Chapter 217| Chapter 218 | Chapter 219
Chapter 217: Kuang Biao’s Sincerity
The heavy rain fell for a day and a night, leaving Ketaro and Da Pang very unhappy.
The former was because the rain and mud had stalled its work progress. As a born-to-work employee, every minute of rest felt like a crime.
Moreover, after this rain, the flowers and plants Ketaro had originally set its sights on were either no longer usable or had become much harder to use, making it impossible not to feel depressed.
Left with no choice, it rummaged through its nest to pull out its big box, picked a favorite ball from inside to hug in its arms, seeking a bit of solace.
As for Da Pang, the rain had thoroughly soaked the soil, turning an environment it could previously tolerate into something increasingly disgusting and uncomfortable. Strange energies in the soil tried to bore into its flawless body. It, Da Pang, grew so white and beautiful; how could it be willing to absorb such things and turn itself into a frenzied, ugly mess? Ahhh!
So for the past day and night, it could only keep itself wedged inside the hole of the hollow brick that served as its flowerpot, its rootlets lightly touching the soil inside—better than nothing, but barely.
Only Kuang Biao was blissfully happy and completely unrestrained. At this moment, its branches and leaves rustled loudly in the rain as it shouted out, “I will become stronger sooner or later!”
But this display of dominance lasted for less than three seconds before it hurriedly bent its frontmost section, trying its best to shelter the sunflowers ahead that were struggling under the torrential downpour.
“Xiao Kui! I’m willing to give everything for you!”
The bamboo stalks layered over one another, struggling to prop up a space with less rain for the tall, sturdy sunflowers. Yet with streams of water crisscrossing the ground, it was still inevitable that a lot of it was absorbed.
Kuang Biao’s heart ached instantly. “Xiao Kui, boohoo… It’s all because I’m not strong enough, unable to shield you from the wind and rain…”
Truth be told, if it weren’t only six years old, this performance might have made up for its greasy melodramatics during the day.
Seeing Huai Yu leaning against the window and watching with great interest, Zhou Qian couldn’t help but sidle over. After a long moment, he withdrew his gaze, his expression complicated.
“Does its personality really have nothing to do with your ability?”
Huai Yu widened her eyes. “I haven’t touched him a single bit!”
“He was just born this way!”
“Are the other mutated plants on Sanqing Mountain like this too?”
Huai Yu: “…”
Recalling the silent behavior of the other trees during that fight, she replied with some difficulty, “Maybe… the others are a bit more low-key.”
Zhou Qian stared at her, his eyes full of suspicion. “So, tell me the truth. Do you have another ability that naturally attracts these bizarre…”
He summed it up, “…creatures.”
Huai Yu wanted to argue but didn’t know where to start. Then, she sized Zhou Qian up and suddenly asked out of curiosity, “You’re saying so much—do you actually want to go to Sanqing Mountain with me to take a look?”
Zhou Qian’s face stiffened. “It’s alright, I guess.”
What kind of answer was “It’s alright, I guess”?
Huai Yu glanced at him, thinking to herself that if he wanted to go, he should just say so instead of being so subtle. The only reason she hadn’t gone recently was that the chores at home hadn’t been fully sorted out yet!
But after this rain, the vegetables in the field would take a long time to purify before they were edible. Since they had nothing better to do, taking him up the mountain wasn’t out of the question.
Besides, in this sweltering summer heat, it might even be cooler up on the mountain.
“There’s just one thing—”
Huai Yu hesitated. “Last time, I wanted to venture deeper to take a look, but as soon as I did, I ran into Kuang Biao. If we go deeper this time and run into other mutated plants, can you beat them?”
Zhou Qian rubbed his nose. “If I had weapons, I could probably handle some.”
As it happened, he was retired, and all his weapons had been confiscated. He only had a cold-steel long blade that was useless for both digging and chopping wood, so it just sat at home.
While his capabilities had improved somewhat after getting his bio-prosthetic limb, it was still limited. He might be highly experienced in close-quarters combat, but when it came to dealing with mutated plants from a distance, he was still no match for the convenience and efficiency of an ability user.
Huai Yu felt a bit torn.
“I heard there’s a Daoist temple on Sanqing Mountain and wanted to visit it. But the mountain paths are completely overgrown and messy because of the mutated plants; once you go deep into the mountains, you can’t find your way.”
