Auntie Yu thought about it a moment and said, “If it’s purely to keep the cold out, this one wolf pelt on its own is enough. But if a special gemstone can be set into it, that will strengthen the cold resistance and can add other attributes besides. Snow Wolf pelt is very precious — it would be rather a pity to make it up plainly… All right, then I’ll just go ahead and—”
“…Ah, wait a moment, Auntie Yu. Do you have any of that sort of… gemstone for sale here?” Shattered Star-Heart spoke up.
Auntie Yu got to her feet and said with a chuckle, “As it happens I have two flawed warm jades here. If they’re set into these, they can raise the cold-resistance effect by somewhere around 50%. Each flawed warm jade costs 300 gold. Little miss, if you want to use them, I can sell them to you.”
Each one… 300 gold…
To her, that price was really very expensive. Three hundred gold was enough to buy her sister a great many of the things she liked to eat, and a great many of the toys she liked… and paper flowers besides.
But she agreed all the same, purely so that she could really do a little more for him. “Mm. Then may I trouble you, Auntie Yu — make two coats, and set one warm jade into each of them.”
“…The sewing fee is 100 gold per piece.”
“Mm.”
Eight hundred gold — an enormous sum — changed hands between Shattered Star-Heart and Auntie Yu. The gold in Shattered Star-Heart’s hands had all come from the identification fees Ye Tianxie had paid her earlier. Today was Shattered Star-Heart’s first day formally “on the job” with Ye Tianxie, and she had not yet drawn her first “wages.”
With the gold in hand, Auntie Yu’s whole face creased into a smile like a twist of fried dough, and her hands went to work in the same moment. She threaded the needle, took the wolf pelt in one hand, and set the other moving in swift circuits across it, faster and faster. At first Shattered Star-Heart could follow the movements of her hands; little by little all she could see was a blur of afterimages.
As things stood these days, finding a girl who could cook and do laundry might not be hard; finding one who could make clothes, or even mend them, was difficult on quite another order. Shattered Star-Heart was one of that rare group. And yet in front of Auntie Yu she was thoroughly overawed by a skill past all believing — so much so that she forgot entirely that this was a game world, and Auntie Yu only an NPC in it.
Sewing in a game world naturally could not be as slow as in the real one, or Auntie Yu’s skills might have reached the heavens and she would still never have got through that many players. In no more than a few minutes, the two Snow Wolf pelts had become two coats in her hands, and at the collar of each was set a very small transparent button — a flawed warm jade.
“They’re done. Here you are.”
Taking the two snow-white coats, Shattered Star-Heart bowed slightly. “Thank you, Auntie Yu.”
“You’re welcome, little miss. If there’s ever anything I can help with, just come and find me.” Auntie Yu said it beaming.
Carrying the two coats out, Shattered Star-Heart slowed from a hurry to a walk — then turned, hurried back, and said, standing in front of Auntie Yu, “Auntie Yu, may I learn Sewing?”
“Of course you may. Sewing is something anyone can learn. Little miss, if you want to learn it, I can teach you right now.” Auntie Yu answered her without hesitation.
Sewing was one of the basic life professions; both combat-class players and pure life-profession players could learn it. Only, once learned, it amounted to little more than one extra life skill, and one you would hardly ever use — much as, in the real world, hardly anyone outside the trade makes their own clothes.
Tailoring was likewise a life skill for producing equipment, but it was entirely unlike Forging. Forging took materials and hammered and cast them into armor or weapons of various kinds; it was comparatively complex, took a great deal longer, and came with a failure rate that was not low. Sewing, by contrast, produced equipment from whatever sewable materials were on hand, and did not alter the nature of the material — it only turned that material into the shape of a garment. There was also one point that female players were rather fond of: with pretty enough material you could make decorative clothing of considerable beauty, and clothing of that kind could be worn at the same time as normal equipment. The remarkable part was that when both were worn together, the normal equipment would be hidden outright and not show in the least, while its attributes were retained in full. Which meant one could escape entirely from the coarse, clumsy armor and helmets that ruin a woman’s looks.
To women, for whom beauty outweighs everything, this world’s pretty clothes were a pursuit in their own right, chased no less fervently than powerful gear.
“Thank you. Please teach me Sewing.” Shattered Star-Heart said it full of anticipation and delight.
“Heh heh, very well.” Auntie Yu smiled and nodded, set down the embroidery needle in her hand, and raised both hands slightly, forming an odd gesture as she did.
Very soon a crisp System prompt sounded in Shattered Star-Heart’s ear. “Ding… You have successfully learned Basic Sewing.” She thanked Auntie Yu again. “Thank you, Auntie Yu.”
