Chapter 33
During the afternoon, Wen Lingwei and Chang Xiuya brought a few of their own friends to the store.
The store that was normally half-full was now quite lively. Some of them went to the computers while others sat on the massage chairs to play on their phone, but they all were playing Plants vs Zombies.
1Wen Lingwei and Chang Xiuya came to the front of the bar and asked, “I heard the game went online today. How did it go?”
Jia Peng said, “Too well. Just take a look; it reached the top of the new games leaderboards in the first leaderboards update, completely destroying the other games!”
Chang Xiuya said, “Wow! The manager’s so good!”
Wen Lingwei snapped coldly, “Stop talking, the manager was just adjusting the level.”
The audience looked closer. It appeared that Chen Mo had entered the two thousand and twelfth level in endless mode.
“What the? Two thousand and twelve? Are you crazy, manager? How difficult is that?”
“I was already struggling at eighty-something, and you’re gonna start from two thousand and twelve?”
“If you beat this level is the record going to be two thousand and twelve?”
“I think your ‘if’ is a bit hard to achieve!”
“Is this actually playable? Are you sure you didn’t make it too difficult?”
“Is the manager that guy? Sigh, it seems like he is that guy.”
The corner of Chen Mo’s mouth started twitching. After entering endless mode, he placed a bunch of plants using the game engine.
If it was a normal playthrough, this step would be done in the previous levels. However, Chen Mo didn’t have the time, so he did it using the game engine.
Chen Mo was on the pool level, placing four Cob Cannons in the pool, four Twin Sunflowers, and six Gloom Shrooms.
From left to right, the first row had Winter-melon, Gloom Shroom, two Winter-melons, Cob Cannon, Spikeweed. The second row had an Umbrella Lead, Gloom Shroom, Winter-melon, Umbrella leaf, Cob Cannon, Spikeweed.
The top and bottom lanes of the pool were reflected, and any plants that could fit a Pumpkin had one.
The others whispered amongst themselves.
“This strategy by the manager seems quite comprehensive. It feels like something is about to go down.”
“Indeed, the positioning of the Umbrella Leafs and Gloom Shroom seem quite intentional.”
“However, aren’t there too many Cob Cannons?” There’s one, two, three, four… eight of them!”
“It is quite a lot. I don’t think the Cob Cannon is that great. I think it’s too squishy, and you can’t put it in a Pumpkin; it’s gone after a few nibbles from the zombies.”
“But this layout that the manager has… there’s no way the zombies can get to it, right?”
“Shhh… Stop talking, let’s watch. It’s about to start!”
Chen Mo gave himself three thousand suns and started picking his plants.
Ice-shroom, Cherry Bomb, Mimic Cherry Bomb, Doom-shroom, Chilly Pepper, Squash, Pumpkin, Puff-shroom, Sun-shroom, and Coffee Bean.
The others were trying hard to memorize it, and a few of the girls even brought out their notebooks.
“I think I understand what the manager is trying to do. Start with plants that do higher damage and keep them into the later levels, only bringing one-time use explosive-type plants.
“That’s a plan alright.”
“But… this feels extremely risky!”
Moreover, why would you mimic the Cherry Bomb, but not the Ice-shroom or Doom-shroom? As one reduces speed and the other does huge damage, those two should make better choices?”
“Don’t know, let’s see how the manager plays this.”
Everyone in the store was holding their breath as they looked forward to seeing how Chen Mo would play it out.