"There really is a store here like the advertisement…"
[ Following ■'s guidance, they stumbled upon a big store where there's a mentioned sale on potatoes in the old man's newspaper from earlier. The store was quite big compared to others, with a half-glass entrance and bright light. If we were to call it a
Judging from the current state of the store, their sales seemed to backfire enormously. And now they are closing sooner than usual.
"Hmm—Oh look. A worker!"
Let's see if they could let us in.
[ As they stood before the store trying to get a male worker's attention, the male worker who was shutting the door did not even bat an eye on them.
He was having a bad day and tired of working here for 15 hours straight. Because the time he spent here was not worth it, he wanted to quit. All he wanted was a day off and hitting girls from the bars, but as a part-time worker at a normal vegetable store, even the ugliest would ignore him.
Thinking about it made him close the door faster despite Vaccine standing right outside the store, he doesn't give a thought about it much as today he will do whatever he wants. He had already decided that he was going to quit the job anyway, which left Vaccine in awe by his audacity. ]
"What do we do now? They won't open for late customers like us."
[ While Vaccine was playing dumb with the situation, ■ focused on their goal, the potatoes, and several other things. He thought a little bit before walking toward an alley next to the store. ]
Since they can't keep reselling potatoes over and over again, they're probably going to throw them in the back…
"They put sales on old potatoes?"
[ Vaccine curiously asked but ■ didn't say anything and kept entering the alley with him behind.
Like a kid who has just learned something new, he couldn't hide his excitement for the new update since the last time JD came.
As the world before didn't have such a concept of business, he wanted to learn more about this while he could. Maybe the life of his in this new script wouldn't be so bad at all.
In the alley, where it's about one truck wide, they narrowed it down to the back of the store and found a backdoor there. As rundown as the alley can be, unfortunately, this is the place where they get those vegetables from the farmer's truck.
Fresh from harvesting, no pesticide whatsoever. However, those poor vegetables had gone unnoticed and left for days, making the workers have to consider throwing them out.
Before getting any closer, ■ stopped Vaccine from one step away to the side of the backdoor and continued to explain the situation. ]
In this period, they can't keep the old vegetables forever without putting a sale on them, if they can't sell it at the end of the day, they will lose their profit instead.
[ This has indeed been quite a problem in the 19th-century market and now in the current modern-day developing countries as well. To finish their quotation, one of which is putting sales on those items that are not being bought for days. Either sell it cheaper or waste all the products that they have on their end. ]
With that in mind, we can get some leftover vegetables from them at a cheaper price. ( Oh a cockroach ) Well… I'm not recommending you do this every time. Since cheaper means lower quality products and those ain't good for your health.
"Oh…"
[ Did he just step on–Anyway, ■ is nicer than he thought.
He even worked out the plan to ask for those potatoes by lying a little bit about him losing his job. Wait, did I say "a little bit"? ]
Speaking of which. Here they are.
"Wait! I'm not–"
* * *
Right then, a small lady walked out from that door, struggling with a sack of nearly grown potatoes on her back. If one were seeing her right now, she would be called a constructor and be made fun of.
Yet today is a bad day for these poor potatoes as those sales did not even help them, but she kept losing more budget. At this rate, she can't afford to keep these worthless than a penny any longer.
So the lady decided to close the store early to clean up all the reselling vegetables for the upcoming restock from other farmers that she has cooperated with.
However, it did take longer than she anticipated, as the only worker at this hour and the male worker before had already ditched his job for some girls. She was alone with thousands of old vegetables for half an hour.
In the late evening, when the small lady was carrying the last sack of potatoes, she saw a young man "ran" over from the side and almost fell to the ground, which surprised her.
Not once in her life, she would think of meeting a young man out of nowhere, especially a fairly good-looking one.
Everything around her up to this point was fruits and a lot of vegetables. Although there were some male part-timers like the guy she mentioned before, they were just co-workers to her.
Nothing more, nothing less.
While the young man was cursing toward something in his direction, she took her time looking at him.