“If we can’t beat them, let’s just stroll around the outer perimeter. There’s a big pine tree there that treats me pretty well.”
These words sounded incredibly niche.
Yet Zhou Qian still nodded in satisfaction.
“That will do.”
He really wanted to see just how much affinity Huai Yu had with mutated plants. This was especially true after a polluted rain, when plants typically became much more violent.
And this kind of volatility was exactly the normal state of the blood-stained plants out in the wilderness.
If she could even enter and leave Sanqing Mountain freely, then Zhou Qian would have even more confidence regarding their trip to the wilderness.
But for now—
The two of them stared at the continuous drizzle and sighed once again.
Just as they were feeling down, they suddenly heard Kuang Biao making a huge racket again, as if it had been beaten up.
Not daring to touch the rainwater, the two could only lean against the window again to look outside. They saw that the rose vines rushing over from the edge had fiercely grabbed the bamboo tips, once again wrapping around them tightly.
Zhou Qian grew curious. “Does the Rose Corridor need it to shield it from the wind and rain too?”
But on second thought, it wasn’t impossible.
When rain with such high pollution levels fell, many mutated creatures without strong desires would detest it. During the last rain, they had treated it with utmost seriousness; they had only dared to shout at Huai Yu from far away out of fear that the Rose Corridor would riot and throw a tantrum in the rain.
And now, probably because it really liked Huai Yu, the Rose Corridor’s tantrums were limited to messing with Kuang Biao.
That didn’t seem so terrifying after all.
Zhou Qian thought to himself.
However, in the next moment, they heard Kuang Biao crying out in pain again.
“I only crossed the line a tiny bit!!! Hitting me while it’s raining, taking advantage of a bamboo in peril—isn’t this going too far?!”
It defended itself, “I’m doing this to shield Xiao Kui from the rain! If I’m too far away, even if the bamboo bends over, it won’t be high enough to cover her. What use would that be?”
Screaming at the top of its lungs like a pig being hauled onto a chopping board, it yelled out:
“Xiao Yu, help! Xiao Yu! Help me—”
“Tell the Rose Corridor! I didn’t mean to take this opportunity to push my way near your house’s foundation. I just wanted to give Xiao Kui a home that protects her from the wind and rain!”
What did that mean?
Huai Yu grew angry too. Bamboo roots were incredibly destructive!
Just looking at that fat bamboo shoot that had bored a hole through her house made that clear—even now, because of a lack of materials, that hole hadn’t been completely patched up yet.
And while Kuang Biao claimed it was shielding Xiao Kui from the wind and rain, would it ever retract the bamboo roots that had burrowed right under the base of her walls?
If it wanted to have close contact with Xiao Kui in the future and sprouted a few more bamboo stalks—
Great, her newly built house would crack right from its foundation.
How could she tolerate this?
“I won’t allow it!” she also shouted through the window. “No! Absolutely not! Kuang Biao, don’t you dare sneakily steal territory!”
“If you keep this up, once the rain stops, I’ll transplant your precious Xiao Kuis!”
Chapter 218: The Ill-Tempered Rose Corridor [Wu Yue]
Huai Yu’s voice drifted and wavered through the wind and rain outside the window, but Kuang Biao instantly quieted down, and its resistance against the thrashing Rose Corridor became half-hearted.
Only after a long while did it speak up, sounding terribly aggrieved. “Fine… if I shouldn’t take root, I won’t. But you can’t force us apart. Xiao Kui and I are truly a match made in heaven—look, both of our leaves are green.”
“And our bamboo flowers are so tiny while her flowers are so big. It’s a natural complementarity…”
Kuang Biao’s book of romance was truly a bit too thick. Huai Yu was too impatient to listen to any more of it, but looking at the rustling, retracting vines of the Rose Corridor, she could distinctly feel that its temper was indeed much shorter than usual.
Just like her—such a large vegetable plot had finally been whipped into shape, only for this rain to fall. Next, she would have to purify them one by one… If she did that massive workload in one go without stopping, it would be enough to make her faint a hundred times over.
Life was truly so hard!
Nothing could be done today. Since neither of them wanted to come into contact with the rainwater, they simply threw together a basic meal and called it a day.
It was only then that Huai Yu began to regret it. “If I had known this rain would be like this, I should have gritted my teeth and bought that gaming console!”
