Chapter 25: That Woman Has a Lot of City Coins?
The bell tolled.
At Seed City’s East Wall, a crew of men, all sporting red bands tied around their arms, marched inside under the watchful eyes of the crowd.
Every single one looked to have reaped a handsome harvest. Their pouches were strapped boldly to their waists, each bulging thick and heavy.
As they swept their cold gazes across the survivors waiting inside the walls, many instinctively averted their eyes.
Leading the pack was none other than “Mad Dog” himself, Rong Na.
They headed straight toward the large wooden lodge on the northern side of the residential district.
Creak—
Someone moved quickly to unlatch the door for them.
“Boss.”
Without Rong Na needing to utter a single syllable, a man inside stepped forward on his own initiative to take the heavy pouch from his hands, offering up a cup of clean water.
“How did things go out there today?” a short-haired blond man asked the scavengers filing in behind.
“Pretty damn good,” a man with slightly curly hair replied, patting the sack at his side. “At least twenty-odd crystals per man.”
Having downed the water, Rong Na slammed the cup onto the wooden table with a sharp clack.
In a voice that scraped with a rasping edge, he called out, “Pat.”
The blond man gave an affirmative grunt, stepping forward at once to deliver a detailed account of everything he had scouted outside the West Wall today.
“There really is something out west. A woman set up a food stall called ‘Chinese Restaurant.’ She definitely has some kind of backing—the stall is shielded by a white barrier that completely keeps out the emerald mist.”
“A barrier? An Awakener?” asked a square-jawed, red-haired man seated across from Rong Na.
“Likely so.” A greedy glint flared in Pat’s eyes. “And that’s not all. The woman is selling actual food! Roasted sweet potatoes, roasted potatoes, and a dish called one-pot hodgepodge stew—all of it completely edible!”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Dead sure! When the two of us got there, a whole crowd was stuffing their faces. I kept a close eye on them—not only were they perfectly fine after eating, but the food actually purged toxins!”
“Purged toxins?!”
The second blond Pat dropped that bomb, every man who had just returned from beyond the walls whipped his head around, staring in disbelief.
“Do you have any idea what you’re saying?!”
“I know damn well what I’m saying! That woman put it in writing that her food clears toxins! The ones eating the potatoes confirmed it themselves—it’s the real deal,” Pat said, his voice rising with excitement.
“Boss, what do you think?” The red-haired, square-jawed man turned his gaze to Rong Na, who had remained silent all this while.
“Were there many people around when you went today?” Rong Na asked Pat.
“Quite a few. Looked to be about fifty or sixty,” Pat recalled. “The woman also had this box where people could dump poisoned crops in exchange for City Coins. A ton of scavengers were running back and forth from the farm digging up vegetables.”
Hearing this, the greed in the other men’s eyes burned even hotter: “Exchanging for City Coins? That means she’s sitting on a mountain of cash?”
“Who knows, probably. How else could she cash people out?” Pat said. “The two of us watched her pay out well over a hundred City Coins with our own eyes!”
“An ability that purges toxins?” Rong Na furrowed his brows, lost in thought. “An Awakener… an Awakener operating outside the jurisdiction of the Three Great Cities.”
“Shouldn’t that kind of power be locked down tight in Qiweng City? How the hell did someone like that wander into Seed City—and set up shop outside the walls, no less?” someone muttered.
“Might be a rogue who slipped past the city magistrates’ radar, refusing to take orders from the higher-ups. Pat, is she from our city?”
“Never seen her face before. She doesn’t wear a face cloth, and her clothes look totally different from ours. Might be an outsider from another city,” Pat said. “Sitting on such an insane ability, yet selling a roasted potato for a measly four City Coins? Honestly, she seems pretty dense.”
“Another bleeding-heart idiot who thinks she’s the savior of mankind,” the red-haired man sneered. “Were there any tough customers hanging around her place?”