He was quite young compared to his middle-aged voice. He wore a simple shirt and vest pants with a thin cravat black tie she had never seen before and a trench coat that was quite famous recently. His brown hair was swiped neatly on one side and a curtain wavy on the other side, which appealed to his young tired face.
After admiring that young man's face, she took a step back as she reminded herself about her safety. She had never known or met this guy previously, his whereabouts or reason he was here was a mystery to her. It's suspicious the more she thinks about it, but she hoped for the least worse scenario she was thinking of.
The young man then stood up properly, completely ignoring his dusty appearance, he adjusted his round glasses before immediately asking her right off the bat.
"Are you going to throw these away?"
"Um… yes?" She took another step back before answering him. Her hands still grabbed on the sack securely.
"Can I have it?"
Starting with a weird question, the young man failed to impress her as she frowned her eyebrows, "Are you a beggar? Y–you don't look like one to me…"
Yes, no matter how many times you looked at it, this man did not look like a beggar. He seemed like a law-abiding citizen who's having a well-paid job than she does! Why is he asking for throwing potatoes anyway, is he trying to rob her? Wait. there's no robber asking nicely to the victim. Or does he try to get free stuff?
While the small lady fell into her assumptions, the young man awkwardly waved his hands in denial, he added.
"Ah… no not really. I just… lost my job and even my wallet recently so now I am trying to find whatever I could feed myself…"
After the young man said that. A silence broke between the two as they couldn't find a word to say. It was so awkward that she wanted to throw those potatoes at him and shut the door behind her. But she can't do that, as a manager, whatever the case is, you should not feed the beggar, because they might come back to you more!
They could exploit you till you run out of money, following you around and begging for more, which is uncomfortable, and even worse, your business could be destroyed when the customers see them around the store.
Life is hard, she knew that clearly, as she too tried to make a living by selling vegetables as her parents did. But seeing a true jobless one who couldn't even pay attention to his own clothes because he was too hungry made her feel the stabbing pain in her good-natured heart.
This is what the current society is. Even though the economy has improved rapidly in recent years. The poor remain poorer and the rich keep getting richer. Like the cockroaches remained in the slum, getting stepped on by the harsh life, once they became one, they could never escape from where they were tarnished.
"Please… just one time and I'll leave." His voice was quieter, but each one he spoke like a cold rusty needle, reflecting on his soon miserable life.
However, even if it is rusty, it's still a needle. He might attack her if he didn't have what he wanted, maybe, he could go even further as killing her for her money!
That scary thought made her goosebumps over her body, she grabbed the sack even harder, and took a step back against the door, ready for any worse scenarios to happen.
The young man quickly noticed this, as he understood her assignment as he also distanced themselves. When they finally settled on their location, she spoke up first.
"I'm very sorry but–"
Moew.
In the corner, a small noise, coming from a messy furball, cut her off suddenly.
It's a black, skinny cat, walking toward them with its wet paws and sitting on the dirty floor of the alley. It then looked at her with its sparkling eyes as if it was asking for some spare food while knowing that it could be kicked out at any time.
What made her more surprised was that the young man seemed to be shocked at its action at first, but soon he picked the cat up and said.
"I guess we won't have anything tonight…"
This news has struck her like a thunderbolt, now she fully understands his current circumstances.
He was trying to feed his cat!
They were just both hungry and might be nowhere home, with how the young man just lost his wallet recently, he and the cat had nothing to eat. But to feed his cat and himself, he was prepared to take any criticism for them, even though he might never come back to be a normal civilian.
The young man turned around and left before she knew it. His shoulders dropped in disgrace, bringing alone his only family on his arm and leaving. His lonely back made her feel sympathy for the young man and the black cat as she was the only one they could ask her to.
"Well, these things were going to be thrown anyway. So take as much as you want, but don't say that it was me!"
In the end, her good deed won over her.
She handed over the sack of potatoes with others that she was about to throw out as well to the young man and an apple to the cat.
Receiving the food she giving free, they looked extremely grateful to her.
"Ah yes! Thank you so much malady."
She looked at the two leaving and waved back at them happily. Knowing that she has done something good today…