Chapter 92: Lottery Ticket (Many thanks to Kestrel Flip for the generous tip!)

Along the way, Xiao Hongyu sifted through the memories of his borrowed body and kept sighing inwardly at how hard life had been for soldiers in ancient times. He, too, had been a soldier, so the feeling struck him all the more deeply.

When he reached the rear tent area, the place was visibly more dilapidated. Even the tents that had been set up were patched upon patches. Turning his head, he saw that evening rations were being distributed here. He walked over, only to discover that so-called evening meal was nothing more than a bowl of thin gruel, almost like water. He reached in and found only a few dozen grains of coarse millet at the bottom.

Xiao Hongyu’s face darkened.

Seeing their general’s expression, the people around him immediately sensed trouble. Almost at once, they all dropped to their knees.

“General Xiao, please don’t be angry. The whole camp is short of clothing and food right now. For all of us to be able to drink a bowl of this coarse rice porridge every day is already pretty good.”

“Yes, General Xiao. The drought is terrible now. Even we injured men still get this thin porridge each day, so we’re already more than satisfied.”

The two men kneeling nearby to comfort him were both elderly, their hair white as frost.

Xiao Hongyu helped the two old men to their feet and motioned for the others to rise as well. “Doctor Liu, how are the wounded here holding up?”

One of the old men was the camp physician, Doctor Liu, dressed in a long-sleeved blue robe with a padded overcoat on top.

“Reporting to the general, the number of wounded and sick here has already exceeded two thousand. The situation is not optimistic. More than five hundred are in grave danger, and I’m afraid...” Although Doctor Liu’s medical skill was superb, in a year of famine like this, with shortages of clothing and food, not to mention those rare and precious medicines, there was little even he could do for the severely injured. A clever woman cannot cook without rice. Right now he could only fret helplessly, aside from having people clean the wounds of the critically ill each day and administering some common anti-inflammatory herbs. There was no other way.

Xiao Hongyu made a full circuit through the medical tent area and personally saw the more than five hundred gravely wounded soldiers. Every one of them was missing an arm or a leg; some even had great holes torn through their bellies, clinging to life by a single breath. The sight left Xiao Hongyu with a tightly furrowed brow. Though he was not the original master of this body, he was now deeply affected by its emotions. And with his own identity as a soldier, he felt it all the more keenly. He thought he ought to do something for them. Hmm... maybe he could talk it over with his bargain of a master later. Heh heh...

Wang Keyue could not help sneezing once on the wolfskin recliner. She rubbed her nose and paid it no mind, continuing to browse the system shop. After looking through the food category, she found that only sweet potatoes were the cheapest: one hundred gold coins for one hundred catties. But she had only about nine thousand gold coins left. Even if she used all of them to buy sweet potatoes, those mere nine thousand catties would still not be enough for ten thousand people to get through the winter. It was nothing more than a drop in the ocean. What else could she do?

“Little Treasure, can you give me some advice?” When she ran into trouble, she simply asked Little Treasure.

“Xiaoyue, there are still quite a few sweet potatoes in your space. Those can be used as seed stock. Let the elderly and less mobile people grow sweet potatoes. Also, I recommend you take a look in the second-hand trading section. There’s a batch of basic energy liquid that’s about to expire, and it’s very cheap.”

After speaking, Little Treasure helped Wang Keyue open the second-hand trading page directly.

Sure enough, there was a batch of basic energy liquid being cleared out at a low price. It came in tiny stick-like packets, much like jelly sticks. The instructions said it was rich in all kinds of nutrients needed by the human body, contained high energy, and provided an extremely strong feeling of fullness, guaranteeing all the energy and nutrition a person needed in a day.

“Xiaoyue, this batch of basic nutrient liquid comes in quite a few flavors, and it still has two months before expiration. I think it’s very suitable for those soldiers.” Most importantly, it was cheap! A full one hundred boxes, with two thousand sticks in each box, and each box cost only one hundred gold coins. It was practically free.

Wang Keyue hardened her heart. Fine! She directly exchanged all the gratitude she had left into gold coins and bought all one hundred boxes of basic energy liquid from the second-hand trading section. Her original ten-thousand-plus gold coins were instantly wiped out, leaving only a tiny remainder. Looking at the last thirty gold coins, Wang Keyue sighed: money really did not last long.

“Oh! Xiaoyue! The second-hand trading section sent us a lottery ticket, haha! They’re thanking us for buying out all their soon-to-expire products in one go and giving the company a lottery ticket as a gift.”

As Little Treasure spoke, a white card printed with the words “Lottery Ticket” appeared before them.

“Oh, their service quality is pretty good! Why don’t we give it a try?” As soon as Wang Keyue finished speaking, the page changed into a lottery screen.

“Xiaoyue, just tap this card lightly,” Little Treasure said.

It was the first time Wang Keyue had ever seen such a screen, and she was very curious. Following Little Treasure’s instructions, she tapped the card gently. The card vanished with the touch, and the lottery page appeared with countless white light orbs.

“Xiaoyue, look at those light orbs—tap one!”

“Oh! Oh!” Wang Keyue began to understand. Those light orbs were exactly like the loot she used to scavenge in the real world.

The light orbs flickered incessantly, darting left and right at tremendous speed, making them difficult to catch. She simply clicked the brightest one, only for it to slip away like a loach. By some absurd twist of luck, her click landed instead on a gray-white orb behind it. In an instant, the lottery page vanished, and that gray-white orb trembled and flickered a few times.