Meanwhile, Zhou Qian had already picked up the three books she left on the table. After frowning and scanning the titles one by one, he decisively chose The Unattainable Lover.
The reason he didn’t choose Born Toward the Sun was simply that he was thoroughly exhausted from being pestered by Kuang Biao’s recent poetry recitations.
A moment later, Zhou Qian calmly put down the book, keeping his voice perfectly steady. “Do you usually prefer this flavor of novel?”
Huai Yu waved her hands frantically. “That’s a bootleg, I bought the wrong one!”
After a brief thought, she added, “Well, not entirely by mistake. There are some handy tips about planting and breeding inside, and I wanted to learn a bit more.”
“Is that so?” Zhou Qian didn’t quite believe her. “But no matter how much you learn, the protagonist is a toad. What could you possibly get out of that?”
Huai Yu had finished the entire book. To be perfectly fair, aside from the two protagonists being a bit hard to imagine, the writing style wasn’t bad.
She could only try her best to defend it. “Learn how to marry a white swan?”
Zhou Qian: “…”
He let out a sigh. “How about you just buy the gaming console back next time.”
Anything was better than staying here reading about a toad raising a swan, only for it to end in a tragic, angsty romance.
Huai Yu gave a depressed “Oh” and sat back down, looking entirely listless. She really disliked this rain, and the Rose Corridor definitely hated it too, which was why it was throwing a tantrum.
Once the rain stopped, she would still have to go over and coax it. Huai Yu rested her head on her arms, slumping against the table as she stared blankly into space.
Zhou Qian truly couldn’t stomach that kind of love story. He headed along the corridor to the utility shed, rummaging through the pile of junk to gather an armful of items. He planned to take advantage of the downtime today to fix them up and see what was still usable.
But the moment he opened the door and stepped back into the living room, he saw Huai Yu already fast asleep, her head still resting on her arms with a serene expression on her face.
He quietly lightened his footsteps, quickly finding a spot to sit down, and began sorting out the shelf in his hands.
Yet, in stark contrast to her peaceful face, Huai Yu’s dream was not a happy one.
She was dreaming of Wu Yue again.
He was leading a group of classmates behind her, everyone laughing and playing in the mountain woods while foraging for scattered wild vegetables, looking as though they had come to the mountain for a camping trip.
And the rural lifestyle blogger, Huai Yu, was their best guide.
Huh, wait a minute, how did I become a rural lifestyle blogger? And I look a bit older than I did in the last dream… Huai Yu thought curiously.
The next second, someone cleared up her confusion.
A young girl in the group sidled over, glanced at her basket full of wild vegetables, and widened her eyes in amazement. “Sister Huai Yu, you’re really amazing! You’re a natural at this. No wonder Wu Yue likes you; he especially likes girls who are down-to-earth.”
As she spoke, she looked over at Wu Yue, her expression soft and sweet.
“You must absolutely remember this favor! If Wu Yue hadn’t come up with the idea for you to do this, you’d probably still be working hard at odd jobs to make ends meet. How could you have a million followers today…”
What?!
Huai Yu knit her brows. To think I actually owe a favor to this obnoxious, repulsive guy?
The thought of it made it even more repulsive!
Just then, another girl approached carrying a half-filled basket of wild vegetables. “Sister Yu, take a look at these and see if they’re edible. I’m afraid I picked the wrong ones.”
After speaking, she glared at the first girl. “Why do you always bring up these old, trivial matters every single time?”
“Wu Yue did casually mention letting Sister Yu become a rural blogger back then, but wasn’t that just a passing remark when we were all having dinner together? If you count all the words, it didn’t even exceed twenty—”
The girl cleared her throat, attempting to mimic Wu Yue’s tone and voice: “Huai Yu, since you’re so familiar with the mountains and forests, you could totally start live-streaming to make money.”
“He really just said it in passing. Sister Yu achieved what she has today purely through her own hard work, yet you bring it up every single time we meet…”
“What kind of talk is that?” The girl beside her grew upset as well. “The way you put it makes it sound like I’m leveraging a favor to demand a reward. What does it have to do with me?”
“I just see that Wu Yue and Sister Yu’s relationship is getting better and better, so I figured they should keep each other’s kindness in mind. Even though Sister Yu worked hard, sometimes opportunities and choices are much more important than hard work…”
The two made quite a fuss, but they were classmates after all. The Huai Yu in the dream smoothed things over, quickly sorting through the wild vegetables and using the excuse that it wouldn’t be enough for lunch to send the two of them off to keep harvesting.
