Chapter 8: Exchanging for a Cabin

Yun Qimu glanced at her exchange panel and, to her shame, couldn’t help but shed a few tears.

Both the Mental Stabilizer and the Grade B Silver Arrow Crossbow cost 100,000 spirit coins each in her exchange shop—about the same price as a Golden House.

So why was she only given a completely useless, destined-to-be-hers Village Chief’s Token?!

Don’t ask. If you must know, it’s envy, jealousy, and resentment.

“Dumb Mu, what did you get from your lucky draw? Tell me!” Yun Xiaoyu, oblivious to her sorrow, tilted his little head, his big black eyes staring at her expectantly.

Yun Qimu averted her gaze, silently swallowing a mouthful of blood, and reminded him, “You lost the bet earlier. Stop calling me Dumb Mu.”

Yun Xiaoyu’s excited little face froze for a second. He pouted. “Hmph, fine, I won’t call you that. Silly Mu, then.”

“We agreed you’d call me big sister, remember?”

Yun Xiaoyu replied righteously, “I only promised not to call you Dumb Mu. I never said I’d call you big sister. So calling you Silly Mu doesn’t break our deal.”

Yun Qimu: …I let my guard down.

Kids these days are this clever?

Yun Xiaoyu pressed on, delivering another soul-crushing blow. “So, what did you get, then?”

Yun Qimu stayed silent for a long moment before dejectedly moving her lips. Her voice was listless. “…A useless piece of wood.”

Yun Xiaoyu looked skeptical, his bright black eyes full of doubt. “Isn’t that your ability?”

Yun Qimu looked up at the sky with a world-weary sigh. “Maybe because I just awakened it, it’s too rebellious. I can’t control it. Maybe I’ll lose control even more in the future.”

She lowered her head and looked seriously at the little Yun Xiaoyu. “Maybe someone will die because of it someday. Are you scared?”

“Hmph, what’s there to be scared of? I’m not even afraid of the Exile Star.” Yun Xiaoyu tossed his little head, looking all nonchalant.

But soon he turned back, tugged at Yun Qimu’s sleeve, and said cautiously, “Then don’t tell anyone it’s your ability. Just say we found it by accident.”

Yun Qimu’s lips curved into a smile, her eyes sparkling as she looked at his worried little face. She pinched his chubby cheeks and laughed, “You’re so cute. You’re right. I’ll listen to you.”

“Ah! Let go, let go, you… you old cow!” Yun Xiaoyu protested, his words muffled, waving his tiny fists and baring his teeth at her.

Silly Mu, Silly Mu, so mean!

Yun Qimu let go, still grinning, then straightened up. “Alright, time to get to work. First, we need to pick up some planks from the junk pile. I want to buy a cabin.”

Yun Xiaoyu, still wanting to be angry, could only rub his cheeks and grumble, “Why buy a cabin? Can’t we just build one ourselves?”

“No. The cabin I want to buy is called the Sturdy Cabin. With it, even if berserk beasts attack at night, we won’t have to worry about it breaking. We’ll finally get a good night’s sleep.”

“Oh.” Yun Xiaoyu frowned, not really understanding, but decided to chalk it up to Silly Mu’s strange ability.

He picked up the Silver Arrow Crossbow, face alert, little feet pattering excitedly toward the junk pile.

Yun Qimu told Yun Dad to follow and protect him, while she stayed behind.

On the ground lay one dead and one gravely injured. Maid Nasha had already fainted, her face pale as a sheet.

Yun Qimu only glanced at her indifferently, then squatted down and started looting the corpses.

The skinny guy who’d ambushed her and got his throat slit was probably a reckless, greedy mercenary. People like him lived for pleasure, spent money as fast as they earned it, and never kept anything valuable in their pockets.

Sure enough, Yun Qimu searched him thoroughly—almost stripping off his greasy black clothes—but only found a small black pouch and a sharp murder-knife.

She weighed the pouch, then flipped the corpse over, using his back as a table. Carefully, she untied the drawstring and poured out the energy coins inside.

“One, two, three, four…”

Yun Qimu squatted with her knees together, solemnly counting the coins one by one with her slender white fingers.

Her black hair fell over her cheek, and she impatiently tucked it behind her ear.

“297, 298, 299… Ugh, damn it! Just one more and I’d have three full spirit coins.”

She slapped the stiff back in frustration, making the coins clatter. She barely managed to catch one that almost rolled away, then took a deep breath. “Mainframe, exchange these for spirit coins. Store them for me.”

[Recommendation: Host should activate the bank function! Bank construction only costs 3 million spirit coins~~]

The mechanical voice trembled at the end, but instead of sounding tempting, it was more like a devil’s whisper, trying to force her to spend money.

Yun Qimu’s expression hardened. She flatly refused, “No. Absolutely not. I’m broke.”

She decisively scooped up the coins and stuffed them back in the pouch, then moved on to loot Nasha.

Surprisingly, Nasha had quite a stash hidden on her: in her belly pocket, the seams of her clothes, under her shoes, in a small purse at her waist, even in her fluffy hair. Altogether, Yun Qimu found 3,000 energy coins—equivalent to 30 spirit coins.

She still needed 17 spirit coins and one energy coin to afford the cabin.

Yun Qimu looked up at the pink suitcase, pinning all her hopes on it.

As the saying goes, no hope, no disappointment. But when you pin too much hope on something, you’ll only feel crushing despair.

So when she opened the pink suitcase, Yun Qimu truly understood the meaning of hopeless sadness.

What was inside? Rows of colorful nutrient solutions and white foam packing material…

Other than that, not even a single energy coin. Not even a change of clothes.

:: _ :: This really was a particularly tragic thing.

Yun Qimu fiddled with the pearls on her sleeve, asking hopefully, “Can I exchange the pearls on my clothes for spirit coins?”

[The pearls are too old; their spiritual energy is depleted. To you, they’re just expensive decorations, but to the game, they’re useless junk. Why would I recycle that? But if you open the auction house or trading market and list them as goods, maybe someone who appreciates them will buy them~~]

“No, thanks.”

Yun Qimu’s face was cold as she refused again. Stupid mainframe, always trying to tempt her to spend money. Auction house, trading market—there’d have to be people for that, right? There were only three players in this game right now. Whoever bought them, it’d just be moving money from her left pocket to her right, and the mainframe would probably even take a cut.

Hmph. She’d already learned from the forums in her past life just how greedy the mainframe really was."