Chapter 52

This gold… can it buy my life?!”

At the gentle inquiry that echoed in his heart, the entire shopping plaza with tens of thousands of citizens couldn’t help but shudder all over, their consciousness instantly falling into a state of bewilderment.

When they came to their senses, these tens of thousands of citizens discovered in sheer terror that they were facing the central money chest of the shopping plaza, standing stiffly, and neatly arranged in an even fan shape.

And a humongous toad, as tall as a two-story building, was lazily sprawled on a money chest about its height, bulging its two huge golden compound eyes outward, looking at everyone with interest.

“…”

So… am I caught up in another abnormal event? After touching the scorching badge on his chest, Leon first confirmed the state of the sheep head and broom, finding that they could still be used. He couldn’t help but slightly relax, then immediately tried moving his feet.

No good, can’t move…

After checking the condition of his feet, Leon was surprised to find that a giant frog hand with suckers had grown out of the ground of the shopping plaza, firmly suctioned onto his calf.

On the back of this strange frog hand, there were numerous deep green protrusions like lumps, resembling copper wheels embedded in the skin, numbering around twenty-three or twenty-four.

Confirming that he couldn’t break free for now, Leon observed the others around him, discovering that their situations were similar. They were all firmly suctioned to the ground by frog hands, only able to struggle and scream in panic.

Unlike himself, the lumps on the skin of the frog hands grabbing them weren’t all deep green; many were cold silver-white, and occasionally some glaring golden lumps could be seen.

Gold, silver, copper… It felt like some kind of rule involving money.

Frowning and pondering for a few seconds, Leon, with two sets of children’s clothing and a sweater hanging on his broom, roughly guessed the meaning represented by these lumps.

The stuff piled up by Chal Department Store was indeed much cheaper than the market price. When passing by the shopping plaza, he was also attracted by the particularly tempting prices.

With the thought of getting a small bargain and saving some money for the family, he went around the clothing area, buying something for each of his younger siblings at home. The difference between these items and the original market average price added up to about twenty-something copper wheels, similar to the number of green lumps on the frog hand’s skin.

So if you act on “greed,” you’ll be grabbed by a frog hand equivalent to the intensity of your greed? Trying to drop the shopping bag in his hand, he found he was still firmly held, so Leon squatted down and tried touching the frog hand, but didn’t touch any substance, nor did he get any hints from the [Materialist Soul].

It seems these weird frog hands aren’t real things, but rather some kind of rule materialized after triggering someone’s ability. I guess I can only get rid of the control by dealing with the main body, but I’m six or seven hundred meters away from that toad. How do I hurt its main body?…

“Why won’t anyone agree with me?”

As Leon hesitated whether to try the bureau director’s red hair, looking at the panicked crowd in the square, the huge golden toad on the money chest blinked its eyes and sighed disappointedly: “People, you obviously love money so much, even deeply worshiping its magic, but when I follow your inner desires and bring money to you, you don’t even want to look at it. Why is that?”

“Because… because the cost is too high!”

Seeing that this big toad wasn’t particularly “ferocious,” it seemed like something that could be communicated with, a man surrounded by fallen shopping bags summoned up the courage to answer: “Money is nice, but it can’t compare to life. Life is priceless.”

“Not really.”

When this huge monster looked over, the man who spoke instinctively wanted to run, but his legs were firmly held by the frog hand growing out of the ground, unable to leave his spot. He could only scream in terror.

“You’re so noisy.”

Stretching out its webbed foot covered in transparent mucus, lightly placing it on the glittering pile of gold in front, sticking up a large amount of dazzling golden wheels, the golden toad’s “hand” slightly clenched, and the golden wheels stuck on its webbed foot instantly disappeared, directly crossing over thirty meters and piling up in front of the man.

“Sell your voice to me, and you’ll learn to be quieter.”

With the gentle voice of the golden toad, the screaming and pleading sounds of the man who spoke abruptly stopped, as if strangled directly. Even though he panicked with bulging eyes, desperately scratching at his throat with his hands, he couldn’t even utter the most basic “ho ho” sound.

After directly “buying” the voice of the man who spoke, seeing the square instantly become eerily silent, the golden toad couldn’t help but nod in satisfaction, then turned to look at the closest people, a trembling young couple, softly asking: “What about you guys? Are you willing to sell your lives to me?”

“No… unwilling!”

The husband of the young couple was already too scared to speak, while the terrified wife restrained her desire to scream, hugging her husband’s arm and shaking her head vigorously:

“My life… our two lives only have one! If… if we sell it to you, we’ll be gone!”

“Is that so?”

Without missing a beat, the golden toad tilted its head regretfully and said with a puzzled face: “You say you don’t want to sell your life to me, but you’ve been selling your lives all along.”

“We… we haven’t! We haven’t sold our lives!”

“You have.”

Stretching out the tip of its webbed foot, gently sticking up two golden wheels, the golden toad blinked its huge fly-like compound eyes and declared without room for refusal:

“These shiny little things, you have to work seven days in the cotton mill, controlling machines to process tens of thousands of pounds of raw cotton to earn them, and your husband needs to wear non-breathable long rubber boots, soaking in dye pools full of chemicals for five whole days.

So I fairly judge that your seven days of life are equal to his five days of life, his five days of life are equal to these two golden wheels, and for the past four years, you’ve been making such exchanges, and it will clearly continue in the future.

Rather than cheaply selling these precious lives to others, spending most of your life cooped up in hot and noisy factories, painfully repeating meaningless labor, why not choose an easier path and happily sell this part of your life to me directly?”

After presenting the conclusion of the value of life, under the terrified gaze of the young couple, the golden toad began grabbing handfuls of golden wheels in front of it and delivering those expensive golden coins one by one to their feet.

And as the pile of golden wheels beneath them grew larger, streaks of paleness gradually appeared in their hair, their facial muscles quickly relaxed, and the wrinkles at the corners of their eyes deepened continuously, clearly turning into middle-aged appearances and continuing to age.

More terrifyingly, although the golden toad’s words were directed at the young couple, far more than just them had golden wheels appearing beneath their feet. Nearly simultaneously, large amounts of golden wheels emerged beneath the feet of more than fifty thousand people in the entire shopping plaza.

And with the tinkling sounds produced by the collisions of metal coins, everyone on the square who received the “payment” began to age uncontrollably!