Book 3, Chapter 17 - Honeycomb

Although Raffles had two brains, they weren’t shrewd enough to do business.

As we dragged Raffles away, Harry put one hand behind him and winked at me. I looked at him and saw that a bean had appeared magically in his hand.

I was secretly delighted. Quietly, I walked up behind him. He was already bargaining with the old man, “I reckon even you are not sure if all the beans here could spr…”

My fingertip glided against Harry’s warm fingers and palm, and I quickly took the bean from his hand. He paused for an instant, and finished his sentence when my hand left his, “- sprout, right?”

“Humph!” The old man looked away. He seemed to be very angry that we were doubting his beans.

I immediately returned to Raffles, who was still surrounded by the girls, and took out the bean. Raffles exclaimed in surprise, “Bean-! Mm!”

At once I covered his mouth and Sis Cannon quickly blocked us with her body as the tallest one amongst us. I shook my head at Raffles, and he quickly nodded. Arsenal let out a sigh while Xiao Ying shook her head continuously. “Brother Bunny, you are such an honest man.”

I let go and Raffles smiled bashfully as he began to examine the bean.

“Humph. You might not have what I want to exchange the beans for. Don’t waste time here,” the old man huffed.

“Tell us and see if we have it.” Harry leaned against the counter and shrewdly watched the old man out of his one exposed eye.

As I spun Raffles around to face away towards the south, I casually looked up and spotted a huge conch-like building that looked like a mountain.

The conch-building stood there like a huge conch lying stuck to the ground. On top of the building, a huge billboard with a mermaid in green and sporting long green hair advertised Green Facial.

Windows lined up neatly along the whorl of the conch building, with less windows as it spiraled up to the tip. There seemed to be balconies too. Judging from the building’s grandeur, it seemed like a hotel.

“I want gemstones. Do you have them?!” The old man held us in contempt.

I pointed at the huge conch and asked, “What place is that?”

At my question, everyone looked at the huge conch.

The old man and Harry who were busy haggling looked over subconsciously too.

Harry immediately grew tense and blinked several times. He looked away, as if he didn’t want to reply.

“That’s Honeycomb. Hahaha.” The old man who had been so rude laughed unexpectedly.

We looked at him, while Raffles was still focused on his equipment.

The old man looked at me with a smile, “Brother, you look like this is your first time here. That is a great place. You are a young man who is youthful and aggressive. There are not many girls nowadays. If you want to have fun, that’s the best place to-”

“Cough! Old man, do you want to do business or not?” Harry furrowed his eyebrows and cut the old man off. He obviously didn’t want us to find out more about Honeycomb.

The old man ignored him and continued to grin at us. “Although it costs more, it’s worth the price! If you have never been there even once in your life, you can’t consider yourself a man. If you are a man, you have to try all the flavors there are out there. The boys and girls there are beautiful. They…”

“Old man! I have what you want!” Again, Harry cut the old man off loudly. This time, the old man immediately looked at Harry, his expression drastically changed.

He narrowed his eyes seriously. Looking left and right, he leaned forward to peer at Harry. He lowered his voice and asked, “You really do? You are not lying to me?”

Harry smiled and looked at Raffles. “Bunny, are you done? Take out what he wants,” He blinked at Raffles as a signal to ask if he was done with the examination.

Raffles nodded at him solemnly as he put the bean and detector away. It meant that the beans could be used! Then, Raffles took out a bag of gemstones and threw them to Harry.

We stood close together behind Harry, blocking the transaction from others’ view.

Harry opened the bag and the old man hurriedly extended his neck to steal a glance into it. He was shocked at the sight. Harry quickly closed the bag and offered, “Ten gemstones for your beans.”

The old man squinted his eyes and bargained, “Twenty.”

“Eight.”

The old man stared while Harry pretended to leave. “There are more seeds over there. Let’s go over.”

“Hold on!” The old man called Harry and a glint of success flashed through Harry’s eyes. He could tell that the old man’s desire for our gemstones was stronger than our desire for his seeds.

At the end of the world, there weren’t many people who were willing to trade with gemstones since they weren’t edible.

However, when people needed them, the gemstones would become something precious again.

“Alright. Ten then,” the old man said through his gritted teeth. Then, he pushed the glass of beans towards us.

Harry smiled and took out ten small sapphires for the old man. Actually, the ten blue gemstones meant nothing to us.

Raffles immediately took the beans. He looked as happy as someone who had found a glass of diamonds in my old world would have in.

The old man stared at our bag, deep in thought. “I have a few friends who want to exchange for gemstones. I would like to reserve the gemstones for them.”

“Sure.” Harry kept his bag and leaned against the counter. His eyes shimmered as he said, “But they might not have what we want.”

The old man smiled confidently. “Don’t worry. They’ll definitely offer good stuff. Where are you located? I’ll tell them to go and look for you.”

“Dream Lane, Mermaid/” Harry pointed. Every street had its name.

The old man looked and nodded. “Alright.”

We turned and left.

“You are all young men. Since you have good stuff, you might as well go for it!” The old man called after us with a laugh from behind. “If you don’t go to Honeycomb, how would you know how to be a man? Hahaha…”

*Cough!* Harry coughed and walked faster. He was heading in the opposite direction to Honeycomb as though he wanted us to be far away from it.

However, that wouldn’t reduce everyone’s curiosity. Plus, Honeycomb was huge and tall. We could see it from everywhere on the island.

We looked back as we walked. It seemed like a luxurious place.

“Is there where the gigolos stay?” I asked directly. Honeycomb was a unique name. In addition to what the old man said earlier, it wasn’t hard to guess what kind of place it was.

Harry was walking forward but he nearly stumbled at my question. He grabbed Raffles’ overcoat to steady himself, pulling Raffles’ collar slightly open and exposing his fair and smooth shoulder that looked especially seductive under his grayish-blue hair.

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