Chapter 121: The Bitter History of Chu Ping

"Rustle!"
"Rustle, rustle!"

Just as Ye Da finally dug through the snow and reached the rock wall, he heard that rustling sound again!

Again?!

Ye Da’s ears twitched, his entire body stiffened, and he instantly retreated several steps!

"Xiao Bai, Xiao Hui, come here quickly!" As he backed away, Ye Da did not forget to alert the two wolf cubs.

However, after retreating to Ye Da’s side, the two wolf cubs showed no signs of aggression. Instead, they stared at the rustling snow, wagging their tails gently.

"It’s not one of those snow-dwelling alien scorpions?" Seeing the cubs' behavior, Ye Da felt a slight sense of relief. "Could it be... Chu Ping?"

"Crash!"

Just as Ye Da shouted the name, a mound of snow suddenly bulged, and a dark, grimy head poked out from within. "Leader, it’s me!"

"I finally found you!"

"Goodness, this snowdrift is too big and too thick. I’ve been burrowing through it for ages and couldn't find the way."

"Oh, right." Ye Da reached out and pulled Chu Ping from the underground tunnel, finally letting out a sigh of relief. "I almost forgot your ability is 'Earthworm Transformation.' This snow shouldn't cause you any harm. It seems I was just scaring myself."

"Actually, it did cause some harm."

Chu Ping tilted his head and pointed to his skull. Ye Da saw a patch of semi-dried red blood. "When the avalanche first hit, my head was gashed open, and then I was buried by the snow."

"Luckily, I can self-regenerate. It hurt a bit, but it's mostly healed now."

"I have to thank you for that Life Potion, Leader. If it weren't for the massive amount of life energy it provided, I probably would have met my end here."

Ye Da hadn't expected those few bottles of Basic Life Potion to be so effective for Chu Ping. Seeing that he was safe, he was happier than anything!

After all...

Chu Ping was his main force for dealing with that field of giant man-eating flowers. Ye Da quickly took two more bottles of Life Potion from his pocket and stuffed them into Chu Ping’s hands.

"Here, take two more."

"Thank you, Leader!"

Chu Ping felt grateful!

His loyalty rating flickered slightly. But this time, it didn't jump by a whole 1% as Ye Da had expected; it only moved by a decimal point!

[Loyalty: 96.5%]

What the hell?

It can actually go up by just 0.5%? That’s such a ripoff!

But there was nothing he could do. Since that was all the loyalty the man had to give, Ye Da had no choice. He couldn't exactly force someone to be loyal, right?

It seemed...

Loyalty was a slow, grinding process. After all, within just half a day, Ye Da had already raised Chu Ping's loyalty to this level; that was already quite an accomplishment!

"Since you're fine, let's head back first." Ye Da asked, "You were near the entrance of the stone house, right? Do you know where the door is?"

Even though Ye Da had reached the rock wall, finding the door of a stone house buried under a massive pile of snow without any reference points was no easy feat.

Chu Ping nodded. "I know! As long as the Leader follows me back along the snow tunnel, we'll reach the stone house."

"Let's go, then!"

Ye Da, accompanied by the two wolf cubs, followed Chu Ping into the tunnel he had dug.

The path was very narrow, requiring them to crawl forward. Ye Da couldn't stand this method of travel, so he simply placed both hands on the middle and upper sections of the tunnel, collecting the snow as he walked.

He ended up carving out a wide, comfortable road directly beneath the ground.

Chu Ping had been leading the way, but when he turned back and saw the empty space behind him, he was startled. "Where did the snow go?"

"I collected it as material," Ye Da replied.

Chu Ping’s eyes widened. "Leader, how did you manage to collect so much snow at once? Won't your inventory burst?"

"Or did you, Leader, collect the snow to sell on the trading market?"

"That would indeed allow for constant collection, up until the market stalls are full. People should want meltwater. The Leader is so clever; why didn't I think of this method earlier?"

Hearing Chu Ping’s murmuring, Ye Da asked curiously, "I never actually thought of that storage method either! Can you really just put materials on the trading market to sell?"

"I've just been putting them in my inventory. I compress ten units of snow into a block of ice, and ten blocks of ice into a block of high-quality ice. Even though the snow looks like a lot, it doesn't take up much space!"

"Storage inventory? I heard Long Yi mention such an artifact before, but I've never seen one." Chu Ping's eyes lit up, then dimmed again. He sounded envious and somewhat bitter. "I was wondering why the Leader wouldn't make the same foolish mistake as me!"

"Foolish mistake?" Ye Da asked curiously, "What happened? Tell me more, I'm listening."

"I previously tried to put the dirt and sand I dug up from underground into the trading market to sell, thinking I could save on the effort of tunneling while also making a profit," Chu Ping sighed. "But who would have guessed that the trading market has a limit on how much each person can list? Each person can only list a maximum of twenty groups of items, with a hundred items per group."

"That number sounds large, but you hit the limit before you know it!"

"And you can't withdraw them. If you insist on withdrawing, you have to pay a 50% commission. If the item you’re selling isn't valuable, the market will just deduct 50% of your listed items directly."

"It's a way to discourage players from using the trading market as a warehouse."

"It's a pity I learned that too late."

"Now my entire trading stall is filled with sand and dirt. Nobody wants that stuff. I was too greedy at the time, listing each group of sand for ten units of low-quality wood."

"Now I have no ability to redeem my stalls, so..."

Chu Ping shared his painful history.

"I see." Ye Da felt fortunate that he hadn't tried to use the trading market from the start. Otherwise, whether he sold the materials at a low price or paid a high price to retrieve them, it would have been heartbreaking!

"Sigh!"

Chu Ping let out a long, regretful sigh.

Just as they found the location of the stone house and Ye Da was about to push the door open, he looked back at Chu Ping and asked, "So, you have twenty groups of sand listed, and to buy them all back would require two hundred units of low-quality wood, right?"

"Yes." Chu Ping was puzzled as to why the Leader would suddenly ask that.