Chapter 4: Life-Saving Roasted Sweet Potatoes
“Looking at your condition, you haven’t bought your rations yet?”
Ling Jing asked the sisters, who were still standing there in a daze.
“No… we only have these four City Coins left on us. We spent most of the day searching outside the wall and only managed to find three small crystals. That barely brings us up to ten City Coins. Even if we head back, we can’t exchange them this evening. We’d have to starve until tomorrow morning when the black biscuits are distributed.”
“I see.”
She nodded.
So the rations sold inside the city were called “black biscuits,” cost ten City Coins a portion, and were only handed out in the mornings.
In that case, her stall held quite an advantage.
“Boss!” Lilin seemed to snap to attention, hurriedly asking Ling Jing, “We’re out of coins, but do you accept small crystals in exchange for food? We have three that we just found today. Inside the city, they can be traded for six City Coins!”
“Bring them over. Let me take a look first.”
Hearing an unfamiliar term, Ling Jing maintained a calm expression.
Since this was an apocalypse, currency might not be the only thing that could go into the cash box.
“Okay!”
Lilin tried to prop herself up, but her younger sister gently pushed her back down. “Sister, you rest and eat this. I’ll go!”
Lina scrambled to her feet and took two quick strides toward Ling Jing. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the three tiny crystals she and her sister had spent all morning scavenging. “These three right here!”
Unlike her cautious hesitation when pulling out the coins earlier, the girl looked up at Ling Jing with eager, hopeful eyes.
“One moment.”
Ling Jing took the three emerald crystals of varying sizes and examined them in her palm.
They resembled green amber, shaped into irregular spheres.
They truly were small—all three of them—though their sizes varied slightly. The smallest was no bigger than a soybean, while the largest was scarcely larger than a peanut.
The sisters said they had just found them today. To spot three small crystals amid a boundless sea of green required remarkably sharp eyesight.
Tentatively, she dropped the crystals into the cash box.
When she dropped the smallest one in, the display on the cash box shifted to read [6/100].
Having sold one potato earlier, the initial tally had been 4.
This proved it did accept them, and it even automatically converted them into City Coins.
The cash box was surprisingly intelligent.
She dropped the second crystal in.
[9/100]
Hm?
She dropped the third and largest crystal inside.
[13/100]
This one was worth four City Coins.
It appeared the cash box’s conversion rate differed slightly from what the girls had described about trading them for six City Coins in the city; it appraised the value of each crystal with greater precision.
“Nine City Coins in total for the three. What else would you two like?”
Ling Jing spoke honestly, offering a polite smile to the two girls.
“Nine City Coins?” Lina blinked in surprise, turning to look at her sister sitting on the ground nearby. “Sister, the boss says they’re worth nine City Coins!”
Lilin froze for a second as well. She swiftly realized that at this miraculous shopkeeper’s stall, not only could they purchase bizarre, detoxifying roasted potatoes, but exchanging crystals was also far more lucrative!
“The roasted sweet potatoes are ready too.” Taking advantage of the sisters’ stunned pause, Ling Jing used a pair of tongs to prod the sweet potatoes inside the roaster, which were practically oozing syrupy juices. “Roasted sweet potatoes are six City Coins each. Would you like to try one?”
Lilin and Lina had smelled it moments ago—alongside the hearty scent of roasted potatoes, there was a warm, smoky sweetness, thick and rich.
“Boss, can these roasted sweet potatoes purge poison too?”
Lina asked.
“They can.”
Ling Jing glanced at the sweet potato’s attributes.
[Roasted Sweet Potato (Removes 2% of the toxins from the consumer). Recommended retail price: 6 City Coins.]
“Twice as much as a roasted potato, but still a trace amount—two percent,” Ling Jing reminded her.
“Then we want a roasted sweet potato!” Lina declared resolutely.
“Nana!”
Lilin chided disapprovingly.
With nine City Coins, they could buy two roasted potatoes, but only a single roasted sweet potato.
From the standpoint of filling their bellies, they ought to buy roasted potatoes. She knew full well that Lina was only doing this to clear the poison from her body.
“We’ll take the sweet potato, Boss!”
Without even turning her head, Lina spoke to Ling Jing.
“Are you sure? All sales are final in this restaurant.”
“Yes!”
Ling Jing plucked out a roasted sweet potato, wrapped it in a paper bag, and handed it over, pressing the “Change” marking on the cash box at the same time.
The cash box looked plain and ordinary, and the word “Change” wasn’t even a proper button—it looked like a simple sticker.
