/
Su Han originally wanted to go to a secluded corner to give her stalkers a chance, but a drunk man appeared in front of her and bumped into her hard.
The drunkard dropped to the ground; eyes blank. He looks like he can’t figure out what’s going on. Su Han’s expression immediately became solemn, “Stop pretending, hand over what you’ve stolen.”
The supplies in the portable warehouse were intact, but her backpack suddenly became lighter. Obviously, there was a problem with this guy in front of her.
The drunkard acted like he didn’t hear Su Han’s words, and continued acting stupid.
“Do you believe me if I say I’ll throw you into the river to sober you up?” Su Han looked indifferent.
The drunk man: “…”
‘Mother! She looks like a gentle and delicate girl, why is she so cruel when she speaks?’ His eyes instantly regained clarity, and he asked helplessly, “How did you find out?”
“My backpack is much lighter. You must have stolen my steel beads.” Su Han said nonchalantly, “If you took something else, I might not be able to detect it.”
The drunkard, full of grief and indignation, cursed his damn luck! He took out an opened bag of steel beads from under his jacket and threw it back to the owner, “Here.”
Su Han asked the drunkard curiously, “Aren’t you afraid I’m going to beat you up?” ‘This guy was caught stealing, but he looked like he didn’t care at all.’
The drunkard snorted, “How exhausting is it to beat people up? It’s already difficult enough to find food, don’t waste your energy.” He’s got nothing to lose anyway, of course, he didn’t care about the consequences.
Su Han weighed the bag in her hand and asked abruptly, “Are you a player?”. ‘This stealing technique was too mysterious; it might be a skill.’
The drunkard paused, raised his head, and asked seriously, “Is there anything to drink?”
“What?” Su Han was puzzled.
“If you have a drink, I’m a player and I can chat with you. If you have nothing to drink, you can go away now.” The drunkard said lazily.
Su Han thought, ‘Isn’t this admitting that he is a player? He’s basically saying, ‘If she can’t give him something to drink, he doesn’t plan to talk to her.’
After thinking about it, she took out a bottle of milk and shook it in front of the drunkard. “If your answer is satisfactory, this bottle of milk is yours.”
The drunkard’s eyes lit up, he was ecstatic, “I didn’t expect your days to be this good!” She can take out this bottle of milk casually, it’s obvious she didn’t have to worry about not having enough food.
“Shut up.” Su Han was worried there would be NPCs following them. She deliberately lowered her voice and spoke in a rush. “Let’s find a convenient place to talk first, follow me.”
The drunkard looked at her with disapproval. But he coveted that bottle of milk so much so he had no choice but to follow Su Han.
*****
Turning left and right, after finally throwing away the guys following behind her, Su Han looked at the drunkard carefully. With messy hair, flushed cheeks and swollen eyes, it seems he’s not faking his drunkenness. Looks like things aren’t going so well for him. “Okay, tell me what you know.”
The drunkard stretched out his hand and demanded, “Pay the bill first.”
Su Han threw the milk over. She then took out another bottle and said casually, “This bottle is also yours if you answer nicely.”
The drunkard’s face turned red, obviously very excited. He said what he knows without hiding anything right away, “My name is Wei Minzhe, occupation: “Thief”, as long as I touch someone, there is a 30% chance of stealing something from them.”
“Were you worried about the NPCs overhearing us just now? You don’t have to worry about that, I’ve tested them. After saying the word ‘player’, the system will automatically block the rest of the conversation for us. Even if we talk loudly about the game content, the NPCs will only think we are talking nonsense.”
“I have the skill to steal something by touching someone. Doesn’t it sound very incredible? But the NPCs I stole from act like it’s something very normal, I think the developers should have specifically programmed the NPCs to rationalize such actions.”
‘I see.’ Su Han showed a thoughtful look. She glanced at the drunkard, wondering out loud “Why are you so poor?”