“Sewing grows in a way very different from other life professions. Its demands on natural talent are high, and the more nimble of mind and hand a person is, the faster they can raise their Sewing. Leveling it likewise takes a great deal of practice: you earn the experience by sewing, and sewing again. Your present Basic Sewing can only produce simple no-attribute equipment, or equipment carrying simple added attributes, and simple decorative clothing. Little miss, work hard. So long as you work hard, you’ll become a famous seamstress.” Auntie Yu said it with her face full of smiles. Then, thinking of something, she picked up the things beside her and gave them to Shattered Star-Heart. “These are simple materials you can use to practice and level up with, and some of the basic tools sewing requires. Consider them a gift.”
“Thank you. Thank you. I won’t let you down.”
At some point it had become her habit that every time someone helped her — even the smallest sliver of help — she said “thank you,” and meant it. And these frequent thanks were by no means simple pleasantries; she was earnestly grateful to every single person who gave her help.
Leveling Identification was hard, and took a great quantity of identifiable equipment. The pace of it was out of her hands. But Sewing… at Guoguo’s Cottage, in her free time, she could practice and improve at it freely and continuously — because only by improving herself could she do more for him. Repay him for everything he had given her.
Watching Shattered Star-Heart hurry away, the tailor Auntie Yu kept smiling at her retreating back. “A kindhearted little girl. Goddess Xiyao will bless you.”
Snow-Fleece Coat: a coat made from the fur of a Snow Wolf. Once equipped, the wearer is entirely unaffected by mild cold, and the effects of moderate and severe cold are weakened to a degree. Life devoured by cold environments is reduced by 30%. Movement Speed -10 once equipped.
The attributes of the two Snow-Fleece Coats astonished Ye Tianxie, because they had gone considerably beyond anything he had expected. The Snow Wolf pelts were something he had obtained from an ordinary monster, the Snow Wolf, and in theory gear made from them ought not to have carried anything particularly outrageous… and that 30% reduction genuinely startled him.
He naturally had no idea that so strong a cold-resistance effect came in part from that transparent button hanging on the collar.
“How much gold did the two of them come to?” Ye Tianxie asked, putting the two Snow-Fleece Coats away in his pack.
“Each one was 100 gold, so 200 gold altogether… Big Brother Tianxie, this time, why don’t we call it my—”
“Mm. That gold will be added on to today’s wages.” Ye Tianxie cut off the second half of Shattered Star-Heart’s sentence. He knew she had a soft heart, but given the straits she must currently be in, how could he possibly accept a “gift” from her?
The tone was casual and left no room to argue, and Shattered Star-Heart had no choice but to let it go. She looked up and asked, testing the water, “Where’s Sister Feifei?”
“She’s… gone to cook.” Ye Tianxie answered. Hearing his call, Su Feifei had come hurrying back, dragged him around in a small circle, and then hurried off to log out. It was already afternoon, and Su Feifei’s speed at making dinner had always been the slowest there was — she could dawdle from five o’clock to seven… and still not necessarily be finished.
“Mm… Big Brother Xietian, you have a very good girlfriend. Very beautiful, very warmhearted, and so considerate.” Shattered Star-Heart said it softly, with a small laugh.
Ye Tianxie tapped lightly at the table and did not answer… Put that way, everything Su Feifei ordinarily did really could be hung on all three of those words: beautiful, warmhearted, considerate.
Into his mind, unbidden, came the picture of Su Feifei putting on “Miracle of the Ocean” and dancing for him, then holding him and murmuring against him — and a powerful impulse began to batter at his heart… He had only just been with her, and here it was, making him long to see her.
“Chenxin, your employer is going to have someone send you today’s wages within three minutes… If there’s nothing else, log off early and spend more time with the people around you.” Ye Tianxie said it smiling, picked up the communicator, gave Zuo Pojun a few instructions, said goodbye to Shattered Star-Heart, and logged out where he stood.
The time was roughly a little after five in the afternoon. It had been a long while… or rather, since entering the game world, he had never once logged out this early.
Coming out of the World of Fate, Ye Tianxie lay looking at that thoroughly familiar ceiling for two seconds, then sat up in bed. Footsteps came to his ears, closer and closer… and quite plainly they were the sound of slippers.
He got up and opened his bedroom door, and very nearly collided head-on with Su Feifei, who was passing his door at that exact moment. Ye Tianxie was about to speak when his eyes suddenly went wide, his expression froze solid — and Su Feifei, just the same, went rigid where she stood…
A second later, Ye Tianxie was the first to react, raising his hands at his fastest possible speed to clap them over his ears. Sure enough, half a second after that, a high-decibel shriek came drilling in through the gaps in his fingers.
“Aaaaah—”
(End of Chapter 192)