Chapter 3: A Great Value ‘Little Watch’.

“Want to buy time?”

White Sugar, seated behind the counter, tilted her head slightly and carefully looked the Thousand-Handed Demon up and down.

After a moment of silence, she spoke sincerely:

“I’m sorry, dear customer, I didn’t quite understand your request. Could you please explain it in more detail?”

White Sugar leaned her body back slightly, gesturing for the Thousand-Handed Demon to look at the fully stocked shelves behind her.

“Or you can choose some other items you like. That works too.”

To send the customer away as quickly as possible while upholding the principle that serving customers is serving God, White Sugar maintained a standard sweet smile on her face the entire time.

If this were on Earth, she would undoubtedly be a top sales champion in any mall.

Unfortunately, this trick clearly didn’t work on the Thousand-Handed Demon.

“I don’t know what the thing I want to buy is called. I only know that I want more time. Can you… hehe… help me pick something?”

“Visiting a grocery store in the middle of the night, the shop assistant lady will surely be able to satisfy the customer’s needs, right?”

The Thousand-Handed Demon’s mouth stretched all the way to his ears. His gaze fixed tightly on the girl’s snow-white jade neck, filled with amusement and anticipation of soon tasting fresh human flesh and blood.

As his emotions fluctuated, strands of black mist continuously rose from his body. He greedily licked his cracked lips.

The Thousand-Handed Demon made no effort to hide his malice toward White Sugar’s human identity.

So he really came here to make things difficult on purpose?

White Sugar immediately understood. Her heart tightened, yet her surface remained calm.

If she couldn’t provide a suitable item based on the demand, White Sugar had no doubt that the other party would attack her and try to eat her.

In such a situation, fear and begging for mercy were even more useless. They would only make the opponent lose their wariness toward her faster, undoubtedly accelerating her death further!

Seeing the human girl behind the counter standing motionless as if scared silly, the Thousand-Handed Demon grinned wider. The thick blood vessels around his eye sockets wriggled like earthworms.

He lowered his head until his forehead was almost touching White Sugar’s face.

“Why did you suddenly stop talking? Are you afraid of me? Hehe… Am I that scary?”

This question absolutely could not be answered!

Faced with the Thousand-Handed Demon’s excessive questioning, White Sugar put away her previous sweet smile and furrowed her brows slightly.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“Haa~~”

She expressed just the right amount of displeasure and helplessness one would feel when dealing with a rude customer.

Opening her eyes, she calmly stared at the overstepping Thousand-Handed Demon.

For some reason, the Thousand-Handed Demon felt that the girl’s gaze toward him was like looking at an unintelligent wild monkey—full of disgust, impatience, and sympathy.

“I’m sorry, sir, but nighttime is precious. The grocery store only serves customers with genuine needs.”

White Sugar’s eyes sharpened. Her fingers tapped the counter impatiently, producing dull ‘thump thump’ sounds.

“If you’re here to cause trouble, I will have to throw you out!”

The Thousand-Handed Demon was stunned. Seeing that the human girl serving him didn’t look intimidated at all and was even preparing to jump down from the stool to drive him away, he felt like a clown jumping around.

Come to think of it, if the human before him was truly as weak as she appeared on the surface, how could she have survived until now and even established herself on Undead Street?

The Thousand-Handed Demon had seen humans before. Truly weak humans didn’t even need him to scare them—most would faint just from seeing his face.

Those with slightly more courage who didn’t faint on the spot still couldn’t control their instinctive trembling when seeing terrifying beings.

He had never encountered a human with such confidence, daring to clash with him!

This made him cautious.

“Wait!”

The Thousand-Handed Demon took half a step back, returning the counter space to White Sugar. Realizing the girl wasn’t as easy to bully as he had imagined, even his voice weakened.

“I really came to buy something. I want…”

“I know what you want.”

Just as the Thousand-Handed Demon was about to state the real item he came to purchase tonight, White Sugar raised her hand and interrupted him.

