Chapter 458: A big prize!
On the second floor of the house.
Chenchen drowsily carried her bolster and stood at the top of the staircase. She did not open her eyes and just said, "Zhang Ye, can you keep it down? You woke me up."
Zhang Ye quickly assured her, "You can go back to sleep, I won't disturb you again."
Chenchen rubbed her eyes and asked, "What were you doing?"
"Oh, I was just trying to split a pair of scissors with my hands." Zhang Ye replied.
Chenchen made an annoyed expression with her mouth, "No wonder you were so loud. Did you think you were my aunt? Zhang Ye, you really are childish."
Zhang Ye felt his pride hurt, so he stared at her and immediately said, "Who said it was your Uncle Zhang that shouted?! It was the pair of scissors that shouted from the pain it received from my attack!"
Chenchen pouted and complained childishly, "You don’t act like an adult at all." With that, she went back to her room.
Zhang Ye felt a little ashamed, so he called out to her upstairs, "Remember to cover yourself well with the blanket. Don't catch a cold. I will be sleeping downstairs. If you need to use the toilet in the middle of the night, just call for me."
An impatient child's voice shouted back, "Got it."
Zhang Ye felt helpless. That child was very smart and was good in every way except not knowing how to leave some face for an adult. He turned around and sat down again. Yes, it's time to try his hand at the lottery!
Skills Category!
Today, that was all that he wanted!
Zhang Ye clicked on the lottery draw and spent 100,000 reputation points!
The lottery draw began. The needle on the lottery panel started spinning on the turntable. 1 round, 2 rounds, 3 rounds. Then, it started to slow down.
Zhang Ye kept a close watch on the turntable as the needle began to come to a stop. He hesitated for a moment, but did not move as he observed the momentum of the spin. The needle was likely to stop at the Stats Category, which Zhang Ye was not aiming for today. He did not bet any additional stakes since he did not want it anyway.
When the needle stop, although it moved further ahead than he had expected it to, it still stopped in the Stats Category. A small golden treasure chest popped out!
He opened it.
[ Fruit of Strength ] x 1: Permanently increases the strength of the player.
Increasing strength?
It wasn't too bad.
Zhang Ye took out a dark, shiny weird looking fruit from the treasure chest and took a look at it. Then, he opened his mouth and took a bite before feeling his body turn numb as if a jolt of electricity ran through his body. It was just for a second and it was all over. He touched his arm and thought it felt rather good. The feeling wasn't too bad, but it was still only one fruit of strength after all, so there shouldn't be too great of a change for sure.
He continued the lottery draw.
He staked another bet. The needle spun round and round. When it was about to stop, Zhang Ye observed and analyzed it carefully. He estimated that the needle would stop between the Skills Category and Consumption Category areas, but as the needle's movement was a little different each time, he could not accurately predict where it would stop. If he waited any longer, it might be too late to buy Additional Stakes before the needle stopped dead. For safety reasons, Zhang Ye decided not to put additional stakes again, he would wait for the next round.
The needle stopped.
It was the Consumption Category.
He opened up the Treasure Chest (Small) to take a look at it.
[ Pause Game ] x 1: Time will temporarily stop. Lasts for 1 minute.
Zhang Ye was stunned. He had played games before, so he knew that besides online games, most single player games had the ability to pause the game. He did not expect such an item to exist here as well. Pause the game? Time could be stopped? What a powerful item! This was a good item, if only he had known! But nothing was ever perfect. If he had staked an additional 10 or 100 bets? What if it was like the last time he drew those empty chests? Then he would have been blindsided again! It was important to be content!
There weren't many Reputation points left, slightly less than 30 million. He had around 29 million left now.
Zhang Ye draw once again. He rubbed his hands together and clicked on the lottery draw, "Give me something from the Skills Category! Something from the Skills Category!" He had already set his mind on obtaining two new skills today. No matter what they were, even if those skills did not seem useful to him, he would be OK with it!
Come on out!
Pi! Ka! Chu!
You didn’t need to say it, but shouting that really made it work!
Pika.....and the Skills Category would appear. After the needle spun more than a dozen times, it slowly crept towards the Skills Category and was coming to a stop! Zhang Ye quickly bought Additional Stakes. He was intending to only buy 100 Additional Stakes, but seeing that he still had enough, he added it upto a total of 149!
It stopped!
This time, everything was good. It was all in the Skills Category!
A sound was made to signal that this round of lottery draw was over. At that moment, Zhang Ye's inventory was suddenly filled with 150 small golden treasure chests. They were all stacked together in a very dense manner.
Zhang Ye did not open the treasure chests. He left it in there knowing that the skill in it had already been decided, so it didn't matter if he opened it now or later. He would continue with his lottery draw for now!
Go!
I choose you!
Lunar! Crown!
It was indeed useful! As Zhang Ye shouted these words in his head, the needle once again slowed down and crept towards the Skills Category. Although it felt a little risky and seemed like it was heading towards the Consumption Category, he felt that there was a 90% chance it would stop before that. With that analyzed, he bought the Additional Stakes!
He bought a total of 140 Additional Stakes!
