As soon as Tian Wen left her room, she prepared to find the other three to hand out breakfast. However, she hadn’t gone more than a few steps before she noticed yet another piece of equipment standing by the cashier counter.
She took a closer look and instantly gasped.
How were there so many different kinds of food displayed in this insulated cabinet?
She lunged forward, nearly pressing her face against the transparent glass door.
Porridge for five points, meat buns and milk for ten points, mixed noodles for fifteen points, and tomato and egg rice bowls for twenty-five points.
These were foods that couldn’t even be supplied in unlimited quantities at maritime bases, yet here they could be purchased at such low prices.
Take the most expensive item, the tomato and egg rice bowl, for example. In a maritime base without its own cultivation center, one would have to spend a hundred points to buy a meal made from natural ingredients. Even in a base where natural ingredients were less scarce, it would still cost around sixty points.
There were only two likely possibilities for how the innkeeper could sell at this price: either the ingredients were cultivated from sea monster carcasses, or the shop simply had such an abundance of ingredients that they dared to sell them so cheaply.
Regardless of which it was, Tian Wen had to try it. Last night had been one of the few times in the past five years that she had slept straight through until dawn.
Tian Wen didn’t hold back. Aside from the water and steamed buns she had already stocked up on, she bought one of everything else. Then, completely forgetting she was supposed to be looking for the others, she carried the food straight back to her room.
“It’s already this late, why hasn’t Tian Wen come yet? I’ll go check.”
Breakfast time had already been underway for half an hour. Luo Shaoran told her sister to stay in the room while she headed out to find Tian Wen.
As it turned out, she ended up just like Tian Wen. Before she even reached Tian Wen’s door, she was captivated by the changes in the lobby.
She looked at the new price board and the insulated cabinet, wondering where the boss got these things since she hadn’t even left the building. But curiosity aside, she still had to buy food. She bought two servings of each of the five new food items and carried the stacked containers back to her room.
“Sister, why are you…”
Luo Shaoran had returned almost immediately after leaving. Luo Shaoxing was about to ask her why, but she froze the moment her eyes landed on the food in her sister’s hands.
“Buns, milk, tomato and egg rice bowls, and even mixed noodles! Sister, where did you get all this?”
This kind of food wasn’t unusual back in the maritime base where they used to live, but that was when they were at the base. Their group had been on the run for so long that any supplies they had were long gone. She had prepared herself to live on plain steamed buns and water, yet her sister had suddenly brought back a feast.
“They have them in the lobby. You must be hungry, eat up.”
They didn’t stand on ceremony. They set the food on the small desk; with one sitting and one standing, they finished the entire meal.
At the first bite, the sisters’ eyes lit up simultaneously.
“This… this is too delicious.”
The buns were filled with pure meat, and the juice was rich and savory. Before the aroma could even fade from their mouths, the sweet and sour juice of the tomatoes paired with the rich fragrance of the eggs instantly covered every taste bud.
After finishing, both of them subconsciously squinted their eyes in deep satisfaction.
“That was so satisfying! Sister, this must have cost you a lot of points, right?”
In their previous maritime base, just one portion of tomato and egg rice would cost seventy-five points, and that was a price only found in bases with abundant supplies. Luo Shaoxing remembered that this lighthouse wasn’t large, and there was even less space to grow or store supplies. She feared the price would far exceed what they were used to.
“It wasn’t expensive. All of this combined was only a hundred and thirty points.”
Luo Shaoran found it hard to believe even as she said it, but it was the truth; only that many points had been deducted from her membership card.
“What? Only a hundred and thirty points?”
Luo Shaoxing was instantly stunned. If the food hadn’t already been finished, she would have wanted to take another bite just to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. But the fragrance lingering in her mouth and her full stomach forced her to admit that it was all real.
“Sister, let’s buy everything the shop has left.”
In the end, while Luo Shaoran and Yu You didn’t buy more water and plain buns since they already had some, the other two members of the party bought ten portions of every item in the insulated cabinet, including the water and buns.
As the points were deducted, Su Su’s balance instantly skyrocketed to three thousand.
At nine in the morning, the temperature was perfect for sunbathing. Su Su, who was lazily soaking up the sun on the lighthouse platform, found it hard to believe when she heard the system notification. Although it didn’t really help, she rubbed her eyes several times to confirm the points were real and that she wasn’t dreaming.
She was instantly alert. This was the first time she had seen so many points since opening the shop. She immediately stopped sunbathing, grabbed her chair, and rushed back into the lobby.
At that moment, Luo Shaoran and the others were packing the food and handing it to Tian Wen. Seeing Su Su enter, they immediately stepped forward excitedly.
“Boss, is there no limit on the amount of food in this cabinet?”
No one could describe their current excitement. Luo Shaoran and her group hadn’t originally intended to buy so much. After all, the cabinet didn’t look very big. They had planned to buy everything inside before anyone else noticed, but then they discovered that the cabinet seemed to be a giant warehouse. The moment they took food out and closed the door, the items were automatically replenished. It was as if nothing had happened. They had never seen such a wonder, even in the large maritime bases where they once lived.
Just who exactly was this lighthouse innkeeper?
“No, there are currently no quantity limits on the goods sold in the shop. However, I advise you to take it easy when buying; after all, food has a shelf life.”
Upon seeing them, Su Su immediately suppressed her excited expression and returned to her calm and composed demeanor. She was the owner of the lighthouse now; she couldn’t afford to be reckless.
“Understood. Thank you, Boss.”
Luo Shaoran reached out to stop Luo Shaoxing from asking more questions. She nodded with a smile and stepped aside to let Su Su carry her chair back behind the cashier counter.
Conveniently, the packing was finished, and Tian Wen had stored everything into her spatial storage. Luo Shaoran waved her hand and led the group out of the inn and back to their boat.
Once they left, the lobby became empty. Su Su sat down, forcing herself to stay calm, and impatiently opened the system mall.
With the completion of the previous upgrade task, the system tasks had changed.
—Inn Upgrade (Level 2): Checked-in Guests 21/50, Infrastructure 1/3.
The upgrade requirements were significantly higher than before. However, Su Su didn’t worry too much since she saw that the guest count and infrastructure were cumulative. Given the current number of guests, she would reach the required number in just a few days. However, there were only one single room and one double room currently vacant in the inn. Furthermore, one of the single rooms had already been paid for for a month by a previous guest. Calculating it out, the inn only had one truly vacant double room.
She wondered how long the current guests would stay. If they never moved out, it would be a problem, as repeat guests didn’t count toward the total guest count requirement.
Su Su thought for a moment, then spent five hundred points to purchase another communal dormitory.