The trading stations in every village welcomed business from outsiders.
After all, the number of people in a village was limited, and trading stations needed to make money. As long as there was business to be done, it didn’t matter who the customer was.
The moment Jiang Li stepped inside, she saw three scantily dressed women cleaning the place.
Their exposed skin was smooth and fair as snow.
Leaning bonelessly against the counter, they cast seductive glances at her.
“Customer, what would you like to buy?”
In this post-catastrophe world, women were the rarest of resources.
Yet this trading station had three beautiful women at once.
That alone showed how high the station master’s status was.
If Jiang Li had been a man—and a native of this world—she probably wouldn’t have been able to resist their charms.
But she was a woman.
Ignoring the flirtatious looks directed at her, she simply asked where the merchandise was.
The goods weren’t displayed openly.
One particularly voluptuous woman sauntered over and tossed her a catalog.
The meaning was obvious.
Choose from the catalog first, and only then would they retrieve the goods.
Thinking back to the person who had been kicked to death outside, Jiang Li couldn’t help wondering:
If all the goods were stored in a warehouse, how exactly had that person managed to steal anything?
Her attention shifted to the catalog.
She skimmed through the crude booklet at a glance.
The selection of food was extremely limited.
The only meat available was Cockroach Beast jerky, and the price was outrageously high.
The only vegetables were mushrooms.
Other than that, there was nothing.
Even the mushrooms were limited to the most filling variety—the Eggplant Mushroom.
After a moment’s thought, she asked:
“Do you sell mushroom seeds?”
The moment the words left her mouth, she met the middle-aged man’s gaze.
It was the look one might give an ignorant country bumpkin.
Clearly, he hadn’t expected anyone in this day and age to ask such a foolish question.
Jiang Li’s heart tightened.
Under his contemptuous stare, she immediately realized a possibility.
Monopoly.
And as expected, the man sneered.
“Trading stations sell mushrooms, not seeds. Selling seeds privately is illegal too. If you don’t want to die, don’t bring it up again.”
As he explained, Jiang Li felt a chill run through her heart.
If no trading station sold seeds, that meant every villager was incapable of becoming self-sufficient.
If they wanted food, they had no choice but to buy it from the trading stations.
Could mushroom seeds be cultivated independently?
Combining this information with the original owner’s memories, Jiang Li immediately rejected the possibility.
No.
They couldn’t.
Mushrooms were food crops painstakingly developed over generations after the catastrophe.
The seeds could regenerate continuously, like chives that grew back after each harvest.
However, the harvested mushrooms themselves couldn’t be planted as seeds.
For example, ordinary vegetables in the real world underwent flowering and fruiting stages.
The resulting fruit contained seeds that could be used for the next generation.
Mushrooms were different.
They couldn’t flower or bear fruit.
Yet unlike real vegetables, as long as a person possessed a mushroom seed, it would continue producing harvests indefinitely without needing to be replanted.
In other words—
Obtaining a single mushroom seed was enough to survive.
Naturally, ordinary civilians had no chance of acquiring one.
Perhaps because Jiang Li looked so thin and impoverished, the middle-aged man’s attitude suddenly improved.
“If you’ve run out of options and haven’t eaten for a long time, you can go work at the mine about ten kilometers outside the village. At least you’ll be fed there.”
He smiled kindly as he spoke.
Jiang Li was momentarily surprised.
Pretending to be a refugee from another village, she asked softly:
“Station Master, could you tell me what kind of mine it is?”
The man’s name was Huang Tao.
The villagers respectfully called him Station Master Huang.
Unlike his earlier mocking attitude, he now appeared approachable and willing to answer questions.
About ten kilometers from the village stood a mine.
The workers there excavated a special kind of stone.
That stone could resist attacks from Evil Wraiths.
After all, besides Knocking Wraiths and Mimic Wraiths, there were many mid- and high-tier wraiths capable of ignoring doors entirely.
Even hiding in your home wouldn’t save you.
But with that stone, people could survive.
The stone was called Flame Star Stone.
Jiang Li knew exactly what Flame Star Stone was.
It was an item players only encountered during the middle stages of the game.
Legend claimed it was a foundational stone from an ancient celestial palace that had fallen to earth.
It possessed the power to resist darkness.
In the game, Flame Star Stone had many uses.
It could disperse Gray Mist.
It could provide warmth.
And during the middle and late stages, it became one of the most important tools for defending against Evil Wraiths.
So Flame Star Stone has already been monopolized by powerful interests here, just like mushroom seeds.
If that was the case, surviving as an ordinary person was nearly impossible.
No wonder Jiang Li had seen so many villagers suffering from Gray Mist Disease walking toward the outskirts of the village earlier.
They had been heading for the mine.
The villagers could only rely on the mine for food and wages in the form of Flame Star Stones.
“If you want to work there, I can recommend you. After all, I’m the station master of Spark Village’s trading station. I have that authority.”
Jiang Li didn’t answer immediately.
Pretending to consider the offer, she had already figured out why Huang Tao’s attitude had suddenly changed.
The mine was probably short on labor.
For every worker he referred, Huang Tao likely received a substantial reward.
Yet he spoke as though he were doing her a great favor.
If Jiang Li were naïve and easily deceived, she might already have been overflowing with gratitude.
What a scheming old fox, she thought.
Ignoring the mining topic, she pointed to the oil lamp section of the catalog.
“Station Master, can oil lamps be exchanged for food?”
The oil used to make oil lamps came from a disaster beast called the Moonlight Sheep.
Moonlight Sheep were low-tier disaster beasts and fairly common.
However, they were timid creatures that fled at the sight of humans, making them difficult to capture.
Aside from village hunters and professional trappers, few people could catch one.
As a result, oil lamps were expensive.
Each lamp required one piece of Crude-Grade Flame Star Stone in exchange.
A villager working in the mine earned only ten pieces of Crude-Grade Flame Star Stone per month.
Fortunately, Spark Village had not encountered any mid- or high-tier Evil Wraiths in recent years.
Otherwise, very few villagers would still be alive.
Jiang Li had no intention of buying one today.
First, she wasn’t sure she had enough food to spare.
Second, her shelter still had three days of beginner protection remaining.
Oil lamps weren’t particularly rare in the trading station.
Buying one on the third day would still be in time.
What she really wanted to know was the price.
Huang Tao wasn’t sure whether she’d accept his mining recommendation, but he answered pricing questions regardless.
“That depends on the quality and quantity of the food.”
“For example, with ordinary dried mushrooms, three liang is enough to exchange for one lamp.”
One oil lamp could burn through three nights.
The lamps sold by the trading station were all of decent quality.
They never sold inferior products.
After all, there wasn’t only one trading station.
Nearly every village had one.
Reputation mattered.
Jiang Li finally relaxed a little.
Three liang wasn’t even half a pound.
And that price was based on dried mushrooms.
If she used dried meat instead, the exchange rate would be even better.
Knowing she could afford one meant the Gray Mist crisis awaiting her after the beginner protection period expired in three days could be solved.
Jerky was extremely expensive in the trading station.
But Jiang Li could understand why.