Chapter 71

Chapter 71: ke li nuo grasslands

By noon, Ling Mo finally saw the familiar gray gate again.

She pushed it open and stepped inside. The world beyond was completely different—shallow puddles dotted the ground, and lush trees stretched as far as she could see.

“Qie Man, what kind of trees are these?”

[Qie Man: Cloud Mulberry trees. Slightly bitter and inedible, but they are the favorite food of Cloud Mulberry silkworm beastmen.]

Ling Mo clutched her chest, heart thumping. Cloud Mulberry trees. Cloud Mulberry silkworm beastmen.

Was her luck really this ridiculous?

She’d only just decided she wanted to buy their bedding.

She walked deeper in. Every Cloud Mulberry tree looked meticulously cared for. Each leaf was huge, glossy, and clean—like someone had wiped them one by one.

Past the grove, she finally saw rows of neatly built houses.

Ling Mo scanned the area but didn’t spot any players or beastmen.

Were they all inside?

She sped up—and then heard a horrible noise.

Sharp. Piercing. The kind that made your teeth ache. After a few seconds, her head started to throb and her ears rang.

Ling Mo covered her ears, baffled. If this was Cloud Mulberry silkworm beastmen territory, why would they install this kind of sonic attack inside their own home?

She hurried closer and found a vast plaza.

And the sight made her eyes widen.

Towering across the plaza were massive square racks like bookshelves, divided into cubby-like compartments. Each compartment was large enough to fit an adult, and the racks stacked up to nearly twenty stories high.

Inside each compartment sat a white cocoon.

The shrill noise was coming from within those cocoons.

Below the racks, players with tanks strapped to their backs worked nonstop, spraying different liquids onto the cocoons with shower-like nozzles.

Whenever the liquid touched a cocoon, the white surface shifted into another color—and the sound coming from inside weakened.

Ling Mo’s mind churned.

Are those cocoons… Cloud Mulberry silkworm beastmen?

She kept her expression calm, forcing herself to look around and search for an actual Cloud Mulberry silkworm beastman.

Just then, she heard wings flutter overhead.

She looked up and saw a little one flying toward her—big eyes, a tiny mouth, two antennae on her head, two pairs of transparent wings, and a body only about twenty centimeters tall.

Ling Mo was already preparing her introduction—strengths, achievements, a full pitch. She had no interest in staying here like the other players, enduring this ear-splitting punishment.

They stood below the racks with dull, blank expressions, moving like they’d lost their sense of hearing. Their hands repeated the same motions over and over, numb and mechanical.

Just imagining it made Ling Mo’s scalp prickle.

But before she could speak, the little one cut her off.

“You’re the one Sister Leopard recommended, right? I know you. Why are you only getting here now? We’ve been waiting forever.”

Her mouth curled in a tiny pout. “We’ve got a lot piled up. Sister Leopard said your work ability is strong—you can rival an S-rank recycler.”

The moment Ling Mo heard “a lot,” she practically glowed. Perfect. She wasn’t afraid of too much. She was only afraid of too little.

“It’s fine,” Ling Mo said confidently. “You’re right—I’m very capable. No matter how much it is, I can handle it.”

“Really? Great. We’ve hired recyclers before, but either they were too slow or they charged too much. Don’t disappoint us.”

The other players saw Ling Mo arrive and assumed another sucker had shown up. Some of them even felt smug for a second.

Then they realized she wasn’t coming to work with them at all.

Instead, she got led away by a tiny beastman—one who spoke to Ling Mo politely instead of snapping like she did at them.

Unbelievable.

So these beastmen really did treat people differently. Everyone was human—why did one person get a warm welcome while the rest got barked at?

If Ling Mo were there, she’d tell them the truth: knowing the right foreign language mattered.

While they simmered, they kept working. They’d already suffered this long. They couldn’t afford to fail now.

Meanwhile, Ling Mo followed the little one through twists and turns until they stopped in front of a warehouse.

“Go in,” the little one said. “I’ll wait outside.”

“What’s inside?” Ling Mo asked, genuinely curious.

The little one tilted her head. “What else? Defective goods, and slow-selling products that won’t move.”

Ling Mo stepped into the warehouse and immediately saw the difference.

It wasn’t dirty. It was just chaos.

At other beastmen’s places, even unwanted items had been stacked neatly. Here, everything was tossed into piles—left, right, wherever. Minimal dust. Maximum disorder.

Ling Mo picked up a thin sheet nearby. “Is this cardboard?”

It was feather-light, barely heavier than a piece of paper the same size.

[Qie Man: ultra-thin mattress. As thin as paper, but lying on it causes no discomfort. It once swept interstellar, but has fallen out of fashion.]

This would be handy for wilderness survival. Ling Mo collected it without hesitation.

The rest of the warehouse was indeed full of defective products.

But “defective” didn’t mean useless. And for Ling Mo, free was free—what more could she want?

Besides, most flaws were minor: a pattern printed wrong, a color dyed incorrectly. It didn’t affect function at all.

She found rolls of fabric that were both waterproof and fireproof—items that had once been wildly popular across interstellar before better products made them outdated.

There were also bottles of spray in every color.

At first, Ling Mo assumed they were leftover paint. Then she read the instructions and realized they were used to change the color of clothes.

Tired of a color? One spray, and an old outfit looked new again.