FWS Chapter 001: Card Lottery
Hou Muyun is an online writer who earns a living by writing. He started in his third year of college, and now it's been over three years. During this time, he has written about five million words. He's not a very diligent writer, but he's not too lazy either.
As for his grades, they're neither good nor bad. His monthly income averages over five thousand, which is just enough to get by in the vast sea of online literature. In a city like Ruicheng, he can afford to eat and stay warm. For a single guy like him with no special expenses, life is quite comfortable.
Since he started writing, Hou Muyun has gradually transformed from a carefree enthusiast to a homebody who prefers to be tied to his computer most of the time. His biggest entertainment activity is probably going to a nearby board game café to play games like Werewolf, chat, and drink coffee. Most of his friends since graduating from college are from the board game café. Occasionally, he also goes to the gym with a few people, including the owner of the board game café.
Apart from that, it's just about food, clothing, shelter, and transportation. There are no major expenses. In addition to paying his own tuition and living expenses over the past three years, he has also occasionally sent some money to his mother and saved tens of thousands for himself.
Unfortunately, unforeseen circumstances arose. In September, a major typhoon destroyed both of his family's houses in the rural area where he grew up. These two houses had just been renovated not long ago, using the life savings of Hou Muyun's parents.
Thankfully, everyone in his family was safe.
For rural people, houses are essential. Although the government provided some subsidies, it was far from enough to rebuild the houses. Hou Muyun's savings of tens of thousands naturally couldn't cover it all, so his family had to borrow money from various sources to make up for the cost of rebuilding.
However, misfortunes never come singly. During the construction of the new house, a neighbor who was helping out had an accident and suffered a severe head injury from a falling object. He's still lying in the hospital. Even though they knew about Hou's family's difficulties, the neighbor's family didn't offer any compensation, but the hospitalization costs would undoubtedly have to be borne by Hou's family.
The construction of the house had to be halted midway. Most of the money borrowed earlier had been used to purchase building materials, and there wasn't much left. They needed to borrow more money to cover the cost of the surgery and hospitalization.
During this time, some friends who knew about Hou Muyun's family situation voluntarily sent him some money. Some were good high school classmates, some were childhood friends, and some were people he met at the board game café. Among them, the owner of the board game café and another friend each gave ten thousand.
Altogether, it was over fifty thousand, which was a relief in the face of such urgent need.
Extending a helping hand in the most difficult times touched and moved Hou Muyun deeply.
Hou Muyun went back home for a while. One reason was that he couldn't write normally, often having to pause his updates. Another reason was that he found he couldn't be of much help. The third reason was that he couldn't bear to see how quickly his parents aged during this time. So he had to return to his rental house in Ruicheng. Only by returning to his rental house and writing more words to earn more money could he solve his family's difficulties.
Back at the rental house, Hou Muyun buried himself in writing almost all the time except for eating. This month, he wrote a total of three hundred and sixty thousand words, averaging nearly twelve thousand words a day. This was unprecedented for Hou Muyun, a member of the "six thousand club," breaking his monthly update record.
The amount of updates this month was almost twice that of last month. Although the quality had dropped somewhat, the explosive updates still resulted in a significant increase in subscribers. Especially in the second half of the month, the number of tips received was noticeably higher than before, ultimately resulting in more than double the royalties compared to last month!
However, the book he was currently writing was originally mediocre in performance, with mediocre subscription numbers. It was almost the worst-performing book Hou Muyun had written so far, earning just over three thousand in royalties last month. Therefore, even though it doubled this month, it was still less than seven thousand.
While seven thousand monthly income might not sound like much, compared to the medical expenses of the neighbor in the hospital, Hou Muyun felt somewhat helpless, even frustrated.
Not to mention the money he still owed!
"Faster! I need to be faster!"
After withdrawing the money and handing over 6500 yuan to his mother, Hou Muyun quickly plunged back into the frenzy of writing, pushing himself to go faster and update more.
On this day, before 5 p.m., he updated nine thousand words, aiming to challenge a daily update of twenty thousand. However, after this sustained burst of activity, even though Hou Muyun had a decent physique, he was starting to feel the strain. After writing another two chapters, totaling about fifteen thousand words, Hou Muyun stood up to stretch, but suddenly felt dizzy.
"Hypoglycemia?"
The words flashed through Hou Muyun's mind, and before he knew it, he collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
As he fell, he knocked over a chair and bumped into the computer desk. A card attached to the computer screen slowly fell and landed squarely on Hou Muyun's forehead.
It was a card shining with seven different colors, but without any content or even a name. It was essentially a blank card.
Hou Muyun had acquired this card from a booster pack half a year ago. Known as a misprint card, it was considered worthless, but sometimes misprints were called lucky cards. This particular card, however, was even more unusual—it had seven colors but no content at all.
Hou Muyun stuck the card to the side of his computer screen, treating it as a good luck charm.
At that moment, the card fell onto Hou Muyun's forehead and transformed into a colorful light that entered his mind.
[Ding! Scanning host's brain domain, conditions met!]
[Ding! Confirming host's identity!]
[Ding! Scanning host's planet of residence!]
[Ding! Loading civilization of host's planet of residence!]
[Ding! Installing card lottery system!]
[Ding! Card generation complete!]
...
[Ding! System activated!]
[Ding! Offering a set of card packs based on host's current situation!]
In his unconscious state, Hou Muyun faintly heard a series of sounds in his mind. When he woke up, he found that his "mind" had acquired something new.
A rectangular interface-like object appeared, with a full-body image of Hou Muyun in the upper left corner and a package pattern in the upper right corner. In the middle was a roulette-like wheel divided into seven colored sections of varying sizes. In the bottom right corner of the wheel was a row of text that read "Points: 8543." At the bottom of the rectangle was a row of squares, with the first square lit up and the rest darkened with a "locked" symbol added.
"What on earth is this?"
Hou Muyun shook his head vigorously, thinking he was hallucinating, but he could still "see" the things in his mind after stopping. After repeating this several times, Hou Muyun sat up, feeling a bit dazed, then burst out with a glimmer of excitement.
"Could this be the legendary f*cking lottery system?"
As an online writer, how could Hou Muyun not be aware of system-based novels? And now, what appeared in his mind was undoubtedly a lottery system! He had encountered many things related to system-based novels and had even written one himself. His imagination was certainly quite vast, but even so, when this thing really appeared in his mind, Hou Muyun still felt overwhelmed for several hours.
"This might become a turning point in my destiny!"
Hou Muyun collected himself, focusing on "seeing" this interface. He needed to understand it as quickly as possible and start using it.
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