The Walk-in Closet Safehouse CH10
Chapter 10: The "Talented" Grandma
As if hearing Cui Ye’s question, [Friendly Tip] triggered. A green arrow suddenly manifested in her field of vision. It pointed first at the grandmother's head, and once it confirmed Cui Ye was looking, it slid downward, coming to a rest at the left pocket of the woman's pants. There was a distinct bulge there, hiding something.
Cui Ye thought: My, how difficult to guess.
She reached out to stop her roommate from shooing them away and looked at the woman. "Whether your grandson gets his braised pork depends on whether you're willing to trade the thing in your pocket for it."
The grandmother, who had looked like a shameless rogue a second ago, suddenly froze. Her left hand instinctively clutched her pocket. "How did you know?"
The words blurted out before she could stop them. Seeing the slight curl of Cui Ye’s eyes, the grandmother realized she’d been bluffed. She tried to find a way to backtrack, but there was no opening; she hurriedly grabbed her grandson to leave. Unfortunately, a "brat" is easy to let off the leash but hard to pull back.
Ignoring the tense grandmother, Cui Ye pulled a cheese stick from her own pocket and waved it at the boy in the living room. "Want one? Tell your grandma to trade with me. I don’t just have cheese sticks—I have braised pork, chocolate pies, and canned meat. Which one do you want, little guy?"
The boy’s eyes were glued to the cheese stick, his pupils darting left and right with its movement. The snacks at their home had been finished yesterday.
"Grandma! I want it! I want it! Give it to me now!"
The grandmother watched her grandson jumping around trying to reach the snack in Cui Ye's hand, failing repeatedly and screaming for her to get it. Furious, she began a volley of verbal abuse.
Cui Ye picked at her ear. In terms of raw venom, this woman couldn't hold a candle to Cao Zhongliang. Her insults were pure noise—all bark and zero damage.
"You didn't keep your feverish, infected daughter-in-law around—you let the police take her away for isolation. Your husband, who collapsed the other night, hasn't made an appearance. It seems the constraints on your Talent are quite significant. Actually, I’m not asking for much. One of those things in your pocket in exchange for a four-person meal set, plus a bonus cheese stick. What do you think? It's a steal isn't it?"
"A steal? To hell with that! You're looting a burning house!" the woman barked. Every day she had to eat until she was stuffed just to produce six pills. Now, to save food, they had cut down from three meals a day to two, and she only ate until she was seventy percent full. At most, she could produce four pills, and any extras were remnants from the first day. Now, one pill couldn't even buy a day's worth of food? Why not just rob her?!
Cui Ye continued to dangle the cheese stick to taunt the brat while observing the grandmother's reaction. Realizing the woman’s "output" was even lower than she’d expected, she tested the waters by raising her offer: "A five-person meal and two cheese sticks?"
The grandmother glared. "Impossible!"
She couldn't help but look around, worried others might hear. If she’d known, she would have worn a mask before coming out. How did this brat guess? How the hell could she see the medicine through my pants?!
The grandmother’s refusal was firm, but Cui Ye didn't raise the price further. Although normal food provided much less energy after awakening a Talent, it wasn't useless. One-gold-coin food vouchers didn't refresh every day; she still needed to stockpile food for the transition period.
The fact that the woman hadn't turned on her heel and left meant there was room to negotiate. Cui Ye ignored the child persistently grabbing at her snacks. "Your family has "the old and the small"; none of you are fit to go out and scavenge. Right now, so many people are infected and lack the gold for Healing Potions. Your Talent can only treat a few people, and you have no way to protect yourself. I promise no one else will find out about this. You just give me the surplus in exchange for food. Mutual benefit. What do you say?"
She glanced at Wang Zhiqiu. The older roommate had listened to the entire exchange with a look of pure bewilderment. She didn't know how things had escalated to this, but the situation was clearly in their favor, and Cui Ye held the upper hand.
Her usually quiet roommate had suddenly become silver-tongued, and the old lady from upstairs was an "Awakened" with a rare healing-type Talent. It all sounded surreal, but Wang Zhiqiu caught Cui Ye’s signal. Before her brain could fully process it, her head was already nodding:
"That’s right, that’s right. Don't worry, we definitely won't tell anyone else." Her own life was at stake, so she couldn't be careless. The "anyone else" included Liu Yue. Yesterday, it was Liu Yue who soft-heartedly agreed to give food, but it was Wang Zhiqiu who actually provided the goods.
