Chapter 765 – Three Thousand Mirror Ruins 32

Chapter 765 – Three Thousand Mirror Ruins 32

For Su Yu, who had bought all her supplies on borrowed money, this was income she couldn’t afford to ignore.

Lin Yue, who had been carefully prying at a carapace with the tip of her knife, looked up at her words and waved her hand dismissively, her tone casual and even slightly disgusted. “No need, no need! If you want them, take them all! Those things are all slimy and gross just to look at, and such a hassle to process.”

She meant every word.

Fifty mirror coins might mean a lot to Su Yu, but for someone from the Lin Family, it probably wasn’t even enough to cover one meal.

If she weren’t worried that saying “just take everything” outright would make Su Yu feel like she was being given charity or looked down upon, Lin Yue would have happily let Su Yu take all those tedious beast cores too.

She’d extracted one beast core and already lost interest.

These one-star beast cores held limited value for her, but for Su Yu, they weren’t something she could easily give up.

Zhou Ming also grinned broadly. “Yeah, Su Yu, you’ve got nimble hands—you do it! We’re all clumsy oafs. We’d just end up puncturing those spit glands and wasting everything!”

He cared more about the thrill of combat and had little interest in this kind of delicate work.

Wang Jingnan had a decent understanding of their classmates’ personalities and backgrounds. After a moment’s thought, he came up with a solution that worked for everyone.

He looked at Su Yu and proposed in a sincere tone, “Su Yu, since you’re good at this and so efficient, why don’t you handle all the red-eyed grasshoppers that Zhou Ming, Ding Yan, Zhu Rao, Ren Miao, Bai Wei, and I killed too? You can keep the spit glands as your processing fee—just extract the beast cores intact and hand them back to us.”

It was a clever proposal.

Using the spit glands that others might not care about but Su Yu needed as payment—it allowed Su Yu to gain more tangible benefits while saving the trouble for those who had already lost interest in extracting beast cores or found it too bothersome. It sounded like a fair trade.

Of course, he could only speak for himself and the small group funded by the Wang Family. He had no authority over other people’s spoils.

“Perfect! Su Yu, sorry for the trouble!” Zhou Ming was the first to enthusiastically agree. He couldn’t wait for someone to take over this work so he could free up time to dig more traps around the camp perimeter.

“Su Yu, please and thank you!” Chen Xingye chimed in immediately as well. He wanted to use the time to observe the changes in the sky and try to deduce how much longer spring would last in Giant Toe Meadow. He really didn’t want to waste time on repetitive work.

Zhao Wuchen said nothing, but pushed the insect carcasses he’d killed over toward Su Yu, and while he was at it, nudged two more unclaimed ones nearby—likely killed by multiple people working together—in her direction as well. His meaning was clear: these are all yours to process, and you decide how to split the spoils.

Mo Lan had killed the most insects. Seeing how things were going, she walked over to Su Yu, pointed out her share of the spoils, and said softly, “Much appreciated.”

She wanted to take a walk around the campsite to see if there were any other combat opportunities. That brief skirmish earlier hadn’t been nearly enough to satisfy her!

Lin Yue had already wanted to give everything to Su Yu, so naturally she had no objections. The other classmates also voiced their agreement with this “trade.”

Su Yu looked at her classmates’ reactions and fell silent for a moment.

She wasn’t stupid. She understood that there was, to varying degrees, an element of looking out for her financial situation in all of this. But the “trade” format Wang Jingnan had proposed, combined with everyone’s reasoning about it being too much trouble, seemed perfectly legitimate and reasonable, preserving her dignity to the greatest extent possible. She wasn’t the type to stand on ceremony, and she understood the realities of survival and the value of opportunity.

Being able to trade her skilled handiwork for more resources was exactly what she needed.

“…Alright.” She answered in a low voice, said nothing more, and immediately bent her head down. The dagger in her hand danced again, even faster than before, as if channeling her gratitude into the efficiency of her work.

She first quickly gathered the insect carcasses on the ground together, precisely extracted the beast cores, wiped them clean, and handed them to the others. Only then did she begin processing the spit glands from the carcasses—her “payment.”

After all the valuable materials had been processed, more than twenty mangled red-eyed grasshopper carcasses remained on the ground. The green fluids and residual mucus had begun emitting an increasingly pungent stench that was not only unpleasant but could potentially attract other carrion-feeding or keen-nosed mirror beasts.

Wang Jingnan frowned slightly and retrieved an elegant glass bottle from his storage mirror. Inside sloshed half a bottle of gray-green liquid.

“Zhou Ming, have your group spread this ‘concentrated corpse-dissolving solution’ evenly over the insect carcasses. Clean them up thoroughly—don’t leave behind any smell or contamination.”

His tone was casual, as if this were routine procedure.

Nearby, Su Yu had been about to take out the deodorizing powder she usually used, but when she heard the name “concentrated corpse-dissolving solution,” her hand reaching for her backpack froze mid-motion, and the corner of her mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.

She recognized this stuff—or rather, she’d heard of it.

It was a premium product from the alchemy workshop, reportedly capable of rapidly breaking down organic matter and neutralizing most energy residue and odors. Its effectiveness was indeed outstanding, but the price was absolutely exorbitant. This one small bottle was worth more than all the materials from every red-eyed grasshopper carcass on the ground combined!

In low-star mirror spaces, absolutely nobody would use something like this to dispose of corpses. It was far too wasteful.

Truly… obscenely rich!

She couldn’t help speaking up, her voice tinged with dryness. “Um… Wang Jingnan, there’s really no need to use that. Deodorizing powder works well enough. We just need to dig a deep pit, bury these insect carcasses, and sprinkle a thick layer of deodorizing powder on top. That’ll block most of the smell.”

Wang Jingnan took her suggestion readily, promptly putting away the expensive solution and nodding.

“You’re right, I wasn’t thinking it through. Let’s do it your way then—saving resources is important. Zhou Ming, Xiang Yufan, dig a pit! Ding Yan, Zhu Rao, help move the carcasses!”

Su Yu had just breathed a sigh of relief, feeling she’d at least prevented unnecessary waste, and was about to take out her deodorizing powder when she saw Wang Jingnan bend down to rummage through his storage equipment again. He quickly produced another, even more ornate golden vial.

“Since the smell might attract trouble, just masking it isn’t safe enough.” He shook the golden vial in his hand. “This is a ‘three-star beast-repelling potion.’ It’s infused with the scent of a three-star mirror beast, effectively deterring one-star and some two-star mirror beasts from approaching the sprayed area. If we spread it along the outer perimeter of our camp’s newly built barriers and traps, it should keep any foolish mirror beasts from disturbing our rest.”

Su Yu: “…”

She hadn’t heard of this potion before, but one look at the bottle told her it wasn’t cheap. Especially since it was a “three-star” potion—its price absolutely dwarfed that of the corpse-dissolving solution from moments ago.