Me! Cleaner!.

Chapter 52 The value of life

???

Can this gold...buy my life? !

Hearing the gentle question in their hearts, tens of thousands of citizens in the entire shopping mall were shocked and their consciousness instantly fell into a trance.

When they came to their senses, these tens of thousands of citizens were horrified to find that they were facing a large cash box in the center of the shopping mall, standing upright and arranged in an even fan shape.

A gigantic toad, as tall as a two-story building, was lazily lying on a large money box that was almost as tall as it was, with its two huge golden compound eyes bulging outward, looking at everyone with great interest.

"..."

So... am I experiencing another unusual event?
Touching the badge on his chest that was terribly hot, Leon, with a frown on his face, first checked the condition of the sheep's head and the broom. When he found that they were still usable, he couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, and immediately tried to move his feet.

No, I can't move...

After looking down at his feet, Leon was surprised to find that a huge frog hand with a suction cup was growing out of the ground of the shopping mall and firmly grasping his calf.

On the back of this strange frog hand, there were a large number of dark blue bumps that looked like copper wheels embedded in the skin. There were about twenty-three or four of them.

After confirming that he couldn't break free for the time being, Leon looked at the other people around him and found that they were in a similar situation. They were all firmly sucked to the ground by the frog hands and could only struggle and scream in panic.

However, unlike himself, the bumps on the skin of the frog hands that grabbed them did not seem to be all dark blue. Many of them were a cold silver-white, and occasionally some extremely eye-catching golden bumps could be seen.

Gold, silver, and bronze...it feels like there's some kind of rule involving money.

After frowning and thinking for a few seconds, Leon, who had two sets of children's clothes and a sweater hanging on the broom, roughly guessed what these bumps meant.

The things piled up in Charles Department Store were indeed much lower than the market price, and when I passed by the shopping mall, I was attracted by the particularly attractive prices.

With the idea of ​​getting a small bargain and saving some money for the family, he walked around the clothing area and bought something for each of his younger brothers and sisters. The difference between the original market average price of these things added up to about twenty copper wheels, which was about the same number as the blue bumps on Frog Hand's skin.

So as long as you have "greed", you will be caught by the frog hand with the same strength as the greed?
Trying to drop the shopping bag in his hand, he found that he was still being held tightly. Leon could not help but squat down and try to touch the frog hand, but he did not touch any entity, nor did he get any hint from the [Materialistic Soul].

It seems that these strange frog hands do not really exist, but are some kind of rules that are materialized after triggering the other party's ability. It is estimated that only by dealing with the main body can they get rid of their control. However, I am now six or seven hundred meters away from the toad. What can I do to hurt its main body?
……

"Why doesn't anyone want to agree to it?"

Just as Leon was hesitating whether to try the director's red hair, looking at the panicked crowd in the square, the huge golden toad on the cash box blinked and sighed softly with some disappointment:
"People, you clearly love money so much, and even deeply worship its magic, but when I follow your inner desire 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 the big toad was not particularly "violent" and seemed to be a communicative being, a man surrounded by shopping bags bravely answered:
“Money is good, but it can’t compare to life. Life is priceless.”

"No." Following the voice, the golden toad looked at the man, and said to him with a slight smile:
"From what I know about your species, life should be measurable in money, and it's quite cheap."

Seeing the huge monster looking at him, the man who spoke to him instinctively wanted to run, but his legs were firmly grasped by the frog hands growing out of the ground, and he had no way of leaving the spot. He could only scream in fear.

"You're so noisy."

The toad stretched out its webbed feet covered with transparent mucus and gently touched the golden mountain in front of it, catching a large number of dazzling golden wheels. Then, it clenched its "palm" slightly, and the golden wheels stuck on its webbed feet disappeared instantly, directly crossing a distance of more than 30 meters and piled up in front of the man's feet.

"Sell me your voice, and you can learn to be quieter."

Along with the gentle voice of the golden toad, the screams and pleas for mercy of the man who had spoken to him came to an abrupt end, as if he had been strangled to death. Even though his eyes bulged with fear and he desperately dug his throat with his hands, he still couldn't make even the most basic "ho ho" sound.

After directly "buying" the voice of the man who had spoken to him, the golden toad looked at the square that had suddenly become silent, and nodded with satisfaction. Then he turned his head to look at the people closest to him, a shivering young couple, and asked softly:
"What about you? Are you willing to sell your lives to me?"

"No...I don't want to!"

The husband of the young couple was so frightened that he could not speak, and the terrified wife tried hard to restrain her desire to scream, while hugging her husband's arm and shaking her head desperately to refuse:

"My life... we both have only one life! If... if I sell it to you, we'll be gone!"

"is it?"

After tilting his head with some regret, the golden toad said with a puzzled look:
"You said you didn't want to sell your life to me, but you've been selling your life all along."

"We...we didn't! We didn't sell our lives!"

“You do have some.”

After stretching out the tips of its webbed feet and gently sticking two golden wheels, the golden toad blinked its huge fly-like compound eyes and spoke without letting anyone refuse:

"To get these two shiny little things, you have to work in a cotton mill for seven days, controlling the machines to process tens of thousands of kilograms of raw cotton, and your husband has to wear airtight long rubber shoes and soak in a dyeing tank full of potions and reagents for five whole days.

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

So, instead of selling these precious lives cheaply to others, and spending most of your life in a hot and noisy factory, painfully repeating meaningless labor, why not choose an easier path and directly sell this part of your life to me happily? "

After coming to the conclusion of measuring the value of life, in front of the young couple's terrified gaze, the golden toad began to grab the golden wheels in front of it one by one and sent the expensive golden coins to their feet one by one.

As more and more golden wheels piled up under their feet, streaks of white gradually appeared in their hair, their facial muscles quickly relaxed, and the wrinkles around their eyebrows and eyes continued to deepen. They looked like middle-aged men and were still aging.

What's even more terrifying is that although the golden toad was speaking to the young couple, there were far more people than just them who had golden wheels appearing under their feet. A large number of golden wheels appeared almost simultaneously under the feet of more than 50,000 people in the entire shopping mall.

And with the clinking sound of metal coins colliding, everyone in the square who received the "payment" began to age uncontrollably!
(End of this chapter)