Liu Yue didn't even have much food herself yet dared to agree; she had probably seen Wang Zhiqiu taking ramen from the box the other day. Since Liu Yue still needed help from others, there was naturally no reason to include her in this trade.
The rest of the conversation was conducted in hushed tones. The brat, having finally received his cheese stick, quieted down. By the time Liu Yue noticed the silence and opened her door to check, she only saw the silhouettes of the three departing, carrying both food and snacks.
Compared to the few packs of ramen they’d taken the first time, they were now carrying a heavy bag, and both children had snacks in their hands. What happened?
Cui Ye ignored her and went back into her room, leaving Wang Zhiqiu to handle Liu Yue.
Having received a favor—and a literal pill—thanks to her roommate, Wang Zhiqiu immediately understood. She brought out her skills for tricking clients into renewing contracts and steered the conversation miles away with a few sentences.
Back in her room, Cui Ye took out the three pills she had just acquired.
[Congratulations! Player has obtained: Regret Pill (Pseudo) 1 x3]
[Regret Pill (Pseudo): There is no medicine for regret in this world. Taking this pill locks the user's current negative status for 24 hours.]
It was slightly different from the Healing Potion Cui Ye had imagined, but it achieved the same goal.
For others, it might not be as useful as a potion that instantly reduced infection by 10%—after all, even a normal person without a Safe House wouldn't gain 10% in a day if they stayed indoors. But for Cui Ye, who needed to go out and "farm" gold from water monsters, this had maximum value.
Night fell, and the surface of the water was pitch black.
As the last of the red lightning faded, the heavy rain clouds above dissipated slightly. However, the city's water level had reached two meters. Following official notices, residents on floors one through three had moved to higher floors for temporary shelter. Rented rooms were being requisitioned; some protested but were overruled. Others went online to brag about the supplies they had "accidentally" found, which sparked dark thoughts in the minds of many.
Cui Ye skimmed past these updates. Her priority was making money.
Wearing her poncho and holding a makeshift fishing rod, Cui Ye baited her hook. She stood by the submerged stairs, flicked the line, and moved to the corner of the stairwell to wait for a "fish" to bite.
A water monster, floating like a corpse beneath the surface, suddenly snapped its head up. The scent and vibrations from the bait rippled through the water. Ten meters away, a piece of foam board shuddered. A pair of bulging, eyelidless eyes emerged, scanned the area quickly, and locked onto a spot.
Hunting instinct drove it to swim rapidly toward the target. The moment it reached the prey, it opened its maw and bit down hard, its sharp forelimbs locking the bait in place. The fragile outer skin was quickly torn by its claws, and the monster tasted something it had never experienced before—a whole bag of kitchen waste.
Of course, it probably didn't know what "kitchen waste" was; it only knew it had been tricked.
Cui Ye looked at the trash bag, half of which had been bitten off. What a big mouth, what great teeth!
She quickly pulled back her rod. It was just a clothes-drying pole; if it broke, she wouldn't easily find a replacement.
The tricked monster was enraged. It crawled toward where the rod had vanished. Aided by the surging waves, it reached the steps in an instant. It was less than a meter from where Cui Ye stood at the corner. The sudden speed was heart-stopping. She could feel her pulse racing, and the sound of the waves behind the monster crashed against her eardrums, urging her to strike. Luckily, her palms weren't sweaty.
—Psh!
She struck with the knife. Due to a lack of experience, her aim was slightly off; the blade hit the head instead of the neck. Cui Ye was ready to use [Plushie Collector], but to her surprise, the head wasn't as hard as she’d expected. The knife went in like it was cutting through one of the watermelons she used to slice before the rainy season—not perfectly smooth, but it didn't take much effort.
She flexed her fingers, noticing her strength seemed greater than before. A delusion?
One gold coin was successfully credited. Even the dead monster looked a bit better now.
She repeated the process. Every time she lured a dim-witted monster to the "shore", its speed automatically dropped by eighty percent. The deformed creatures would open their bloody mouths and roar silently at her, only to be taken down with a single strike.
