The Lucky Farmgirl
Chapter 344 - 333: Longing for Doctor D

Chapter 344: Chapter 333: Longing for Doctor D

Bai Dalang watched them leave, always feeling something was off, but he couldn’t put his finger on what exactly was wrong.

Old Master Bai didn’t sense anything amiss either; seeing the children not only return with two buckets of small fish but also bringing back three or four big ones, he couldn’t help but praise them, "Not bad, not bad, I told you the Zhou Family could be trusted, right?"

Bai Dalang nodded, although he still felt something was off, the extra four big fish were indeed given freely by Zhou Silang.

The rest of the task was naturally not a concern for the Bai father and son, who directly sent all three buckets of fish to the kitchen.

The cook spent only half a day preparing all the small fish from the two buckets.

Bai Erlang ate a small plate of them for his nap because they were still hot, so they tasted even better.

He was very satisfied and asked the cook to set aside half of the prepared small fish to send to the Zhou family with the servants, along with two wooden buckets.

The cook, seeing the large bowl of fried small fish, couldn’t help shaking her head and muttered to herself: "The oil used for cooking these fish could have bought so many good things to eat..."

The Zhou household initially didn’t pay much attention to the children’s seemingly playful fishing, but then Zhou Wulang brought back a bucket full of big fish, and in the afternoon, Bai Erlang sent over such a large bowl of fried small fish.

The Zhou household was left speechless: ...

Datou happily received Bai Erlang, asking, "Why didn’t you call me to fetch it? You went through so much trouble carrying all this weight."

Bai Erlang nonchalantly waved his hand, "No trouble, no trouble." It wasn’t he who carried it anyway; the servants were doing the lifting, and he got to go out and have some fun in the process.

Bai Erlang seldom played with the Zhou children, regardless of how small Qili Village was, they each had their circles.

Moreover, since he didn’t get along with Bai Shanbao and Manbao, he was even less likely to play with Datou and the others. The few times they did interact, it was either fighting or arguing.

But right now, Bai Erlang felt that Datou was a pretty decent person and that they could play together more in the future.

He looked around curiously and asked, "Where’s your cousin?"

"My cousin is doing her homework. Are you looking to play with her?"

"No!" Bai Erlang refused categorically and instead turned to Datou, "Let’s go play together."

"Sure." Datou also found Bai Erlang’s generosity rare and didn’t mind bringing him along to play.

Just beyond a courtyard away, Manbao was buried in homework. Once she finished, she lay on the bed and started browsing the online marketplace.

Her shopping cart was already filled with a lot of wheat seeds, but she hadn’t made the payment to buy them yet.

Manbao wanted to replace some of the wheat at home so that in a while, when the villagers came to exchange seeds, they could use better quality seeds.

This wasn’t difficult for her since the rice was currently being sun-dried, Zhou’s storeroom specially for grains had been cleared out for drying, so the wheat was temporarily stored in Zhou Wulang and Zhou Liulang’s rooms.

In each room, a few stones were placed neatly on the floor, then covered with planks to create a foundation for a bamboo grain bin, into which the wheat was poured.

There was no choice; the house didn’t have enough sacks, so such grain bins were pretty much a standard in every household.

So it was simple for Manbao to replace the wheat, all she had to do was find a time when Fifth Brother or Sixth Brother wasn’t around, sneak into the grain bin, and let Keke swap the wheat for an equivalent weight.

But the current problem was, she couldn’t buy so many wheat seeds.

Last night, when she found out some villagers would come to exchange wheat seeds in a couple of days, Manbao ordered the wheat seeds she had chosen in the shopping cart just before going to sleep.

Because she was drowsy, she didn’t look carefully at some of the pop-up messages, and by the time she realized what was happening, her account had already been locked.

With Keke’s assistance, she went through a lot of trouble to understand what had happened.

Because she had purchased an excessive amount of wheat seeds, and the technological disparity between the two worlds was too great, her actions were suspected of subverting the culture and technology of this planet. Therefore, her account was temporarily suspended, and currently, aside from collection and forum functions, the marketplace features had been temporarily closed.

She had to wait until the review was approved to gain access again.

Manbao felt a bit angry and accused, "You said the marketplace didn’t limit the quantity, and I could buy as long as I could afford the inter-world technology tax."

"Yes, but last night you refused to pay the technology tax."

Manbao: "...I did?"

"Yes, the wheat seeds already have a technology tax, and since you purchased a large quantity, the tax required is even higher. You refused it."

Manbao slumped her shoulders, "I was too sleepy last night; I must have just clicked without seeing clearly. So, what do we do now? In a couple of days, people will come to exchange wheat seeds. If we don’t swap, even if the weather favors us from this year to next, the yield per acre won’t be more than two dans, and if the soil fertility can’t recover, next fall’s harvest will suffer too."

Keke expressed his inability to help; he was just a system and could only re-appeal to help the host get her account restored as soon as possible.

"I will appeal to the master system every two hours, urging the union’s inspectors to speed up."

"What’s the shortest time needed?"

Keke fell silent for a moment then said, "Seventy-two hours."

Manbao converted that to hours, then asked after a moment of silence, "That’s too long, can I get the wheat seeds another way?"

"Like what?"

"Trading in the forum?"

"Host, the posts in the forum are based on the host’s intentions, and the rewards they ask for follow the host’s desires."

Manbao brightened up, "Does that mean it’s possible?"

"However, host, who would be willing to spend several thousand points to buy such a large batch of wheat seeds and pay so much shipping cost to deliver them here? Especially when they are all valuable scientific researchers. What is your target item?"

Manbao said, "It was exactly 36,800 points."

"That was with the technology tax and shipping fees included."

So the technology tax and shipping fees are several times more expensive than the item itself?

Manbao poked at the forum, staring at the colorful text floating by without saying a word.

Many things she read about in these posts she didn’t recognize, with only a few she had heard of but never seen. But these items seemed very valuable in her mind.

Whether they were for sale or sought after, she had none at hand that could match any of these in value.

Moreover, the rare ones, such as the sparrow tree and China root, would start bidding at over a hundred thousand points. Even if she had something of that value to trade right now, she wouldn’t dare part with it just for a few thousand points worth of wheat seeds.

Even in forum trading, the value traded should be relatively equivalent, at least not too different.

Her items worth a few thousand points, no, including shipping costs, that would mean something with a value of over ten thousand, under twenty thousand.

Manbao’s gaze swept over the branches and leaves of the privet, finally resting on the piles of soil in the corner.

Doctor D seemed very interested in the privet, but she could tell that she seemed to care more about the China root.

And indeed, the China root proved to be more valuable than the privet.

She wondered if Doctor D still needed China root soil. It didn’t seem quite right to keep fleecing the same person, but she didn’t have any other "acquaintances" to turn to at the moment.

Seriously, when would Doctor D’s ban be lifted? Really now, why probe into her business like that, leading to a speech ban, right?

Manbao tapped on the screen, eagerly awaiting Doctor D to come online.