Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 115: Money-wasting Trinket! (Three updates of 8000 words asking for monthly votes!)

Chapter 115: Chapter 115: Money-wasting Trinket! (Three updates of 8000 words asking for monthly votes!)

"Okay, let’s see how she resolves these incidents.

"If I really can train this adopted daughter to be my right-hand woman, doesn’t that mean I’ll only need to handle the combat in the future, and I can leave all the domestic affairs to her?

"That’s pretty good, brothers, I love to tell the truth."

Little Girl Xia Mi began to walk around the town, and whenever she arrived at a building, she would enter and start dealing with the affairs there.

Then a progress bar would appear above the building, and once the progress bar was completed, the incident was smoothly resolved.

Afterward, Xia Mi started to hasten to the next location without a break.

"Ah? That’s it, it’s resolved?"

Instructor Ding scratched his head, a bit unclear about the situation.

Because when Xia Mi solved these issues, there were no on-screen prompts, nor did it show her specific solutions.

If you don’t pay attention to the UI values on the screen, you wouldn’t even know that an affair had been resolved.

"Does it mean she handled this on her own and didn’t report to me, and that’s why I don’t know about it?

"Oh, that’s still pretty reasonable."

Instructor Ding carefully watched the changes in the UI information on the screen, and the first notable change that caught his eye was a very significant increase in public satisfaction!

"Eh? She did a good job with this, increased the satisfaction much more than I did before!

"Why?

"Because I’m a rough and fearsome City Lord, and she’s a kind little girl, so she earned more points with feelings?

"Or is it some special mechanism of the game? Is this little girl designed to help players handle domestic matters, with a special bonus for handling internal affairs?"

Instructor Ding came up with several guesses in a row.

No choice, the game Nitiandang often doesn’t display all the information to players explicitly and loves to use a fake-AI model that even designers can’t always predict behaviors, so players often play in a fog.

One has to grope around with the game mechanics for a while before completely understanding them.

Instructor Ding then opened Xia Mi’s panel again to take a look.

Although he still couldn’t see Xia Mi’s specific attributes and values, this panel recorded the changes in Xia Mi’s affection towards the City Lord.

Every time she handled an affair, Xia Mi’s affection increased.

This means that if Xia Mi handles affairs for a while longer, their father-daughter relationship might even be repaired.

"That’s really doable, I would’ve had her deal with these things sooner if I knew!"

Anyway, Xia Mi seemed quite reliable, and with too many affairs in the town for Instructor Ding to handle alone, even if Xia Mi took over a part of them, he still had a lot to do, so he didn’t worry too much and just continued to advance the game as usual.

But as the game went on, Instructor Ding noticed something was amiss.

"Hey? What’s this, seems like the food in my warehouse has lessened, hasn’t it?

"Brothers, have you noticed, has it decreased?

"I know there’s daily food consumption, but it shouldn’t be used up this fast, right?

"And wasn’t there a bunch of church staff locked up in my dungeon who stirred up the public? When did they disappear?

"Died in the dungeon? That shouldn’t have happened; I didn’t starve the prisoners, and each of them had a strong will to live—they can’t just die so simply, can they?

"And wait, why are there several more shelters on this empty lot? Didn’t I only build two?

"I’m not losing my memory, am I? I indeed built just two, didn’t I?

"At this rate, the food in my town will run out soon!"

As he continued playing, Instructor Ding suddenly realized the data was off, much of it not matching what he remembered!

If these were his mistakes, then what was going on with the mysterious disappearance of the prisoners from the prison and the shelters that appeared out of nowhere on the open ground?

Instructor Ding’s eyebrows were locked tight; he put down his current work for a moment and stared intently at the changes on the screen.

Finally, he found the cause.

Clearly, it was all Xia Mi’s doing!

Periodically, some new starving people would appear outside the city, and Instructor Ding’s previous approach had been to only select a portion of the physically healthy ones to enter the city and then give them a limited supply of expired food.

He thought this was the best solution, as it could increase the town’s population without costing too much.

As for the old, weak, sick, and disabled, it didn’t matter if they died outside—after all, what does the death of a few people matter in the worldview of this game?

He wasn’t a god and couldn’t save everyone.

Moreover, this action wouldn’t reduce satisfaction too much, because satisfaction was about how satisfied the citizens inside the town were with him, and the opinions of the starving people outside didn’t matter.

However, this time he didn’t personally handle this event, as there were more important matters waiting for his attention, and this could be postponed.

Unexpectedly, Xia Mi dealt with it!

Instructor Ding watched in disbelief as she let all the starving people in, sent the sick to get treated, and sent those who weren’t ill to the shelters.

The current shelters were obviously not enough, so she allocated town resources to build several new ones.

And for the relief food... of course, new food from the warehouse was used.