That would mean that in the last two rounds of the lottery draw alone, Zhang Ye had spent all of his remaining 29 million reputation points! With that last additional stake placed, he had consumed all of his reputation points!
The needle continued to move forward!
Stop! Stop! Don't go any further!
Just when the needle seemed like it was going to pass into the consumption category section, it came to a shaky stop. This nearly scared the shit out of Zhang Ye, nearly!
Ding!
Another 141 treasure chest had been deposited into his inventory!
Zhang Ye was feeling very excited as he looked forward to what he would be receiving. He retrieved numerous Treasure Chests (Small) from his inventory one by one and placed them all on the floor of the landlady's living room. There were so many that there was no place left to put them, so he put some onto the sofa and table as well. The treasure chest was very light, even when placed in his hands, they seemed like they were floating and there wasn't any real physical feel to it. It was basically just a virtual item, so there wasn't any worry that its weight would crush the tables or chairs.
Let's open everything!
Let's take a look at what's inside!
Zhang Ye was looking forward to what was inside the chests as he took out 1 of the 150 treasure chests from the second lottery draw and flipped it opened. A bright light emitted!
[ Higher Mathematics Skill Experience Book ] 150: Takes effect after reading. Increases player's mathematics skill experience, stackable usage.
Higher mathematics?
There was such a skill?
Zhang Ye blinked a few times and nodded slightly. He had taken higher mathematics in university before, so even though he was not as well versed in it as science and engineering students, he was no stranger to it. Some people might think that something like higher mathematics would be useless to anyone who did not use it in their jobs and would be regarded as a resume filler, but Zhang Ye knew that higher mathematics wasn't as simple as people thought. Higher mathematics wasn't just some resume filler, but was deeply ingrained in everyday life. For example, if you went shopping for groceries and paid $100 for $18.50 worth of items. Then you received $81.50 back in change, but did not know if that was the correct amount or if the person was cheating you. Then you could take a piece of paper to list the numbers of higher mathematical theorems to explain and analyze the details. You could use stuff like derivatives, integration, and integration of rational trigonometric functions, so you would forever not worry that the grocer would give you the wrong amount of change. With this explanation, everyone should clearly understand right? Yes, so higher mathematics could really be amazing, it's really.....
Man, alright....
This crappy thing was useless indeed!
However, forget it. Who knew when it might be put to good use. He could forget it for the time being. This thing was at least some form of capital. Zhang Ye comforted himself amidst his tears and began learning it!
1 book!
100 books!
150 books!
After consuming all the skill experience books, Zhang Ye looked towards the other 141 treasure chests. He clenched his teeth in anticipation and took a deep breath before opening them!
[ Acting Skills Experience Book ] 141: Takes effect after reading. Increases player's acting skill experience.
This time, a smile appeared on Zhang Ye's face. Acting? This skill was a good one. Although he majored in broadcast hosting himself, he had also dabbled a little in the performance arts. The lessons had touched a little on the profession of acting, but hadn’t been systematically taught since that was not their focus. If you let Zhang Ye do a short performance by himself, he would have no problem, but if you wanted him to act on stage for a show, that would definitely be way more difficult for him. It wasn't that he couldn't act, but he would, at most, be able to do so as a small supporting role. He would definitely not be able to take up a liberated main role in a show. Before this, he was still wondering what he'd do if he were offered an acting job. He thought he'd have to start learning from scratch by himself! It would have been too late and he wouldn't have the time. But now, it was solved!
Yes, of course it wasn't necessary to have acting chops to act in a show. Like for Zhang Ye, he could branch out to being an idol actor, based on his....yes, based on his suave looks and tall stature, this would have been a possible route, but people always wanted something to chase after, don't they? What kind of an actor lives off their looks! Zhang Ye held disdain for such people!
Haha, he had finally gained a great and useful skill!
141 skill experience books were 'eaten' all at once by Zhang Ye!
After everything was done, his reputation points had been reduced to zero. He closed the game ring’s interface and closed his eyes to appreciate all the knowledge that he had just absorbed. He felt very accomplished from today's lottery draw and it had given him a lot of confidence too. At least from today on, he had another path that he could take in the entertainment business. He was no longer constrained to just hosting, writing novels, composing poems and songs, writing calligraphy, planning for advertisements, etc, etc, etc. The acting skill had just opened up the path of acting for him while the higher mathematics had created a path of...... uh, an unknown path. Hmm, it wasn't bad at all!
Then, Zhang Ye started to calm himself down to think of his next move. After having taken such a long break for the new year, there wasn't much talk about him anymore. He had just risen into the Celebrity C-list rankings, so he had to think about how not to drop back down again.
Write a novel?
Or go back to Shanghai to create another show?
Should he do something else instead? Music? Acting? Composing a few more poems?
Other stars would struggle to find their next move. Some would not be able to find a job while others were afraid they would not do a good job or could not live up to expectations, but on the contrary, Zhang Ye had too much that he could do. He even felt that he had the confidence to do well in all of them. Thus, this left him undecided on what he should do next!
Thinking and thinking.
From evening until midnight, he still had not come to a decision.