Doomsday Wonderland

At 1:26 PM, player 57, Lin Sanjiu, had 96 Stamina Points.

“What the heck is a two-way trade?” Lin Sanjiu murmured under her breath. She held the half-empty glass while pushing the door open with her another hand. She wasn’t going to return the glass unless she had finished her drink, “Is he suggesting that I should buy something from a store and then sell it to another?”

Somehow, she felt relieved when she knew that she didn’t have to engage in a physical fight in the last section of the amusement park. As she took her time walking down the street toward her destination, her eyes started to take in the surroundings. Very soon, a building with a green roof came into her sight.

According to what the servant of the hotel told her, she had to take a look at this two-story building if she was eager to earn some Stamina Points. The building looked like a building from ancient China. It had a green roof, white walls, black wooden window frames, and green wooden doors. On the wooden doors, there were two round bronze handles. Unlike the hotel, the building had no fascia board, so Lin Sanjiu didn’t know what kind of place it was.

She shoved the wooden door open and went into the building. Just as she crossed the threshold, she was instantly attracted to the furniture in the middle of the building.

“Hey, miss. Don’t just stand there. Come on in and have a seat—” hailed a voice that came from behind the large wooden counter. A man, who looked like a waiter, appeared. He had a shrewd smile on his face and a white towel on his shoulder, “May I ask what’s your business coming here? Are you here to use the restaurant service or the trading house service?”

As clueless as she was, Lin Sanjiu remained silent. She didn’t rush herself to respond and studied the hall first.

From outside, the building didn’t seem to be that large. However, inside all the walls on the first floor of the building were knocked down, forming a large and spacious hall. The most notable and eye-catching pieces of adornment in the hall, aside from the few tables and chairs that were placed far away around the corner, were the wooden counter that was situated right in the center of the hall and the ten-foot-long notice board on the wall behind it.

The notice board had a yellow wooden frame, occupying more than half of the wall. Although the words were written with brush and ink, the paper used was Xuan paper. When Lin Sanjiu’s gaze fell on it, she could see the words changing from time to time. As her gaze swept through it, she noticed the number behind the words “Purified water/L” had changed from “0.23” to “0.25.”

“Wha-What is this?” Lin Sanjiu asked the waiter. Her eyes shone like diamonds as she was enchanted by the notice board.

“Guess this must be your first visit, miss?” The waiter giggled, “Allow me to fill you in with what’s happening around here first. Before, we were known as the Cloud Gathering Tavern, but as our sales experienced a nose dive with the establishment of the hotel opposite us, our boss decided to open a new path and rebranded our tavern into a trading house. As a consequence, the people in the town recognize us more as the Cloud Gathering Trading House than the Cloud Gathering Tavern. Look, can you see the few segments and columns on the notice board?”

Lin Sanjiu nodded.

“There are 12 routes in the amusement park and every player’s number would be keyed-in the column on the rightest side. Here, in the final section of the amusement park, there is no such thing as the final round; it’s the same in all the other routes. All players are obligated to collect 3,500 Stamina Points regardless of which routes you are taking, and that is the only way to earn yourself a ticket into the final pitstop. Aside from the player numbers, there is the trading status. For example, your player number is 57, right? Please look down.”

Following the waiter’s guidance, Lin Sanjiu looked down. Initially, 41 was the last number on the list, however, as Lin Sanjiu looked down, the list seemed to have captured her eye movement and rolled upward. Very soon, the number 57 appeared, and Lin Sanjiu saw the word “Static” behind her number. She also realized behind some of the numbers had the word “Buy” while some had “Sell.”

“In the second column is the store information for all the stores among the 12 routes. In normal circumstances, it showcases what they were selling, but on some rare occasions, they might be buying something. If you want to buy a thing from the Frog Route, you don’t have to go to the Frog Route personally. You can make your trade offer through a trading house. You can also choose to have your goods delivered virtually or physically. Pretty neat, right?

“The third column is the resource information. There, you will see the resources offered by each seller, from both players and shop owners alike. The column will list out all the prices in the form of Stamina Points as you see now after comparing the total quantity being put on sales with the current market price. The higher the supply, the lower the price and vice versa, isn’t that simple? Ah, it has another function as well. Let say if you want to buy some ammunition, you can tap here and the column will show you all the seller who is currently selling ammunition.”

After the waiter tapped on the spot as he spoke about, the ink on the paper quickly faded and formed into an ammunition list. There were only five shops on the list, and their selling prices were more or less the same. Lin Sanjiu felt she wouldn’t be able to earn a cent let alone as much as 3,500 Stamina Points with those minor price differences.

