Early to bed and early to rise makes the body strong. Thinking about going to Nanling City tomorrow, Yunxi was unusually excited. She looked at the empty spot beside her and suddenly thought of the items she had listed in the supermarket last night.
Then, in a flash, she entered her supermarket.
What she saw next left her stunned. The items she had deliberately left unlisted last night had been automatically listed again—and every single one of them had sold out. What on earth was going on?
Could it be that the supermarket couldn’t store outside items and could only hold things that originally belonged to the supermarket?
How she wished she had an all-purpose storage space!
Just then, a voice sounded by her ear.
“Master, you do have a space. You just haven’t formed a contract yet.”
Hearing the voice, Yunxi nervously looked left and right but couldn’t find anyone. “Who are you? Where are you?”
Ke’er looked helplessly at this host who had delayed signing the contract for so long. “Master, stop looking. I am your space spirit, Ke’er. Check your palm—do you see a flying bird totem? Prick your finger and drip a little of your blood onto it.”
Yunxi opened her palm. Sure enough, there really was a flying bird totem there. How had she never noticed it before?
Following Ke’er’s instructions, she bit her fingertip and let a drop of blood fall onto it.
In the blink of an eye, the blood was absorbed, and she was still inside the supermarket.
She began to doubt what Ke’er had said.
As if sensing her thoughts, Ke’er immediately reminded her, “Master, you can step out of the supermarket now and take a look.”
She muttered in confusion, “Step out of the supermarket? Every time I came in, I was always inside. I’ve never seen a door leading out.”
With doubt in her heart, she stood up and turned around. Suddenly, a door appeared behind her.
She couldn’t help exclaiming, “How amazing!”
She pushed the door open and stepped outside. What greeted her was not a familiar street, but a stretch of grassland. In the middle of the grass grew lush green vegetables. Not far from the vegetable patch was a small stream, its water crystal clear.
“Ke’er, is this the space you were talking about? What can it be used for? From now on, can I store items here?”
What she needed most on the refugee journey was supplies. Right now, she desperately wanted a place to store things so she could freely gather resources in the mountains.
That soft, glutinous Chinese yam, the potatoes she had planned to keep for seed last time, and her big gray mushrooms—she didn’t even know if she’d be able to find such large gray mushrooms again.
“Yes, Master. You can store them here using your thoughts. But remember—anything you want to store must never be placed in the supermarket! Once it enters the supermarket, everything will be automatically listed for sale!” Ke’er explained patiently.
Only then did Yunxi understand. No wonder all her items had been listed—so the supermarket truly couldn’t store outside items. At last, the truth was clear.
Since she was going to Nanling City tomorrow, she didn’t dwell on it any further and prepared to leave the space. However, this time she didn’t get out, which puzzled her greatly.
“Ke’er, why can’t I get out?”
Ke’er rolled her eyes helplessly. “Oh, Master! Whether entering or leaving, you have to tap the flying bird totem in your palm. You can only enter or exit by clicking the totem!”
“Oh! Got it.”
She was just about to leave when she suddenly remembered what Lin Hai had said about seeds, so she stopped.
“Ke’er, where can I buy things that aren’t available in the supermarket? I want to buy some rice seeds and vegetable seeds.”
“Master, if you want to buy items that your supermarket doesn’t have, you’ll need to pay with silver.”
After a pause, Ke’er continued, “The purchasing method is similar to listing items. You just need to select ‘apply for item.’”
Yunxi followed Ke’er’s instructions and operated accordingly. She wrote the seeds she currently needed into the application box. In the blink of an eye, the prices appeared.
Rice seeds were forty-eight yuan per jin. One jin of rice seeds could roughly plant one mu of land. The exact amount could be adjusted later.
Early the next morning, Nangong An woke Yunxi up.
It was cooler to travel in the morning.
Wu Sheng and the others originally wanted to go along, but Nangong An coldly refused. He didn’t want Yunxi’s secret to be known by anyone.
Once the two of them were out of everyone’s sight, Nangong An stopped Yunxi and used his lightness skill to carry her into the air. In this way, what would normally take two days took them only one morning to reach Nanling City.
Looking at the densely packed crowd outside the city gates, Yunxi felt her scalp tingle.
Who knew how long it would take to get in by lining up like this.
“Nangong An, how about you fly me in? That way we won’t need to queue.”
Nangong An turned around and flicked her forehead, then pointed at the guards on the city wall. “You tell me—which is faster, their arrows or you flying?”
Yunxi looked up at the city wall. She had completely forgotten about that.
Seeing her disappointed little expression, Nangong An took her hand, led her through the crowd, and headed straight for the city gate.
When they reached the gate, Nangong An took out a token. The guard immediately knelt upon seeing it.
“Gen—”
Before the guard could finish speaking, Nangong An cut him off.
“No need for formalities. I’m taking my wife into the city to purchase supplies.”
With that, he strode away.
Yunxi looked at Nangong An and felt that his status must be extraordinary. “Gen—” What titles in ancient times started with “gen”?
Could he be… a general?
Watching the constantly changing expressions on the woman beside him, Nangong An found her incredibly adorable. He knew she was guessing his identity. He felt he should find a chance to tell her who he really was, and see whether she would still be willing to follow him back to the northern frontier. After all, that place spent more than half the year in bitter cold—icy winds and freezing weather. Could she get used to it?
Sigh, never mind that for now. First, they needed to buy everything they needed.
“Yunxi, there’s a grain shop ahead. Let’s go take a look.”
“Alright.” Yunxi also wanted to see what the grain prices here were like.
As soon as they reached the entrance, the shop assistant greeted them with a big smile, showing no disdain at all for their ragged clothes. This made Yunxi feel quite pleased—at least he wasn’t snobbish.
The assistant followed them respectfully and said as he walked, “Honored guests, please come in. All goods in the shop are twenty percent off today. If you see anything you like, just tell me and I’ll weigh it for you.”
Yunxi gave a soft “mm” and began looking around.
Black flour: two wen per jin.
Coarse grain flour: three wen per jin.
White flour: five wen per jin.
Old rice: four wen per jin.
Refined rice: eight wen per jin.
This was ridiculously expensive!
One wen was equivalent to one yuan. Eight yuan for rice—she had never eaten rice that expensive. She usually bought rice that cost around three yuan.
The most expensive fragrant rice in her supermarket was just over four yuan, and the cheapest was only two.
No wonder people in ancient times couldn’t afford to eat white rice. She wouldn’t dare eat it freely either—it was too expensive.
But beans were very cheap. Soybeans and mung beans were only two wen per jin.
Salt was fifteen wen per jin. Oh my goodness—why didn’t he just rob people? Fifteen wen was fifteen yuan. In her supermarket, a pack cost only three yuan.
Soy sauce was ten wen per jin, which was acceptable.
After walking around, she bought one hundred jin of black flour, one hundred jin of coarse grain flour, fifty jin of white flour, and twenty jin each of mung beans, soybeans, and peanuts. In total, it cost nine hundred wen.
After buying the grain, the next things to buy were clothes and a cart, so these items could only be left at the grain shop for now and picked up later.
After paying, Yunxi told the shop assistant, “We’re going to a cloth shop. Is it alright if we come back later to collect the grain?”
“Of course, no problem. I’ll package everything nicely for you. Just come back later to pick it up.”