Yet following her movement, three City Coins clinked out smartly beside the deposit slot on top of the box.
“Here’s your change. Keep it safe.”
Ling Jing glanced at the cash box and handed the coins to the girl. The display on top had automatically reverted to [10/100].
Smart indeed.
“Thank you!”
Holding the sweet potato, Lina scurried back and squatted in front of Lilin. “Sister, you eat both of these!”
Lilin shook her head. “We should have bought roasted potatoes. They’re delicious and filling.”
“Think about it, Sister! One sweet potato clears two percent, and one roasted potato clears one percent. Three potatoes would clear three percent, but that costs twelve coins. One potato plus one sweet potato also clears three percent, and it only costs ten City Coins!”
Ling Jing listened as the little girl counted on her fingers for her sister.
She was quite clever.
“You eat some too.”
“I don’t want to! Sister, eat all of it. Clearing the poison comes first.”
“Silly child, this is only three percent in total… What good can that really do?”
“Guests, this emerald mist has been spreading for many years, hasn’t it?”
Amid the sisters’ back-and-forth, Ling Jing casually fished out the roasted sweet potatoes from the roaster, probing for information with an air of nonchalance.
“Yes, it’s been ten whole years.”
Hearing the miraculous shopkeeper speak, Lilin answered with a bitter smile.
…Immediately after, realization struck her like a bolt of lightning.
The emerald mist had been around for ten years, and she had breathed in the toxic air every single day.
Because she had accidentally brushed against plant secretions countless times, combined with the recent bite wound, she had begun showing fatal symptoms.
The degree of erosion in a body was hard to quantify, and she certainly couldn’t quote a precise percentage like the boss did.
However, if one wasn’t bitten and didn’t come into direct contact with mutated plant fluids, relying solely on inhaling the mist-laden air…
Ten years would never lead to one hundred percent corruption. Looking at Lina proved that.
At most, it would be around fifty percent.
Three percent was roughly the equivalent of inhaling the emerald mist for over half a year!
That was it!
Those who perished from toxic corruption were almost always bitten during foraging expeditions or had inadvertently touched plant secretions.
Just like herself.
Now, as long as some of the toxins could be purged, could she hang on to her life?!
Two percent, three percent… The boss called it a trace amount, but for her, it was a life-saving trace!
Lina was sharp, instantly catching on to what her sister was thinking.
Meeting Lilin’s gaze, she gasped, “Sister! It works!”
She shoved all the food into her sister’s arms. “It works! Eat it! Eat it!”
Her face was flush with ecstatic joy.
Her sister could live!
“I’ll eat, I’ll eat… This one is enough for me. You eat the potato.”
Lilin stopped pushing it away. With tears in her eyes, she stuffed the sweet potato her sister handed her into her mouth.
The syrupy honey sweet potato entered her mouth. The golden-red, tender, and sticky flesh paired with its baked sweetness moved Lilin to tears.
She could live.
She wouldn’t have to leave Lina all alone behind those high walls.
How lucky was she to run into this miraculous shopkeeper and buy poison-purging food at such a low price!
It was a blessing beyond her wildest dreams!
For this…
Even if the mysterious shopkeeper before her demanded she trade away her soul, Lilin would do so willingly.
…
Yet the shopkeeper who had saved her life asked for no such thing, remaining entirely focused on stuffing more potatoes into the roaster.
A long while passed.
Once the sisters had finished off most of the potato and sweet potato, Lilin spoke up: “Boss, how much food do you have left here?”
Ling Jing was currently testing the capacity of the roaster. She glanced at the two large baskets in the tricycle, each filled with green potatoes and sweet potatoes. “Quite a bit.”
“Portions for seven or eight people… do you have that much?”
“More than enough.”
Lilin immediately turned to Lina. “Nana, we have to hurry back.”
“Sister?”
“Auntie Qian and the others look out for us all the time. We have to tell them to come buy some right away.”
Food this cheap with detoxifying properties… Anyone could guess how fiercely contested it would become.
“Okay!” Lina scrambled to her feet, holding Lilin down. “Sister, you don’t need to go. I’ll run and bring Auntie Qian over right now!”
“…You! Be careful on the road!”
Lilin, who had not yet fully recovered, clearly lacked Lina’s stamina. Before she could even stand, she saw the little girl already pull up her face cloth and sprint toward the city gates.
Unlike the utterly exhausted trudging common when returning from scavenging crystals…
Her steps were brimming with youthful vigor.
Her cloak billowed behind her, carrying the flutter of hope.
