169: Chapter 169 Don't worry, I've got it covered!

The door was pushed open, and a girl wearing green dinosaur pajamas with a hood covering half her face appeared behind the door.

She first reached out to push back the hood blocking her vision before looking up at Gu Changming.

Her gaze lingered on his face for two seconds before she asked:

"Are you here to ask me to concoct some potion?"

Gu Changming also sized up her face; it was a bit different from what he remembered.

She was shorter, and her appearance was more youthful, but those clear eyes and that somewhat shut-in vibe matched the impression he had of her.

"Yeah." Gu Changming nodded. "I heard others say that you..."

Before he could finish, Chen Yiming hurriedly waved her hands to interrupt him:

"Don't listen to their nonsense! Those people are just spreading rumors!"

She kept waving her hands as if warding off bad luck, terrified of scaring away this hard-won customer who had finally shown up at her door.

Seeing her like this, Gu Changming paused for a moment before continuing:

"I heard them say your skills are quite good, so I wanted to ask you to concoct a potion for me."

Hearing this, Chen Yiming's face immediately broke into a smile. Not embarrassed in the slightest, she let out a "hehe" laugh:

"Well, they weren't wrong about that."

As she spoke, she reached out and grabbed Gu Changming's sleeve, leading him into the room.

"Come in, come in. It's not right to keep a guest standing outside."

Seeing her eagerness, Gu Changming was absolutely certain she was afraid that if he stood outside any longer, he would hear some bad news about her.

Gu Changming followed her lead and entered the house.

There were no partitions in the room; he could see everything at a glance.

In the middle was a large living room with a seemingly spacious sofa, but it was surrounded by piles of various clutter. To the right was an area that looked like a kitchen, containing some food.

Further in was a long table densely packed with bottles, jars, and experimental equipment.

The whole room was quite messy, but not dirty.

Chen Yiming pulled him quickly to the sofa and pressed him down with her hand:

"Sit, sit, sit!"

After pressing Gu Changming down into a seat, Chen Yiming didn't sit herself.

She stood to the side with her hands behind her back, leaning forward slightly with an eager and attentive smile, looking every bit like someone who believed "the customer is God."

"What kind of potion would you like to have concocted?" Her eyes were bright.

Gu Changming had just started thinking and hadn't spoken yet when she seemed to suddenly remember something and jogged over to the kitchen area on the right.

After a short while, she returned carrying a cup of hot coffee, holding it out to Gu Changming with both hands:

"Please, drink up. We can talk while you drink."

Looking at her, Gu Changming—who had been quite confident with his over 200,000 points—suddenly felt a bit uneasy.

So polite? Just how many customers had she scared away?

Thinking this, Gu Changming took a polite sip.

It was very bitter and didn't taste good.

He didn't say much and placed the cup on a small side table piled with books.

"It's like this," Gu Changming went straight to the point. "My Mental Power has increased a bit too much; it's now far higher than my other three basic attributes. I want to ask you to concoct potion that can increase Strength, Constitution, and Agility."

After saying that, Gu Changming added, "Not the generic attribute potion sold in the Mall. I've already used those, and they no longer work for me. I need newly developed potion..."

After hearing this, Chen Yiming barely thought about it and immediately patted her chest in guarantee. "Oh, oh, oh! No problem! I can do that!"

She patted so hard that the chest area of her dinosaur pajamas actually dented inward.

Gu Changming nodded, not bothering to argue about her boastful guarantee; he knew she had the ability, otherwise he wouldn't have come looking for her.

"I have requirements," Gu Changming continued. "The potion's effect must be very strong. After drinking it, at least two of the attributes must increase by seventy to eighty points."

Five hundred points was the threshold for B-rank. If he could raise his shortcomings like Strength and Constitution by seventy or eighty points, combined with his subsequent targeted training, he should be able to break through to B-rank relatively quickly to deal with that Beast Tide Assessment.

This time, Chen Yiming didn't agree so quickly; instead, she looked up and thought for a moment.

A few seconds later, she looked back at Gu Changming, her eyes showing a bit more seriousness.

"That will cost extra."

She explained, "The materials for such a potion are not cheap at all. Moreover, since it's a new development, the failure rate might be higher."

After speaking, she immediately realized something and nervously observed Gu Changming's expression, seemingly afraid of scaring the customer away.

"Calculate the cost." Gu Changming's expression remained calm.

Seeing that he wasn't deterred by the "failure rate" or the "price," Chen Yiming breathed a sigh of relief, and her expression became lively again.

"Alright! Just wait a moment, I'll get a notebook and calculate it!"

She turned to run back to the concocting table, but after half a step, she slammed on the brakes and came back, giving Gu Changming a "hehe" smile:

"Please sit! I'll be right back!"

Looking at her, Gu Changming didn't doubt that there were definitely customers who agreed at first but then immediately turned and ran as soon as she walked away.

After a short while, Chen Yiming ran back clutching a notebook with curled corners.

She was muttering to herself, constantly writing and drawing in the notebook, occasionally stopping her pen to bite the end and think with a frown.

Bored, Gu Changming subconsciously picked up the cup of coffee next to him and took another sip.

Tsk... I forgot.

So bitter.

He put it back without changing his expression.

Just as he put down the cup, Chen Yiming also stopped writing. She looked at Gu Changming with a tentative and somewhat guilty gaze, whispering a number:

"About... 50,000 points? For material costs plus my labor. Is this... acceptable to you?"

"Hmm..." Gu Changming pondered for a moment and just as he opened his mouth—

"45,000!" Chen Yiming immediately cut him off, lowering the price herself. "45,000 will do! I guarantee it won't exceed that, and I'll get it done for you."

"That works," Gu Changming replied.

Of course, he didn't believe her nonsense.

Although he had only dealt with her a few times in his previous life, he had heard plenty from Jiang Chen's complaints.

The points she consumed alone were sometimes more than an entire logistics research team of twenty or thirty people in the organization combined.

"Really?!" Chen Yiming's eyes instantly lit up amazingly, and a huge smile bloomed on her face.

She couldn't help but hop a few times on the spot, the tail of her dinosaur pajamas swinging back and forth.

After her excitement calmed down slightly, she seemed to remember something and enthusiastically grabbed Gu Changming's arm:

"Come, come, come! I'll take you on a tour of my potion-making cottage first! Let you see my professional level for yourself!"

Without giving him a choice, she pulled Gu Changming up from the sofa.

She began to introduce some of her setups and the new potion formulas she had researched with a hint of pride.

"Guess how much this little glass cup cost? 1,500 points! I specifically commissioned a Mid-level Craftsman to forge this Excellent-grade item for me; it can prolong the medicinal properties inside the cup for an hour."

"And there's more... For a request like yours, one bottle definitely won't be enough. For the Agility attribute, I have the Featherlight Potion I researched before, which can increase the attribute by nearly twenty points. Using it in combination will surely achieve the effect you want."

"Don't worry, don't worry, this is also included in that 45,000-point labor fee."