Having figured out her place in this new life, He Wanqing was just about to open her eyes.
Suddenly, a burst of static rang out in her mind, startling her stiff.
Bzzzt—bzzzt—
“616 has located a suitable host. Beginning binding process—”
“Ding! Binding complete! Host, would you like to activate the system?”
A system? What kind of nonsense was that?
616 immediately protested, “Host, this system is not nonsense. You’ll understand how amazing I am in the future!”
He Wanqing was startled again. “You can hear my thoughts?”
“Of course. This system is now one with the host. As long as you permit it, I can detect all your mental activity. So from now on, you can communicate with me directly in your mind.”
Realizing the conversation had drifted off-topic, 616 quickly steered it back.
“Host, would you like to activate the system?”
After asking, 616 prepared itself for activation.
Who would have thought…
“Not so fast. Tell me what exactly you do first, then I’ll decide whether or not to activate you.”
He Wanqing had cultivated a laid-back Buddhist mindset for many years. Did they really think she’d be easily led around by the nose? Especially by something that wasn’t even human.
Umm…
This host didn’t play by the rules!
616 simmered with anger for exactly one second before starting its explanation.
“This system is System Number 616 of the Great Cosmic Expanse. You may call me 616. I am a herb-collecting system.
“As long as the host collects a type of medicinal herb, the herb’s entry in the illustrated compendium will be unlocked, and the host will receive a certain number of points. The more valuable the herb, the more points awarded.
“Once the host reaches five thousand points, the trading function can be unlocked, allowing transactions with hosts from different dimensions who also possess trading privileges. This function is carried out through the System Forum.
“Therefore, the forum will only open after reaching five thousand points.
“Since this system only collects medicinal herbs, the host may only sell herbs in the forum to earn points.
“There are two ways to sell herbs. One is to create a sale post and list excess herbs for users from other dimensions to choose from. The other is to browse request posts and directly provide the herbs others need.
“Please note: all items sold by the host must follow the pricing standards of the target dimension. Otherwise, not only will you fail to earn points, points may even be deducted.
“However, the host is not restricted in what items may be purchased, though purchases cannot exceed the technological level of the current world. Otherwise, the transaction will fail. Additionally, besides the item’s price, a considerable purchase tax must also be paid.”
“What counts as collecting herbs?” He Wanqing asked. “Do dried herbs from medicine shops count? What about just part of a herb? Or herb seeds?”
“Only living herb plants that the system determines can still be cultivated count. Everything else is invalid.”
“I see. Then who decides how many points a herb is worth? You?”
“No. The evaluation is submitted to the Main System for judgment, so there may be delays before points are credited. However, the delay will never exceed three days.”
Since the system itself wasn’t the one making decisions, He Wanqing’s attitude toward it became even more casual.
“So you’re actually pretty useless. You’re basically just a messenger tool.”
616 nearly spat blood.
“You haven’t even activated the system yet! How can you already decide I’m useless?!”
He Wanqing was not the first host 616 had bound itself to, nor would she be the last.
But she was definitely the least enthusiastic.
And also the coldest toward it.
616 felt utterly depressed. Had its charm diminished?
After two hundred years of existence, System 616 had suffered an unprecedented blow from He Wanqing.
What it didn’t realize was that this was only the beginning…
“All right then, Little Sixie, activate it.”
Hearing that nickname, 616’s signal crackled violently.
L-Little Sixie?!
How could such a stupid nickname possibly suit it?!
Still, for the sake of successfully activating the system, it decided to protest later.
A few seconds later, 616 announced:
“Ding! System activation successful!”
Immediately, He Wanqing sensed something like a smart screen appearing in her mind.
616 explained, “The system interface is divided into left and right panels. At the moment, only the left panel is active. The right panel is the System Forum, which is not yet accessible.
“The red number in the upper left corner represents the host’s current points total, currently zero. The blue number represents the number of herb entries unlocked in the compendium, also currently zero.
“We hope the host will diligently collect herbs and fulfill the conditions to unlock the System Forum soon.”
“All right, I get it. You don’t need to keep reminding me.”
He Wanqing hated being nagged while doing things. The more people urged her, the less she wanted to do it.
