Chapter 184 - 151: Half a Jar of Rock Sugar

Chapter 184: Chapter 151: Half a Jar of Rock Sugar

There was a vast amount of preliminary preparation required for installing a biomaterial prosthetic, a fact of which Huai Yu remained completely oblivious.

At this moment, she carefully stepped off the bus, taking it one step at a time with the woven basket on her back. Its immense weight almost tipped her backward.

Fortunately, she had taken the precaution to disguise it a bit this time. The basket was tightly covered, and since her timing was different from her last trip, she avoided being intercepted halfway.

When she arrived at the testing station, the four familiar staff members’ eyes instantly lit up. Calling out, "Kiddo!" they hurriedly ushered her into the adjacent VIP room.

Familiarity aside, the testing procedures could not be skipped.

As the basket was slowly fed into the machine via the conveyor belt, Huai Yu looked at the increasingly enthusiastic staff and asked curiously, "Were yesterday’s cowpeas good?"

Their eyes sparkled—they had been waiting for her to ask exactly that! One of them immediately gave a thumbs-up, taking a long moment before finally blurting out, "Worth it! Totally worth it!"

Huai Yu beamed, but then furrowed her brows in a troubled manner. "But I can’t sell them for fifteen points today. They’re twenty points a pound now... Do you still want them?"

Twenty points a pound was truly not cheap. Frankly, they only earned a little over a hundred points a month. Spending a sixth of their salary just for a taste of something fresh was far too extravagant.

But the staff member still nodded. "We’ll take them!"

Even if they didn’t eat the cowpeas themselves, reselling them would yield a hefty profit! That was the lucrative perk of their job.

However, seeing how oblivious Huai Yu seemed, he felt a twinge of guilt.

After some thought, while the machine sluggishly spat out the testing card, he stepped out to murmur with the other three.

He returned shortly after, grabbed a large handful of sunflower seeds, and stuffed them straight into Huai Yu’s pockets without another word.

"Don’t refuse! It’s nothing special anyway. These sunflower seeds have a Mutant Value of 21. Someone tossed them out at the market because they didn’t want them. We thought they looked quite plump and felt it’d be a waste to throw them away, so we kept them..."

It was a pity. With a Mutant Value of 21, none of them dared to crack one open for a taste. Since the little girl was so tactful, they decided to just give them to her.

Huai Yu blinked. Thinking of the food for the soul lying by her bed—the book titled "Towards the Sun"—she immediately flashed a bright smile.

"Okay! Thank you!" She then obediently raised her wrist, waiting for the transaction to complete.

Leaving the testing station, Huai Yu opened her pocket to look at the hefty, brimming handful of sunflower seeds. She couldn’t help but give it a gentle pat before heading to Huaxia Gold, her heart brimming with anticipation.

Boss Tang still sported his usual lazy posture. But upon seeing Huai Yu appear, his round, chubby frame smoothly squeezed out from behind the counter, a massive smile plastered across his face.

"Got cowpeas?"

"Mhm." Huai Yu nodded. She slowly squatted down a little and placed the woven basket onto the nearby guest table.

Only then did she relieve her shoulders. She stretched her stiff body, wincing and grimacing in discomfort.

Boss Tang chuckled. "Good, good, good! I told you you were capable, girl. Look at you, bringing in so much all at once. You must be tired, huh?"

He hurriedly brought a stool over for her. Along the way, he carefully pinched a yellowish, semi-transparent, irregularly shaped crystal and offered it to her.

"Here! This is some rock sugar I just acquired. It’s from before the cataclysm!"

This was genuinely good stuff!

Huai Yu reached out to take it and popped it into her mouth without a second thought. She was instantly conquered by its cool, sweet taste.

Sitting on the high stool, she swung her legs, her face overflowing with joy. "It’s so sweet!"

"Right?" Boss Tang beamed with pride. "That’s just how good I am! A few years ago, this was considered a strategic supply. It’s only this year that the restrictions have slowly loosened. I just happen to have the right connections, and I pay generously in points. So, naturally, they were willing to sell it to me!"

He gleefully took out the rock sugar to show Huai Yu. "There isn’t much, though. It’s just two jars of yellow rock sugar that someone probably scavenged from an old kitchen... I haven’t even had the heart to sell it yet."

With that, he looked at Huai Yu again. "If you want it, I can bear the pain and sell you half a jar."

"How much for half a jar?" Huai Yu asked curiously.

Since this rock sugar had been kept completely sealed and unpolluted during the cataclysm, it tasted like a rare delicacy.

Boss Tang’s expression shifted several times before he finally gave a pained number. "Five hundred."

Huai Yu was speechless. She knew it would be expensive, but she didn’t expect it to be this expensive!

She looked at the numbers on her wristband with heartache. She wasn’t far from the ten-thousand milestone. "Forget it," she gritted her teeth and refused. "Let’s just look at the cowpeas for now."

"Here’s the testing card. The Mutant Value is still 9."

She figured it would stabilize at this value from now on.

And after picking two whole baskets over two consecutive days, there were still quite a few left on the vine that were gradually aging!

However, Huai Yu wasn’t anxious in the slightest. Mature cowpea seeds were much tastier than the pods themselves, and they could still be sold for money anyway.

Boss Tang was just as straightforward. "I told you I’m a generous guy! I won’t shortchange you on points! How much did you sell them for yesterday? Eighteen points? I’m different. I’ll take them all for twenty points a pound!"

His words were resounding and forceful, yet in the very next instant, his tone softened significantly. "So, Little Yu, next time you have good stuff, please don’t just set up a random stall at the market. Come to me—I can buy it all!

"If there’s ever something I truly can’t afford, don’t worry, I’ll definitely find another buyer for you!

"If you have a lot of items, I can even come and pick you up!"

Huai Yu had actually already explained to him that she didn’t like selling things piecemeal either. After all, the hassle of maintaining order and dealing with the chaos last time had delayed her for ages.

But at this moment, she merely nodded solemnly and promised once more, "Mhm, I’ll keep that in mind."

This time, it was a solid eighty pounds of cowpeas. After the 1,600 points were transferred to her account, Huai Yu looked at her total of 10,490 Contribution Points, then glanced at the jar of rock sugar sitting nearby. She instantly fell into deep agony.

Meanwhile, Boss Tang was busy typing out messages to his major clients. He turned his head, noting how the little girl’s eyes were practically glued to the sugar jar, and let out a sigh.

"Alright, alright. How many points can you spare? I’ll sell some of it to you.

"Five hundred points is truly my rock-bottom price for you. If anyone else tried to buy this, they couldn’t get it for less than seven or eight hundred."

Having interacted with him for some time, Huai Yu knew what kind of person Boss Tang was. Conflicted, she raised her wrist. "I’ll buy four hundred and ninety points’ worth."

Boss Tang was speechless.

"You kid!"

He thought Huai Yu was doing it on purpose. Grabbing a scale, he carefully weighed the entire jar of rock sugar. After agonizing over it for a long while, he picked a single piece out of one pile and tossed it back.

"Here, four hundred and ninety points’ worth."

Looking at the scale again, the two halves of the jar weighed 1,350 grams and 1,344 grams, respectively.

Huai Yu was instantly satisfied!

Watching Boss Tang carefully wrap the rock sugar in paper before handing it over, she felt that today’s harvest was incredibly fulfilling.

Moreover, she checked the time and realized that since she started waking up early, she had so much more time on her hands!

In just one morning, she had visited Zhou Qian’s new place, prepared breakfast, and picked an abundance of cowpeas. Now, having come from the hospital and sold all the crops, it was only a little past twelve!

After some thought, she decided to make another trip to the hospital.