Trading with Shangguan Yingxue

["What do you need? Let me say this up front: I don't have any guns left to trade with you."]

Ye Qiyan tapped the light screen and sent the message.

After receiving no reply for a while, Ye Qiyan thought she no longer wanted to trade. Just as he was about to close the private chat, a message arrived.

["Sorry, I was taking a bath just now."]

A bath?

Ye Qiyan silently looked toward his water reservoir.

Just how much water did this woman have, to waste it like that? Even he wasn't that extravagant.

["That's fine. So what do you want to trade for? You should have seen what I just said."]

Inside Shangguan Yingxue's train.

A girl with waist-length black hair stood up from a wooden tub that occupied more than half the train. She pinned up her long hair, her pale blue eyes betraying no emotion.

["32 kilograms of wood, 50 kilograms of metal, and 40 Mechanical Parts. You should have those."]

Ye Qiyan raised an eyebrow. Instead of answering, he asked a question of his own:

["Those materials are for upgrading your train, right? How are you so sure I have them? Besides, even if I do, why wouldn't I use them to upgrade my own train?"]

["Because I hate hassle. Before contacting you, I'd already collected some materials, but it takes too much time, and I have to talk to too many people. I don't like that. As for why I came to you, I think you're the only person who can produce several different materials in one go right now. I've done the calculations. You probably sold over twenty rifles. Aside from food and water, wouldn't everything you traded for have been various materials?"]

She was right, but not entirely.

Because Ye Qiyan hadn't sold just over twenty rifles. Double that-over forty-would have been correct.

As for the resources she wanted, Ye Qiyan did indeed have them.

But he wasn't interested in trading them for water alone. After all, what he had in the reservoir was enough for now, and there was even a way to make it drinkable.

He had seen that method in the chat room.

Start a fire by rubbing sticks together, then boil it. Never mind the taste; boiled water, at least, wouldn't make someone die of diarrhea.

Of course, unless he truly had no water left to drink, he wouldn't try that method.

Shangguan Yingxue fell silent for a moment. She dried herself off and sent over a screenshot.

["This should be enough."]

[Water Purifier] (Level 1)

[Can filter and purify dirty water. Purifies one kilogram per hour.]

Seeing the screenshot's contents, Ye Qiyan rubbed his eyes.

A Water Purifier?

It was actually something like this?

No wonder this woman was already being extravagant enough to take baths. She had probably obtained this device back at the first station. Even water used for bathing could be filtered and recycled.

And she had more than one.

No, she must have the blueprint for this device. Otherwise, how could she bear to trade it away?

["You have the blueprint?"]

["This device should be enough to trade for the resources I need, right?"]

She neither admitted nor denied it.

Ye Qiyan reined in his surprise.

The Water Purifier blueprint was certainly precious, but it belonged to someone else.

He was already lucky enough. There was no need to envy others.

["Yes, we can trade."]

The two completed the trade.

After receiving the Water Purifier, Ye Qiyan discovered that it fit perfectly between the reservoir's dirty-water tank and clean-water tank.

Once the device was switched on, the purified water would automatically flow into the clean-water tank and accumulate there.

That saved him quite a bit of trouble.

"Ascension."

After using Ascension so many times, Ye Qiyan had roughly figured out its rules. Small level 1 items like this didn't consume much stamina.

[Refined Water Purifier] (Level 2)

[Purifies 3 kilograms of water per hour. Can purify non-freshwater.]

It had gone up one level, its effectiveness had tripled, and it had gained the ability to purify non-freshwater. In other words, even seawater could be purified.

Ye Qiyan was delighted.

On a whim, Ye Qiyan sent Shangguan Yingxue another message.

["Can you upgrade your train already? Could you tell me what happens after you upgrade?"]

He was a little curious about what upgrade options other people would get after upgrading their trains. Would they be the same as his?

Shangguan Yingxue hesitated for a moment.

["...All right."]

Before long, a screenshot arrived in front of Ye Qiyan.

[Level 2 train upgrade options are as follows]

[1: Low-Level Carriage Blueprint (zero Train Coins)]

[2: Welding Tool Set (two Train Coins)]

[3: Wooden Bed Blueprint (one Train Coin)]

[4: Increase Train Stopover Time by One Hour (two Train Coins)]

Options 1 and 4 were the same as when he had upgraded, but the other two were different.

"So that's how it works. The carriage blueprint and stopover time are fixed, while the other two are random. And their quality varies, too."

Shangguan Yingxue's two random options were much worse than the ones he had received.

Ye Qiyan nodded in understanding, then saw another message arrive from Shangguan Yingxue.

["Do you have any Train Coins?"]

["No."]

["Then are you still buying water?"]

The corners of Ye Qiyan's mouth twitched twice. Before, he might have bought some to keep in reserve, but now... considering that she had already started taking baths, and that her bathwater would definitely be recycled through the Water Purifier, buying more would mean buying her bathwater.

["No."]

["All right..."]

The conversation ended.

Ye Qiyan knew she wanted to buy Train Coins from him to purchase the options, but he didn't even have enough for himself. How could he possibly trade them away?

Besides, there was still one option he hadn't selected.

[Train Burst Acceleration Device Blueprint (five Train Coins)]

It was one of the options unlocked after his train reached level 2.

For most people, accumulating five Train Coins would probably take several station stops.

But Ye Qiyan, having only just made it through the second station, had already saved enough to buy every single option.

[Purchase: Train Burst Acceleration Device Blueprint]

[Spent 5 Train Coins]

[Current Train Coins remaining: 4]

[Train Burst Acceleration Device]

[Construction requirements: 50 kilograms of metal, 200 Mechanical Parts]

[After constructing the device, materials can be used to manufacture Acceleration Bullets. Using an Acceleration Bullet increases the train's speed to three times its original speed for ten minutes.]

So expensive. As expected of a blueprint that cost five Train Coins.

Still, he was only short a few parts.

And he happened to be able to afford them.

After the Second Station, the trading platform had a much wider variety of goods.

And what the vast majority of people needed now was food and water. As it happened, he had food.

Just because Ye Qiyan was picky about those buckets of compressed biscuits didn't mean they had no value.