MTL - American Entertainment 1982 - Chapter 156 Planning a Charity Dinner

I am currently re-writing the first chapters of this story. They are quite rough and bounce around a lot and I can do better. At some point, I will replace these with the better chapters.Sometime in 2024 Aethon Books will publish the first volume of this story on Amazon, KU, and audible. This will mean the story will be stubbed. I will notify people far in advance of that.In the dystopian world of the future, life is rough when you live at the bottom. Jobs are non-existent. Far too many people live in poverty, crammed into huge buildings called Habitats. With no jobs in the real world, many people can only find work online in VR worlds as servants to the very rich. And it's getting worse. The old internet is unusable and hacked to pieces. The new system needs AI to run things, but all but one of them were destroyed. The last sentient AI is ordered to create a new game world so the rich can have a playground, and the corporations that rule the world can have a new global market place. Everyone wants a piece of the new game. The guilds are competing to be the first to find the dungeons and kill the biggest monster. The corporations are claiming land and putting in their online market places. Ozzy and his friends just want a paycheck.Four friends sign five year contracts as virtual serfs in a small village, and can't go adventuring at all to gain money. They don't have many choices. They can work as a blacksmith, barmaid and shepherd for all those years....or they can cheat and find ways to take advantage of the system and carve out a section of the game world for themselves, and earn a fortune in the real world.When they give you a mop and not a sword, you have to find the loopholes and change the rules.

Growing up with eccentric materialist parents who left him in the care of his grandfather for a job overseas, Zhang Heng had learned to adapt and be unfettered by the oddities and challenges in life. But he would soon learn the baffling truth about the world he thought he knew when one day at midnight time froze and he found himself in a world so quiet and still it was deafening. That night, he discovered that he had 24 hours more than everybody else and thus, marked the beginning of his adventures. The mysteries surrounding his newfound ability only deepened when a strange old man claimed to have given Zhang Heng that ‘gift of time’ and recruited the young man to participate in a cryptic ‘life-changing’ game on his behalf. Little did Zhang Heng know that accepting those terms meant embroiling himself in many versions of reality and exposing himself to the hidden secrets of the world—a decision he could never undo.

As a villainous demonic cultivator, isn’t it perfectly normal to take a fox demoness as a spiritual pet?As a villainous junior brother, isn’t it reasonable to make the cold and stunning senior sister reveal a shy side?As a villainous disciple, isn’t it my duty to melt the icy heart of my villainous master and save her from the abyss of corruption?…I was wrong.After they fell to darkness, they captured me and ruthlessly “repaid” their gratitude.

When Lin Chu met the ridiculously rich and affluent Yan Beicheng, she did not expect him to act like an immature hooligan, shameless in every way whenever they bumped into each other. Yet, every encounter had him come to her rescue, from saving her from the humiliation of watching her ex-boyfriend marrying her adopted sister, to whisking her away from petty colleagues and lecherous clients.Whether this is true kindness remains to be seen, as he never forgets to take advantage of her whenever he can. Is there something between them or is he just having fun with her?

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