There were never two strikes because she always used [Plushie Collector] as a finisher. Although the monsters were slow on land, their clawed limbs and serrated-chrysanthemum mouths were not affected by the speed reduction. They could easily rip a gash into their prey. Between the infection, inflammation, and fever, it was a "buy one, get the whole family" package of death, and she didn't want to die yet.
After consuming four durability points of [Plushie Collector], her knife movements were much cleaner. Her strength was almost spent. After a short rest, she pushed the monster corpses out of the building. Once she was sure they were swallowed by the rain, she turned to leave.
The fifteen flights of stairs nearly killed her after the power outage. She climbed up in the dark, carefully avoiding the trash and clutter in the hallways. By the time she reached the fifteenth floor, her heart was in her throat. But more painful than her legs was her nose; three days' worth of fermenting trash was piled in the corridor, emitting a foul stench.
Since the public trash bins were outside, and stepping out of the room accelerated infection, no one would risk their lives for a few bags of garbage. As a result, the piles grew. The humid environment and fermenting trash gave rise to various molds she had never seen before—pink, black, and yellow.
Although the trash issue had been mentioned in the neighborhood group, and officials warned about hygiene every rainy season, no one seemed to take it seriously. It was the apocalypse, who would get a ticket for littering now?
But Cui Ye felt that if this continued, something bad would happen. Yet she couldn't change anything. The building had thirty floors with three units per floor—at least two hundred people. Without a leader, unified management was impossible. She could only pray the official shelters would be completed soon.
The next morning, Cui Ye opened her phone to see an announcement in the long-silent neighborhood group. Someone in Building 7 had taken the lead to form a four-person hunting squad and was now recruiting from the entire complex.
Cui Ye filtered out the passionate, grandstanding introduction and focused on three words: Inflatable Rubber Boats.
And there were two of them!
Chapter Notes:
As if hearing Cui Ye’s question, [Friendly Tip] triggered. A green arrow suddenly manifested in her field of vision. It pointed first at the grandmother's head, and once it confirmed Cui Ye was looking, it slid downward, coming to a rest at the left pocket of the woman's pants. There was a distinct bulge there, hiding something.
Cui Ye thought: My, how difficult to guess.
She reached out to stop her roommate from shooing them away and looked at the woman. "Whether your grandson gets his braised pork depends on whether you're willing to trade the thing in your pocket for it."
The grandmother, who had looked like a shameless rogue a second ago, suddenly froze. Her left hand instinctively clutched her pocket. "How did you know?"
The words blurted out before she could stop them. Seeing the slight curl of Cui Ye’s eyes, the grandmother realized she’d been bluffed. She tried to find a way to backtrack, but there was no opening; she hurriedly grabbed her grandson to leave. Unfortunately, a "brat" is easy to let off the leash but hard to pull back.
Ignoring the tense grandmother, Cui Ye pulled a cheese stick from her own pocket and waved it at the boy in the living room. "Want one? Tell your grandma to trade with me. I don’t just have cheese sticks—I have braised pork, chocolate pies, and canned meat. Which one do you want, little guy?"
The boy’s eyes were glued to the cheese stick, his pupils darting left and right with its movement. The snacks at their home had been finished yesterday.
"Grandma! I want it! I want it! Give it to me now!"
The grandmother watched her grandson jumping around trying to reach the snack in Cui Ye's hand, failing repeatedly and screaming for her to get it. Furious, she began a volley of verbal abuse.
Cui Ye picked at her ear. In terms of raw venom, this woman couldn't hold a candle to Cao Zhongliang. Her insults were pure noise—all bark and zero damage.
"You didn't keep your feverish, infected daughter-in-law around—you let the police take her away for isolation. Your husband, who collapsed the other night, hasn't made an appearance. It seems the constraints on your Talent are quite significant. Actually, I’m not asking for much. One of those things in your pocket in exchange for a four-person meal set, plus a bonus cheese stick. What do you think? It's a steal isn't it?"