As soon as they left, Wu Yue sidled over. “Xiao Yu, Meng Tian just speaks a bit directly, please don’t mind her. It was just a small favor on my part back then; today’s results are entirely due to your own hard work, it has nothing to do with me.”
These words sounded decent enough for a change. Huai Yu, who had been watching this frustrating show from the sidelines for a while, eyed him, just wondering how she could repay this help, when she heard him let out another sigh.
“Xiao Yu, could you please dress a bit more beautifully and youthfully for my sake?”
“It’s not that I’m shallow or only care about looks. It’s just that I’m still in school right now, and if you dress too old-fashionedly, they all call you ‘Sister’… It makes me lose a bit of face…”
He lowered his head, looking somewhat embarrassed. “You know how it is, some people will use these kinds of things to mock me.”
Watching from a third-person perspective, Huai Yu felt a surge of anger at these words. But in the next instant, the bitterness and exhaustion within that body washed over her like a tidal wave, causing even the words Wu Yue spoke next to sound muffled and blurry to her ears—
“How about this, when you go back, consult more with those beauty bloggers you work with, and learn a bit about makeup and dressing up… Oh right, Meng Tian mentioned before that your upturned eyes look a bit fierce… Can that be adjusted now?”
Chapter 219: A Niche Art Style
It was another repulsive dream, but this time, Huai Yu was much more mature than she had been before.
At the very least, she didn’t punch her pillow in a fit of rage upon waking up. Instead, she stared at the empty water bucket by the door and placed it directly out into the rain.
The rain beat down into the bucket with a steady pit-a-pat. By the time she finished a quick wash and prepared a simple breakfast, it was already filled to the brim.
The sky remained dark and gloomy. With such heavy rain, Zhou Qian probably wouldn’t come over today. Huai Yu didn’t mind. She just huffed and puffed as she lugged the bucket into the house, and then stared at that bucket of “dirty water,” slowly hovering her palms slightly above it.
Even if it was for that scumbag, ten kilometers was absolutely out of the question. However, there was never any harm in improving her own abilities. Sooner or later, she was going to have the Rose Corridor slap his face raw!
What a piece of trash!
That relationship before her memory loss had truly given him way too much face!
…
The rain stopped briefly in the evening. When Zhou Qian walked over in his raincoat, he noticed scattered water tracks spreading from the steps all the way into the house. Meanwhile, Huai Yu had fallen asleep right by the doorway, hugging the water bucket. This left him stunned, before he muttered in exasperation:
“How old are you, still playing with water?”
Fortunately, even though it was raining, the temperature hadn’t dropped. The surroundings felt like a giant, steam-filled food steamer, so sleeping like this wouldn’t cause her to catch a cold.
Zhou Qian gently nudged her knee with the toe of his boot. “Xiao Yu, why are you sleeping out here?”
Huai Yu swayed slightly, tumbled onto the floor with a soft thud, and naturally rolled onto her side, her breathing remaining even and smooth.
Zhou Qian: “…”
The sleep of a growing teenager was truly as immovable as a mountain.
He let out a helpless sigh, bent down to pick her up again, and tucked her straight into bed.
The moment he placed her down, it suddenly hit him—she had dirt on her…
But whatever, she was already lying down.
He turned to leave, yet his bio-prosthetic limb seemed rooted to the floor. As he lifted it, he could hear the faint sound of the suction claws sticking to the ground and being forced apart. To make matters worse, several vines rustled out from his pant leg, carefully squeezing their way toward the water bucket.
Zhou Qian’s face turned completely black.
Hiding mud while digging was already the absolute limit of his tolerance. If he brought back a puddle of water this time, he would truly lose his mind.
Zhou Qian planted his feet heavily and swiftly left the house.
He turned back to leave the door slightly ajar, then went to the utility shed to cook a pot of rice. Once the embers died down, he put his raincoat back on and returned to his own home.
Because of this, he failed to notice that in her sleep, Huai Yu’s limbs were curled tight. The tips of her eyebrows and hair seemed to carry a faint layer of frost, and without realizing it, she pulled the blanket from the edge of the bed into her arms:
“Cold…”
……
All around was an endless jungle, and beneath her feet lay a vast expanse of withered, strange earth. Something alive was pulsing beneath the ground, yet it also felt as though it had long been dead.
