Ch 5: Guide to Running a Shop in Another World II

The proxy robot was as diligent as ever, constantly urging Lu Yao to complete tasks.

For now, Lu Yao ignored the new mission and returned to the inn. She first replaced the bedding and bathrobes in Room 201, thoroughly cleaned the room inside and out, disinfected it, and rearranged everything neatly.

Once the chores were done, she sat down and retrieved the item the Nitean little person had used to pay for their stay from her portable storage—fragmented yellow crystals that had now fused into a single piece about half the size of her pinky finger. The storage display labeled the item as “Sugar Block.”

It was so small that its usefulness wasn’t immediately apparent.

Lu Yao put the sugar block back into the storage and licked her fingertip, slightly surprised.

It was very sweet, with a unique fruity flavor.

In the world of Nitean little people, this sugar block was likely quite precious. Judging by this, staying at her inn for a night wasn’t cheap for them.

The storage also contained two mission rewards: a “Sun Tangerine” (Yangju) and an “Iris Plant (Acorus).”

The Sun Tangerine resembled an underdeveloped mandarin orange. The fruit was shriveled, only about the size of her thumb pad, and felt firm when squeezed. It gave off a sharp, sour aroma that made her mouth water involuntarily.

The Iris Plant had long, vibrant green leaves that looked just like the irises she was familiar with, except the entire plant was incredibly small, barely two centimeters tall.

Unsure of the purpose of these two rewards, Lu Yao tried asking the proxy bot but received no response. She set them aside and began brainstorming new ways to attract customers.

Before leaving, Gan Li had mentioned that the valley surrounding the inn was called Thorn Valley. Encircled by thorny brambles and covered in deep snow, the area was incredibly difficult to traverse. Experienced little people typically avoided the area.

Gan Li had ended up here by chance while searching for a plant that grew alongside thorny vines, but she’d gotten lost and almost couldn’t find her way out. If not for the lure of that bowl of hot soup, she didn’t know how long she would have wandered.

Lu Yao walked to the inn’s entrance and reexamined the surroundings, deep in thought.

Most little people were around ten centimeters tall and had limited visibility. Even though her inn was quite large, they would struggle to spot it from within the bramble thickets.

The paths in Thorn Valley were indeed treacherous. It wasn’t just little people who avoided them—even Lu Yao felt a headache every time she left the inn.

A lone inn in a desolate mountain valley—if she wanted to attract customers, the simplest solution was to make the inn more visible and entice people to pass by.

This situation reminded her of remote mountain villages in the modern world, and a familiar phrase popped into her mind almost instinctively: “To get rich, build a road first.”

If she wanted her inn to succeed, did that mean she’d need to build a road first?

Lu Yao began considering using the trash disposal machine from the Little Pet Cafe to clear the snow and thorny brambles around the inn, making the paths more accessible. However, when she took out the machine, a message appeared: “Unavailable for use.”

The reason was that the snow and vines were considered part of the natural environment and couldn’t be classified as “trash.”

Lu Yao, speechless, put away the trash disposal machine and decided to use offensive dark magic to slice through all the thorny vines around the inn. She then asked the cinema’s staff to buy a few large brooms from the street.

These brooms were made from long bamboo shoots bound tightly into bundles the size of a bowl, secured with thin bamboo strips, and fitted with three-finger-thick wooden handles—perfect for sweeping the damp, snowy ground.

After clearing the snow and thorny vines around the area, Lu Yao discovered stones beneath the snow that resembled sesame candy. She collected a basketful and cut them into slabs of suitable width.

Her plan was to pave a stone path stretching east to west, starting at the inn’s entrance and extending to the outer edge of Thorn Valley.

By afternoon, Harold and Budu, who had finished dealing with appointments at the nail salon, came over to help.

Lu Yao handed the stone slabs to Harold and turned her attention to another task—building a fence.

With the snowy, barren mountains surrounding Thorn Valley, the area was desolate and monotonous. Lu Yao wanted to set up a fence on both sides of the inn and decorate it with eye-catching and fun elements to attract passing little people.

Before starting on the fence, she pulled out a stack of magically reinforced colored paper and taught Budu how to fold pinwheels. The enchanted paper was resistant to wind and snow and wouldn’t deform easily.

