My ‘Healing’ Game
Chapter 431: Toys

Chapter 431: Chapter 431: Toys

Tick-tock, tick-tock...

All the clocks on the wall were ticking, the hour hands pointing to the same time. Han Fei stood quietly in front of the wall of clocks, staring intently at the nailed shut shrine.

"Don’t be curious, many items here are consigned by others. If you break anything, you’ll have to pay for it." Huang Li took out a pair of gloves and an apron from under the counter, "An important reason we operate 24 hours is that some clients come to consign items or redeem items they have previously left here. Once, a man brought all his son’s toys here hoping to sell them. That same night, his son sneaked in, tears streaming down his face, begging us to keep the toys for him, promising he would come back to redeem them."

"Did the child ever redeem the toys?" Han Fei kept his gaze fixed on the shrine while asking nonchalantly.

Huang Li pointed towards the junk area, "His toys are still piled in the cardboard boxes. That child hasn’t shown up in almost a week."

"Should we still keep them for him?"

"Let’s keep them. Those toys aren’t worth much to us, but they represent childhood and companionship for that child, which holds special meaning." Huang Li took off her hairband and fixed her hair, "The value of second-hand items is actually hard to measure. More often, we aren’t just selling items but temporarily storing them for people."

Huang Li walked with Han Fei to the computer. She checked his accounts and asked him many work-related questions. Han Fei responded smoothly without any mistakes.

"It seems you are more capable than I imagined, a very reliable colleague indeed." Normally, it would take at least three days to handle the job alone, but Han Fei mastered everything in just one hour. He memorized all the prices and locations of the items and remembered all the rules of the store.

"There’s nothing more I can teach you; it feels like I could actually get off work early." Huang Li yawned, complimenting Han Fei verbally, but she was still somewhat uneasy inside. The night shift here didn’t seem so easy and there were some unspoken rules.

"You’ve picked up everything quickly. Later, you’ll watch the shop, and I’ll support you," Huang Li poured two glasses of water on the table and then took Han Fei upstairs and to the basement storage of the shop.

Although this second-hand supermarket was inside a shopping mall, it had its own independent sales window and a direct passage to the basement storeroom.

"We seldom come to the basement storeroom. Most of the items here have been completely abandoned by their owners. We haven’t thrown them out because we are responsible..." Huang Li was explaining when suddenly the sound of ’ding-dong ding-dong’ came from above at the shop entrance, as if a customer had arrived.

"A customer has come. You go and greet them; I’ll watch you. Don’t be nervous, just show your best side to the customer!"

Huang Li and Han Fei walked up from the basement storeroom. At the store entrance, they saw a severely hunched old woman, who seemed a frequent visitor. She was bending over, meandering around the store as if she was looking for something.

"Granny, what do you need?" Han Fei approached politely but the old lady kept her head down and didn’t reply.

She walked from the entrance to the deepest part of the store and then looked at the wall covered with clocks, raising her hand to point.

"Do you have any clocks that run backwards?"

"Run backwards? Although these clocks are second-hand, all of them work normally..."

"Normal?" The old woman looked up at Han Fei, her eyes deeply sunken in wrinkles, her face marked by the years.

Her silvery white hair fell over her face. The old woman did not continue to browse. She shakily made her way to the store entrance, placing a large cloth bag at the doorstep before she left.

"Granny, your things!" Han Fei was about to go over but was stopped by Huang Li.

"That bag should contain clothes made for children. Those things are meant to be donated by the old lady," Huang Li seemed familiar with the old lady. "She’s Mrs. Liu, a local resident living alone. She frequently brings things here for us to put in the donation box. She has been doing charity work for several years now but as she’s getting older, her mind has started to get a bit unclear. She often mistook people and talked nonsense."

"Mrs. Liu, a local resident..."

"She’s a good person. The next time she comes by, if you can help her, please do so." Huang Li had Han Fei carry the bag. They were about to head to the donation box behind the mall, but Han Fei stopped abruptly as he picked up the package.

"What’s wrong?"

"There’s a foul smell coming from this package. Are you sure these were made by the old lady?" Han Fei felt something was off the moment he picked up the package.

"Sure! The old lady has been sending them for several years."

"No, it’s not right." Han Fei had already opened the sealed cloth bag before Huang Li could stop him.

At the top of the bag was a sweater prepared for a child, handmade and quite cute. But beneath the sweater, the bag was stuffed with feathers smeared with chicken droppings and some rat skins.

