Chapter 1059 – Mo Lan’s Travel Diary 12

Sylvia turned around, her small hands gripping tightly onto Mo Lan’s sleeve, her upturned face brimming with eager excitement:

“Mama! How about… you pick some cards to put in the store too!”

Her eyes sparkled, her words tumbling out like skipping stones:

“From now on, you can just sit behind the counter drinking tea and reading books, waiting to collect Gem Coins! I’ll sell the cards for you!”

Mo Lan raised an eyebrow and regarded her daughter with amusement. “Oh? That generous? So what would I need to pay you in return?”

Sylvia had clearly thought this through already. She held up one index finger, raising it before her mother’s face.

But perhaps because it was her first time negotiating “business” with her mother, that finger trembled slightly, not quite brimming with confidence:

“For every card sold, I’ll only charge… a service fee of 1 Gem Coin. Is that okay?”

After she finished speaking, she carefully studied her mother’s expression.

That finger hung suspended in midair, as though if Mo Lan hesitated a moment longer, she would quietly retract it and change her tune to “actually, you don’t have to pay me at all.”

Mo Lan was utterly charmed by her daughter’s mix of boldness and timidity.

Suppressing her laughter, she deliberately put on a contemplative expression, lightly tapping her chin with one finger:

“Hmm… only 1 Gem Coin commission per card? That does sound like quite a good deal.”

She paused, watching her daughter’s eyes instantly light up, then added in a leisurely drawl:

“Then I suppose… I’ll reluctantly pick out some cards for you to sell on my behalf! However—”

She bent down to meet Sylvia at eye level, her voice laced with amusement:

“There’s no service fee for cards that don’t sell. And organizing the cards, cataloging them, and daily maintenance are all your responsibility. Can you handle that?”

Sylvia was briefly stunned, then puffed out her little chest, her voice crisp and clear: “No problem! I can do all of that!”

“Then it’s a deal.” Mo Lan smiled and extended her hand.

Sylvia immediately slapped her small hand onto it with a soft “smack” that rang especially clear in the quiet general store.

In truth, training her daughter aside, Mo Lan had never intended to leave this general store empty.

This journey was not only a coming-of-age trip for Sylvia, but also a way to fulfill her own wishes.

Opening a little shop that could stop and go as they pleased, meeting all sorts of people, listening to stories from faraway places—that was one of the things she looked forward to most on this journey.

“Well then, little shopkeeper, step aside please!” Mo Lan walked up to the light screen, her fingers gliding across it. “I’m going to start selecting merchandise.”

She didn’t hold back, directly filtering out a batch of cards from the Card Shop.

Cards drifted down as lightly as feathers, piling into neat little mountains on the counter.

She had selected cards ranging from Rank 5 to Rank 10.

The Continent of Valen was now a Rank Ten world, meaning native spellcasters could reach up to the Fifth Rank within this world—exactly corresponding to Rank 10 cards.

Cards in this range were neither too basic to lack appeal nor too rare to invite unnecessary trouble, making them the perfect fit for a “traveling general store.”

Once the cards were selected, she truly washed her hands of it. She shifted a shelf slightly, temporarily added a small window to the wall behind the counter, and leisurely brought out a small side table and two rattan chairs. She arranged a cozy little corner, sat down, and began brewing floral tea—the very picture of a “hands-off boss.”

Sylvia didn’t feel put upon in the slightest. Quite the opposite—she was thrilled and immediately got to work. First, she picked up the 《Product Catalog》 and flipped to a blank page.

Then she gathered up a stack of cards, examining each one carefully, pressing them against the pages of the catalog to watch the card information appear automatically, before writing a neat catalog number beside each entry in her careful handwriting.

After recording each number, she would stand on tiptoe and scurry over to slot the cards into the empty display shelves on the outer side of the counter.

The once-empty wooden shelves gradually filled with colorful cards.

Sylvia dusted off her hands—though there was no dust to speak of—and nodded with satisfaction, her little face glowing with accomplishment. “There! Now at least when customers walk in, all the visible shelves will have stock. Our Witch General Store finally looks like a proper shop!”

She carried the thick 《Product Catalog》 back to the counter and flipped to the section with Mo Lan’s cards.

The catalog had automatically recorded all the card images and descriptions, but the “Price” column was still blank.

This gave Sylvia some pause.

She could ask Zhizhi and the others to help calculate prices, but she had no Gem Coins left to pay them.

And she certainly couldn’t figure it out on her own.

But then it occurred to her—she was only selling these cards on consignment. Her mother had only asked her to handle the cataloging. The pricing was her mother’s call all along!

Besides, wasn’t this the perfect learning opportunity?

Her eyes lit up, and she scurried over to Mo Lan with the catalog, her voice sweet as honey:

“Mama! These cards still don’t have prices! How should we price them?”

She tilted her little face upward, her eyes practically spelling out “I want to learn, I want to learn.”

This was her chance to study her mother’s pricing strategy.

Why was this card worth this price, and how much should that card sell for? There had to be all sorts of secrets hidden in there that she hadn’t discovered yet!

Mo Lan set down her teacup and took the catalog her daughter offered. Though she saw right through her daughter’s intentions, she had no plans to play along.

She opened the catalog and lightly brushed her fingertips across those empty price columns: “For my cards, let’s just price them at 2 times the Card Shop rate.”

Sylvia let out a small “ah,” confusion flickering across her face. “Two times? But Zhizhi said the Tatari’s own purchase price is already 1.8 times. If we set ours at 2 times, wouldn’t that be…”

“Too cheap?” Mo Lan finished for her, shaking her head with a smile. “It is cheap, but being able to stumble upon our mobile castle and general store deep in these mountain woods—that in itself is a rare stroke of fate.”

She closed the catalog, her gaze drifting toward the forest outside the window:

“Mama isn’t short on Gem Coins right now. Earning a little less, making a few more friends, hearing a few more stories—to me, that means more than numbers in a ledger.”

Sylvia nodded, half-understanding. She could vaguely grasp what her mother meant, yet felt as though a thin veil of mist still separated her from true comprehension.

Mo Lan noticed her daughter’s confusion and reached out to gently tousle her hair:

“When you’re rich enough someday, you’ll understand how I feel right now.”

With a wave of her hand, she filled in the corresponding prices in all the price columns for her cards in the 《Product Catalog》:

“From now on, these cards are yours to sell on consignment, but ownership still belongs to Mama, and the pricing follows what Mama says. Once you’ve saved up enough Gem Coins, you can buy any of these cards from me at cost. And when that day comes, you can reprice them however you like and sell them your way. All the profit will be yours!”

Hearing that she could eventually buy her mother’s cards at cost and resell them herself, Sylvia cheered with delight: “Thank you, Mama! When are we getting to the Tatari settlement? I can’t wait to open for business!”

(End of Chapter)