Chapter 175 - 142: Let’s Take a Photo

Chapter 175: Chapter 142: Let’s Take a Photo

Rubbing her sore shoulders, Huai Yu wandered aimlessly through the trading market.

She didn’t actually have anything specific to buy, but since she was already here, it felt like a waste not to look around. She just hadn’t dared to head straight to Huaxia Gold. For some reason, even though she hadn’t explicitly promised to sell her cowpeas to Boss Tang, she still felt inexplicably guilty.

Now, walking down the street with an empty bamboo basket on her back and over a thousand new points in her smart bracelet, she couldn’t help but think, "If I keep earning like this, breaking the ten-thousand-point mark is just a matter of time!"

Suddenly, someone blocked her path.

The round, puffy face that looked like rising dough was full of grievance. His overwhelming resentment was practically palpable!

"Ah... Boss Tang," Huai Yu said. After a moment’s thought, she added, "How come you have free time to go shopping?"

Boss Tang’s voice was as light as the wind. "Yeah, why am I not in my shop playing video games? Why did I insist on coming out for a stroll?

"If I hadn’t gone for a walk, I wouldn’t have found out that I missed out on those cowpeas, would I?

"A high-quality batch with a Mutant Value of 9! I always thought I was your primary buyer, but I never expected this..." He clutched his chest in agony. "A price of eighteen points per catty doesn’t even match my wholesale rate!"

Huai Yu was speechless. She felt even more guilty now!

She could only hem and haw, "I really was planning to sell them to you. Look, I carried around a hundred catties all the way from the Rose Corridor. It was so exhausting..."

Huai Yu made her story sound incredibly pitiful yet inspiring.

A basket weighing around a hundred catties was indeed very heavy for her, but she had now learned to push her bicycle to the bus stop and hide it in the tall weeds. Honestly, it probably wouldn’t matter if she didn’t hide it. Aside from the occasional Defense Army patrols, there was never a soul in sight at that stop. The hardest part was lugging the heavy basket onto the bus, sitting down, hauling it back off, and walking from the trading market entrance all the way to Huaxia Gold.

However, she was no stranger to physical labor these days. While the weight was a struggle, she could manage to carry it for a short distance.

But after hearing her pitiful description and looking at her skinny frame and pale face, Boss Tang couldn’t bring himself to vent his frustration on her.

Huai Yu continued, "...Then I accidentally got stopped by the crowd. Everyone was so enthusiastic that I felt too embarrassed to sell at a high price..."

"Forget it!" Boss Tang was the first to soften. "It’s not easy for you to survive out there alone. It’s fine that you sold them. But next time, you have to sell them for a higher price! At least twenty points, right? If it goes below twenty, it ruins the market for everyone else."

"Okay!" Huai Yu agreed immediately. She even naturally painted a rosy picture for him. "I still have plenty of vegetables. Cowpeas are the most abundant right now, but I’ll have leafy greens by the end of the month, and cucumbers, eggplants, and tomatoes by next month..."

She looked at Boss Tang with unwavering determination. "When the time comes, I’ll sell them all to you!"

Boss Tang’s face instantly lit up with a beaming smile.

"It’s a deal! You promised to sell them all to me! Once your harvest stabilizes, I’ll go pick you up at the station!" After a moment, another thought struck him. "Or... how about I go collect the vegetables near your place?"

He suddenly became eager. "Actually, I’ll bring you a camera then. Little Yu, could you take a close-up picture of the Rose Corridor for us?"

Huai Yu was a bit curious. "How close?"

Boss Tang thought about it. "At least... at least from about twenty meters away! You mentioned last time that your affinity is pretty good. Can you take a picture from that distance?"

"Yes," Huai Yu replied.

Her response sounded a bit forced, so Boss Tang looked at her with suspicion. "Can you really? Don’t spout nonsense if you can’t, it’s easy to get killed out there."

"When you get there, you can measure the distance with a ruler yourself," Huai Yu said flatly.

Boss Tang was speechless. He decisively changed the subject. "So, are you selling vegetables tomorrow? Like the cowpeas."

Huai Yu thought for a moment. "Do you buy dried cowpeas here?"

"Two hundred points a catty."

Fresh cowpeas were heavy, so a single catty didn’t amount to much—just enough for a small taste. Dried ones yielded even less; it took eight catties of fresh cowpeas to produce just one catty of dried ones. However, summer was approaching, so sun-drying them would require almost zero effort. A basket of dried vegetables also wouldn’t be nearly as heavy to carry, so she wanted to ask in advance.

Boss Tang, however, looked hesitant. "Dried goods aren’t as popular as fresh vegetables..."

After all, in the years since the catastrophe, the opportunity to eat fresh vegetables was extremely rare. When forced to choose between perfect fresh cowpeas and dried ones, everyone obviously knew which to pick.

"They might sell better if you pickle them into sour cowpeas, but fresh ones are definitely still the most popular."

Huai Yu understood. It was a good thing she had asked beforehand; otherwise, she wouldn’t have even considered that factor. She decided she would stick to selling fresh ones.

But she could still store plenty of sour cowpeas and dried cowpeas for herself. Among the piles of junk Chen Xing had collected, there were actually quite a few resin and synthetic plastic pickling vats, fermentation barrels, and storage buckets.

The next challenge was getting a refrigerator. Only now did Huai Yu truly feel the inconvenience of living in such a remote area. For instance, if she wanted to buy a piece of meat during the summer, she would probably have to eat it the exact same day she bought it. The sweltering heat was terrible for food preservation.

The two chatted as they walked toward his shop. At that moment, Huai Yu suddenly remembered her earlier question.

"Boss Tang, do you know why Uncle Zaozi is exempted from mandatory labor?"

Boss Tang paused, taken aback. "You don’t know?"

Huai Yu shook her head. "We haven’t talked about it."

Hesitating for a moment, Boss Tang finally said, "They had two children. Both of them had Superpowers, and both of them joined the Guard Army."

Huai Yu’s heart skipped a beat as a sudden wave of dread washed over her. She quickly shook her head. "Never mind, I don’t want to hear it. I’m not that curious anymore."

Now it was Boss Tang’s turn to be exasperated. "You already asked! I only went out of my way to ask around because I saw how close you were with them. Just listen, Little Yu. You can’t just bury your head in the sand. Besides, you’re quite capable yourself. Who knows? Maybe knowing more will allow you to help them in the future."

Huai Yu swallowed her words of refusal. "Alright then," she said, looking at Boss Tang. "What happened next?"

"Then... two years ago, they both died in the line of duty."

Even though she had already suspected as much, Huai Yu’s chest still felt tight.

"A lot of people sacrificed their lives during that incident. The bodies of their two children were left behind in the Wilderness.

"You haven’t noticed the female boss of the home furnishings store, have you? She’s actually gone mad. She looks normal, but she goes around every few days bragging about her kids because deep down, she can’t accept reality.

"After that... their family started trying to earn as many points as possible. They’re hoping that if they accumulate enough, they can build the connections to hire a top-tier exploration team to bring their children back.

"But as you know, in the Wilderness, retrieving even a tiny memento is incredibly difficult, let alone bringing back a body. After all, any place where the Guard Army suffered such heavy casualties is either close to the core zone or teeming with terrifyingly mutated plants and animals.

"Exploration teams are out there to earn points, not to throw their lives away. If they can’t even get close to the area, how are they supposed to bring them back?"