Even if he exchanged all 100 points for food and daily necessities in system mall, he still shouldn’t be this miserable.
“Don’t mention it.” Wei Minzhe complained bitterly, “The system dug a huge pit for me!”
“After looking at the attributes, do you think you can live forever as long as you stock up on food for satiety and daily necessities for cleanliness?” Wei Minzhe continued with a frown. “It sounds like it doesn’t matter what you eat or what you use to as long as they refill your attributes right?”
“Since it’s like that, it’s not worth it to stock up on mineral water, so why not exchange other materials instead.” (T/N: Both water and buttered bread both cost 2 system points, but water +10 satiety whereas buttered bread +25 satiety.)
He let out a sarcastic laugh, and then said with a sullen face, “If those were your thoughts, you’re also not be far from falling into the pit.”
Su Han asked expressionlessly, “What do you mean?”
“Mineral water can indeed only slightly increase satiety, but if the daily intake is less than 500 ml, “Dehydration” will appear on your attributes the next day, and your energy will keep decreasing. I later discovered that it doesn’t necessarily have to be mineral water, other drinks like cola, milk, alcohol can also prevent “Dehydration” debuff. To be precise, fluid intake cannot be less than 500 ml per day.”
“Also, using towels and toothbrushes can indeed improve cleanliness, but if you didn’t use soap or shower gel for 72 hours, the probability of “Infection” increases sharply.”
“Similarly, eating chocolate and candies can increase satiety, but you must also eat staple foods within 72 hours. Both rice and flour count as a staple food. I’m not sure what kind of debuff you get, but I heard some players lost their lives because they didn’t eat staple food for a long time.”
Wei Minzhe explained everything slowly, his tone sounds like someone who had experienced vicissitudes of life. These are all lessons paid with blood and he personally experienced most of these situations.
Su Han couldn’t sympathize with him, but she inexplicably thought of the gift bag she bought.
The gift bag contains soap (daily necessity), mineral water (water resource), buttered pork floss bread (staple food) and medical bandages (medical supply) which, from what Wen Minzhe said, contained everything crucial for survival. Thinking about it now, it appeared the system gave a hint from the beginning!
Because the variety of materials that can be stored in the warehouse is limited (only ten slots), Su Han stocked up the goods according to what was included in the gift bag. Unexpectedly, she got it right by mistake.
“How come you don’t know anything?” Wei Minzhe was puzzled, “You’ve been in the game for 7 days, you have never gotten a negative buff?”
Su Han shook her head and said, “I stayed in a noodle shop since the start of the instance and eat noodles with soup. I also buy soap whenever I get a chance.”
*****
Wei Minzhe was speechless. ‘Noodles contained flour so it’s a staple food, the soup can be counted as daily fluid intake, and she also hoards soap… This guy really didn’t lack anything, no wonder she can’t seem to understand the hardships experienced by people at the bottom!’
Su Han asked him, “You didn’t buy the personal warehouse and the great value gift bag?”
Wei Minzhe’s face showed a trace of sorrow, “I exchanged all my points for currency and got 10,000 coins. I found out only after entering the game that, even though I can buy lots of stuff with the coins in my hand, it was very inconvenient to carry all these things without a warehouse. Then I bought the wrong kind of food…”
“Recently, the only water resource I can get is alcohol, I actually don’t like drinking but what choice do I have… What’s even more unfortunate is that after drinking a certain amount, I get debuffs like “Drunkenness” and even “Alcoholism”.”
“The useful items in the supermarket just had to sell out very fast. It’s very difficult to get mineral water, beverages, and other commodities now.”
Su Han was puzzled, “You didn’t think of boiling some water to drink?”
Wei Minzhe froze.
Wei Minzhe: “…!!!”
Su Han: “……”
Su Han continued, “I stocked up on mineral water because I was worried about the power and water outages in the future, so I’m preparing for that in advance. Why didn’t you just boil some water to drink? Take some tap water, boil it, and then you can drink that?”