616, having caught her thoughts: “……”
If it possessed tear ducts, it could probably cry an entire bowl of tears.
After sorting out the system situation, He Wanqing finally opened her eyes.
“Mother, you’re awake. Would you like a bowl of wild vegetable porridge?”
Ye Jianshan was the first to notice her movement. He quickly hid the wild vegetable buns away and walked over.
Only then did He Wanqing realize how hungry she was. She nodded.
Immediately, the brothers sprang into action.
Ye Jianwu fetched a bowl.
Ye Jianwen ladled the porridge.
Ye Jianshan carried it over to He Wanqing.
Ye Jianming instinctively wanted to follow, but quickly lowered his head again.
Taking the chipped brown clay bowl, He Wanqing’s heart trembled.
T-This blackish stuff floating with wild vegetable leaves… could people really eat this?
No wonder the original owner couldn’t endure this suffering. He Wanqing felt that if she had to eat this for several days, she’d probably die on the spot too.
But her stomach was completely empty, so with the determination of someone facing death, she drank the bowl of wild vegetable porridge.
She had expected it to make her nauseous.
Surprisingly, it was tolerable.
There wasn’t any particularly strange flavor—just a mixture of wild vegetables and coarse grains. Barely edible, but edible nonetheless.
Chewing on the vegetable leaves, He Wanqing handed the bowl back to Ye Jianshan.
“Who cooked today?”
“Younger Brother did. He knows Mother likes his cooking best.”
Along the journey fleeing famine, all four brothers had cooked before. The ingredients were always similar, but strangely, aside from Ye Jianming, the food everyone else made always tasted slightly worse.
From the inherited memories, He Wanqing now understood this clearly.
Looks like the fourth boy really had talent in cooking.
Even with such terrible ingredients, he could still make something barely edible. If he had normal ingredients, the results would surely be amazing.
Though He Wanqing lived with a laid-back mentality, she still had desires when it came to food.
As a result, her gaze toward A-Ming suddenly became heated.
This kid was a treasure!
With his head lowered, A-Ming completely failed to notice his mother staring at him.
Ye Jianshan didn’t leave immediately after taking the bowl. Instead, he asked carefully, “Mother, would you like another bowl?”
“Have all of you eaten?”
“We’re eating wild vegetable buns. The porridge is for Mother.”
Compared to the dry and hard-to-swallow wild vegetable buns, the porridge naturally tasted better. And in their household, the best food always went to Mother first.
That was the principle He Wan had drilled into her four sons.
Though the boys all had different personalities, every one of them remembered it deeply.
Now, the person benefiting from it had become He Wanqing.
“Then bring me another bowl. If there’s extra, the rest of you can split it.”
She knew very well how selfish the original owner had been.
But He Wanqing had no intention of changing too suddenly. If she exposed herself, things would become troublesome.
With that in mind, she tried to speak less and observe more.
After finishing the second bowl of porridge, He Wanqing followed the inherited memories and searched for the original owner’s little box used for storing important belongings.
After quite some effort, she finally dragged a bundle out from beneath the bedding.
Opening the cloth wrapping revealed the familiar little box from her memories.
Carefully shifting herself toward a place where no one could see, He Wanqing opened it.
Oh ho, there was quite a bit of silver inside.
The broken pieces and complete ingots together added up to around thirty taels, along with some scattered copper coins.
There were also the entire family’s travel permits and land deeds.
But now that they had fled their homeland, the land deeds were basically useless paper.
Well, she might as well keep them as souvenirs.
After understanding the family’s financial situation, He Wanqing relaxed considerably and felt even more confident about living as a laid-back Buddhist woman.
After all, in this world:
1 tael of silver = 10 mace of silver = 1,000 copper coins.
Under normal prices, one tael could buy around:
So thirty taels was actually a substantial amount of money.
It definitely needed to be hidden properly.
At once, He Wanqing thought of the system.
“Little Sixie, can you store things for me?”
“Host, unfortunately, no.”
616 was delighted that the host finally remembered it, but storage functionality was beyond its current capabilities.
“All right then. You really are a useless system.”
616: “……”
It was a system, not a storage space!