My Healing Games

Chapter 432 Toys
Tick, tick...

All the clocks on the wall were ticking, their hands pointing to the same time. Han Fei stood quietly in front of the clock wall, staring straight at the shrine with its door nailed shut.

"Don't be curious. Many of these items are consigned here by others. If you damage them, you'll have to pay for them." Huang Li took out a pair of gloves and an apron from under the counter. "Another important reason why we're open 24 hours a day is that some customers come to consign items or redeem things they left in our shop. Once, a man brought all his son's toys here, wanting to sell them. That very night, his son secretly ran over, crying and begging us to keep the toys for him, saying he would definitely come back to redeem them."

"Did the child eventually redeem the toy?" Han Fei asked casually, his gaze fixed on the shrine.

Huang Li pointed to the storage area: "His toys are still piled up in the cardboard box. The child hasn't shown up for almost a week."

"Should we still reserve it for him?"

“Keep them. Those toys aren’t worth much to us, but they represent childhood and companionship for that child, and they have special meaning.” Huang Li untied her headband and tidied her hair. “The value of second-hand items is actually hard to measure. More often than not, we’re not trying to sell something, but rather to temporarily store these things for them.”

Huang Li led Han Fei to the computer. She checked the accounts with Han Fei and asked him many questions about things to pay attention to at work. Han Fei answered fluently without making any mistakes.

"It seems you're even more capable than I imagined, a very reliable colleague." Normally, it would take at least three days to master a job on one's own, but Han Fei mastered it all in just one hour. He memorized the prices and locations of all the items and remembered all the rules of the store.

"I don't have anything left to teach you. I feel like I could actually leave work early." Huang Li yawned. She praised Han Fei, but she was still a little worried. The night shift here didn't seem so easy, and there were some unspoken rules.

“You’re quick to learn. You’ll be in charge of the shop from now on, and I’ll assist you.” Huang Li poured two glasses of water and placed them on the table. She then led Han Fei to the second floor of the shop and the small warehouse in the basement.

Although this secondhand supermarket is located inside a shopping mall, it has its own sales window and a private passageway that leads directly to the underground warehouse.

“We rarely come to the underground warehouse. The things in here have basically been completely abandoned by their owners. We didn’t throw them away out of a sense of responsibility…” Huang Li was explaining when suddenly a jingling sound came from the shop entrance above, as if a customer had arrived.

"Someone's here. Go and greet them. I'll watch over you. Don't be nervous. Show your best side to the customer!"

Huang Li and Han Fei emerged from the underground warehouse and saw an elderly woman with a severe hunchback standing at the store entrance. The woman seemed to be a regular customer, as she wandered around the store, seemingly looking for something.

"Grandma, what do you need to buy?" Han Fei approached politely, but the old woman kept her head down and didn't reply.

She walked from the shop entrance all the way to the back of the shop, then looked at the wall covered with clocks and pointed.

Is there a clock that can run backwards?

"Running backwards? These clocks may be old, but they're all perfectly fine..."

"Is this normal?" The old woman looked up at Han Fei. Her eyes were deep in wrinkles, and her face was full of the marks left by time.

Her silver-white hair fell in front of her eyes. The old woman stopped selecting items, walked shakily to the shop entrance, placed a large cloth bag at the door, and then left.

"Grandma, your things!" Han Fei was about to go over when Huang Li stopped him.

“Those bags should be full of clothes for children, which the old lady is going to donate.” Huang Li seemed to know the old lady well: “The old lady’s surname is Liu. She is a resident of the neighborhood and lives alone. She often brings some things over and asks us to put them in the donation box. She has been doing good deeds for several years, but as she gets older, her mind is not very clear. She often mistakes people and talks nonsense.”

"His surname is Liu, and he's a resident from nearby..."

“The old lady is a good person. If you can help her next time she comes, then do so.” Huang Li asked Han Fei to carry the package, and they prepared to go to the donation box at the back of the mall together, but Han Fei stopped as soon as he picked up the package.

"what happened?"

"There's a foul smell in this package. Are you sure it's clothes the old man made himself?" Han Fei sensed something was wrong the moment he picked up the package.

"Yes, I'm sure! The old lady has been giving them to me for several years now."

"That's not right." Before Huang Li could dissuade him, Han Fei had already opened the sealed cloth bag.

