263 Christmas Even

Cold Night sent Jiang You’s group the document. They all opened it and began studying it. After reading it through, they discovered that in order to break the record, they still needed to consult with Lord Grim. If they had known this earlier, then they wouldn’t have done so many tricks.

There were no words to describe what they were feeling right now. The only thing that made them feel a bit better was that they knew who Lord Grim really was.

Ye Qiu. It was an identity that wouldn’t garner any love in Tyrannical Ambition.

At least against such a strong opponent, losing wasn’t shameful.

They were all comforted by this thought to some degree. They tacitly agreed not to mention Ye Qiu, nor Lord Grim, and focus only on the guide’s content.

They were all experts, so they quickly understood the guide’s value. The highlighted portions were the guide’s most important points. The guide had originally required the use of five fixed classes, but…… by learning the most important parts of the guide, the classes didn’t need to be fixed. Jiang You’s group discussed this issue about how they could integrate the strategy into their class setup.

Meanwhile, Ye Xiu had already logged off. Ye Xiu was now off from work, so he went out to eat breakfast. While coming back, he saw Chen Guo standing outside of the entrance, ordering a few employees around.

“Oh? Are we going to celebrate Christmas?” When Ye Xiu walked over, he saw that a small pine tree was standing erect at the Internet Cafe’s entrance. Chen Guo was currently putting on bright lights and presents.

“Oh? You actually know the date? You didn’t make a mistake, did you?” Chen Guo said. For people like Ye Xiu who had their days and nights flipped upside down, in her eyes, it was very easy for them to lose track of time.

“I accidentally noticed it.” Ye Xiu circled around the small pine tree.

“Not bad!” Ye Xiu praised.

“Of course.”

“Is there actually stuff in here?” Ye Xiu pointed to the small presents hanging on the tree.

“Of course.”

“What’s inside?”

“Raffle prizes, coupons, etc.” Chen Guo said.

“Oh, oh.” Ye Xiu understood. Clearly, Chen Guo was like a lot of business owners and used this holiday as a marketing scheme.

“I say, boss! When you set up events, you should pay more attention to it! You should buy a Christmas tree. What’s up with this tree? Did you make it yourself with wires?” Ye Xiu circled around the Christmas tree again. Ye Xiu could tell that this Christmas tree wasn’t real and had been made entirely by hand.

“A handmade one isn’t good enough?” Chen Guo walked over and said.

“It’s not that it’s not good. It’s just that it can’t compare to an actual tree. It also looks kind of old. Was it from last year?” Ye Xiu asked.

Chen Guo shook her head: “I made it with my dad ten years ago.”

Ye Xiu was startled.

He had worked in the Internet Cafe for almost a month. Even though he hadn’t heard Chen Guo say it personally, he had heard quite a few stories about her from other employees. He had heard that Chen Guo had taken over the cafe by herself after her parents had passed away.

This rough-looking, hand-made Christmas tree wasn’t just used by Chen Guo for advertisement, but it was also a reminder of her memories with her parents. This Christmas tree definitely had a lot of history behind it.

“Your dad’s craftsmanship is pretty good. The tree looks really good.” Ye Xiu said.

“Thanks.” Chen Guo faintly smiled and didn’t argue with Ye Xiu’s obvious change in attitude.

“Do you need me to help you with anything?” Ye Xiu asked.

“No need. Go ahead and sleep!”

“Okay……” Ye Xiu returned to his room to rest. Chen Guo stood next to the Christmas tree, entranced.

Ten years……. This Christmas tree had accompanied her for ten Christmases.

Her father was still there on the first Christmas. The tree had been made by him as a Christmas present to her. But for the other nine years, only she and the tree had remained!

“Boss, can I hang this here?”

Chen Guo had been distracted, when someone suddenly interrupted her thoughts. An employee was asking her if it was okay to hang a decoration there.

“A little higher!” Chen Guo came back to the present and continued to direct.

Ye Xiu went to bed, but he didn’t sleep long and got up before noon. When he left his room and went downstairs, he saw that the Internet Cafe had a complete Christmas makeover.

The handmade Christmas tree was loaded down with presents and ornaments and looked as if it was about to bend over.

Apart from this, all sorts of bright lights and Christmas posters were put up. The most eye-catching headline was the announcement for Happy Internet Cafe’s Christmas raffle.

“Not bad, not bad. I can feel the Christmas spirit.” Ye Xiu looked around and praised Chen Guo.

“Yeah.” Chen Guo replied. She didn’t even lift up her head.

“The Christmas events are going to start soon. Shouldn’t you hurry up?” Chen Guo said. She and Tang Rou were at the computers playing Glory. The events she was talking about were directed towards the game, not the Internet Cafe.

The game obviously wouldn’t miss an opportunity like Christmas to promote sales. Every year, Glory would come up with new events for all sorts of holidays.

For every new server that was opened, the very first holiday event would be Christmas. And these events were always great opportunities for leveling and equipment. For old servers, there wasn’t much point in leveling. But for the new server, leveling was much more important than equipment. During these events, every minute and every second was precious.

“Aren’t I here now?” Ye Xiu smiled. He obviously wouldn’t miss this opportunity. This was also why he got up early today.

“Sit here. There aren’t any other empty stations.” Chen Guo pointed to a computer next to them.

“Oh?” Ye Xiu looked around again and noticed that business was going exceptionally well. He didn’t know if it was because of the game’s events or because of the Internet Cafe’s holiday promotions.

The computer Chen Guo pointed to was undoubtedly left open for Ye Xiu, even though she didn’t directly say it.

Without any other choice, Ye Xiu sat down and logged into the game.

“Wow. There’re so many people……” Ye Xiu noticed as soon as he got on.

“Yeah……” Tang Rou said, too.

Compared to the old servers, there would only be more players in the new servers. In the old servers, players were scattered all around the entire world, while in new servers, players were limited to Level 30 and below maps. As a result, the player population wasn’t spread out evenly and they were mostly crowded together. Even though technology had improved and the number of players wouldn’t cause lag, having a lot of players still caused delays because this year’s event had a competitive element to it.

Hunt down the Christmas thieves.

That was this year’s Christmas event. The plot was extremely simple. Thieves had stolen gifts from Santa, so it was up to the players to get them back. Depending on the gift the player returned, Santa would reward the player with a Christmas present. Each Christmas present would give a certain amount of experience, as well as an unknown reward.

The quest could be done repeatedly and a special ranking was created for the event: Christmas Hunting Leaderboards.

Clearly, it was a ranking based on the number of Christmas thieves hunted. When the event ended, Santa would give a different final present depending on your ranking.

That was the main quest, but there were also a few details.

For example, when stealing back the gifts from the Christmas thieves, the gift might be a piece of equipment, a potion, or some other random item. Players could choose to keep these items instead of returning them to Santa. If the gift wasn’t returned, then you wouldn’t receive rewards for it. But it was possible that players could become stronger through these items and, as a result, do the event quests more efficiently. All of these items that were gifts would expire after the event ended, but during the event, they could be extremely useful for competitions between players.

Apart from this, because player levels were different, there were several Christmas thief leaderboards that depended upon a range of player levels.

The range was five levels. Players would only compete on their respective leaderboard. The rewards gained also depended on the player’s level range. If you leveled up into a different level range, then your previous achievements would carry over into that new level’s range on the leaderboard.