She cut diagonal slits into the corners of the paper, folded each corner toward the center in sequence, and pinned them onto small sticks with round-headed nails. A pinwheel was quickly completed.

Given the task of folding pinwheels, Budu finally stopped watching Harold enviously.

Lu Yao then went outside to construct the fence, using smoothed wooden stakes and bamboo strips.

Once the fence was finished, she worked with Budu to attach the completed decorations to it.

Thanks to magic, the three of them had a smooth, flat path cutting through Thorn Valley from east to west by the time the moon peeked over the horizon.

Lu Yao placed a red paper pinwheel next to a signpost on a small hill and turned to Budu, saying, “That’s enough for today. Let’s head home.”

Harold packed up the tools and asked as the two approached, “Do you think this will really attract customers?”

After a day of clearing snow and paving a path, the area around the inn was now open and visibly prominent amidst the otherwise monotonous snowy landscape. With no more thorny vines, the road was easier to traverse, but the underlying issue remained unresolved—this place was simply too far from any little people’s settlements. Whether travelers would pass by was entirely up to chance.

Lu Yao wasn’t entirely confident but replied calmly, “When the nail salon first opened, we didn’t get a single customer for the first three days.”

Harold thought back to how a certain dragon had eventually “walked right in” and sparked the salon’s popularity among dragons. Reflecting on that, he felt the inn’s prospects were bleak. Nitean Continent was nothing like the Alexander Continent—there were no dragons here with curiosity rivaling that of cats, and the concept of shops was still poorly understood.

Lu Yao gently patted Harold on the back, reassuring him, “We make things happen. If this doesn’t work, we’ll think of another idea tomorrow.”

Harold wasn’t one to dwell on things.

Even in the worst-case scenario, failing to get this inn running wouldn’t be a big deal.

In Harold’s mind, though, Lu Yao rarely made mistakes. Since she said so, he chose to trust her.

After dinner, the three of them continued building the block inn.

Outside Thorn Valley, a three-person team was sprinting through the snow.

Monk lightly flicked the grass whip against his red pig mount, his eyes flashing with excitement. “Hurry, I remember it’s just ahead!”

Zhuang Yu rolled his eyes outward. “How many times have you said that? And we’ve just been circling near Thorn Valley.”

Dada, on the other side, suggested, “Let’s find a tree hollow to rest. There’s likely to be heavy snow tonight.”

Monk didn’t reply.

After losing the food and clothes gifted by Lu Yao, none of his fellow tribespeople believed his bizarre tale of encountering a big human, no matter how much he explained.

Zhuang Yu and Dada had grown up with Monk and, seeing him sulking alone in the snow, reluctantly agreed to accompany him on this trip.

As a result, Monk had led them on a two-day and two-night chase through the snow, finding nothing and getting them lost near Thorn Valley.

The so-called big human and the mountain of food must have been an illusion Monk saw in his moment of desperation. He had mistaken it for a real experience.

Zhuang Yu gently suggested, “Let’s find somewhere to rest for the night, wait out the storm, and head back in the morning.”

They had gone along with Monk on this wild chase, and he should give up now.

Monk, however, raised his eyebrows stubbornly, his lips pressed in defiance. With a hard flick of his grass whip, he sped ahead, putting some distance between himself and the others.

Suddenly, Monk pulled the reins tightly, stopping on a gentle slope. His tense expression slowly relaxed, replaced by excitement. “I found it!”

Zhuang Yu and Dada exchanged glances and quickened their pace to catch up.

“Swish—swish—”

Before they even reached him, they heard a strange sound in the wind.

In the short distance remaining, Monk repeatedly turned back toward them, shouting, “Hurry! Lu Yao’s inn is just up ahead!”

Finally climbing the slope, Dada and Zhuang Yu saw the massive building standing alone in the desolate valley. Their eyes widened in disbelief.

At Monk’s feet was a small wooden sign, perfectly placed at little people’s height, pointing toward the large building in the valley’s center.

The sign was wrapped in what looked like “vines,” with its “flowers and leaves” glowing a warm yellow in the night.

Following the arrow’s direction, the glowing vines climbed along tall fences and extended all the way to the inn’s entrance.

The scattered lights sparkled in the snowy night, like a starry sky in the midsummer season, irresistibly drawing people toward it.

