I'm the mayor of a simulated ghost city

Momo Weather Forecast——

June 2025, 6, Weather: Light rain/Thunderstorm in some areas, Tips for going out: Today is a bad day, please be careful when going out, do not open an umbrella in the porch, do not...

"Bang!" As soon as he walked under the eaves of the first floor of the community, Lu Yao reached out and pressed the umbrella buckle, opened the umbrella, and blocked the rain falling from the eaves.

She tightened her raincoat, took out her phone, and opened a message on Taobao about a product transaction: [At 20:00, arrive at No. 144, Tanhua Street, Heping Village, Wuxiang City. Hand over the money and receive the goods.]

After confirming the information again, Lu Yao stepped on the water stains on the ground and walked out of the door and got on the bus...

"Boom."

An hour later, lightning struck in the sky.

Lu Yao pushed open the door of No. 144, wearing a mask that covered most of her face, and walked to the store. She stretched out her black-gloved hand and lowered her voice: "I'm here, where's the goods?"

In front of the counter was a middle-aged man with an ordinary, even kind look. He looked at her and froze. “You…you are the [Programmer with Hair Loss]?”

"Yes, it's me. You are the [shameless pirate], right?" Lu Yao continued to maintain her low voice, which was a little hoarse.

As soon as he finished speaking, the middle-aged man took out a box from the cabinet, opened it, and it said: [Game - SimCity 10th Generation VR Trial Edition - Remastered Edition].

Then, the middle-aged man threw the box on the counter and looked at her sly behavior: "Are you sick? Buying a pirated game is like selling drugs!"

Another flash of lightning flashed by, and Lu Yao took off his mask.

The light illuminated her pretty face. On her fair face was a small mouth, clear brow bones, bright eyes, and a nose that was neither too high nor too low and the same width as her mouth.

Well, she is the legendary cherry mouth, pure and innocent.

Lu Yao pouted: "Aren't you the one who made it so secretive? I bought a pirated game online, but you insisted on asking me to do it offline!"

As he spoke, Lu Yao picked up the game disc in the box and looked at it carefully: "What era is this? Are you still using CDs to burn games? Can't you save them on a cloud disk?"

"Don't worry, I've already had ten accounts blocked, and I was fined." The middle-aged man waved his hand, took out another helmet from the cabinet behind him and handed it to Lu Yao, "Besides, the postage is so expensive now, pick it up in the same city."

Looking carefully at the helmet the middle-aged man handed to him, Lu Yao was still a little skeptical: "Boss, is your VR helmet reliable? I don't want to get a concussion after wearing it."

"Do you think this 50-yuan helmet has a motor that can vibrate? A vibrating massager costs 100 yuan."

"The price of that thing has risen to one hundred yuan?" Lu Yao was not shy at all and spoke directly in surprise.

The middle-aged man was even more surprised, and looked at the young girl in front of him, who was only less than 23 years old, with some embarrassment: "You...have you bought it before?"

"No, no, I have never bought anything like that." Lu Yao shook his hand sincerely and said, "I have sold it."

Awesome! You are awesome!

Then again, the middle-aged man reminded Lu Yao: "But this is second-hand, I can't guarantee its performance, anyway, you decide for yourself."

“As long as it can transmit the game screen to the live broadcast platform, it’s fine.” Lu Yao thought about it and decided that it would be better to spend 50 yuan to buy a VR game helmet than to spend several thousand to buy a new helmet.

"It can be transferred, of course!" the middle-aged man patted his chest and assured, throwing out a payment code.

After hearing the payment sound, the middle-aged man shook his head and sighed, "Nowadays, you young people like to do game live broadcasts and even put VR real people into the game and transmit them directly to the video. Is it because you haven't had enough excitement in the real world?"

"Indeed, the real world is not as exciting as the game."

Lu Yao nodded in agreement, took the game, opened his umbrella, and a bolt of lightning struck again, shining brightly on the game page box, distorting the words "SimCity"...

After returning to her one-bedroom home, Lu Yao quickly unpacked the SimCity she had purchased, connected an external disc port on her professional live broadcast desktop, and inserted the game disc into it.

Lu Yao did not turn on the live broadcast camera next to him, but prepared to debug it first. So he used his mobile phone to leave an announcement under a fan group of only 10,000 people.

[My dear friends, in response to your requests, the host has bought the most popular business VR experience game "SimCity". We will test it tonight and officially broadcast it tomorrow night. If you are bored tonight, you can watch the previous game recordings of Yuan Moumou. If you have watched the recordings, please don't look for the host to chat, I am busy! ]

As soon as the announcement was made, someone popped up in the fan group:

Shy but Straight Man: [! Ape-san still doesn't care about his fans as always. ]

I signed a promise with God, God gave me a big bag: [How else can I be a programmer? I have IQ but no EQ. 】

I am deaf and face blind, do I need it? [A newcomer’s question, the host’s name is “The U-turning Programmer”, right? ]

The programmer’s backup fan: [Want to know why the anchor became a programmer? Come to the next group and chat with me! ]

【...】

Seeing that the backup brother was blatantly trying to steal his girlfriend, Lu Yao privately chatted with someone: "Stop talking to me. Are you going to dig up all my old rotten things for me?"

