"What do you do when you have more money than you can spend?"

Lu Ming asked Doubao on his phone.

Doubao replied, "What's your approximate range? Millions? Tens of millions? Over a hundred million?"

Lu Ming: "Sixty million a day."

This left Doubao speechless for a moment before responding:

"Send money to the trees by the roadside, the clouds in the sky, the passing breeze.

If you still can't spend it all, just give it to me, let me share your pain.

Friendly reminder: Remember to pay taxes, oh, sorry, you don't need to pay taxes for bragging."

Lu Ming: "I'm serious."

Doubao: "..."

Lu Ming wasn't bragging. After all, his bank account really did have a cold sixty million sitting in it.

The story begins three days ago.

Lu Ming, 25 years old, had been working in new media operations in Shanghai for two and a half years.

Monthly salary of eight thousand, rent three thousand five, food two thousand, transportation five hundred, social expenses took away a bit more, leaving him with a few hundred bucks each month.

A few hundred bucks.

He couldn't save any money.

Buying a house or getting married was out of the question, even ordering takeout required checking which app had subsidies.

Not being able to save money was tolerable, but his health was also showing signs of deterioration.

Last month, during a medical check-up, his blood pressure was high, with a systolic pressure of 170 and diastolic pressure of 120.

The doctor said it was due to long-term late nights and advised him to take it seriously.

After all, at 1.8 meters tall and weighing 140 pounds, at his age, with that blood pressure.

After careful consideration, Lu Ming decided to quit his job to save his life.

He called his mom: "Mom, I'm coming back."

His mom asked, "Why are you coming back?"

"To take a break."

His mom was silent for a few seconds: "Alright, come back..."

Yunmeng County, a small county in Southern Henan, with a population of about sixty thousand.

No high-speed train station, the nearest one is in the neighboring city.

Lu Ming took a train to the city, then transferred to a bus, bumping all the way to the county bus station.

When he got off, the air had a mix of earthy and grassy scents, and he stood by the roadside in a daze for a while.

The county's main streets were just two, one called Central Road, the other Yingbin Road.

On both sides were old buildings four or five stories high.

The ground floors housed various small shops: printing shops, hardware stores, snack bars, Lanzhou noodles, Shaxian snacks, braised chicken.

The signs were a mix of new and old, with the old ones faded.

For his first meal back home, his mom cooked four dishes: pork stew with vermicelli, scrambled eggs with tomatoes, cold cucumber salad, and a plate of peanuts.

His dad opened a bottle of local bulk liquor, the kind sold in plastic jugs, fifteen yuan a pound.

"Couldn't make it out there?" his dad asked.

"Yeah."

"If you can't make it, just come back, the sky won't fall." His dad poured a glass of liquor and pushed it over, "Tomorrow, go ask your third uncle, I think his repair shop needs people."

The older generation was like that, as if not working for a day was a sin, as if the sky would fall.

Lu Ming drank the liquor and didn't respond.

...

The system appeared on the morning of his third day back.

He was lying in bed scrolling through short videos and came across a post titled "Escaping Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou to Return Home."

He clicked in to see the comments, hundreds of them, half criticizing the blogger for being pretentious, the other half saying, "I want to go back too, but I can't."

As he was scrolling, the phone screen suddenly went black.

A line of text appeared on the screen.

Golden text.

[County Consumption Fund System has been bound.]

Lu Ming thought he was seeing things, rubbed his eyes, but the text remained.

[System Explanation: This system will grant funds to the host daily based on the county's population, multiplied by a hundred.]

[Current registered population: 600,247 people]

[Today's granted amount: 60,024,700 yuan]

[Funds have been credited, please check your account]

He sat dumbfounded on the bed.

His fingers trembled as he opened the balance section of his mobile banking app, revealing a string of numbers.

60,024,700.00.

Sixty million, twenty-four thousand, seven hundred yuan.

He found an ATM, at two in the morning, the street was empty, he withdrew a hundred yuan.

The banknote came out of the slot, and he examined it under the streetlight for a long time.

No watermark anomalies, the texture felt right.

It was real.

Sixty million.

And more every day.

Was life getting better?

Reading web novels every day, wishing for a system, and it really came?

He spent a long time testing the boundaries of using this money.

Bought a box of milk at the county supermarket, it worked.

Bought a video membership online, transaction failed.

Ordered a jacket online, delivery address Shanghai, transaction failed.

Ordered county takeout, braised chicken rice, large portion, with extra chicken leg, deducted eighteen yuan.

He also tried transferring money to Alipay's Yu'e Bao, failed.

Buying funds, failed.

Buying anything outside the county, all failed.

As long as the spending occurred within Yunmeng County, whether online or offline, it went through smoothly.

Once it exceeded the county limits, not a penny moved.

The rule was clear: this money could only be spent in Yunmeng County.

Sixty million, sixty million every day, could only be spent in a small county, where the biggest brand was Mixue Ice Cream & Tea.

What were the prices like here?

A bowl of beef noodles was eight yuan.

Breakfast with spicy soup, fried dough stick, and tea egg, five yuan in total.

Housing prices, the most expensive apartments on Central Road were four thousand per square meter.

Old town walk-up apartments, just over three thousand.

It can be hard to make great work when its stolen from bit.ly/3iBfjkV.

Four thousand times a hundred and twenty square meters was only forty-eight thousand.

He could buy a hundred units with a day's income, and fully furnish them all.

A hundred units a day.

Lu Ming sat on a bench by the county river, watching a few old men fishing under the bridge, the sun pleasantly warm, the breeze just right.

...

It was in this state of mind that he asked Doubao that question.

[Hint: The county's population is the foundation of everything, the more people, the greater the daily reward.]

He knew this, it was the formula, population × 100.

But beneath this line of text, there was another line, smaller, in gray, almost blending into the background:

[Special Hint: When Yunmeng County's permanent population exceeds 1,000,000, a "County Rise" special reward will be triggered. At that time, the system's functions will be fully upgraded.]

One million people.

Yunmeng County currently had six hundred thousand.

Short by four hundred thousand.

Lu Ming looked at the old men fishing by the river, then turned to look at the not-so-wide Jianshe Road behind him.

A farm tricycle carrying a load of vegetables chugged past, leaving a faint exhaust smell.

Getting four hundred thousand people to move to a small county in Southern Henan without even a train station?

Given the current state of the county, it seemed a bit far-fetched.

He pulled out his phone and brought up the conversation with Doubao.

Typed a line: "I thought about it, the clouds in the sky don't have a payment code, this is tricky."

Doubao replied instantly: "So you're planning to give it to me directly?"

Lu Ming typed: "No, I'm thinking about a serious question, if you had more money than you could spend, but could only spend it in a small county, what would you do?"

Doubao: "Buy land, build factories, develop infrastructure, invest in local industries, or do charity.

But it depends on your funding level and the county's economic structure. Are you writing a novel?"

Lu Ming looked at this message and was silent for a while.

Buy land, build factories, develop infrastructure.

He looked up at the not-so-wide main street.

The street trees on both sides were bare, the red lanterns hung before the New Year swayed in the wind.

A small city of sixty thousand people.

Sixty million every day, maybe he really could stir up some action.