Monk’s eyes were filled with excitement as he urged his red pig down the slope onto the stone-paved road, marveling at his surroundings. “When I left, it was all thorny brambles. One misstep and you’d be scratched. Lu Yao must’ve cleared the vines and built this road.”

The stone-paved road, along with the fences wrapped in light strings and adorned with pinwheels, had been constructed at a scale suited to normal humans, making them highly visible.

The area just 10 centimeters above the ground was wrapped tightly with smaller incandescent light strings, and smaller pinwheels were scattered along the path at intervals for decoration.

Walking down the wide road, the Nitean little people felt the space to be both spacious and well-lit.

Zhuang Yu followed behind Monk, glancing around silently. Dada, on the other hand, grew increasingly uneasy as they approached the inn. The closer they got, the more hesitant his expression became.

At this point, Dada already believed Monk’s story about encountering a big human.

But seeing how Thorn Valley had been transformed, he couldn’t help but wonder—how powerful were these big humans?

The pinwheels on the fence clattered in the wind and snow. Dada urged his red pig forward, quickening his pace to stay closer to Monk.

Monk, oblivious to Dada’s concern, drove his piglet straight toward the inn’s entrance.

Dada had no choice but to call out to Zhuang Yu, “Are we really going in?”

Zhuang Yu glanced back at him. “You scared?”

The little people of the Red Pig Tribe were naturally brave hunters, known for their bold and straightforward personalities.

Dada, however, was different. He was thoughtful and timid, often teased by peers for his cautious nature when he was younger. Monk and Zhuang Yu were among his few friends.

Clutching the grass reins tightly, Dada shook his head firmly. “Not scared.”

At the inn’s entrance, Monk was already under the eaves, calling out loudly to his companions, “Hurry up! This is it!”

Beneath the inn’s massive door, there were now three small doors, like cat flaps, each with a tiny golden bell hanging from the top left corner of the frame.

When his two companions finally caught up, Monk pushed open the middle door, leading his piglet inside as though he were returning home. “Lu Yao!”

The small bell jingled at the door’s edge, startling Zhuang Yu and Dada slightly. They hesitated before following Monk inside, only to look up and see him standing in the palm of a big human as if it were nothing, chatting familiarly with her.

They thought to themselves: He really is fearless.

Remembering his companions, Monk turned and pointed at them. “These are Zhuang Yu and Dada.”

Lu Yao gently set Monk down and extended a finger toward the two newcomers. “Hello, I’m Lu Yao, the big human who runs this inn.”

Wrapped in off-white fur with a beast horn mark beneath his right eye, Zhuang Yu hesitated before reaching out a finger to lightly touch Lu Yao’s. “I’m Zhuang Yu.”

Dada peeked out from behind Zhuang Yu, trembling as he extended a single finger. “Dada.”

Lu Yao turned and called Harold and Budu over to introduce them. “This is Harold, and that’s Budu.”

Fairies from the Alexander Continent were nearly the same size as Nitean little people, so Harold wasn’t particularly interested in them. What he did enjoy, however, was watching the little people move into the block houses he had built.

Noticing the nervousness in the eyes of the newcomers, Harold greeted them briefly and went back to his construction work.

Budu, who liked the Nitean little people more, was preoccupied with finishing the new room he was working on. After greeting them, he too didn’t linger.

Their lack of interest actually helped calm Dada and Zhuang Yu, who were meeting big humans for the first time. Gradually, they stopped feeling so nervous.

Monk circled back around, full of amazement. “Everything’s completely different!”

Lu Yao seized the opportunity to introduce the inn’s services. Monk immediately declared, “I want to stay here tonight! Where’s my food stash?”

Even before settling in, he was eager to check on the food he had left with Lu Yao.

Lu Yao pulled out a sealed bag from under the counter. “Here you go.”

Dada exclaimed, “It really is a mountain!”

Monk couldn’t help but look smug, emphasizing with pride, “I’ve told you so many times, and you never believed me!”

Author’s Note:
Q: How does the innkeeper cook for the little people?
A: Option 1: Cook normal-sized meals and cut them into smaller portions. Option 2: Use tools and molds, shaping food like modeling clay.

🛍️🛍️🛍️🛍️🛍️