"It's okay, it's okay. I've already thought about everything for today. I'll just say the funny things." The spare tire brother replied to a message in less than a second.

"When have you never said something funny?" Lu Yao was desperate. If this guy wasn't her childhood sweetheart, she would definitely treat him to a big meal. After thinking for a while, she was still worried and asked, "What do you want to say today?"

"Didn't you just meet a fortune teller on the day you applied for your college entrance exam? He told you that as long as you apply for the Computer Science Department, you'll be very successful. Hahahahahahaha..."

Seeing that the number of "hahaha" characters in the other party's message had reached the limit of the number of characters that WeChat could receive, Lu Yao's face turned black, and he typed word by word: "Do you believe that I will block you?"

Soon, the threatened backup hurriedly replied: "No, no, no, then I'll change it and say that after you graduated, you became a programmer and because you stayed up late, your hair fell out too much, so you bought fake hair growth liquid and your Mediterranean boss took it away, causing your boss to become bald and fired you, hahahahaha..."

After watching the other person finish his "ha", Lu Yao put the other person on the blacklist.

Well, calm down.

She has already resigned and is now a mature game anchor. Let's not talk about the past. She wants to play games well.

So, taking a deep breath, Lu Yao put on the helmet, and in an instant his senses entered a page with a prompt appearing on the page.

[Please select the land you want to build a city - Fangzhou, Hehui, Yiling, Wuxiang...]

"Huh? Why are there real modern city names?" When Lu Yao saw Wuxiang City, he was a little surprised, but he quickly skipped it and directly chose "Fangzhou City" which has water and mines.

However, when she clicked Fangzhou, the button of Fangzhou turned black, and the cold voice of the system came: [Sorry, the selection is invalid, please select again. ]

"Oh my god, no good place to choose? Must start in difficult mode?" Lu Yao was a little surprised, but as a programmer, the game can't be difficult! So, she pressed "He Hui Shi" again, and then He Hui also went black.

“???” Lu Yao continued to choose, “Yiling”, “Chengyang”, “Anxiao”, none of them could be pressed.

Finally, her finger fell on the selection page of "Wuxiang City".

"If this doesn't work anymore, I'll beat you up! Report piracy!"

However, just as her fingers fell, everything in front of her changed.

She came to a piece of wasteland. In front of her was a toll booth that looked like a memorial archway. It looked like the entrance to the underworld, with "Wuxiang City" written on it.

What the hell!

"Could this pirated game be made by some programmer from Wuxiang City? What happened to the one-to-one replica?!"

Just as she was thinking, the system's voice appeared in her ears again, like a god in the sky, but without the noble temperament of a god, more like a mechanical synthesis: [Congratulations to the player, you have entered the first step of the game. Please note that this game does not have a tutorial for beginners, everything depends on trial and error. When you have found the right way, I will give you appropriate hints. Have fun, goodbye! If you are unhappy, you can't do anything to me! ]

Hey! I have a bad temper!

After hearing the system's particularly annoying ending remarks, Lu Yao wanted to quit the game immediately for a moment and then smash the 50 yuan on his helmet.

However, after thinking about it, it would be better to just beat the game developer to death than to argue with the system.

Then...keep playing...

The lack of a tutorial for beginners is not a problem for her, a programmer who has played hundreds of games.

So, Lu Yao quickly found the construction page and clicked on a path to the door.

"If you want to get rich, you must first build roads. Mayor Lu will take you along the mountain road." A straight road was built, stretching for one kilometer.

Well, because the new city has no money, it can only be built here.

Then, Lu Yao walked into the main road and planned a residential area with several small commercial areas in the middle. Of course, at the beginning it was definitely just a small shop, and then a small industrial area was added. Only through production can one get rich.

After doing all this, a few moments later, several houses were rapidly built in the residential area in front of her eyes. They looked very similar to the houses on the edge of Wuxiang City.

At this time, the system appears again: [Congratulations, you have obtained the first batch of residents in the town. Taxes have increased slightly. Build civil facilities quickly! Please note that without civil facilities, your city satisfaction will decrease and residents will die.]

“The residents will die?”

How come this is not the right way to open it?

According to normal gameplay, a drop in satisfaction would at most cause them to move out of the city.

Isn’t it a bit too simple and crude to die immediately?

Lu Yao was stunned for a moment, but without further ado, he clicked on the construction page again and clicked on the water plant facilities. After all, only water and electricity can guarantee the normal life of residents.

However, the water plant facilities remained indifferent to her clicks and appeared as gray buildings.

Before Lu Yao could ask, the system proactively told him: [Player Lu Yao, please note that the water plant has not been unlocked. Please unlock it before building.]

"Unlock? How do I unlock it?"

The system did not answer Lu Yao, and continued: [Attention, the water plant needs to be unlocked. Without the water plant, your city satisfaction will decline, your residents will die, and you... will also die, really die! ]