Chapter 103 The Project Was Snatched

Chapter 103: The Project Gets Hijacked

Running a food stall was just a temporary measure until the shop was ready. Once the shop opened, the Xuehe stall would be a thing of the past.

Seeing others there backing her up, Hong Xinyue felt somewhat vindicated. It seemed most people agreed with her that the food was too expensive.

She straightened her back, lifted her head, snatched the packaged Xia Yu Flower Candy from Huang Zhenling’s hand, and said loudly, “Since you said it's a voluntary transaction, I've changed my mind. I want a refund.”

“I want to return it.” A smirk still played on her lips.

“Sure.” Jiang Yingxue took the Xia Yu Flower Candy from her, went to another computer, and processed the refund, giving her back the same bills they had paid with.

Hong Xinyue, holding the refund, curled her lips into a nasty smirk. She then handed the money back to Jiang Yingxue and said, “Now I want to buy again. Give me a box of Xia Yu Flower Candy and pack it up for me.”

Huang Zhenling watched Hong Xinyue’s actions from the side, feeling so embarrassed she wanted to dig a hole and hide. She clearly felt everyone’s eyes on them. If they had been completely in the right—boldly getting a refund just to buy again and spite the seller—she wouldn't have cared. But this situation wasn’t justified, and she felt utterly humiliated.

Faced with such a customer, Jiang Yingxue wasn’t having it. She said to Hong Xinyue, “Not selling.”

Hong Xinyue found it unbelievable. “You’re the seller!”

Jiang Yingxue replied coolly, “You also know buying and selling is voluntary. You want to buy, but I don’t want to sell.”

This was also part of the principle of voluntary purchase—sellers had the right to choose their customers.

“You! You!” Hong Xinyue’s face flushed red with anger again.

Her eyes darted around, and she held up the 500 yuan, saying, “Who knows if the money you gave back is real or fake? I want to verify it with a bill checker!”

Jiang Yingxue tugged at the corner of her mouth in exasperation and pointed to the camera above her. “Should I call the police so we can all review the security tape together?”

“This is the exact money you paid.” Jiang Yingxue looked at her as if she were a clown by the roadside.

Huang Zhenling let out a heavy sigh of disgust. She couldn’t take it anymore!

She directly pulled her share of 167 yuan from Hong Xinyue’s hand, turned around, and left.

“Huang Zhenling, what are you doing!” Hong Xinyue, seeing she couldn’t salvage the situation, eventually slunk away in defeat.

At that moment, Hong Xinyue’s face appeared on the Interest-Storing Stone computer. Jiang Yingxue manually operated it and added her to the blacklist.

For such troublesome people, she would blacklist as many as she could. After all, she wasn’t short of customers and wasn’t afraid of offending them, so she acted without so many reservations.

A few people in the queue, seeing Jiang Yingxue act so uncompromising and disapproving of her behavior, turned and left the line.

Among them was the man buying roasted chicken for his wife. As he left, he grumbled, “With an attitude like that, this stall won’t last long.” J City was big enough; he didn’t believe there weren’t other places with delicious roasted chicken.

Such a minor incident didn’t faze Jiang Yingxue, but Jiang Peiyu hurried over to comfort her, saying, “Sis, you weren’t wrong in this matter. It’s that man—his way of thinking is the problem.”

Jiang Yingxue gave her a gentle smile and said, “Peiyu is right, it’s that man’s problem. Girls from our Jiang family should be like this—not subject to moral blackmail.”

“Hehe.” Jiang Peiyu smiled shyly. Her sister was still in the mood to joke, so her spirits probably weren’t affected.

Ji Fu actually didn’t quite understand Jiang Yingxue’s approach. If she encountered mortals who offended her, she would have long since swept them into bloody pulp with her tail, not letting them leave alive. But that was her thinking when she was free; now bound to her master, she couldn’t take lives so casually on Blue Water Star.

She thought her master was too merciful. Was it because of this mortal society’s rule against killing? But this rule didn’t apply to cultivators. The law of the jungle and survival of the fittest were the rules they lived by.

Jiang Yingxue glanced at the cabinet and said, “Peiyu, go get two blank scrolls.”

“Okay.”

Ten seconds later, Jiang Yingxue spread two blank scrolls on the Warm Crystal Round Table. Then she took out brush and ink and began writing on the two blank scrolls.

“Starting tomorrow”

“This stall only allows members to make purchases”

Suddenly, a voice came from beside her. “Excellent calligraphy!”

Jiang Yingxue looked up and saw it was Yu Yuande and Feng Xiuyong.

Jiang Yingxue smiled and said, “Teacher Yu, Principal Feng, you’re here. Teacher Yu, not going up the mountain today?”

Yu Yuande gave a bitter smile, his tone filled with deep disappointment. “Don’t mention it. My project was shut down, ah!”

Jiang Yingxue was surprised. “Wasn’t the project going quite well? How could it be shut down?” Were they no longer researching those nutritious Spiritual Plants on Xiaohe Mountain?

While chatting, she didn’t stop her actions. She handed the two scrolls to Jiang Peiyu to hang on the stall, while she put away the brush and ink from the Warm Crystal Round Table.

Yu Yuande said, “Precisely because it was going well, it caught the attention of those people from S City.”

Rather than saying it was halted, it was more accurate to say it was snatched away.

Regarding the incident of the overpriced stall, the official follow-up blog posts and related reports caused quite a stir online, which wasn’t only noticed by netizens but also by some researchers in biology and botany.

After inquiring, they learned about the existence of Xiaohe Mountain and used their influence to halt Yu Yuande’s research team, replacing them with more qualified research and investigation personnel from S City.

Jiang Yingxue said, “You must have made quite some discoveries these past few days. Those people are just following in your footsteps, walking the path you’ve already taken.”

At this, Yu Yuande felt a bit smug. In the past few days, except for not staying overnight on Xiaohe Mountain, he had spent all his time there.

Regarding the raw materials of the foods appearing at Jiang Yingxue’s stall, he wouldn’t claim to have found them all, but he had found about seventy to eighty percent. From initially getting excited over a single target blade of grass to later only picking the good and robust ones.

Just this morning when they came down the mountain, the baskets on their backs were filled with several healthy and robust Qiong Peach Trees and Spiritual Hawthorn Trees.

Those people from S City were merely walking the path he had taken, digging up the plants he had already dug up, and even the plants they dug up weren’t as large as his.

Thinking of this, Yu Yuande felt less frustrated. He said, “Yingxue, give me a nutritious boxed meal and a cup of Buddha Lotus Seed Juice, a large one.” Qiong Peach Juice and Immortal-Brewed Honey Juice were both sweet and could become cloying if drunk too much. He preferred the sweet yet slightly astringent taste of Buddha Lotus Seed Juice.