CHAPTER 34: THE GARDEN GATE
The coffee shop was neutral territory—a chain establishment in H City's business district, the kind of place where businessmen held meetings that weren't important enough for offices but too sensitive for phone calls.
Plantago Seed's player had chosen well.
I arrived fifteen minutes early and ordered a real coffee—not the instant packets Chen Guo stocked at the café, but properly brewed dark roast that cost more than my hourly wage. The December sunlight filtered through floor-to-ceiling windows, warming a corner booth that offered privacy without isolation.
This is the first time I've left Happy Café for something other than necessity since the transmigration.
Twenty-four days living in an internet café.
I'm starting to forget what normal life feels like.
The coffee was good. I drank it slowly, savoring the taste of something that wasn't instant, something that wasn't consumed between dungeon runs and guild analysis sessions. For a moment, I was just a person in a coffee shop, not a system operator or a transmigrator or a legend wearing someone else's face.
The moment didn't last.
A man in his mid-thirties entered the shop at exactly the scheduled time—2 PM, December 26th. He wore a business casual outfit that said "successful but not flashy," and his eyes scanned the room with the practiced efficiency of someone who spent his professional life reading people.
Plantago Seed.
Or whatever his real name is.
He looks exactly like what he is: a businessman who runs a major guild as a hobby and marketing vehicle.
He spotted me in the corner booth and approached with the confident stride of someone who was used to being in charge. Up close, I could see the stress lines around his eyes—the cost of managing a guild through three weeks of coalition warfare that burned resources faster than they could be replenished.
"Ye Qiu?" he asked.
I nodded. "Plantago Seed?"
"Wang Chen." He sat down across from me without waiting for an invitation. "Though I suppose you already knew that."
I didn't, actually.
The source material never gave his real name.
Another gap in the meta-knowledge.
"I knew you were pragmatic," I said. "The name I had to learn the old-fashioned way."
Wang Chen ordered a tea from the passing server—something herbal, healthy, the choice of someone who watched his stress levels. When the server left, he leaned back in his chair and studied me with the same analytical intensity I'd seen in his guild leadership.
"You're younger than I expected."
I'm wearing Ye Xiu's face.
He was in his early twenties when he retired.
By businessman standards, that's practically a child.
"Age is just a number in Glory."
"True. But it matters in business." Wang Chen's eyes narrowed. "And this is a business meeting, isn't it? Not a gaming session."
He's testing me.
Seeing if I understand the difference between in-game politics and real-world negotiation.
"It's both," I said. "The game is the business for people like us."
Wang Chen smiled—a thin expression that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Fair enough. Let's get to it, then. You asked me how much of Herb Garden's material reserves Chen Yehui has spent this month. The answer is approximately 180,000 yuan worth of crafting supplies."
I kept my expression neutral.
Su Mucheng's intelligence was accurate.
Wang Chen is confirming the number, which means he's already done the math and doesn't like the result.
"That's a lot of materials for a war that primarily benefits Excellent Dynasty."
"It's a lot of materials for a war that hasn't accomplished anything." Wang Chen's voice carried an edge of frustration. "Three weeks of coalition operations. Combined zone lockdowns. Shared intelligence protocols. A bounty that's now at 20,000 yuan. And Lord Grim is still running dungeons, still breaking records, still building whatever it is he's building."
He's right.
The coalition has cost resources without delivering results.
And Wang Chen is the one paying for someone else's vendetta.
"The coalition isn't working," I said. "But you already knew that when you signed the formal agreement."
"I signed because refusing would have made Herb Garden a target." Wang Chen's jaw tightened. "Chen Yehui made it clear that guilds who didn't join the coalition would be treated as... sympathetic to Lord Grim. The political pressure was significant."
Social coercion.
Join the alliance or become a pariah.
Classic coalition warfare—the threat of exclusion is often more powerful than the promise of inclusion.
"And now?"
"And now I'm looking for an exit that doesn't make Herb Garden look weak." Wang Chen met my eyes directly. "Which is why I'm here instead of in-game. Some negotiations shouldn't leave digital traces."
The negotiation lasted forty minutes.