"A steal? To hell with that! You're looting a burning house!" the woman barked. Every day she had to eat until she was stuffed just to produce six pills. Now, to save food, they had cut down from three meals a day to two, and she only ate until she was seventy percent full. At most, she could produce four pills, and any extras were remnants from the first day. Now, one pill couldn't even buy a day's worth of food? Why not just rob her?!
Cui Ye continued to dangle the cheese stick to taunt the brat while observing the grandmother's reaction. Realizing the woman’s "output" was even lower than she’d expected, she tested the waters by raising her offer: "A five-person meal and two cheese sticks?"
The grandmother glared. "Impossible!"
She couldn't help but look around, worried others might hear. If she’d known, she would have worn a mask before coming out. How did this brat guess? How the hell could she see the medicine through my pants?!
The grandmother’s refusal was firm, but Cui Ye didn't raise the price further. Although normal food provided much less energy after awakening a Talent, it wasn't useless. One-gold-coin food vouchers didn't refresh every day; she still needed to stockpile food for the transition period.
The fact that the woman hadn't turned on her heel and left meant there was room to negotiate. Cui Ye ignored the child persistently grabbing at her snacks. "Your family has "the old and the small"; none of you are fit to go out and scavenge. Right now, so many people are infected and lack the gold for Healing Potions. Your Talent can only treat a few people, and you have no way to protect yourself. I promise no one else will find out about this. You just give me the surplus in exchange for food. Mutual benefit. What do you say?"
She glanced at Wang Zhiqiu. The older roommate had listened to the entire exchange with a look of pure bewilderment. She didn't know how things had escalated to this, but the situation was clearly in their favor, and Cui Ye held the upper hand.
Her usually quiet roommate had suddenly become silver-tongued, and the old lady from upstairs was an "Awakened" with a rare healing-type Talent. It all sounded surreal, but Wang Zhiqiu caught Cui Ye’s signal. Before her brain could fully process it, her head was already nodding:
"That’s right, that’s right. Don't worry, we definitely won't tell anyone else." Her own life was at stake, so she couldn't be careless. The "anyone else" included Liu Yue. Yesterday, it was Liu Yue who soft-heartedly agreed to give food, but it was Wang Zhiqiu who actually provided the goods.
Liu Yue didn't even have much food herself yet dared to agree; she had probably seen Wang Zhiqiu taking ramen from the box the other day. Since Liu Yue still needed help from others, there was naturally no reason to include her in this trade.
The rest of the conversation was conducted in hushed tones. The brat, having finally received his cheese stick, quieted down. By the time Liu Yue noticed the silence and opened her door to check, she only saw the silhouettes of the three departing, carrying both food and snacks.
Compared to the few packs of ramen they’d taken the first time, they were now carrying a heavy bag, and both children had snacks in their hands. What happened?
Cui Ye ignored her and went back into her room, leaving Wang Zhiqiu to handle Liu Yue.
Having received a favor—and a literal pill—thanks to her roommate, Wang Zhiqiu immediately understood. She brought out her skills for tricking clients into renewing contracts and steered the conversation miles away with a few sentences.
Back in her room, Cui Ye took out the three pills she had just acquired.
[Congratulations! Player has obtained: Regret Pill (Pseudo) 1 x3]
[Regret Pill (Pseudo): There is no medicine for regret in this world. Taking this pill locks the user's current negative status for 24 hours.]
It was slightly different from the Healing Potion Cui Ye had imagined, but it achieved the same goal.
For others, it might not be as useful as a potion that instantly reduced infection by 10%—after all, even a normal person without a Safe House wouldn't gain 10% in a day if they stayed indoors. But for Cui Ye, who needed to go out and "farm" gold from water monsters, this had maximum value.
Night fell, and the surface of the water was pitch black.
As the last of the red lightning faded, the heavy rain clouds above dissipated slightly. However, the city's water level had reached two meters. Following official notices, residents on floors one through three had moved to higher floors for temporary shelter. Rented rooms were being requisitioned; some protested but were overruled. Others went online to brag about the supplies they had "accidentally" found, which sparked dark thoughts in the minds of many.
Cui Ye skimmed past these updates. Her priority was making money.
Wearing her poncho and holding a makeshift fishing rod, Cui Ye baited her hook. She stood by the submerged stairs, flicked the line, and moved to the corner of the stairwell to wait for a "fish" to bite.
