In 2066, in the cyber era, the gap between rich and poor is enormous. Aida is an orphan born in a tiny apartment, with no job or possessions. Every day, she lies in her virtual pod, playing games and cursing greedy merchants.
One day, she opens a demo called Capitalist Simulator and suddenly can’t exit the game.
[You are a capitalist who runs a school]
Thankfully, she still has the System. Following the mission instructions should make the job easy, right?
But her good fortune doesn’t last. The entire school gets food poisoning, and its reputation drops by 1,000. A fire breaks out in the student dormitory, costing the school 30 million in compensation. Parent satisfaction drops by 1,000, and they refuse to pay tuition. A famous teacher threatens to quit unless he gets a raise, but she can’t even afford his current salary.
[Your school has gone bankrupt. You have personally declared bankruptcy as well.]
Starting over, she muddles through by following the principle, “If you add too much water, add flour; if you add too much flour, add water.”
Famous teachers? Forget it. Just hire people for 3,000 a month. The PE teacher can teach Chinese, and the music teacher can teach math.
The students get poor grades, and parent satisfaction falls. She poaches ten impoverished top students from public schools, stabilizes the number of students getting into prestigious schools, and boosts the school’s reputation by 1,000. If everyone else can’t learn, well, that’s an intelligence problem.
Running a cafeteria costs money and brings trouble, so she partners with a supplier of premade meals. The zombie meat has been frozen for three years, so surely it won’t have E. coli. Serve fried chicken and fries twice a week, and student satisfaction goes up by 1,000.
The school flourishes, and there’s more money than she can spend.
She discovers that people don’t actually hate greedy merchants. As long as you have money, learned scholars will make arguments in your defense, and you can even become wildly popular!
She decides to invest the money she can’t spend in an even more profitable industry and open an arms company.
The System: “Ummm, an arms business requires actual investment in quality materials.”
...Never mind.
Aida has now opened a film company, a game company, an advertising company, an internet company, a restaurant chain, a review platform... Her fortune has grown ten thousand times over, and she’s reached the pinnacle of life.
Count money while lying down: check
Loved by everyone: check
Richer than a nation: achievement unlocked
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Reader’s note:
1. This is a fictional story, using dramatized events to convey satire.
2. The words and choices of any character in this story do not represent the author’s views, nor do they indicate approval of any such behavior in real life.
3. Any resemblance to real-life greedy merchants is purely coincidental.
4. The author never eats Xbei, orders from PinX, or eats colorful mushrooms. This story is not a hallucination from the brink of death during finals week.
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Theme: You reap what you sow