This is how they cook the noodle soup back in the shop.
Wei Minzhe was suddenly filled with a belly full of grief and anger. He initially thought he had more than enough money, so he just thought about buying this and that. He never considered making something with his own hands…
God knows, drinking too much alcohol not only decreased his energy, but also accelerated the consumption of cleanliness! In an instant, Wei Minzhe lost all his strength and felt that he was such a fool. He destroyed a good hand.
“What else do you know?” Su Han changed the subject. In fact, she was already very satisfied with all this information. She just asked this to try and see if she could squeeze something else out of him.
Wei Minzhe said faintly, “With increasing unemployment rates, more and more people are going hungry, so theft and robbery happened more often. It’s still okay now. These people just robbed and didn’t harm anyone, it’s hard to tell in the future though.”
“At present, people are desperately exchanging valuable things at home to get something to eat, but what happens when they have nothing left to exchange? To survive, there is probably nothing they can do apart from stealing and robbing.”
“Supermarkets fill up their shelves at 6 am every day on time, but customers start lining up at 4 or 5 am. It’s very difficult to grab these goods every day. By 7, supermarket shelves are all wiped out.”
“As far as I know, some poor families go to supermarkets to pick up rotten vegetables no one wants, some also try their hands at fishing and catching birds to fill their stomachs.” “That’s all I know.”
“Thanks.” Su Han threw the bottle of milk to Wei Minzhe and walked away happily.
Wei Minzhe couldn’t help but show a bitter smile. “He already knew he can boil tap water to drink, it didn’t matter whether he get this bottle of milk or not.”
*****
At half-past one in the afternoon, in Four Seasons Park, several people gathered around the lake to fish.
All of a sudden, a person beamed with joy and exclaimed excitedly, “A fish has bitten the bait!”. He promptly reeled in the fishing line. Sure enough, a big fat fish was caught on the hook.
The old man grinning from ear to ear, deliberately aggravated the old man next to him, “Old He, how many have you caught so far?”
The old man was sitting next to old He this whole time, he knew very well old He hadn’t caught any fish so far.
Trying to conceal the fact that he was terrible at fishing, old He grunted and said, “Shut up surnamed Ding, you are scaring away the fish!”
Old Ding curled his lips, “Just admit that you’re bad at fishing. don’t shift the blame to me, alright?”
Old He was furious.
Old Ding continued, “Say, you don’t know how to fish, so why are you keeping these two fishing rods to yourself? Isn’t it better to give them to others who need it?”
“I’m willing to keep them!” Old He straightened up his neck, looking very stubborn. But in fact, he was a little worried. It has been three days, and the others have more or less caught some fish, but he alone hadn’t caught any fish yet.
‘There’s almost no rice left in his house, if nothing is done, his family is going to starve soon! It’s not a problem if he starves, he’s already so old. His granddaughter is different, she’s still a child…’
Thinking of this, Old He couldn’t help but worry.
At this moment, he heard the clear voice of a young girl. “Hello, is there an owner for this fishing rod?”
“Not for sale!” Old He shouted, feeling displeased.
The female voice continued to ask, “Can it be rented then?”
‘Rent?’ Old He looked up in surprise and found that it was a short-haired girl with a neat appearance talking to him.
It was Su Han.
*****
“What are you paying for rent?” Old He asked, feeling relieved. He had no confidence in his fishing ability anymore.
“Let me borrow the fishing rod for four hours, and the fish I caught during that time will be divided equally between the two of us, is that acceptable?” Su Han smiled confidently.
Old He wanted to ask what happens if she didn’t catch any fish, but he swallowed those words. Even if he kept the fishing rod beside him for a whole day, he still wouldn’t catch any fish. It’s not as if things could get worse if he lent it to someone for a few hours.
“Alright then. Here, you can sit next to me and fish.” Old He convinced himself secretly, ‘there is nothing to worry about, he’s got nothing to lose anyway.’