The waiter pointed at the most left side of the notice board and said, “The last column collects all the latest trading trends and news. Do check it out if you have the time.”

There was nothing in the “Trading News” section—aside from broadcasting the news of a restaurant on the Velvet Cake Route called “Lips” opening a new branch—and it took her only a glance to finish the whole column.

“Velvet Cake Route? Isn’t that the route Hei Zeji is currently on?”  The thought surfaced in Lin Sanjiu’s mind,  “I wonder if he has entered the last stage as well? What is his player number, then?”

She somewhat felt she could get the thing done with half the effort if she could find herself a partner to share the job. However, it wasn’t the right time now, so she put down the thought. After that, she turned around and asked the waiter, “Can I have a direct conversation with the sellers or players through the trading house?”

The waiter nodded. He smiled, “Yes, you can. However, you have to wait until that person shows up here. Normally, we charge 1 Stamina Points for every message sent, while receiving and replying a message is free of charge, but as you’re our VIP guest, the charge is waived.”

“Owh, so the [Scrooge McDuck Power] had begun to do its magic trick.” Satisfied, Lin Sanjiu nodded. Then, she asked again, “How much you guys charge for your service? How much are we looking at for every successful trade?”

“We’ll collect 5% from the total amount for every successful trade. Of course, for you miss, we only take 3%.”

That was a pretty good offer if the transaction amount was huge; however, it didn’t affect Lin Sanjiu much since she had only 96 Stamina Points.

After giving the waiter a thankful nod, Lin Sanjiu took a seat. While taking a sip from her drink, she looked at the ever-changing notice board.

For now, she had to sort everything out first before setting out on her journey to earn some Stamina Points. If she was determined to make the most profit out of a single deal, then she had to think of a way. She felt earning Stamina Points was the same as how she earned her living pre-apocalypse. It never swayed from the golden rule: buy low and sell high.

“There are 20 players engaged actively in trading among 12 routes. It seems more than I thought.” Two heads were better than one; Lin Sanjiu called Mrs. Manas so that they could sort out the best possible way. “However, it isn’t the same for shops. I have been browsing the notice board for 5 minutes, and I still haven’t reached the end of the list. I wonder how many shops are there.”

Mrs. Manas yawned in her brain.

“I believe all the other 20 players have the same objective as me. All of them wish to earn enough Stamina Points so that they can enter the final pitstop as soon as possible. Hence, it’s impossible to get Stamina Points from the players and getting from them will not do us any good.” Lin Sanjiu blabbered on and on without minding Mrs. Manas. It seemed like every time she called Mrs. Manas was to have her listened to her complain. “Even if we assume that all of them have 100 Stamina Points, we could only get 2,000 Stamina Points from them at best. It’s still not enough, and I guess I still had to get the Stamina Points from the shop.”

What she thought was on point, but when she scrolled through the long list of shops, she didn’t see any shops with buying request, and even if she did see one, the price they offered was roughly the same. The only shop she found with buying request— or perhaps it was better to change the status as “Lost”—read like this: I have lost a leash. I offer 20 Stamina Points for anyone who found the leash and returns it to me. At the same time, I’m open to any other kind of leash.”

Taking her chances, Lin Sanjiu took out her [Female Slave Bondage Rope] and tried her luck with the waiter. After a minute, the shop owner replied, “Thanks for your offer but I guess an s*x toy is not very suitable to leash a dog.”

“It isn’t an s*x toy!”

Lin Sanjiu was between laughter and tears as she kept the bondage rope in her inventory. Before she turned away, she asked the waiter again, “I have seen multiple players with the status “Selling.” May I know what they are selling and who they are selling to?”

“The things you can sell are in spades. They might be selling their Special Items, or offering some services. Players and shops can purchase if they require such service. Here, please take a look at the third column. Can you see that there are different categories?”

Lin Sanjiu looked up, and she did see two categories: “Service” and “Special Item.” Both with a sparse number of words beneath them. Apparently, those were still available for sale.

A smile appeared on the lips of the waiter as he returned to his seat behind the counter, “If you can’t decide on what you want to sell, I suggest you have a look outside. Perhaps you might get some ideas.”

Lin Sanjiu pondered the suggestion for a while. She took one last look at the notice board and jotted down the information she needed on a piece of paper. Then, she exited the Cloud Gathering Trading House.

“What do you have in mind?” Although Mrs. Manas was uninterested, she still had to ask.