Instructor Ding watched, dumbfounded.

"This is so messed up!!

"You’re a waste of space, did I ever tell you to handle things this way for me?"

"Throwing gleaming silver to the poor like it’s nothing, what a sin!"

"No wonder the satisfaction rate has been climbing so fast!"

Considering Xia Mi was the adopted daughter of the City Lord, this truly was a case of "genuine trouble-making."

Instructor Ding hurried to limit the damage. He tapped Xia Mi’s head and then demanded that she stop all her activities.

However, what he didn’t expect was that Xia Mi actually disagreed!

[Father, I believe there’s nothing wrong with the way I handled things. Why won’t you allow me to help you manage city matters and relieve your troubles?]

[I want to continue contributing to this city!]

After closing the dialogue box, Instructor Ding found out that Xia Mi had no intention of stopping at all. She was still bustling through the city, dealing with various matters.

Instructor Ding was dumbfounded, "What’s the meaning of this? Does this NPC have its own will? It doesn’t listen to me!"

"You helping me relieve troubles? Your very existence is my biggest problem!"

Instructor Ding clicked several times, but it was useless. After dealing with some affairs, Xia Mi seemed to have developed a taste for it and simply refused to heed any discouragement.

What’s more outrageous was that every time Instructor Ding clicked, not only did she not listen, but her favorability also dropped!

"I’m giving you face here!"

Instructor Ding was going a bit crazy. That cute face of Xia Mi’s wasn’t looking so adorable anymore; it was downright infuriating.

In the end, Instructor Ding had no choice but to directly open the "Special Category" menu.

The first option there was "Indifference."

Originally, Instructor Ding thought this option was simply about ignoring Xia Mi. But after reading the description carefully, it turns out this option allowed the City Lord to command all who had direct orders to stop following the little girl’s commands.

Initially, Instructor Ding was somewhat hesitant. Was it really necessary to place Xia Mi under house arrest over such a trifle?

Now there was no need for hesitation. Compared to the somewhat extreme option of "Imprisonment," "Indifference" clearly seemed a more reasonable choice.

Without any hesitation, Instructor Ding clicked on it.

The effect was immediate, of course.

Xia Mi continued to run between buildings, attempting to deal with those affairs, but it was clear that her permissions had been revoked, and the NPCs within the buildings no longer carried out her orders.

Xia Mi still ran around the city, but no changes occurred in the city’s affairs anymore.

Instructor Ding breathed a sigh of relief, "That’s more like it!"

This little interlude had severely affected the development progress he had planned, and having lost a "good helper," he now had to personally deal with those trivial matters again.

No sooner had he clicked the mouse a couple of times than pop-up messages began to appear.

[Father, why won’t you let me handle these affairs? Why have you even ordered the city guards to stop obeying my commands?]

[There’s another group of refugees outside the city, and I must go to aid them immediately!]

[Father, please answer me!]

[Father, I need to enter the storeroom to get food right now. Please give me the key to the granary door!]

Every time, Instructor Ding unhesitatingly closed the dialogue by clicking the x, but not long after, a new dialogue box would appear.

"Darn it, are you out of your mind?"

Instructor Ding was at a loss for words. The incessant dialogue boxes nearly broke the fourth wall. He could even imagine the little girl harassing the City Lord incessantly.

Instructor Ding didn’t want to stoop to Xia Mi’s level, but the situation was seriously affecting his gameplay experience.

It was like those annoying pop-up ads from various bloatware programs that continuously appear in every corner of a computer screen.

And to make matters worse, even though Instructor Ding had chosen "Indifference," which made the city guards stop following Xia Mi’s orders, Xia Mi was still able to wreak havoc!

Especially when Instructor Ding wasn’t paying attention, a "Grain Theft Incident" occurred.

The one attempting to steal from the granary was caught by the guards immediately. It turned out to be Xia Mi’s doing!

If Instructor Ding hadn’t revoked Xia Mi’s privileges, she would have quietly taken the food and distributed it to the starving; but now that her privileges were revoked, her attempt to forcibly steal the food triggered the incident.

Instructor Ding was so angry, he was nearly smoking.

"Don’t push me! Even if you are my daughter, my patience with you has its limits!

"Don’t test my bottom line!"

Once again, Instructor Ding opened the special operations tab, then selected "Imprisonment."

Lock her up!

The guards took Xia Mi away and locked her in the dungeon.

The world was quiet at last.

"Heh, turns out women just affect the rate at which I make money! I feel like this Xia Mi was an annoying feature the developers snuck in.

"I should’ve just ignored her from the beginning, then I wouldn’t be in such a passive situation now.

"So much food wasted, I hope I can still hold up in the next big battle..."

Having eliminated the hidden danger, Instructor Ding was once again ready to roll up his sleeves and make a big splash.

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.