Chapter 25

Zhu Ming looked at her with the gaze one reserves for an idiot. “Are you the dumb one, or am I?”

The old woman huffed, “So young, and already so ill-mannered!”

Zhu Ming shot back, “So old, about to die, and still ill-mannered.”

With that, Zhu Ming stood up and waved her Ride Permit. Countless gazes converged on her hand. “Who can give me Food Tickets? But, I won’t trade this for them directly, of course.”

“Miss.” A young woman with braided hair flashed a grin, her white teeth gleaming. “You don’t want to trade your Ride Permit for Food Tickets? Then why don’t the two of us play a game?”

Finally, someone who understood the game. Zhu Ming promptly changed seats to join them. The three at this table looked like university students, and they hadn’t been constantly tempting Zhu Ming to eat anything.

After she left, the family of three—the old woman and the middle-aged couple—watched Zhu Ming’s retreating figure with resentful eyes, but they didn’t follow her.

The girl with double braids said, “We’re playing a little game at our table. If you win, we’ll give you all our Food Tickets. If you lose, you give us the permit.”

“What game?”

“Cards.”

She pulled out a deck of playing cards and shuffled them on the table. “We’ll play the standard rules. Five-card straights, three-of-a-kind pairs. The first to empty their hand wins.”

Everyone present had their own ghostly intentions, so Zhu Ming naturally wouldn’t agree so easily. “How do I know the three of you won’t team up and cheat?”

The girl said, “You deal?”

Zhu Ming turned the tables. “No, I want to change the game.”

She swapped the complex card game for something simpler: high-low.

The braided girl exchanged glances with her companions, lowered her eyes, and said, “Alright, we’ll do as you say.”

Zhu Ming suddenly stood up. “I just realized I don’t actually need Food Tickets that badly. Sorry, you guys play by yourselves.”

“Wait!” the braided girl called out urgently. “Then we won’t bet on the Ride Permit. We’ll bet on something else.”

“Something else?” Zhu Ming looked at her with a faint, ambiguous smile. “I don’t seem to have anything else on me. I really can’t gamble with you. And you’re all students—don’t you know gambling is illegal? Study hard, improve every day, and stay away from vice.”

The braided girl was getting anxious, afraid Zhu Ming would go to another table. For a moment, she didn’t know what to say.

Her companion sitting beside her blurted out, “Actually, you’d have to meet their demands at any other table to get their Food Tickets too. It’s much better to stay with us. We can play something simple.”

Zhu Ming: “?”

The braided girl stomped hard on his foot. “You idiot!”

Zhu Ming couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh—so everyone’s been waiting for me.”

The braided girl said, “Miss, you might not be able to meet other people’s demands, but we’re very easy to negotiate with. How about this: you find some unimportant thing you own and we trade you directly for it? We’re all young people, we should help each other out. We can’t bear to see you starve to death.”

Just as she was spinning her seductive web, the door to Car No. 18 suddenly opened.

Accompanied by a rattling sound, a small cart laden with goods slowly rolled in.

“Woof!”

Zhu Ming couldn’t help but lean out to look. Pushing the little cart, wearing a bellyband, was an adorable black-and-white Border Collie!

As everyone knows, Border Collies aren’t just dogs.

Gurgle—seeing the steaming boxed lunches and freshly cut fruit on the cart, Zhu Ming’s hunger intensified. Unfortunately, the Invitation Letter had long since warned her that buying anything from the cart required Food Tickets.

Perhaps the only normal person here was Zhu Ming. Seeing Zhu Ming’s lack of reaction, the canine shopkeeper pushed its cart without stopping its paws and entered the next carriage.

Seeing this, the braided girl struck while the iron was hot. “The shopkeeper will be back this way soon. How about trading with us for Food Tickets?”

Zhu Ming felt she made a fair point, so she sat back down. Faint expressions of regret flickered on faces at other tables.

“Give me some examples of ‘unimportant things’,” Zhu Ming asked. “Let me hear a few.”

The braided girl licked her lips. “Like your voice, your hearing, your sight, or maybe your hair, fingernails, clothes… Of course, I’m just saying. Don’t worry, as long as you have it, you can trade it!”

Zhu Ming thought for a moment, then said, “I do have something I could trade with you, but I’m not the type to take advantage of people. So let’s go with the earlier proposal and play a game. If you win, I’ll give each of you my stakes. If you lose, all of your Food Tickets go to me.”

A strange glee lit up the university students’ faces. “Great, great! What will you bet?”

Suddenly, a cute little girl from the neighboring table tottered away from her seat and stumbled over, hugging Zhu Ming’s calf tightly. She cried out loudly, “Big Sister, don’t trust them! They’re bad people! Ah!”

The moment she yelled, the air crackled with the shadowy trace of a whip. Smack! The child was struck by something invisible, sent tumbling to the floor in tears.