A water monster, floating like a corpse beneath the surface, suddenly snapped its head up. The scent and vibrations from the bait rippled through the water. Ten meters away, a piece of foam board shuddered. A pair of bulging, eyelidless eyes emerged, scanned the area quickly, and locked onto a spot.
Hunting instinct drove it to swim rapidly toward the target. The moment it reached the prey, it opened its maw and bit down hard, its sharp forelimbs locking the bait in place. The fragile outer skin was quickly torn by its claws, and the monster tasted something it had never experienced before—a whole bag of kitchen waste.
Of course, it probably didn't know what "kitchen waste" was; it only knew it had been tricked.
Cui Ye looked at the trash bag, half of which had been bitten off. What a big mouth, what great teeth!
She quickly pulled back her rod. It was just a clothes-drying pole; if it broke, she wouldn't easily find a replacement.
The tricked monster was enraged. It crawled toward where the rod had vanished. Aided by the surging waves, it reached the steps in an instant. It was less than a meter from where Cui Ye stood at the corner. The sudden speed was heart-stopping. She could feel her pulse racing, and the sound of the waves behind the monster crashed against her eardrums, urging her to strike. Luckily, her palms weren't sweaty.
—Psh!
She struck with the knife. Due to a lack of experience, her aim was slightly off; the blade hit the head instead of the neck. Cui Ye was ready to use [Plushie Collector], but to her surprise, the head wasn't as hard as she’d expected. The knife went in like it was cutting through one of the watermelons she used to slice before the rainy season—not perfectly smooth, but it didn't take much effort.
She flexed her fingers, noticing her strength seemed greater than before. A delusion?
One gold coin was successfully credited. Even the dead monster looked a bit better now.
She repeated the process. Every time she lured a dim-witted monster to the "shore", its speed automatically dropped by eighty percent. The deformed creatures would open their bloody mouths and roar silently at her, only to be taken down with a single strike.
There were never two strikes because she always used [Plushie Collector] as a finisher. Although the monsters were slow on land, their clawed limbs and serrated-chrysanthemum mouths were not affected by the speed reduction. They could easily rip a gash into their prey. Between the infection, inflammation, and fever, it was a "buy one, get the whole family" package of death, and she didn't want to die yet.
After consuming four durability points of [Plushie Collector], her knife movements were much cleaner. Her strength was almost spent. After a short rest, she pushed the monster corpses out of the building. Once she was sure they were swallowed by the rain, she turned to leave.
The fifteen flights of stairs nearly killed her after the power outage. She climbed up in the dark, carefully avoiding the trash and clutter in the hallways. By the time she reached the fifteenth floor, her heart was in her throat. But more painful than her legs was her nose; three days' worth of fermenting trash was piled in the corridor, emitting a foul stench.
Since the public trash bins were outside, and stepping out of the room accelerated infection, no one would risk their lives for a few bags of garbage. As a result, the piles grew. The humid environment and fermenting trash gave rise to various molds she had never seen before—pink, black, and yellow.
Although the trash issue had been mentioned in the neighborhood group, and officials warned about hygiene every rainy season, no one seemed to take it seriously. It was the apocalypse, who would get a ticket for littering now?
But Cui Ye felt that if this continued, something bad would happen. Yet she couldn't change anything. The building had thirty floors with three units per floor—at least two hundred people. Without a leader, unified management was impossible. She could only pray the official shelters would be completed soon.
The next morning, Cui Ye opened her phone to see an announcement in the long-silent neighborhood group. Someone in Building 7 had taken the lead to form a four-person hunting squad and was now recruiting from the entire complex.
Cui Ye filtered out the passionate, grandstanding introduction and focused on three words: Inflatable Rubber Boats.
And there were two of them!
Chapter Notes:
- The original text uses the term "口吐芬芳". Literally, this means "to breathe out fragrance," but in internet slang, it’s a sarcastic way to say someone is "spewing profanities".
- "the old and the small" ("老的老，小的的小"): It is used to describe a household or group that consists primarily of vulnerable people—specifically the elderly and young children—without enough able-bodied adults to support or protect them.
- "kitchen waste" (厨余垃圾): a literal bag of trash.
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