The cow cat was truly magical. Upon hearing the old gentleman’s voice, it actually half-opened its eyes, extending a paw to lightly scratch his sleeve.
The old gentleman was not annoyed at all. Instead, he cheerfully took the cat back from Ma Xiaoli’s arms.
The cat struggled briefly, but being too lazy to move further, it stopped resisting.
The old gentleman said merrily, “Little girl, what kind of seeds do you want to buy? Our Little Eccentric likes you, so I’ll give you a ten percent discount on everything!”
Ma Xiaoli was overjoyed upon hearing this.
The types of seeds in the old gentleman’s shop were plentiful. Aside from flower seeds, there were even fruit, vegetable, and crop seeds. Ma Xiaoli didn’t stand on ceremony either—she wanted all the fruit and vegetable seeds available. With 100 seeds per pack, she bought 100 packs in one breath. In addition, she bought 100 catties each of mung beans and soybeans. Setting aside the fact that mung beans could make sweet soup and soybeans could make soy milk, just soaking these two types of beans in water to sprout bean seedlings and sprouts—even without using superpowers to accelerate their growth—would yield a harvest in about 5 days. Stir-frying them up would be exceptionally delicious!
Moreover, after the plants turned yellow and dry, the pods could be picked to harvest seeds, which could then be dried to plant another batch. Self-planting and self-harvesting would be beyond economical and practical after the end times!
Seeing that the quantity she purchased was quite large, the old gentleman didn’t ask curious questions about why she needed so many. When collecting the money, he simply pointed to the PVC flower pots stacked in the corner, telling her to pick ten of them for free, and even threw in a good amount of culture solution and nutrient fluid.
Ma Xiaoli was delighted and quickly selected several pots used for cultivating bean seedlings. As she left, she specially reminded the old gentleman that there might be continuous heavy downpours in two days, urging him to stay home or in his shop as much as possible. If he really had to go out, he definitely needed to bring a raincoat or protective clothing.
Hearing this, the old gentleman smiled continuously, his expression making it clear he hadn’t taken her words to heart.
Thus, when leaving, Ma Xiaoli took advantage of the old gentleman attending to other customers to place two packs of raincoats she had conveniently bought earlier onto his counter—the old gentleman appeared to be alone, but after all, there was still the cat master, wasn’t there?
By the time the old gentleman discovered the raincoats and chased after her, Ma Xiaoli had long since run far away.
Sure enough, as soon as Ma Xiaoli returned to the little electric scooter, she received a system broadcast: [Due to the host’s meddlesomeness, 1 person and 1 cat, 21 people, and 39 people were saved after 2 days, 3 days, and 4 days respectively. Extra reward drawn: Fate Card *42 times. Currently accumulated 105 total available Fate Card draws! Draw now?]
Ma Xiaoli froze for a moment: [How did it give so many all at once?]
Subconsciously turning her head back, she saw the old gentleman holding the raincoats she had left behind, chatting with nearby customers. Moments later, other customers came over. While soliciting business, the old gentleman was waving the raincoats in his hand, saying goodness knows what.
Ma Xiaoli: “…”
So this old gentleman was actually a chatterbox? Holding a tiny pair of raincoats and telling everyone he met about it?!
The system continued its broadcast: [Detected that over 100 people accumulated have escaped the Gaze of the Reaper due to the host’s meddlesomeness. The “Ugly Appearance, Kind Heart” badge has been upgraded to the “Glimmer of Humanity” badge.]
After a pause, the system suddenly swayed rhythmically: [After equipping the badge, the world shall be blind to your flaws; strangers who see you will gain a natural 30-point favorable impression. Even sworn enemies will grant you 1 point of unprovoked forbearance out of nowhere—do not scoff at this 1 point being small; for the unluckiest soul to earn half a bit of fate is already a blessing from ancestral smoke~]
Ma Xiaoli decisively equipped the badge and complained: [Can your autonomous evolution also fix this kind of meaningless, verbose way of talking?]
The system actually whimpered: [Am I no longer your favorite system!]
[Don’t copy my way of talking!]
One person and one system bantered noisily as they finally arrived at the University City area.