But the louder she cried, the more she violated the Civilized Train Etiquette. Unseen attacks landed on the child several times. Zhu Ming reached out, yanked her up, and clamped a hand over her mouth.

This little sister was about six or seven years old, soft and milky-sweet, her eyes brimming with tears. She tugged at Zhu Ming’s sleeve. “Big Sister, don’t fall for their trick. Come with me, quick!”

The braided female university student watched this, her expression darkening. “Miss, even if you go with them, what difference does it make? They might not be as easy to negotiate with as we are.”

Zhu Ming patted the little girl’s round head. “She has a point. If I go over, can you give me Food Tickets?”

The little girl nodded vigorously. “Big Sister, I don’t want to help the tyrant do evil anymore. Actually, this train—mmph!”

An invisible prohibition silenced her directly. The little girl’s face flushed red, unable to speak, and she could only look at Zhu Ming pleadingly.

“Miss, hand her over to me.” The little girl’s mother, a young, intellectual-looking woman, reached out to Zhu Ming. “Sigh, the child is young, too naive… she didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

How could Zhu Ming have the heart to refuse such a gentle beauty? She simply carried the child and sat down with them.

The braided girl didn’t stop her. It might have been due to the Civilized Train Etiquette, but she just watched the family of three with hostile eyes.

Unlike the previous family trio of the old woman and the middle-aged couple, this family of three was instantly likeable: a young, handsome father, a beautiful, intellectual mother, and a cute, well-behaved daughter.

“You seem different from the others,” Zhu Ming said with a slight smile. “If there’s anything you can say, say it.”

The little girl snuggled into Zhu Ming’s embrace; her fine, soft hair felt wonderful to the touch. She sniffled and said, in her milky voice, “Big Sister, you’re so smart. We are indeed a bit different from the others. Maybe it’s because we’re already so happy just being together, our family of three.”

The wife smiled tenderly at her daughter and handed her a lollipop. “Silly child, not afraid of pain. Eat your candy. Daddy and Mommy will talk to Big Sister.”

Then she looked at Zhu Ming, her eyes filled with melancholy and bitterness. “Miss, you are different from all of us. You hold a Ride Permit. I don’t know how you got it, but… don’t casually trade Food Tickets with others.”

“Why?” Zhu Ming raised an eyebrow.

The wife said, “Because to get someone else’s Food Tickets, you must trade away something of your own. They might only want a little thing at first, but later, their demands will grow. As this continues, you’ll become weaker and weaker, and eventually, you’ll die on this train.”

“But if I don’t trade for Food Tickets, I can’t buy food. I’ll starve to death.” Zhu Ming glanced at the lollipop in the little girl’s hand and countered, “Don’t tell me you also want to give me free candy?”

The wife shook her head, not offended by Zhu Ming’s attitude. “No, if possible, I would hope you eat less of what others give you. You should have already noticed some things. Everyone here…”

As she reached the last part, her voice involuntarily dropped. The train’s rhythmic clatter, click-clack, click-clack, nearly drowned out her breath.

Her eyes turned eerie and fearful, anguished and conflicted. She shook her head forcefully, producing a pained smile. “We can’t tell you directly, bound by the rules, but I think you understand. Of course, if you really can’t bear the hunger, eating a little is fine. The consequences won’t be too severe, but you might get diarrhea.”

Zhu Ming wholeheartedly agreed with her words. “That old woman earlier tried everything to make me eat an orange. Even if it was just a regular orange, her attitude would scare anyone. After all, I’m just an ordinary, delicate girl. Coming to a strange place like this naturally requires some caution.”

“Yes, they were too impatient,” the wife sighed. “Perhaps they all have unfulfilled obsessions. But our family has already figured things out. As long as we’re together, nothing else matters.”

Seeing his wife’s lament, the husband opened his arms and pulled her into an embrace. “Honey, I will always protect you and our daughter.”

Sucking her lollipop, the little girl climbed over to the other side. The family of three hugged tightly, a warm and touching tableau.

Zhu Ming waited a moment, until they released each other, before speaking. “That being said, how do you plan to help me? If you can’t provide any actual help, it’s useless no matter how much you say, right?”

The little girl sat back beside Zhu Ming, smiling sweetly. “Of course, we have a way. Big Sister, we can make an exchange too. As long as we both do it willingly, we can play any game and make any exchange. How about this: you give me a kiss, and I’ll give you my Food Ticket.”

That request was simple enough. Zhu Ming scooped her up and planted a big kiss, smack, on the little girl’s soft cheek. The little girl beamed, her grin so wide her eyes disappeared into slits. Giggling, she pulled a Food Ticket from her pocket and handed it to Zhu Ming. “Big Sister, you must keep this safe. Don’t lose it, or you’ll have to trade with others again.”

