[Dry Grass x10. Exchange for Wood x5.]
[Dry Grass x5. Exchange for any food, 50 g.]
[Cotton x5. Exchange for clean water, 100 ml.]
[Cotton x10. Exchange for Wood x20.]
…
There were all kinds of goods listed for trade. Qi Yu watched for a while and picked an offer with relatively reasonable terms.
The Trade page had a chat icon. Tapping it allowed a buyer to privately message the seller.
When posting a trade, sellers could choose whether to show their real ID or remain anonymous. Buyers could do the same.
Qi Yu chose anonymity. In the chat window, his ID became a string of numbers. He tested the waters first.
[ID013578: Hello. I'll trade Stone x5 for Dry Grass x10. Interested?]
The seller had not gone anonymous. Their ID was [I Really Want to Sleep at Night].
[I Really Want to Sleep at Night: ? I don't need Stone. Make it 5 Wood and we have a deal.]
[ID013578: One whole tree only gives 10 Wood. That's much harder to obtain than your Dry Grass.]
In truth, Qi Yu found the situation strange. He had explored the area around his cabin extremely carefully and had not seen any Dry Grass at all. He had even pulled up more than a dozen wild grasses to see whether they would turn into Dry Grass.
The attempt had obviously failed.
He had originally guessed that Dry Grass might only come from treasure chests, but after seeing so much of it on the Trade page, most of it asking for inexpensive materials in return, he realized something was off.
The person on the other side had clearly just made an outrageous opening demand to see if he would accept.
[I Really Want to Sleep at Night: Then 3 Wood?]
[ID013578: It's a resource you can just pick up anywhere. I'd be losing too much trading Wood for it. I even have to carry Stone back. If I weren't busy chopping trees today, I wouldn't need to trade with anyone for Dry Grass at all.]
[I Really Want to Sleep at Night: What do you mean, pick it up anywhere? You still have to find Puff Grass, okay!]
Puff Grass? Qi Yu had his answer.
But he was certain he had not encountered anything called Puff Grass today.
[ID013578: How about this: Stone x15 for Dry Grass x20. I just want some Dry Grass to spread on the floor so sleeping is more comfortable. If that doesn't work, I can make do without it.]
Those words seemed to hit some weak point in the other person.
[I Really Want to Sleep at Night: Sigh, fine. The floor is freezing. Spreading some Dry Grass really would make it more comfortable.]
The other party initiated a trade:
[I Really Want to Sleep at Night] has initiated a trade with you: Dry Grass x20 in exchange for Stone x15. Accept?
Qi Yu chose Accept.
[I Really Want to Sleep at Night: Hope we both sleep well tonight. Bye-bye.]
Twenty units of Dry Grass arrived in Qi Yu's backpack. He took them out.
At once, he understood why this plant was called "Puff Grass."
Twenty units of dried grass formed a small pile. When he pressed his palm down, it immediately sank in. It was not especially soft.
Spread evenly over the floor, however, it would indeed be far better than the cold, hard boards.
Cotton commanded a much higher price than Dry Grass.
Qi Yu found a seller who wanted to trade Cotton for gloves. In the end, he traded half a piece of Cotton Cloth for twenty units of Cotton.
He now had all the materials required for the mattress.
After the familiar thirty-second process, a 150-by-200-centimeter mattress appeared inside the cabin.
Qi Yu placed the mattress on the wooden bed and lay down. His body sank slightly, gently supported by the mattress.
Perhaps it was the Stamina-restoration effect, but lying there felt exceptionally comfortable.
He only enjoyed it for a moment before getting up. It was not time to rest yet.
Truthfully, sitting inside this quiet cabin, he found this stretch of leisure almost extravagantly luxurious.
A long, safe night during which all he needed to do was rest.
Thank you, survival game!
He opened his Personal Interface.
He focused on his Stamina and Hunger.
Hunger: 31/100
Stamina: 39/100
No wonder it had not started flashing red warnings at him.
He remembered that the first time he ate, his Stamina had risen to 90. After exploring around the cabin and chopping down two trees, it had fallen to 30.
The second time, food had restored his Stamina to 90. After gathering and carrying fifty units of Stone, the interface had issued another warning.
But this afternoon, after following the System's advice and raising his Hunger to 80 before working, he had chopped down five trees with almost no rest, yet still had 39 Stamina left from a full bar.
Five trees had consumed only sixty-one Stamina.
Compared with before, the difference was severalfold.
The only variable was Hunger.
Qi Yu: So the survival game encourages players to eat their fill?
He tapped around the light screen for ages but could not find a feedback or customer-service page.
"What a shame." He sounded genuinely regretful. "I really want to give you a five-star review. You're the best game I've ever seen."
…
Naturally, only silence answered him in the still darkness.
No—perhaps it was not quite that quiet?
Qi Yu's ears twitched. In the deathly still surroundings, he seemed to hear the faintest hint of movement.
He concentrated. It vanished. After another while, a faint whimpering sound emerged again, as though coming from beyond the sky itself.
Probably just the wind outside. With noise that faint, the wind likely could not even move a sapling.
He calmly ignored it and decided to begin the most important ritual of the day—dinner.
A fragrant, sweet six-inch cream cake! The System had even thoughtfully included utensils.
Everything was perfect. The only tiny flaw was that the cabin was too dark for him to admire this beautiful food the way he could during the day.