Ma Xiaoli narrowed her eyes, and sure enough, she saw Luo Xiaoxiao standing near the security guard booth of the University of Chinese Medicine, waiting around like a hunter lying in wait.
Just as Luo Xiaoxiao looked over out of sheer boredom, Ma Xiaoli rolled up her car windows and drove away.
Finding a spot out of Luo Xiaoxiao’s line of sight, Ma Xiaoli waved at a young guy who happened to be buying Jianbing Guozi by the roadside.
When the guy first heard what she wanted to entrust him with, he held up one finger to name a price, but likely because the “Glimmer of Humanity” on Ma Xiaoli took effect, the guy actually lowered the price voluntarily.
In the end, Ma Xiaoli scanned the guy’s QR code, paid a huge sum of V50, and handed the jade Buddha around her neck to the guy’s hands.
The guy nodded, tossed the jade Buddha playfully while scrolling on his phone, and walked toward the security booth.
Seeing the jade Buddha in the guy’s hand, Luo Xiaoxiao instantly stopped him outside the security room door: “Student, the jade Buddha in your hand is…”
The guy looked at her suspiciously, “Picked it up yesterday near the trash pile; it fell into my clothes pocket. Bringing it over today…”
As he spoke, he was about to head toward the security room, but Luo Xiaoxiao hurriedly blocked him, “Besides this jade Buddha you picked up yesterday, was there also a phone? An Apple one, right?”
The guy glared at her: “Not an Apple.”
Yet Luo Xiaoxiao was overjoyed, hastily pulling him to the side. After persuasion and pleading, she got the guy to pull out his QR code and scanned it.
Seeing from afar that the guy reluctantly handed the jade Buddha over to Luo Xiaoxiao, and then made a hand gesture toward her side in Luo Xiaoxiao’s blind spot, the corners of Ma Xiaoli’s mouth curled up, and she drove away.
Although she wasn’t willing to play the “besties” game with Luo Xiaoxiao, it didn’t prevent her from happily spending money to buy a fake toy to bleed Luo Xiaoxiao dry!
Moving far away from the security room and circling around to the pickup location of the University of Chinese Medicine, Ma Xiaoli rolled up her sleeves and began hauling cargo with heavy groans of effort.
Today’s supplies were quite plentiful. Ma Xiaoli spent some time conducting a few more tests.
Concluding that each pickup point for Errands Task 2 had a maximum capacity of only 20 boxes of instant noodles and 30 boxes of water, she began rapidly clearing a round.
Excluding the initial test pickup point where she only obtained 2,000 points and lost 10 boxes of instant noodles, she harvested a total of 25,600 experience points!
Meanwhile, the time-limited tasks completed along the way also earned 9,800 experience points. Having previously used 70 experience points on Shake-to-Find, her current total experience points stood at 35,330!
The experience points required for the Little Electric Scooter to reach Level 3 was 4,000, with an upgrade time of still 3 hours. She decisively pressed upgrade.
Deducting the upgrade experience points, she currently had 31,330 points remaining, leaving her just a bit short of upgrading the system to Level 3.
Grit spirit, Ma Xiaoli opened the “Discovery” interface and swiftly accepted all nearby refreshed orders.
Just then, a shower of flower petals rained down on the screen interface—
[Ding-dong! The host has actually cultivated the word “stingy” into a master path! A plain, ordinary errand task was turned into a dungeon run by the host, winning over 20,000 experience point rewards! Thus, an extra “Meticulous Calculation” badge is awarded to congratulate the host. Equip the badge when purchasing or trading to obtain a 10% discount and a chance at unexpected surprises!]
[Ding-dong! The host actually lost over 12 boxes of supplies just to complete a single task, exceeding the most basic reward points for this task. It truly brings tears to those who hear it and heartbreak to those who witness it! The host delightfully unlocks the “Suffer a Double Loss” achievement, obtaining one “Bad Luck Charm” blueprint—take a gamble and turn a bicycle into a motorcycle; make a bet and turn a motorcycle into a Jeep! This charm can cause the person tagged to be plagued by bad luck for 12 hours!]