“Um… little Mengmeng, Teacher Lu has something she’s not sure whether she should say or not.”
“Teacher Lu, just say it. What’s our relationship? No need to be so formal.”
Lu Yuelan herself wasn’t even sure what kind of relationship she had with the little white cat, yet the little one had already grown very confident about it.
Fine then, she might as well help those three pitiful “household guardians” teach a lesson to this clueless, spendthrift cub.
“Then Teacher Lu will be direct. Little cutie, don’t get mad, okay~”
“Teacher Lu is worrying too much. Baby would never be angry with Teacher Lu.”
What a beautiful big sister. It was impossible to get even a tiny bit angry at her. Just one look was enough to make one’s heart bloom with joy, almost drooling while wanting a hug from her.
“Mm… how should I put it? If baby trusts Teacher, then it’s better to stay away from those kids who ask you to buy expensive gifts and say they’ll cut ties with you if you don’t. They’re not suitable for you. They’ll mess with your luck.”
“Huh? Okay.”
“They’ll turn you into a broke kid with nothing left, until you’re completely isolated and alienated. They won’t stop until they ruin everything. Very unlucky types. So we…”
Lu Yuelan rattled on at length, trying to persuade the little one who was clearly being emotionally manipulated by so-called “plastic friends.” She looked at how such a cute little creature had been made so insecure by those bad kids and felt her heart ache. She kept thinking she should say a bit more, maybe save this poor little thing from a bad situation.
But before she even finished a few sentences, the little one had already nodded and agreed, saying it would stay away from those useless freeloaders who only manipulated it and brought it no real benefit.
【Ding, congratulations to player Lu Yuelan for completing the guidance task: helping Meng Yemo improve social skills. Reward: one random skill book.】
“Alright, if you can figure it out yourself, that’s good enough, little cutie.”
Lu Yuelan felt the burst of motivation she had just gathered suddenly deflate, and she didn’t even know what else she should be doing.
Still, since the system had confirmed her guidance was successful, it meant the little one had indeed taken her words to heart, and the objective was considered complete.
Combined with the earlier feeding and transport tasks she had unintentionally completed, this “childcare instructor” job could be considered fully finished.
The only thing she wasn’t sure about was whether those three little cats also counted as cubs. She had always assumed they were fully grown cats.
Lu Yuelan had no idea that at the time, her attention had been completely focused on the message panel. She hadn’t noticed that the “adorable little white cat” had directly snatched the rations she had prepared for the three adult beasts. Because of that, she never realized anything was wrong. Instead, she assumed it was a system bug, and even started thinking about whether she could exploit that bug next time to complete tasks more easily.
This supermarket trip was bound to be a wasted effort anyway since Lu Yuelan had no money on hand. The only thing left was to see what she could get from the random skill book.
If only it could be like before, unlocking one skill would also unlock one additional task.
But she hadn’t found suitable candidates for healing and purification tasks, so those hadn’t even started yet.
She couldn’t just hurt the little ones randomly just for the sake of completing tasks. She could only rely on luck.
【Open random skill book?】
Yes.
Since there were other people around, Lu Yuelan used her mind to communicate with the system this time, and in order to save time, she even had the system skip the flashy “skill roulette” animation.
【Ding, congratulations to player Lu Yuelan for obtaining the first innate talent skill of the “Waste Recycler” profession, Equivalent Exchange.】
With the flashy roulette animation removed, Lu Yuelan quickly received the system notification. She felt a surge of excitement, this was like a pie falling from the sky, perfectly suited for her current situation.
To avoid misinterpreting the skill, she carefully checked the description of “Equivalent Exchange.” As expected, it was exactly as the name suggested: you could directly trade items with others without currency, receiving goods of equal value in return.
Even the skill had an additional effect, it allowed her to directly see an item’s usage effects and detailed data.
It was practically a god-tier ability like “True Sight.” With it, Lu Yuelan had indirectly solved the problem of unidentified “blind box” items in the future. She no longer needed to go to national experts to analyze things like those special foods.
Even though the national side had no intention of taking her items, Lu Yuelan still preferred to keep a low profile. She didn’t like making things too high-profile. Being able to identify items herself would make future actions much more stable and convenient.
“Teacher Lu, we’re here.”
Hearing the little white cat’s soft, baby-like voice, Lu Yuelan instinctively nodded. She let the little one pick out what it wanted while she considered how to find the staff here and use her skill for barter-based exchange.
Currency-based purchases were out of the question. With only five resource coins to her name, everything here was basically off-limits.
Before, without the “True Sight” effect from Equivalent Exchange, Lu Yuelan had been puzzled as to why everything here was so expensive. The minimum price was ten resource coins, she didn’t even have enough to buy a single small item with her five coins. It was absurdly overpriced.
Now, with True Sight active, everything she saw was instantly revealed in detail. All item descriptions were blue-quality or above, each with significant stat bonuses.
Even something as ordinary-looking as a toothbrush had the effect of strongly removing dirt and greatly restoring cleanliness.
Although Lu Yuelan’s personal attribute panel didn’t specify what “cleanliness” actually affected, the fact that it was clearly listed, and the purchase price wasn’t low, meant it must be important to players as well.
Other items were one thing, but cleaning supplies were different. Because time was tight and her luggage space was limited, she hadn’t had time to pack them and would need to buy them on-site.
Since she couldn’t find any staff members, she couldn’t properly use her skill. She couldn’t just use it on a self-service machine that only accepted payments and had no payment-out function, that would be like talking to a wall. It wouldn’t work at all, and such machines didn’t accept face-to-face barter anyway.
“Teacher Lu, what do you want? I can ask Uncle Zheng to help prepare everything together.”
“That would be too much trouble for Uncle Zheng. Teacher Lu doesn’t have much liquid funds on hand, so let’s forget it.”
Lu Yuelan instinctively refused Meng Yemo’s suggestion. This little one had always acted like a rich kid, saying it would cover everything and that she could just buy whatever she wanted.
If it were an adult… well, even then, Lu Yuelan felt she wasn’t at the point of desperation where she had to rely on others or take advantage of them, let alone when it came to a child.
“If Teacher Lu has any good items, you can also trade with our supermarket. We’ll offer the highest possible price.”
The man standing aside, who had been silently observing Lu Yuelan and Meng Yemo’s conversation, suddenly spoke.
Uncle Zheng had already assumed Lu Yuelan was someone trying to take advantage of their young master.
Even though she had just refused, he didn’t believe her. He thought she was using a retreat-as-advance tactic, pretending she had no money to provoke their young master into acting impulsively and becoming the “sucker” who handed over valuable goods for nothing.
She was even a bit more clever than the usual kids the young master brought back, knowing how to play psychological games. But Uncle Zheng was who he was, he believed he could see through her at a glance. With that statement, he intended to cut off all of her possible escape routes.