CHAPTER 101: FATHER NAN: SO CHEAP

"Forget about it." When Ruan Chanchan heard the price of the bandage, she simply rejected the notion of buying the bandages from the system. The price was simply way too high for someone as poor as her. This rotten system was such a capitalist system. A simple bandage for more than two hundred points? Who was he trying to fool!?

When Xiao Xi heard Ruan Chanchan’s words, he was shocked. He bounced next to her and tried to convince Ruan Chanchan, "Darling, you are blaming me unjustly. The main system sets this price, and I can only follow the orders of the main system. If you want to call someone capitalistic, then it’s certainly not me. It’s the main system. Anyway, even if you use these two hundred points, you can easily earn them back."

Earn them right back? Ruan Chanchan curled her lips mockingly. She was not deaf and had heard the rumours flying around in the tribe. With the current situation, it would be really difficult for her to help anyone. How was she going to earn points? Sighing, she shook her head and said to Xiao Xi, "I don’t think that it was going to be easy in the future. Let’s take it slowly, alright?"

She then turned to look around the cave, and her gaze fell on the pile of the beast hides that was sitting in the corner of the cave. "Are these hides in use?" She asked Nan Zhi.

"No", Nan Zhi shook his head and replied softly. Behind him, he could sense his father glaring at him, but he didn’t pay attention to him. "These hides have been here for a long time, and no one uses them."

"But we were thinking of using it," interrupted Daddy Nan. He smiled at Ruan Chanchan and patted the youngest baby of the Nan family. "We are thinking of making a bed with the hides for our youngest." He paused and added, "But of course, if you want it, Chanchan... I can pick some for you."

When Ruan Chanchan heard the words of the mer, she felt her lips twitch. She shook her head and didn’t take the words of the old mer to heart. She said to him, "I don’t need these hides as payment. I just wanted to make use of them to make bandages for your daughter’s wound. After all, we cannot use the bloodied bandages every day?"

Daddy Nan’s expression turned awkward when he heard Ruan Chanchan’s response.

Nan Wu saw the happenings in front of her and shook her head. She knew that her father was a petty person. He liked taking advantage of others but when it was his turn, he would never let anyone take advantage of him. Forget about handing these hides that could be used to make beds and whatnot; her father would not even let anyone take a single peel of fruit from their cave.

Because in her father’s eyes, if someone wanted to take something, that thing was probably useful for them. If it was useful, it cannot be given away. Even if it meant that it could only be used as a fertiliser.

"Use it," Nan Wu croaked. She didn’t want the situation to become more awkward, as she knew that the chances of her father apologising to Ruan Chanchan were close to negligible. She spoke up, breaking the freezing atmosphere around them.

Ruan Chanchan glanced at the woman on the floor and nodded. She didn’t say anything about the rudeness that Father Nan showed to her and said, "I need a few things that we need. I will return when I am done looking for them." After she finished speaking, she walked out of the Nan family cave.

Nan Zhi watched her leave and turned to look at his father.

"Father, what is the matter with you? These hides are useless for our family! How many weeks has it been since they have been lying in the corner like this? And yet you refused to give it to Ruan Chanchan."

Father Nan’s expression turned a bit awkward, and he said to his son, "I didn’t know that she wanted to use these hides to bandage, Wu. I thought that she wanted to use it for herself."

"Even if she wanted to use it for herself, you should have given it to her! She saved sister’s life. A little pile of beast skin is not worthy of sister’s life?" snapped Nan Zhi. He also had the same kind of attitude as his father and didn’t like it when others wanted to take advantage of him. But he also knew when to be grateful. Thus, he was not as hateful as his father.

"How can that be? These hides can be used for so many things. Just because I didn’t use them doesn’t mean that they are useless."

Father Nan refused to believe that these beast hides were useless because he was worried that his son would hand them all to Ruan Chanchan.

"Father–"

"Alright, leave him be," said Nan Wu as she stopped her brother from speaking any further. She knew her father too well. Since he was refusing to hand over the hides to Ruan Chanchan, there was no way he was going to agree to Nan Zhi’s request. Her brother had better not bang his head on the wall for no reason.

She turned to look at her parents, who were no longer worried now that she had woken up, and her eyes flickered with a glimmer. When she was unconscious, she couldn’t open her eyes, but she could hear almost everything. How Nan Zhi was worried about her and was going crazy out of worry, and her parents were worried as well. It was just that they were more worried about who was going to support their family if she died.

They even started preparing to abandon her and train another one of her siblings, such that they would awaken as a warrior kind of beast mer or beastwoman.

When Father Nan saw the look in the eyes of his daughter, his heart clenched with worry. He asked softly, "Is something wrong, Wu?"

"Nothing." Nan Wu glanced away without bringing up anything, and Father Nan heaved a sigh of relief.

That look – it was as if Nan Wu knew what he and his wife said behind her back.