“Hmm? No, no!”
“Hahaha… I told you, Mingxuan, you’re overthinking it,” Wang Linqi laughed at Zhou Mingxuan before turning to Ye Qingning. “He’s worried you might be afraid of him.”
“Why would I be afraid?”
“Exactly! You’re right,” Ning Yunzhi chimed in with a smile.
Zhou Mingxuan also chuckled foolishly.
“The smell here is too strong. I’m going upstairs. Are you coming?”
It was basically a large shared sleeping area, packed with people.
“No thanks.”
“You can upgrade the cabin, right? Come on. Or should I just throw money at you?”
The three exchanged glances, then picked up their luggage and followed Ye Qingning.
“Did we just latch onto someone powerful?”
Looking around at the upgraded cabin, Wang Linqi couldn’t help but sigh.
“This isn’t even half as good as mine.”
“This is already great! We’re satisfied!”
Ye Qingning lifted her chin and beckoned. “Come on, I’ll take you to eat a seafood feast!”
“Well, Qingning…” Zhou Mingxuan hesitated before asking, “What are you planning to do after returning to the country?”
“I’ll go find my grandparents.”
Hearing that her family was still alive, the three of them visibly felt relieved.
Zhou Mingxuan added, “That kind of money isn’t easy to earn. You should spend it carefully…”
“It’s fine. These banknotes probably won’t be useful back home anyway.”
More importantly, who knew when they might become worthless? Better to spend them early.
She still had a huge amount of various foreign currencies left.
“They can be exchanged…”
“Can you be sure? Enjoy life while you can. If you don’t go, I’ll go eat anyway. There’ll be a lot left over—it’d be such a waste…”
“We’re going, we’re going!”
How could they let food go to waste?
Afterward, they became certain that Ye Qingning truly came from a wealthy family. She only tasted a little of each dish.
Even the three of them couldn’t finish everything, and they ended up stuffed every day.
They couldn’t figure out how such a young child had managed to board the ship with so much money.
If they had been bad people, she would have been robbed blind—or even thrown into the sea without anyone knowing.
What they didn’t know was that there had indeed been people who targeted Ye Qingning—and all of them now rested at the bottom of the sea.
“There’s one more day before we dock at Merlion Country. We’re getting off to purchase medicine. Are you coming?”
“We’ll see. I might just sleep on the ship.”
Because she had discovered that there were many gold mines in this area! Collecting gold consumed her abilities.
She probably wouldn’t have time to go ashore.
“Come with me for a moment.”
It was the first time the three had entered Ye Qingning’s cabin. They didn’t look around curiously.
“This box is for you.”
“What?”
“Open it and see.”
As soon as they opened it, all three were stunned speechless. Even the usually calm Ning Yunzhi was no exception.
“You…”
They didn’t know what to say.
The box was filled to the brim with Svastika Country banknotes.
“Is it enough? If not, I also have Romance Country currency. Want some?”
“It’s enough! More than enough! Even if we bought more, we wouldn’t be able to carry it all. Yunzhi, how much medicine could this buy? Would it be enough to open a clinic?”
“It could save many lives.”
“It’ll be most useful in your hands.”
After arriving at Merlion Country, Wang Linqi and the others carried the large box off the ship.
“Yunzhi, buying this much medicine at once might be difficult.”
“We’ll need to exchange it into local currency first, right?”
“Let’s try asking overseas Chinese for help. Otherwise, we won’t have enough time.”
Fortunately, their luck was good. The first overseas Chinese they met was willing to help and brought them to the Chinese General Association.
“How much are you planning to purchase?”
Wang Linqi glanced at Ning Yunzhi. Seeing him nod, he opened the box.
“There’s quite a lot of Svastika Country currency here, all in large denominations—1000s and 100s.”
“A total of 1.8 million.”
“Hah, that’s over 700,000 in Free Country currency.”
“All of this was donated by a patriotic individual.”
“This is enough to buy an entire ship’s worth of supplies—not just medicine. Food and cotton clothing are also in short supply back home.”
“The ship we’re on departs at 4 p.m. It won’t be able to carry that much.”
“I’ll arrange another ship. You’ll go directly with it to North China.”
“Thank you, Sir Chen.”
“We’re all people of Hua Country. It’s only right to do our part.”
Ning Yunzhi didn’t go along to purchase supplies. Instead, he bought some local specialties and returned to the cruise ship.
Unfortunately, Ye Qingning was likely still asleep, so he could only ask a waiter to pass them on to her.
So when Ye Qingning woke up, she found a pile of gifts and a farewell letter.
The parting had come far too suddenly.
She put the gifts and letter into her space and went to the dining hall to eat and replenish her energy.
Thinking about her gains over the past few days, Ye Qingning couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
That was nearly a hundred tons of gold! She hadn’t expected this island region to be so wealthy.
If she hadn’t fainted from overexertion last time, expanding her spatial perception range, and if the ship hadn’t sailed along this coastline, she wouldn’t have been able to collect so much.
There was definitely more—but she couldn’t reach it.
No need to be greedy.
Why were those people staring at her? It must be because she was radiating golden light—the glow of gold.
“That’s the girl who got scammed, right?”
“Yeah, I heard all her money was tricked away.”
“Then why is she still eating so lavishly?”
“That scammer accidentally let it slip to a waiter—they originally carried down a huge box full of money.”
“They looked close a few days ago. Who would’ve thought it was all to trick a child?”
“She hasn’t come out for days. Could she have been drugged before?”
“She’s still smiling foolishly. Probably went crazy from the shock.”
“Poor thing.”
“Haha, do you want to help her out?”
“I’m not dealing with a fool like that. I might become stupid too. Absolutely not.”
“If she hadn’t paid for her ticket in advance, she’d probably have been kicked down to the lower deck.”
“Of course.”
The waiter who had just come from Ye Qingning’s cabin thought to himself: The 100 Svastika Country banknotes in my pocket are still warm. If you people have money, then don’t just give tips worth less than 5 in converted value.
Too bad that young lady only understood Svastika Country language and Chinese. Otherwise, he would’ve gone to complain.
After returning, he decided he should learn Chinese—people from Hua Country were rich and generous, and didn’t haggle.
After eating, Ye Qingning returned to her room. This time, she needed proper rest to recover her abilities. She couldn’t keep pushing herself like before.
By the time she arrived at Shanghai City, her abilities had finally advanced by one level.
But Ye Qingning knew this was only because her soul was strong and she had frequently used her spatial perception, leading to a natural upgrade.
If she wanted to advance further, she would need crystal cores or real combat.
Another noteworthy point was that within the newly expanded space, a level-five crystal core had appeared!
Hua Country truly favored her—she should have come back earlier!
She needed to think carefully about how to use it.
By now, it had been about half a year since she arrived in this era, and she was roughly seven years old.
There were many people at the port welcoming arrivals, though she knew not a single one was there for her.
Even the often-driven-away ethnic group had quite a number of people coming to receive them. Most were taken by relief organizations to shelters in batches, while a few withdrew money midway and left on their own.
“No matter what, I’m back!”