“I’m not a business person,” Lin Sanjiu said. As she strode down the Pumpkin Route, she looked at the shops at the two sides of Pumpkin Route, “I have a plan, but I’m not sure if it will work out for us.”

Before Mrs. Manas could ask what her plan was, Lin Sanjiu had already stopped in front of a shop and walked into it.

Nobody could tell what kind of shop it was from the first glance. The ceiling, walls, and ground were all painted in black color adorned with brilliant pink geometric patterns that were a huge contrast from the black surroundings, giving the shop a modern impression. It appeared to Lin Sanjiu that Starry Carnival Amusement Park didn’t seem to limit how the pocket dimension beings decorated their shops. The main hall had no other furniture asides from the glaringly cartoonish pink lips—the trademark of the shop—printed on the wall. From the logo, Lin Sanjiu deduced that this shop was that restaurant Lips.

“I’m sorry, Miss,” A black-dressed waiter with pink apron came out of nowhere and greeted Lin Sanjiu after she had walked two steps into the restaurant, “We’re not officially opened yet. As you can see, our restaurant doesn’t even have a chair or table.”

The new branch “Lips” was set to open in Pumpkin Route. It was just that Lin Sanjiu didn’t know whether the news on the Trading News of Cloud Gathering Trading House’s board was by chance or because it was going to open on Pumpkin Route.

“I know. I just wanted to have a look.” Taking advantages of the effect 1 of [Scrooge McDuck Power], Lin Sanjiu ordered the waiter haughtily, “Is that your menu? Give me one.”

The waitress was stunned for a moment before taking a menu from the pile of menus and handed one to Lin Sanjiu.

“For your information, I opt for high standards,” Lin Sanjiu faked as a crazy rich person. She flipped the menu hoity-toity and said, “Where did you guys import your ingredient from? I will never dine in your restaurant if you guys don’t prepare your dishes with first-class ingredients.”

The waitress was seemingly overwhelmed by her faked “wealth,” she quickly replied to her question reverently, “Rest assured, miss. We source our ingredient from the top-graded supplier in Starry Carnival Amusement Park. I believe you must have heard of the name “Yae Hon,” right? They are our main supplier.”

Of course, Lin Sanjiu had no idea what the heck Yae Hon was, but she couldn’t burst her disguise, so she just nodded expressionlessly. After she returned the menu that said that each dish cost more than 10 Stamina Points to the waitress, she retreated from the restaurant.

“Who would dine-in this kind of blood-sucking restaurant?” Lin Sanjiu heaved a sigh of relief after she confirmed that she was out of the waitress’s sight. She pulled out the piece of paper and checked on it, “Yae Hon, Yae Hon, here it is. Yae Hon is a food ingredient supplier based on Frog Route, and they supply eggs, marbled beef, lettuce, and mozzarella.”

According to the waiter in Cloud Gathering Trading House, anything that players or shops could buy was the same. The trading house was the “market.” You could only buy from what’s in the market. Any business under the table would never be able to escape the trading house, and the handling fee would be charged and recorded.

“Of course, a restaurant needs to stock more than this,” Lin Sanjiu mumbled to herself as she continued to walk forward, “Are they trying to simplify the complexity?”

The next shop was a souvenir gift shop, the shop after the souvenir gift shop was a boutique. She forcibly pushed down the urge to buy herself clothes to replace her bathrobe and continued her trip to visit shop after shop to collect more information.

After going through a couple of shops, Lin Sanjiu finally realized why Hei Zeji loved this pocket dimension to his core.

Even though she was in a pocket dimension, the atmosphere here really could make her forget her real circumstances. When she was here, she had thrown the apocalypse world behind her thoughts, and struggling for life was no longer her priority. Looking at the dazzling and peculiar shops, Lin Sanjiu felt she had returned to the peaceful and developed human society.

“Here is my last question,” Lin Sanjiu offered the shop owner a smile, “Is there a bank here?”

The shop owner who was filling her cup shook his head. It was a little bit disappointing.

After she had finished her tea and got a line on a few things, she exited the shop without buying anything from that unfortunate shop.

“I realize you’re getting more and more shameless, “Mrs. Manas sounded unsettled, “Even I felt embarrassed just now.”

Lin Sanjiu sighed, “You can only handle so much? There is more to come. I still haven’t unleashed my trump card yet.”

“What you gonna do?”

Lin Sanjiu didn’t respond to that question. Since she had gotten herself a handful of information, she felt it was about time. Beaming, she activated the [Consciousness Mimicry]. Then, she whispered, “Scrooge McDuck.”