Hearing Aunt Yang’s voice, Su Xing shrank back and tightened her grip on Su Yue’s hand.
Is Xingxing afraid of this woman?
From Su Yue’s memories, Aunt Yang was nosy, gossipy, and liked taking advantage of others, but she had never had much contact with their family. Why was Su Xing reacting this way?
“Auntie, our family has run out of food. I was thinking of asking Aunt Wang if she could lend us something to eat. By the way, Auntie, your family— Huh? You’re leaving already? Not staying to chat?”
The moment Aunt Yang heard that Su Yue intended to borrow food, she curled her lip and hurried away as if avoiding a plague.
After sending Aunt Yang off, Su Yue led Su Xing to the corner of an alley. She crouched down and gently touched the little girl’s face.
It was ice cold.
Su Xing’s cheeks were flushed red from the cold, and her nose was running. Every so often, she wiped it with a dirty handkerchief that was already fraying at the edges.
“Xingxing, are you afraid of that auntie? Did she bully you?”
Su Yue worried that someone might have mistreated Su Xing while she was away.
Su Xing nodded, then shook her head.
“Big Sister, the people outside are scary. I’m afraid of them. They’ll hurt us and make us bleed a lot.”
So seeing her sister lying in bed covered in blood the other day had frightened the little girl badly.
It made sense.
She had lost her parents at a young age, and now her sister was the only family she had left.
How could a six-year-old child not be terrified?
Even now, Su Yue could still hear Su Xing’s desperate cries from when she first arrived in this world. Each plea tugged painfully at her heart.
She pulled Su Xing into her arms.
“I promise that I won’t scare you like that again, okay? Mom and Dad are still watching over us, so don’t be afraid.”
Su Xing rubbed her little face against Su Yue’s neck.
“Okay~”
After comforting her, the two sisters headed to Huiyou Store.
A new bell hung above the door, chiming crisply as they pushed it open.
Su Xing stared at the bell with delight.
“Aunt Wang.”
“Aunt Wang~”
Su Yue and Su Xing greeted her together.
The woman behind the counter looked up.
“Xiaoyue, Xingxing—have you run out of food again?”
There was no impatience in her voice, only a trace of helplessness.
After all, these were the orphaned daughters of her late friend—children she had held in her arms when they were babies. She couldn’t bear to ignore them.
But times were hard.
Even though running a shop gave her family a slightly better life than those who relied solely on scavenging, it was only slightly better.
She still had two sons and a daughter to support. Symptoms of radiation syndrome had already begun appearing in her own body, and she had no idea how much longer she would live.
Seeing the two frail girls standing before her filled her with both sympathy and sorrow.
Su Yue understood the look in Aunt Wang’s eyes. She knew the woman had her own difficulties but genuinely cared about them.
Stepping forward, she said,
“Auntie, we still have a little food at home. This time, I came to trade for something.”
Meanwhile, Su Xing remained by the door, playing with the little bell.
Su Yue took out the low-radiation shepherd’s purse leaf from inside her coat.
“This shepherd’s purse leaf has a radiation level of 653. Please take a look.”
In this world, anything below a radiation level of 700 was considered low-radiation food.
However, most plants had radiation levels above 1,000, and even those between 700 and 1,000 were rare.
Food below 700 was especially valuable.
Wealthy residents of the safe cities ate these low-radiation vegetables regularly.
Most refugees who managed to obtain them sold them instead.
Aunt Wang looked surprised. She activated the detector on her wristwatch and scanned the leaf.
It was indeed 653.
“Not bad, Xiaoyue. You got lucky.”
“Auntie, how much can this leaf sell for?”
Aunt Wang thought for a few seconds.
“Hmm… one hundred credits. Is that alright? The leaf isn’t very large, but people in the city like shepherd’s purse, so it should sell.”
(Author’s note: Currency denominations in this world are relatively high and have lower purchasing power than in real life.)
Su Yue had estimated the leaf was worth at most ninety credits.
