Chapter 141: Cutting in Line for the Cowpeas
At this moment, though, Huai Yu had no choice but to bite the bullet and head toward the trading market.
It was still the familiar four uncles and aunties at the checkpoint. As soon as Huai Yu approached, the staff stared blankly at the large crowd behind her.
Th-this isn’t going to be easy to sneak her in through the back door!
The three of them quickly divided up their tasks, and one of them hurried over to where Huai Yu was lining up, “What’s going on? Why so many people? Are you in trouble?”
Huai Yu thought for a moment. “Not really. It’s just that I brought some cowpeas to sell at the trading market, and the people on the bus saw them and insisted on buying…”
“Cowpeas? Fresh cowpeas?”
The staff member peeked stealthily at the basket she was carrying, eyes full of anticipation, “Are you really selling those?”
Huai Yu: “…I guess I’ll sell them.”
As soon as she said this, the people in front of her in line all turned to stare at her basket, and after a moment, someone suddenly said, “How about you cut in front of me? Once you pass the check, if your mutation value is really low, can you sell me a bunch?”
Huai Yu hadn’t even responded yet when the person in front of that guy got upset, “Why should you get first dibs? I’ll let this young lady take my spot, and she can sell me a bunch first!”
When Huai Yu carried the basket of cowpeas over, it had felt heavy—after all, it was dozens of pounds! But now, standing in this crowd, it was clearly just a drop in the bucket! Everyone wished she had brought a whole mountain of them.
She looked helplessly at the staff member next to her, only to see that even they looked eager—they wanted to buy too!
Catching her glance, the staff member paused, then suggested, “How about this: I’ll take the young lady to the VIP room to check her goods, and everyone else waits outside?”
“Once the price is set, we can buy if we need to, right?”
“And what if the mutation value is high? Wouldn’t this be a pointless fight?”
Seeing that there definitely wasn’t enough cowpeas to go around, the aunties who had followed Huai Yu all the way here were getting anxious, “We followed this girl here to buy cowpeas—we better not miss out!”
Amid all the chatter, Huai Yu overheard someone saying proudly, “I’m telling you, no matter the mutation value, we should just buy first—it’ll be worth it! I saw this girl on the bus before. Her two older brothers are super capable, working in the Defense Forces! It’s just her sister-in-law who’s mean; they kicked her out right after she got married…”
“But think about it, even living alone she keeps herself looking clean and tidy—her life can’t be bad, right?”
“Do you think her food would be bad?”
Huai Yu’s head was suddenly full of question marks. She couldn’t figure out how these complete strangers could gossip about her life so confidently.
Then she suddenly remembered: back when she first took the bus, she had vaguely hinted at her “background,” mentioning her brothers’ marriages and that she lived near the Defense Forces…
Huai Yu: …Wow, an old boomerang finally came back to hit me in the face!
In the midst of all this pushing and shoving, people on both sides started arguing again.
Huai Yu was stuck in the middle, feeling numb. Finally, the staff directly pulled her into the VIP room, shut the door, and things finally quieted down a bit.
By now, no one else was even interested in checking their own goods anymore. Whether buying or selling, it didn’t really matter if it was a bit earlier or later.
But those cowpeas—everyone had just one thought in mind:
So many people are crowding around—they must be good stuff, right?
So, even before any testing, they all just waited outside.
The staff, very familiar with the process, turned on the machine. They dumped the whole basket of cowpeas in, and soon enough, the machine whirred and spat out a card—
[Mutation Value: 9]
A single-digit mutation value!
This was the kind of good stuff you could hardly ever find at the market!
Sure, sometimes you might see stuff with mutation values around 11 or 12 for sale, but anyone who had eaten them knew that anything below 10 was on a completely different level.
Above 15—inedible but won’t kill you. 10 to 15—barely edible. Below 10—that’s the good stuff.
The staff’s eyes were burning as they stared at the card in Huai Yu’s hand.
And Huai Yu herself was overjoyed—because she hadn’t even purified these cowpeas after harvesting them.
Which meant the whole vine’s produce was this stable!
Hearing the noise outside, she didn’t hesitate to grab four pre-bundled bunches of cowpeas from her basket, “15 points per jin (500g), do you want it?”
Thinking it over, she brought them over to a digital scale on the side, “My family just dug out a digital scale—”
(It was actually scavenged from a junk pile.)
“Not sure if it’s accurate…”
Anyway, she had bundled them according to weight, and when she checked, it turned out to be surprisingly precise.
The staff member quickly stretched out their wristband, “I’ll pay first for the three of us!”
With a beep, the points were credited. The staff immediately packed the cowpeas into a cardboard box and locked them away in a cabinet.
And now, Huai Yu’s real problem had arrived.
She had—83 bundles left in her basket. Who was she going to sell them to?
She made a snap decision, “The people who followed me from the bus station can buy first—limit one jin per person, 18 points per jin.”
There were plenty of people from the bus, but at most 20 or so. As for the rest…
Huai Yu bit her lip. “Everyone else, get back in line. Whoever’s at the front when it’s your turn, gets it.”
The staff gave her a thumbs-up, then reassured her, “Don’t worry. In a bit I’ll open the side exit for the people who are done—they can circle around back to the main street.”
…
Boss Tang was sitting lazily in his shop, flipping through an old magazine—after all, his store mostly did big transactions, so it was usually pretty quiet.
But—Isn’t it a bit too much that not a single customer has come in all morning?
Are the things at my counter too expensive?
He put his feet down and tossed the magazine aside, wandering around his shop twice—everything looked fine!
Looking across the street, the other shops were also quiet and empty. A few bosses stood at their doors, puzzled, and couldn’t help but ask around—
“Is there another trading market open today?”
“Haven’t heard of one…”
“Didn’t that Dada Mall say it was going to open? Maybe something’s going on over there?”
“They can’t pull it off! Dada Mall is all indoors—it’s pitch black in there, imagine how much electricity it’d take to light up!”
“Exactly, it’s six floors! Who’s going to climb all that to shop?”
It was strange—the whole market felt deserted.
Boss Tang felt empty inside, like some treasure had just slipped past him.
Just as he was mulling it over, he finally saw two people walking down the street. Their faces were lit up with joy, and they were talking excitedly, “Good thing I followed her all the way from the bus stop! 18 points per jin of fresh cowpeas! My daughter’s finally going to have a good meal!”
“Right? Mutation value 9! I haven’t tasted that in six years…”