The top of the bag contained a cute, hand-knitted sweater meant for a child, but underneath it was stuffed with feathers covered in chicken droppings and some rat skins.

The cuts were crooked and the peeling technique was very unprofessional, with blood seeping into the surface of the fur.

The bloody, stinking mess startled Huang Li. She covered her mouth and nose, her expression a mixture of surprise and fear: "How could this be? The old lady has been giving me used clothes for years, and this is the first time..."

"Could someone have tampered with the old woman's package?" Han Fei didn't know much about the old woman and didn't dare to draw any conclusions easily.

"I don't know." Huang Li, being a girl, didn't dare to approach the bloody furs. "Let's throw the things in the trash can, take the cloth bag back, and ask the old lady when she comes to pick it up tomorrow."

"It can only be the."

The donation bins and trash cans are both located at the back of the shopping mall building, with the trash cans in a more secluded spot.

Carrying a large pile of smelly things, the two stepped into the shadows behind the mall. The streetlights outside flickered, and the alleys and streets in the distance looked terrifying.

"Is the trash can that far away?"

"Of course, we can't affect the environment outside the mall."

Lifting the lid of the trash can, Han Fei began to dump the filth. Feathers covered in chicken droppings and rat skins fell onto the mannequin, as if covering it with skin.

"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, just as the lid closed, Han Fei seemed to see the broken mannequin's head turn slightly.

Carrying the bag containing only the remaining red sweater, the two returned to the mall.

Han Fei stayed behind to watch the shop, while Huang Li went to the second-floor bathroom to wash her cloth bag and sweater.

"It seems that from a certain moment on, everything gradually became abnormal."

"Ding dong, ding dong..."

The sound came from the store entrance again. Han Fei hurriedly ran over, but there was no one there.

"Who came in?"

Han Fei immediately checked the surveillance footage and discovered that a six or seven-year-old child had just run into the store.

"It's the middle of the night, why would this child appear at this hour?"

Han Fei left the counter and went to the general merchandise section, where a child, soaking wet, was squatting in front of a cardboard box full of toys.

He stared longingly at the contents of the cardboard box, seemingly wanting to take it back.

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

The boy turned to look at Han Fei, his pupils swollen from being soaked in water: "They were originally mine, Uncle. I will redeem them. Can you please not sell them?"

Before Han Fei could agree, a system notification sounded in his mind.

"Attention player number 0000! You have triggered the shrine random quest - Toys."

"Toys: There are many kinds of toys. When you control the fate of your toys, fate also treats us as its toys."

"Task requirement: Help the boy keep the toy until he redeems it."

With the shrine quest triggered, Han Fei had no choice but to agree: "These toys are all very old and worn out, and probably no one will buy them. I'll hide them in the storeroom later, or I'll buy them myself."

Han Fei was still planning how to hide the toys when the jingling sound rang out again at the store entrance. He got up and went over, and a burly man entered the store.

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

What do you need?

"I moved last month and brought some old things from home to sell. I want to see if they've been sold yet?" The man sounded a little nervous.

"what."

“Some old furniture and a big box of toys,” the man said as he walked into the store, heading straight for the general merchandise section.

"You can't just barge in like that!" Han Fei was quicker; he stopped the other person directly.

Seeing Han Fei standing in front of him, the man's hand, hidden in his pocket, twitched slightly, as if he had grasped something.

"I'm looking for the goods I consigned myself, why are you stopping me?"

"Those things you mentioned have already been sold, just recently." Han Fei's body blocked the man's view, preventing him from seeing the general merchandise area.

Who bought it?

"It's a little boy, his skin is so white, like it's been soaked in water..." Han Fei hadn't finished speaking when he heard the man's increasingly heavy breathing: "Sir, are you alright?"

"Where did that child go?"

"It's from the direction you came from, didn't you see him?" Han Fei wanted to say something, but the man had already turned and left, running away in a hurry.

Seeing the man walk away, Han Fei immediately turned around and entered the general merchandise area. By then, the child who had been squatting in front of the toy box had disappeared.

Han Fei hid the toy box behind the counter and carefully examined the toys. He found that many toys had the word "Dad" engraved on them, while only one puppet with its head removed and impossible to put back together had the word "Mom" written on it.

(End of this chapter)