Aunt Wang was clearly lowering her own profit margin to help the sisters.
Su Yue nodded immediately.
“Okay! Thank you, Auntie.”
Seeing how capable Su Yue had become genuinely made Aunt Wang happy.
“You’re being too polite, child.”
As she spoke, she transferred one hundred credits to Su Yue through her wrist device.
“Auntie, I’d like to buy a glass jar, a bag of coarse salt, and some rock sugar or white sugar.”
“Alright. We’re out of white sugar, but I still have some loose rock sugar left. Altogether, with the salt and the jar, that’ll be… thirty-five credits.”
The real price should have been 350 credits.
Knowing Su Yue couldn’t afford it, Wang Churan quietly dropped a zero.
Su Yue felt a little embarrassed.
She knew Aunt Wang had intentionally lowered the price.
Aunt Wang quickly gathered the items from the shelves and set them on the counter.
The glass jar was about thirty centimeters tall and twenty centimeters wide—large enough for making jam.
The bag of coarse salt weighed around five hundred grams.
The rock sugar was the last of her stock, packed in a small plastic bag with around thirty or forty pieces inside.
“Thank you, Auntie.”
Su Yue felt deeply grateful, but she had already imposed on Aunt Wang too much and felt uncomfortable accepting more help.
“Oh, just take them. It’s no trouble.”
Su Yue’s mind struggled for two seconds.
She was painfully aware of how poor they were.
Before she could think twice, her hand had already reached out and picked up the items.
“Then thank you, Auntie!”
She silently made a promise to herself: in the future, any good items she found would be sold to Aunt Wang first. Whenever she had an opportunity, she would make sure to share it with her.
She promptly transferred thirty-five credits to Aunt Wang.
She now had 79.5 credits remaining.
Taking out a piece of rock sugar, she handed one to Su Xing and popped another into her own mouth.
It was so sweet that it brightened her mood instantly.
Su Xing sucked on her piece of sugar, creating a little bulge in her thin cheek.
Su Yue tucked the salt and sugar into her coat, handed the glass jar to Su Xing, and carried her in her arms.
That way, no one could tell she was carrying valuables.
Only after they returned home did she set Su Xing down.
The moment her feet touched the ground, Su Xing began massaging Su Yue’s arms.
“Big Sister, am I heavy? Thank you for carrying me.”
Su Xing wasn’t heavy at all.
There wasn’t even two pounds of flesh on her tiny frame. How could she be heavy?
Holding her had made Su Yue realize just how thin she was.
She was so small and light that it made Su Yue’s heart ache.
“Xingxing isn’t heavy at all. Eat more food from now on so you can grow tall and strong. Then you can go scavenging with Big Sister someday.”
“Okay!”
Su Yue carefully stored the sugar and salt in a wooden cabinet, washed the glass jar, and set it aside to dry.
Then she grabbed a bucket and went to the well in the center of the refugee district to fetch water.
As long as the water’s surface hadn’t frozen over completely, most people relied on the well.
But once the weather grew colder, a thick layer of ice would form on top.
At that point, people would have to cut blocks of ice from the river, carry them home, and melt them in pots for water.
Back at home, Su Yue mixed dirt with dried grass stalks, piling them into a volcano shape and slowly adding water while stirring.
Before long, she had a small pile of wet clay.
She poured the excess water from the bucket into the cooking pot to use later for meals.
Then she placed the clay into the bucket and headed outside again.
Su Yue’s house had a small yard of around thirty to forty square meters.
But in this wasteland era, almost nothing edible could be grown, so it had long been abandoned.
Scrap wood and debris were piled around the yard.
There was also a dusty ladder that creaked ominously underfoot, making her wonder whether it was still safe to use.
Su Yue summoned a vine with her ability and wrapped it several times around her waist.
The vine extended upward, reaching the roof beam and winding tightly around the thickest section of wood.
It functioned like a safety rope.
Only then did she pick up the bucket with one hand, steady the ladder with the other, and slowly begin to climb.