Wang Chen laid out his position with the clarity of someone who'd spent years in corporate environments: Herb Garden needed to withdraw from the coalition without appearing to surrender. A withdrawal that looked like defeat would damage the guild's reputation and make them a target for future political pressure. But staying in the coalition was bleeding resources that Wang Chen couldn't justify to his members.
"What if Lord Grim gave Herb Garden a public win?" I asked.
Wang Chen's expression shifted. Interest, but cautious interest—the look of someone who'd heard too many deals that sounded good and turned out to be traps.
"What kind of win?"
"A PK victory. Staged, but convincing enough to pass scrutiny." I outlined the concept: Lord Grim "stumbles" into a Herb Garden patrol in a wild zone, puts up a credible fight, and goes down. Herb Garden claims the kill, posts it to the coalition chat as proof of their commitment, and then announces withdrawal.
"We've already proven our point," I suggested. "Something like that. You get the optics of a successful operation without continuing to burn resources on Chen Yehui's vendetta."
Wang Chen considered the proposal. I could see him running the calculations—reputation cost, resource savings, political implications. The businessman's mind at work, weighing variables I couldn't fully model.
"And what do you get out of this?"
The honest answer: the collapse of the coalition's resource pooling.
Without Herb Garden's materials, the alliance can't sustain itself.
Excellent Dynasty and Tyrannical Ambition will be isolated.
"I get one less guild hunting me," I said. "And you get to stop paying for someone else's war."
"Mutual interest." Wang Chen nodded slowly. "No written agreement. No digital records. Just two people who understand that cooperation serves both parties better than continued conflict."
"Exactly."
He extended his hand across the table.
I shook it.
Deal struck.
Without meta-knowledge. Without system assistance. Without any of the tools I've been relying on since Day 1.
Just Steven Grant reading a room and finding common ground with a businessman who wanted out.
We spent another ten minutes on logistics—timing, location, how to make the staged loss look convincing without being too obvious. Wang Chen was thorough, methodical, the kind of planner who left nothing to chance in his professional life and brought the same discipline to his gaming.
By the time we finished, the afternoon light had shifted. The coffee shop was filling with the after-work crowd, businesspeople stopping for drinks before heading home.
"One more thing," Wang Chen said as he stood to leave. "You're building a team. Everyone on the server knows it, even if you haven't announced it officially."
He's observant.
The defender rotation, the record parties, the coaching sessions—it's obvious to anyone paying attention.
"Yes."
"When Guild Happy formalizes, don't make enemies you don't need to make." Wang Chen's expression was serious. "The guild scene has long memories. The players who remember Chen Yehui's coalition will also remember who treated them fairly during the conflict."
Advice.
From a former adversary who's becoming something closer to an ally.
The source material never showed this side of Plantago Seed—the pragmatic businessman who understood that today's enemy might be tomorrow's partner.
"I'll keep that in mind."
Wang Chen nodded once and left the coffee shop.
I sat alone in the corner booth, finishing the last of my coffee, and let myself feel something I hadn't felt in weeks: satisfaction that didn't come from a system notification or a dungeon record.
I just negotiated a deal that will break the guild coalition.
Without Ye Xiu's reputation doing the heavy lifting.
Without meta-knowledge telling me what to say.
Just me, in a coffee shop, talking to another person.
Ye Xiu probably never would have done it this way.
He was brilliant at in-game politics, but face-to-face negotiation wasn't his style.
Maybe that's something Steven Grant can bring to this life that Ye Xiu couldn't.
I paid for my coffee and walked back to the café through H City's winter streets. The December air was cold but clean, the kind of weather that made you feel awake without being uncomfortable.
Chen Guo was waiting when I arrived.
She'd cleared out the café's storage room—the cramped space that had been filled with old equipment and spare chairs was now empty except for two new gaming stations, their screens glowing with the startup interface.
"For the team," she said, not specifying what team.
She knows.
She's been preparing while I was fighting the guild war.
Building the infrastructure for something that doesn't officially exist yet.
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet." She handed me a paper—the guild registration form, already filled out except for the signature line. "We have work to do."
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