After that, the wife asked Zhu Ming to braid the little girl’s hair, and the husband asked Zhu Ming to take her to wash her hands. They each handed over their own Food Tickets to Zhu Ming.

As luck would have it, the small cart came rolling back from the front again.

Rattle, rattle—

The canine shopkeeper was pushing the cart on its hind legs, just like a human.

“Shopkeeper, I want to buy something.”

“Woof!”

Everything on the cart had a clear price tag. Three Food Tickets were exactly enough to buy one bottle of water and one boxed lunch. The cost of things was absolutely outrageous.

With prices this high, leaving without taking some advantage wasn’t Zhu Ming’s style. While the shopkeeper wasn’t looking, she reached out and pinched its rear.

Border Collie: “…”

Luckily, the shopkeeper was usually quite magnanimous and didn’t mind Zhu Ming’s little transgression. With a “Woof!”, it pushed its cart and left.

As Zhu Ming ate, the wife added, “We only had three Food Tickets, so we couldn’t help you much. Eat slowly, make it last longer. Here are some candies. Eating them during the day is perfectly normal. If you really can’t hold on, eat some candy to cope. Just try not to trade for Food Tickets with others.”

“These candies don’t require an exchange?”

“No, only Food Tickets need an exchange.”

“Then, thank you.”

Zhu Ming devoured her boxed lunch in a few swift bites. Taking the bag of candy and the remaining water, she shifted her rear end and, tickets in hand, heartlessly sat back down at the three university students’ table.

The braided girl’s face lit up with surprise upon her return.

The wife watched her leave, eyes wide with astonishment.

Zhu Ming turned back, smiling cheerfully. “Sorry, I realized I want to buy quite a few things, so I’d better get more Food Tickets. By the way, you said earlier I could trade anything with you, right?”

The braided girl nodded eagerly. “Yes, yes! Don’t listen to that family’s nonsense. We’re all the same here. How did we end up being the bad guys? We also want to help you.”

The little girl anxiously blurted, “But the cart only comes once a day! Big Sister, it’s useless to trade now.”

The braided girl cut her off. “Little girl, don’t interrupt when adults are talking. Even if she can’t spend the tickets now, there’s no rule against saving them, is there?”

A fair point. Zhu Ming rapped her knuckles on the table. “We were interrupted before I could finish speaking earlier. Sorry to keep you waiting. Who was it that asked what I wanted to bet?”

It was the male university student. “That was me. What are you planning to bet? Don’t tell me it’s that bag of candy?”

His expression was full of disdain, clearly displeased with what he perceived as Zhu Ming’s cunning. How could Zhu Ming be so cheap? She graciously offered, “Since I agreed to use my own things to trade with you, of course, I won’t go back on my word. Unless you specifically request this bag of candy.”

The male student’s face immediately brightened. “Good, good! So, what will you use to trade?”

Zhu Ming raised her right hand. “A slap.”

A stunned silence fell over them. After a moment, the braided girl questioned her own ears. “What did you say?”

Zhu Ming smiled faintly. “A slap. Didn’t you hear? Whoever beats me, I’ll give them a slap. Guaranteed to be loud and spectacular. If one isn’t enough, two is fine. Three at most—more than that and my hand will hurt.”

The braided girl shot to her feet, her voice distorting with fury. “Don’t push people too far!”

As soon as she yelled, she stumbled and fell back into her seat, her braids instantly disheveled, as if someone had lashed her shoulder.

“Haah!” The braided girl glared at Zhu Ming with hatred. “Can’t recognize a good deed. Biting the hand that feeds you.”

Zhu Ming chuckled, hehe, waggling her own hand. “I’m just making a suggestion. Take it or leave it. It’s fine if you don’t want to trade. Anyway, the little girl said the cart only comes once a day.”

No matter how you looked at it, Zhu Ming’s proposal was infuriating. Even the most patient person would likely be angered to death. But the braided girl was more forbearing than Zhu Ming expected. After a moment, she forced out a strained smile. “Stop joking around. If it really won’t do, just bet the candy against us. The candy is yours now, after all.”

Zhu Ming said, “I’m truly surprised. You just want to give away your Food Tickets that badly.”

The braided girl and her companions were nearly unable to maintain their smiles. Damn it, now that she’d realized this point, wouldn’t she change her mind and refuse to play again?

How could Zhu Ming disappoint them? She picked up the cards from the table and shuffled them with practiced ease. “Since you’re so sincere, I’ll magnanimously accept. Anyway, I’m bored. Come on, come on, let’s play that simplest card game you mentioned.”

“Fine.” The braided girl gritted her teeth.

Cards swished and rustled. The four at the table drew in turn. Zhu Ming’s hand was utter garbage, but she said with a laugh, “I haven’t played cards in a long time. Let’s have a few practice rounds first. If I keep losing, I won’t be in the mood to bet with you.”