Ahead stood a terrifying, grotesque tree. Hanging from its branches were scattered, shredded strips of cloth and clothing, and a grayish-white ribcage was wedged between the limbs, swaying gently in the wind.
Beneath the tree, a fierce, sharp branch jutted diagonally upward, piercing straight through an abdominal cavity. Dark red blood stains coiled around the dried bark. A familiar figure stood there, head drooping, completely motionless.
In the next instant, a raging blizzard swept across the entire area, causing those faint pulses of life beneath the earth to fall silent once more.
An overwhelming chill washed over her entire body. Her surroundings seemed frozen solid in ice and snow, and even life itself gradually fell into a deep slumber…
This was…
This was Lin Xuefeng!
Huai Yu abruptly jolted awake from her dream. The surroundings were pitch black. She clutched her chest, panting heavily, having never remembered a scene from her dreams so vividly.
Terrified that she would forget, she intended to get out of bed and record this immediately. However, the moment her feet touched the floor, her body felt completely hollowed out, and she collapsed right back down.
Having taken a solid tumble, Huai Yu let out a helpless sigh and simply remained sprawled there.
Lying on the floor was actually quite nice. The ground was cool, much more comfortable than the bed.
Still, was the effect of this ability training really that obvious? Her hands and feet were still weak even now.
But that bucket of rainwater should be completely purified by now, right?
Thoroughly, without a single trace of pollution left.
Recalling the circle she had drawn at the edge of the field last time, she pulled out her notebook to draw it once more—
A large circle, with dense clusters of dots on the outside representing the endless forest trees.
In the middle of the circle, a stick-like object with branches sticking out everywhere represented that tree.
A little dot not far in front of the tree represented Lin Xuefeng!
Huai Yu picked up the notebook and looked at it from left to right. Finding that she had depicted it in great detail, she closed the notebook in satisfaction.
Only…
Did she need to enter the wilderness a bit sooner?
But she hadn’t accumulated enough points yet!
It didn’t matter, though. Once the rain stopped, the price of vegetables would surely go up again.
Staring at the vegetable plot outside, she decided to add to Zhou Qian’s workload after the rain stopped. After all, once autumn arrived, there would be a whole new batch of crops to plant.
There was also that fishpond. She needed to find time to buy a fishing net. She wondered if that black fish had gotten inside; she hadn’t seen any of the fish or shrimp she bought previously for a long time now. Quite possibly, they had all been devoured by it. While the weather was still hot, she could start raising fish again!
As she slowly formulated plans centered around her house, Huai Yu snapped out of it and realized her point-earning schedule was already booked solid until the end of the year.
Hadn’t they said that plant activity would decrease once the weather turned cold?
By that time, she should have saved enough for a car and could set off for the wilderness.
As expected of her! Being a rural lifestyle blogger in the past really suited her. Just look at her planning—how professional!
When the rain finally stopped and Zhou Qian came over again, he was dragged by Huai Yu to look at her plan.
“What is this?” He stared at the bizarre “drawing,” turning it over and over for a long time. “Are you craving a sesame flatbread?”
“No, that’s not right. This doesn’t look like a flatbread; the sesame seeds are all scattered on the outside.”
“For such a big bread, why is there only a tiny bit of filling?”
“What on earth is this supposed to be?” Zhou Qian asked out of curiosity.
Huai Yu: “…”
She said resentfully, “This is a map—uh, no, this is a scene diagram!”
“Look, the sesame seeds on the edge… Bah, bah, bah, I mean, the dots are all those trees.”
“Lots and lots of trees, like it’s in the center of a forest.”
“There’s a clearing in the middle, and a tree grows in the center of the clearing. That’s this.”
She pointed at those few abstract, intersecting lines, speaking with immense emotion.
Zhou Qian was thoroughly stunned by this niche art style, not daring to speak up easily for a moment.
But it didn’t matter, Huai Yu would fill in the blanks. “Here, right here is Lin Xuefeng. I’ve dreamed about this place several times!”
Zhou Qian’s expression grew even more complicated. “A single chance encounter, and you’ve even dreamed about him several times?” This was simply too far-fetched!
Huai Yu said gloomily, “Don’t worry about all that. Just tell me, is there a place like this in the wilderness?”
“No.” Zhou Qian shook his head swiftly.