The Thousand-Handed Demon froze, looking in confusion at the human girl behind the counter, who was a full head shorter than him.

“I said, I know what you want to buy.”

Thinking he hadn’t understood, White Sugar repeated herself.

【Your customer ‘Thousand-Handed Demon’ has issued you the task ‘Purchase Time’.】
【Task Requirement: Your customer ‘Thousand-Handed Demon’ has recently been living in financial hardship and overate mutated water lilies, resulting in ‘hypersomnia’. His disrupted schedule often prevents him from completing work on time. Please help him recover the lost time.】
【Task Completion Reward: Experience +25, Ghost Coins ×100, Handwritten Positive Review ×1.】

White Sugar calmly read the new task information that appeared before her and slightly curved the corners of her mouth.

“Quite heavy dark circles. Have you been staying up late recently?”

The Thousand-Handed Demon nodded blankly.

“You’re the first one to notice!”

This made the Thousand-Handed Demon even more certain that the human girl serving him was definitely not as simple as she appeared.

She might be a demon hunter deliberately pretending to be weak!

With a face as black as charcoal, who could tell? White Sugar internally complained. Can’t you just guess the process from the answer?

“Because I’ve been unable to wake up properly lately and I’m afraid of delaying things, I haven’t slept for a very long time.”

The Thousand-Handed Demon used his low, hoarse voice to explain his recent situation to White Sugar.

“Cough cough, so you need something that can wake you up on time when you should be waking?”

Though phrased as a question, White Sugar spoke with certainty.

“Wait a moment.”

White Sugar jumped off the stool, turned around to search the shelves behind her. Before long, she held a dark green glass jar in her hands.

She wiped the dust off the surface with a rag and placed it on the counter.

The Thousand-Handed Demon leaned in for a closer look. Inside the glass jar was a pitch-black little snake as thick as a chopstick!

“This is…?”

“A Curse Snake. It has been conditioned through regular feeding to fix its eating schedule. As long as you keep it under the skin of your wrist, when feeding time arrives, it will wake you up by biting if you’re still asleep.”

“Outside of those times, it’s very well-behaved.”

Noticing the Thousand-Handed Demon’s expression stiffen noticeably, White Sugar blinked and quickly added:

“Don’t worry, the Curse Snake’s toxicity isn’t strong. It only occasionally causes diarrhea.”

“It has poison?!”

“Otherwise what did you expect? But if you’re not satisfied, there are other options.” White Sugar showed a hint of impatience on her face and took out a shabby old pocket watch without a cover from under the counter.

She placed the two items side by side on the counter.

“This pocket watch, aside from a 15-minute error, also has a time-telling function, but it costs 10,000 Ghost Coins. Would you like to buy it?”

“10,000 Ghost Coins? This is a black shop!”

The Thousand-Handed Demon was provoked. Ghost energy surged wildly around him, causing the temperature inside the grocery store to drop several degrees.

In response, White Sugar rolled her eyes speechlessly.

“So I recommend the first item to you.” White Sugar pointed at the jar containing the Curse Snake. “Renting it for one month only costs 90 Ghost Coins.”

“Renting? And you still say this isn’t a black shop!”

A withered palm slammed heavily onto the counter. The Thousand-Handed Demon gnashed his teeth. If this continued, he was really afraid he wouldn’t be able to control himself and would attack the annoying human girl in front of him.

Even though her heart was nearly jumping out of her throat, White Sugar’s surface remained unmoved. She spoke calmly:

“Customer, you are a local resident here. I think you should understand better than I do the consequences of confusing time in this world.”

“To avoid certain terrifying existences that only move during the long night, a ‘clock’ that allows you to accurately distinguish day from long night no matter when you wake up—this is its proper value.”

Seeing the Thousand-Handed Demon fall into hesitation, White Sugar unhesitatingly pulled out a rusty small knife.

“Action speaks louder than hesitation. Renting the ‘Little Watch’ now comes with free implantation service~”