The cuts were jagged, the skinning messy, and blood had soaked into the fur surface.

This bloody, stinking mess startled Huang Li; she covered her nose and mouth with a frightened expression, "How can this be? The old lady has been sending old clothes for several years. This is the first time..."

"Could someone have tampered with the old lady’s package?" Han Fei didn’t know Mrs. Liu well and didn’t dare to make a hasty judgment.

"I don’t know." Huang Li, being a girl, couldn’t bear to get close to the bloody furs, "We’ll throw these things in the trash bin, and keep the cloth bag. Tomorrow when the old lady comes to pick up the package, we’ll ask her about it."

"That might be the only thing we can do."

The donation box and the trash bin were both located behind the mall building, with the trash bin position being more secluded.

Carrying the stinking pile, the two walked into the shadow behind the mall. The streetlight outside flickered on and off, making the distant alleys and streets look incredibly terrifying.

"Is the trash can that far away?"

"Of course, we can’t let it affect the environment outside the mall."

After lifting the lid of the trash can, Han Fei began to dump the dirty things. Feathers stained with chicken feces and mouse skins fell onto the broken plastic mannequins, as if skin was being wrapped around the mannequins.

"Keep the red sweater the old lady knitted; we’ll return it to her tomorrow." Huang Li was about to close the trash can lid when, at the moment it shut, Han Fei thought he saw the broken mannequin’s head gently turn.

Carrying a bag with only one red sweater left, the two of them returned to the mall.

Han Fei stayed behind to mind the store while Huang Li went to the restroom on the second floor to wash the bag and the sweater.

"It seems like everything started to become abnormal from a certain moment."

"Ding-dong, ding-dong..."

There was a sound again at the store entrance. Han Fei hurried over, but there was no one there.

"Who came in?"

Han Fei immediately checked the surveillance and found a child, about six or seven years old, had just run into the store.

"It’s the middle of the night; how can this child be here at this time?"

Han Fei left the counter and went to the grocery area, where a soaking wet child was squatting in front of a cardboard box filled with toys.

He looked longingly at the items in the box, seemingly eager to take them home.

"Do you want to buy these toys?" Han Fei asked softly.

The boy turned his head to look at Han Fei, his pupils slightly swollen from being waterlogged: "They were originally mine, uncle. I will redeem them. Could you please not sell them?"

Before Han Fei could agree, the system’s notification sounded in his brain.

"Attention, player 0000! You have triggered the Shrine Random Task—Toys."

"Toys: Toys come in many forms, and when you control the fate of toys, fate also treats us as its toys."

"Task requirement: Help the boy keep the toys until he redeems them."

The shrine task triggered, Han Fei had no choice but to agree: "These toys are very worn-out; it’s unlikely anyone will buy them. I’ll hide them in the storeroom later, or I could buy them myself."

While Han Fei was planning how to hide the toys, the sound of "ding-dong, ding-dong" echoed again at the store entrance. He stood up and went over; a burly man entered the store.

The man was dressed in dark clothes, wearing a mask and a cap.

"What do you need?"

"I moved last month, brought some old items from home to sell. I want to see if those items have been sold?" The man’s voice revealed some nervousness.

"What items."

"Some old furniture and a big box of toys," the man said, walking towards the interior of the store, heading straight for the grocery area.

"You can’t just barge in!" Han Fei moved faster, blocking the man.

Seeing Han Fei blocking his path, the man’s hand slightly moved inside his pocket, as if he was holding something.

"I’m looking for my own consigned goods; why are you stopping me?"

"The items you mentioned have already been sold, just recently." Han Fei’s body blocked the man’s view, preventing him from seeing the grocery area.

"Who bought them?"

"A little kid, his skin was oddly pale, like it had been soaked in water..." Before Han Fei could finish, he heard the man breathing more heavily: "Sir, are you alright?"

"Which way did that kid go?"

"The same direction you came from; didn’t you see him?" Han Fei still wanted to say more, but the man turned and left, rushing out hastily.

Seeing the man leave, Han Fei immediately turned and went into the grocery area, only to find that the child squatting by the toy box had disappeared.

Han Fei hid the toy box behind the counter and carefully examined the toys. He noticed that many of the toys bore the word "Dad" on them, but one puppet, whose head had been removed and could not be put back together, bore the word "Mom."