“None,” Pat recalled. “Mostly just toxic strays, plus small fries like Long Qian’s crew. Nothing that can put up a real fight.”
Toxic strays—slang tossed around by the local gangs.
It referred to ordinary humans who had no faction backing and lacked exceptional combat skills. They scraped by day to day, scavenging odds and ends to trade for meager rations. As the toxins accumulated in their veins with each passing day, an agonizing death by corrosion was their inevitable end.
Everyone was scraping through the same apocalypse, yet some loved to place themselves on a pedestal. The moment they joined a gang, they looked down on everyone else, convinced they were cut from a different cloth than those “waiting around to rot.”
“A bunch of spineless fools with empty heads.”
“Sounds like the woman isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed either. Flaunting such a priceless ability in front of so many people—isn’t she just handing it to us on a silver platter?”
“Does she have any other companions?”
“None. I watched carefully—she’s entirely on her own. No weapons to speak of, either. Just a single kitchen knife, and the rest is ordinary cookware,” Pat said. “She does have a pretty solid tricycle with a roaster and a wok mounted on it. God knows where she scrounged that up.”
Listening to his underlings’ chatter, the red-haired man, Aulier, turned to Rong Na: “Big Brother, if this woman really can clear toxins, she’d be a massive asset to our plans. What’s the call?”
Rong Na drummed his index finger against the table. After a few beats, he lifted a pair of cold, sinister eyes: “Tomorrow, everyone heads out past the West Wall with me.”
“Got it!”
“Bring all the heavy hardware.”
“Understood!!!”
Rong Na glanced toward Aulier: “Take that gun Scarface left behind, too. How many rounds do we have left?”
“A little over forty.”
“That’s plenty.”
Ling Jing was currently going over her end-of-day settlement panel.
Day three of operations had drawn to a close, yielding a massive haul.
The revenue counter on the Cash Box had leapt up by a substantial margin:
[1373/800]
[Upgrade Available]
She had pulled in 820 City Coins today.
Two full woks of the one-pot hodgepodge stew had sold out completely, bringing in 450 coins.
The pickled white radish had yielded seventy-two containers in total; Ling Jing kept two for herself, and the rest were snapped up clean.
70 points.
The roasted sweet potatoes and roasted potatoes had brought in 300 points today.
She had sold forty-two roasted potatoes and twenty-two roasted sweet potatoes.
The profits were genuinely considerable.
Ling Jing nodded in deep satisfaction.
Introducing new menu items had clearly paid off handsomely.
First, she triggered an upgrade for the Item Exchange Box, raising the unit payout rates for recycled goods.
[You have upgraded the recycling payout rate of the Item Exchange Box! Currently, unit payouts for all recyclable items have increased by +5%]
The milestone tracker on the Cash Box shifted upward once more:
[1373/1600]
Hiss… She was just a hair shy of unlocking two upgrades back-to-back.
Similarly, she was just slightly short on points for upgrading to a [Rudimentary Restaurant].
Today’s revenue of 820 points, combined with the 40 points claimed from completing the daily quest, gave her 860 points.
Adding the unspent 62 points from yesterday, the total points displayed in the upper-right corner of her management interface now stood at 922.
She was exactly 78 points short of the 1,000 required to unlock the [Rudimentary Restaurant].
It wasn’t a massive gap, but she didn’t have the points on hand.
Now that the gas range and the oversized iron wok were crammed onto the tricycle, space had become painfully tight.
Whenever she cooked, Ling Jing was forced to haul the storage baskets and washbasins down onto the ground.
Without a dedicated prep station, seasoning jars and prepped ingredients were a real nuisance to arrange.
Moving into a proper kitchen as soon as possible was definitely the way to go.
Ling Jing rolled her shoulders and stretched her neck.
No matter—she would run the rudimentary stall for just one more day.
Build up her reserves.
By tomorrow, she would have a genuine, four-walled storefront of her own.
And with it, brand-new dishes added to her menu!