But that tiny flaw vanished the instant the first bite of cake entered his mouth.
Qi Yu said nothing.
He simply savored the delicacy one careful bite at a time.
Only after quite a while did a soft sigh sound in the darkness. "So this is what cake tastes like."
With great restraint, he ate only half of it and drank some water to rinse his mouth.
He opened his Personal Interface.
The chat channel was bustling:
[If You See Me, Tell Me to Do My Homework: Help! Why can I hear something outside my door? It sounds like claws scratching at the cabin!]
[Mickey-O: Same, except I think someone is crying outside my cabin. That woo-woo sound is scaring me to death, ahhhhh!]
[Usernames Shouldn't Be Too Flashy: I feel so cold. Nobody told me it would be this dark at night. Forget electricity, we don't even have a candle. I'm scared of the dark!]
[Turkey Falls in Love with the Oven: Even prison isn't this miserable, right? During the day I thought maybe life in these remote mountains and forests wasn't impossible. Now I seriously want to die.]
[Benbo'erba: Is it different for everyone? I'm hearing this faint funeral music. It's terrifying!]
People were already frightened to be alone in such an unfamiliar environment. Daytime had been manageable, but once night plunged them into darkness and fear surged to the surface, this additional stimulation pushed quite a few people toward a breakdown.
Qi Yu: ?
Puzzled, he concentrated and listened again. There really was nothing unusual on his side.
After thinking for a moment, he gripped the axe in one hand, silently approached the door, and held his breath.
Still nothing.
Looks like I'm pretty lucky. Qi Yu relaxed.
[My Fate Is Mine, Not Heaven's: Selling torches. Details and requirements are listed on my Trade page. Anyone interested can take a look.]
Qi Yu opened the Trade page and found My Fate Is Mine, Not Heaven's listing. A row of torches was posted there, with thirty-seven currently remaining. The listing used automatic trade, priced at two units of Wood each.
[Torch: A burning flame that may dispel cold and fear. Burn time: 3 hours.]
In the time it took him to read that single line, only thirty-five torches remained.
[Monkey No. 1: I work myself half to death chopping one tree and only get 10 Wood. Two Wood for one torch is way too expensive!]
[Five Blessings at the Door: Big shot, how did you get a source of fire? Can you give us a hint?]
The public chat became lively over the sudden appearance of My Fate Is Mine, Not Heaven's and his torches.
Qi Yu did not buy a torch. Instead, he listed the extra Basic Backpack he had crafted on the Trade page.
A Workbench required fifty units each of Wood and Stone. Judging from many comments in the channel, some people still had not unlocked one.
After thinking, he listed information about the Wooden Bed as well.
For neither item did he select automatic trade. Interested buyers could contact him and make their own offers.
He had nothing else to do at the moment, so he could use this opportunity to get a sense of what resources other players possessed.
Sure enough, once the Basic Backpack was listed, many people wanted to trade for it.
But no one wanted to offer Wood, a basic resource everyone needed. Instead, they offered a mess of miscellaneous things.
Sour wild fruit, a gold ring—someone even asked whether they could trade a character pin of their favorite idol.
Qi Yu: ? He did not understand. He rejected them all.
Soon, he found what he wanted.
[I'm a Bit Unlucky: Hello. I have a packet of sunflower seeds. Would you be interested?]
[Sunflower Seeds: Contains Sunflower Seed x50.]
Qi Yu: Huh? Huh? Huh?
He did not hesitate.
[ID223987 has sent you a trade request.]
When the Basic Backpack arrived in his hands, [I'm a Bit Unlucky] was still a little dazed.
That easily?
He had expected the other person either to ignore him or haggle the price down.
After all, he had already experienced that plenty of times.
Following the advice of the regional big shot [My Fate Is Mine, Not Heaven's], he had explored the area around his cabin and received a Wooden Treasure Chest.
Apart from one bottle of water and a pair of gloves, the chest had only given him this packet of seeds.
Never mind whether he would even survive long enough in this survival game to grow flowers—the key problem was that he was a plant killer!
Everything he tried to grow died. He had even managed to kill a cactus!
He might as well trade the seeds for something useful. Unfortunately, other players apparently thought the same way, because no one paid attention whenever he offered them in a trade.
Even the people interested in seeds only asked whether he had vegetable or grain seeds.
He was a useless homebody who had seriously spent the entire day chopping trees and only managed to fell two. His arms could barely lift now. Even after dismantling both treasure chests he had obtained, he was still ten units of Wood short.
When he saw someone selling a Basic Backpack, he decided to try his luck. He had never expected the other party to agree so decisively.
Apparently, this was some aloof, taciturn big shot.
The very next moment, the aloof, taciturn big shot sent him a message:
[ID223987: Do you have any more seeds?]
[I'm a Bit Unlucky: No, big shot. I only opened one packet.]
Qi Yu stopped replying.
I'm a Bit Unlucky was socially anxious too, so the conversation ended there.
This trade opened up a new line of thought for Qi Yu.
After learning that his ability was classified as Planting, he had tried cutting off several tree branches and sticking them into the ground, uprooting grass and replanting it, and burying wild-fruit pits in the soil.
None of them had triggered anything.
Now it seemed that if seeds could be obtained from treasure chests, perhaps his talent only worked on seeds he personally planted?
But… how exactly did one plant seeds?
No one had ever taught him!
