Page 27

Nothing happened on the way. The instant the vehicle stopped, Zhang Yi opened his eyes alertly, his expression clearheaded. If Nan Shao had not heard him snoring earlier, he would almost have thought Zhang Yi had never slept.

"It's still early. Let's sell off some of the medicine we don't need and rent a place first," Li Muran said, glancing at the sky as they were about to enter the shantytown. "Then we'll have a better environment to treat your friend's wounds, and we won't need to move them afterward, so we won't have to worry about the wounds reopening."

Zhang Yi and Nan Shao had no objections. Li Muran took some essential oral anti-inflammatory medicine and two bottles of Baiyao out of the bag on her back and stuffed them into Zhang Yi's bag, planning to trade everything else for Corpse Crystals.

Including that day, Nan Shao had only been in Wangyang Town for three days, so aside from trading for water and dry rations that morning, he had not been anywhere else. Only when they reached the trading area did he discover that there was a bustling street market here too. Most of those setting up stalls to trade goods were ability users. There were very few ordinary people, and what they traded was not particularly useful, such as gold jewelry.

As soon as Zhang Yi and the others laid out the medicine, someone came over to ask about it. He was an ordinary man looking for blood pressure medication.

Li Muran had collected a great deal of medicine for bruises and sprains, anti-inflammatory medicine, and antibiotics, but she really could not remember whether there was any blood pressure medication. She was bending down to look when a lovely female voice sounded beside her. "How much for this whole bag of medicine? I'll take it all."

At last, she dug out a bottle of compound reserpine tablets, with no idea how she had swept it into her collection. She picked it up and offered it to the ordinary man who had arrived first. "Would this work?" As she spoke, she glanced at the woman who had come later, and the sight immediately caught her eye.

She was a girl of eighteen or nineteen, her long hair tied into a neat ponytail behind her head, her skin luminous and fine, her features as lovely as a painting. But her looks were not the point. The point was that she was far too clean. Both her clothes and her exposed skin were so clean that looking at her felt like returning to the days before the apocalypse. Even more surprisingly, she wore a tight white tank top and denim short shorts, revealing arms whiter than snow and long, slender legs, in stark contrast to the surrounding crowd, whose appearances and clothing were uniformly drab.

Clearly, Zhang Yi, Nan Shao, and the man who wanted blood pressure medication were all momentarily distracted by the girl's appearance, so none of them answered her immediately. Li Muran noticed a flicker of puzzlement in the girl's eyes when she saw her face. Then she seemed to struggle to recall something, but apparently failed, and casually shifted her gaze away again, settling it back on Nan Shao. The girl's eyes held a worldly shrewdness at odds with her age, along with excitement she tried but failed to suppress. Instinctively, Li Muran felt that the girl was far more interested in Nan Shao than in the bag of medicine at their feet.

"It was four hundred Corpse Crystals. But since we're setting aside a bottle of blood pressure medication for this gentleman, it's only three hundred and eighty now." Zhang Yi answered with the price they had agreed on earlier. They could actually have asked for more, but since they had never traded medicine before and were unsure of its value, they had quoted just enough to cover a month's rent.

Hearing their conversation, the man who had arrived first came to his senses and hurriedly accepted the medicine Li Muran was holding out. He glanced at the name, delight spreading across his face as he said repeatedly, "Yes, yes, this will do..." As he spoke, he pulled a handful of Corpse Crystals from his inner jacket pocket and counted them, but there were only thirteen. He searched himself all over again, yet could not find even one more, and his face instantly fell. His grip on the bottle tightened until his knuckles turned slightly white. Hesitantly, he held it back out to Li Muran, but asked with a last thread of hope, "I only have thirteen Corpse Crystals. Could I give you the rest tomorrow?" Medicine was scarce. Even with Corpse Crystals, there was no guarantee of finding the medicine one wanted. Twenty crystals for a bottle of blood pressure medication was hardly expensive, so bargaining had never even crossed his mind.

Li Muran did not take it back immediately. She glanced back at Zhang Yi and Nan Shao, but before either could respond, the girl said, "I'll pay six hundred Corpse Crystals for all of it, including the bottle in his hand." As she spoke, she took the bag off her back, pulled a large sack of Corpse Crystals out of it, and tossed it to Li Muran.

The man's face turned ashen. Without another word, he put the bottle back into the medicine bag on the ground and was about to turn away when the girl called him back.

"Here, take this. I have no use for it anyway." The girl bent down, took the bottle of blood pressure medication out again, and handed it to him.

He had already given up all hope and had never expected things to take a turn. Wild joy appeared in his eyes, and he snatched the bottle as though afraid she might change her mind. Then he held out the Corpse Crystals still clutched in his other hand. "This... this... this is all I have. Please take it, miss. Later... later..."

The girl waved a hand dismissively, cutting him off. "No need. It's a gift."

Moved to tears with gratitude, the man asked the girl's name and thanked her over and over before finally leaving, holding the blood pressure medication as though it were a treasure.

Watching this dramatic scene, Zhang Yi and his two companions all quietly breathed a sigh of relief. They could not give the man a discount in front of the girl. Once they started doing that, it would be difficult to get a good price for the bag of medicine. This outcome naturally made everyone happy. As for the girl's big-spender behavior, none of the three were inclined to comment much. If she dared to act like that and dress that way, she naturally had something to rely on. It was not their place to worry.

"I don't have anything to carry it in. Give me this bag too." Only after the man had left did the girl speak to them, though her gaze rested on Nan Shao. From the earlier conversation, all three knew her name was Han Ling.

Seeing that Nan Shao showed no particular reaction and Zhang Yi was counting the crystal cores, Li Muran bent down and gathered all the medicine she had rummaged out back into the bag, then zipped it shut. "No problem. Take it."

"Thank you!" Han Ling smiled and nodded, very politely. Once Zhang Yi had finished counting the Corpse Crystals, she picked up the bag and left without lingering any further, as though the eager look she had given Nan Shao earlier had merely been Li Muran's imagination.