

The screen shifted to the Back Mountain, and sure enough, he once again saw Xing’er’s pretty figure.

〖Xing’er: Cousin, don’t you need to study today?

Yuan Hao: I was worried about you, so I wanted to come take a look.

Xing’er: Cousin…

※ Fatigue +2, Xing’er Favor +2, obtained Tongcao x1〗

“Going up the mountain causes Fatigue too? That’s robbery!” Song Hao grumbled nonstop. “Got another tongcao. It’s not the thing that treats my mom, and it’s in the item slots too, so it might be useful later. Xing’er’s favor is 4 now. No idea if getting it higher can trigger a plot event. We’ve already used two actions today and Literary Talent hasn’t increased at all. There are still 16 actions left. If every Study gives 4 Literary Talent… then we need 11 times. Then lower Fatigue and leave three actions. That way we can still go to Back Mountain twice to see Xing’er and check whether it triggers an event or lets us get Golden Vine Flower.”

After that, he simply arranged the schedule according to the system prompts. Following the plan, every Study result had to be above 4. If it was lower than 4, Song Hao would reload and roll again. It could not be helped. A zero-spend run relied on grinding.

By the evening of Day Six, after choosing Study, the character’s Literary Talent reached 53. During that time, he rested twice to lower his Fatigue, and also went to Back Mountain twice. Xing’er’s favor was currently 8, and there were two stalks of tongcao in the item slots.

“It turns out you don’t even get tongcao every time. Looks like Golden Vine Flower can only be obtained through Xing’er. Tomorrow is the final day. There are still three action opportunities left, and my current Fatigue is 16, which is just enough to grind Study twice and Rest once, barely enough to cross the line. Looks like the newbie village isn’t something you can clear by just mindlessly playing. It still has a bit of difficulty.”

Song Hao rolled his shoulders. He was finally about to leave the newbie village, but the comment section once again collectively filled with smiling faces. A bad feeling rose in his heart. It was already the last day, what kind of nonsense could still go wrong? Song Hao did not understand, and clicked to start Day Seven.

The familiar Study button did not appear. Instead, a plot event triggered. A fellow villager came to get him so they could set off for the county-level exam. The test site was in Jinping Prefecture, and even by carriage it would take most of the day. Since the exam began at dawn the next day, they had to leave a day in advance.

[Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha]

[Finally waited for this]

[Didn’t expect it to be this reasonable, huh]

[All that careful calculating just now made you look like a joke]

[ju~st~ a~ lit~tle~ dif~fi~cul~ty~]

Song Hao could only click agree and pinned his hopes on the idea that it would only reduce the number of actions by one. That way, he could still barely scrape through.

〖At night, arrived at Jinping Prefecture. ※ Fatigue +5〗

“Ah???” Song Hao stared with both eyes wide open when he saw that the journey had used up an entire daytime slot, leaving only the nighttime action round.

He opened the save menu. Free players only had two save slots, but fortunately they could overwrite them, and Song Hao had already filled both of them. One was from the evening of Day Two, which he had used to test how high Literary Talent gains could go. The other was from noon on Day Six, when Fatigue was too high and he had chosen to Rest.

To sum it up, loading the closer save was too late, and loading the farther one was basically the same as replaying the whole thing.

Song Hao still stubbornly said, “…Maybe last-minute cramming before the exam gives a lot.”

A miracle appeared, just not the kind he wanted.

〖Fatigue exceeds 20. Please remember to balance work and rest.〗

At this point, his Literary Talent was still 53, but his Fatigue had reached 21, so he could not do any last-minute cramming before the exam and could only go to sleep.

[Go to sleep, why don’t you]

[Hahahahahahahahaha]

[Good night~]

[Hahahahahahahahahaha]

[Hahahahahahahahaha]

Song Hao numbly watched the exam cutscene, and the character viewpoint also switched to the release of the results.

Top scorer of the provincial academy exam: Wen Qing

Zou Hui, Gao Changguang, Liang Xuan, An Kenti…

〖Literary Talent: 53, did not pass the county-level exam.

Achievement earned: Not Yet Emerged.

Xing’er Favor: 8, marriage condition not met.

Entered ending: Old Man of the Countryside (Starting tomorrow, be a happy person, feed pigs, chop firewood, till the land. Starting tomorrow, stop caring about study and women. You have a thatched cottage, three mu of fertile fields. Spring is warm and the flowers are blooming, just the right time to loosen the soil and spread fertilizer~)〗

Challenge: Clear a Cash-Grab Game Without Spending a Cent.

Song Hao, defeated in one round.