Chapter 188: Manual Labor
After expressing his feelings, Zhou Qian felt a bit awkward. Standing up straight, he shifted his gaze to the flower basket that Huai Yu was holding.
“Your gift—”
His words trailed off abruptly.
The pink and white flower branches and the dark green leaves inside the small bamboo basket were piled like snow, lush and vibrant, fresh and hard to ignore.
“This is… the flower from the Rose Corridor?”
For some reason, Zhou Qian suddenly remembered the flower branch from Huai Yu’s tree house, the one that had been cut by an ice blade. Even though he knew many of Huai Yu’s secrets, his heart still raced, and his body tensed.
To be honest, he didn’t deserve such a big bouquet of flowers!
But he felt it wasn’t important. Huai Yu, on the other hand, loved decorating her house. She eagerly handed him the flower basket. “Isn’t it pretty?”
“I specially picked them! Some are fully bloomed, and some still have buds. If you put them in a vase, they can last a long time.”
Zhou Qian quickly found an excuse. “Thank you, I really like it. But you know, my life is a bit rough, and I don’t have a vase at home.”
“I know!” Huai Yu had already walked into the yard. “You forget, I’ve been to your house. How would I not know if you have a vase?”
“But your comrades are so thoughtful. There are three water buckets of various sizes, and there’s a small one. I thought you might not need it, so it’s perfect for flowers.”
Under the sunlight, the small green well, which looked like glass, stood there, making the yard seem unexpectedly bright.
Huai Yu walked over to the well and pulled out the smallest bucket. She marveled, “You even have a well here. It’s so convenient for changing the water for the flowers.”
As she moved, the flower branches in the basket swayed, seemingly full of life.
With each swing, it felt like the flowers were tugging at Zhou Qian’s heart.
He instinctively followed her, then said, “But won’t using this bucket be a bit too much for it?”
“Nope.”
Huai Yu took the flowers out of the basket.
It seemed like she had planned this all along, as the flower branches she had cut were more than the ones she had previously arranged in a vase. Without much effort, she transformed the entire small bucket into a full, fluffy bouquet.
She took a step back, looking at her creation, clearly pleased with her gift.
“The Rose Corridor isn’t that shallow to just pick a vase. Also, this oak-colored bucket really matches the flowers.”
Zhou Qian had no response.
He was too rough to understand how oak buckets could match rose flowers. At that moment, his mind was only occupied with finding a way to return the flowers to their rightful place.
At that moment, he spotted the plump bamboo shoot left in the basket and his eyes brightened.
“How about we not arrange the flowers for now? Let’s have lunch first! I’ll stir-fry the bamboo shoots for you.”
Huai Yu exclaimed and shook her head, “No need. I’ve already planned how to cook it.”
She rolled up her sleeves, preparing to take the small water bucket from the well. But when she saw Zhou Qian, tall and strong, standing nearby, she realized—
Right!
Zhou Qian was so big, he should be doing the heavy lifting!
She decisively stepped back and commanded, “Bring the bucket up.”
Zhou Qian was puzzled, “Huh?”
He grabbed the handle and turned it a couple of times. The coarse hemp rope spun around the pulley, and he realized something felt off—the bucket didn’t seem to have gone into the water.
In the next moment, Huai Yu cheered, lifting the bucket and opening it to reveal a large bowl of meat inside!
She proudly presented it, “Bullfrog and wild chicken! This is even better than what’s at the hospital. I’ll chop the bamboo shoots and cook them together at lunch!”
That meant—
“Cooking won’t take much effort! Zhou Qian, hurry and fetch some water, we need to take care of the roses.”
“By the way, do you want the flowers in the living room or the bedroom?”
Zhou Qian: “…”
“The living room.” This was his final defiance.
The wooden bucket, plus water and the large bouquet of flowers, made it a bit hard for Huai Yu to carry. Zhou Qian had no choice but to carefully place it on the living room table, as if facing a serious challenge.
Though he remained cautious, for some reason, when the flowers were placed on the table and gently swayed, even the simple, neat room seemed to come to life.
He unconsciously softened his expression.
Turning his head, he saw Huai Yu looking at him expectantly. “Are you feeling better now?”
“If you are, can you help me move the jar?”
Zhou Qian chuckled.
Indeed, the impact from this morning had been so great that he had forgotten about the most important manual labor task.
He responded nonchalantly, “Sure, after lunch I’ll go over and help. You can think of any other heavy tasks and I’ll help with those too.”
He had his comrades to help him build his house, and the Defense Army provided for his daily needs. But Huai Yu’s home, she had built it piece by piece, starting with just a few pine cones.
And when her tree house had been destroyed, the way she cried was so heartbreaking…
Now, thinking back on it, Zhou Qian couldn’t help but blush.
Speaking of manual labor, Huai Yu had so many tasks for him!
“Can you help me till the land? I can give you some vegetable seedlings.”
Her ability to accelerate growth in plants was exceptional. She could make a potato sprout and grow it on two acres of land—if she didn’t expand the scale, it would be a waste.
Also…
“Can you fish? There’s a black fish in the pond that’s really fierce. I can’t catch it.”
It was a large black fish she had caught with a ground trap on Mount Sanqing. She had originally planned to keep it in a water pit under the rice tree, but it got delayed.
When she woke up, the fish was gone, probably already in the pond.
She had since bought more fish seedlings for the pond!
Now, the fish might eat everything in the pond.
But when she tried to use her purification ability to lure the black fish, the trap was torn, and the fish was nowhere to be found.
Now, she could only rely on Zhou Qian!
Otherwise, with such a large pond, not even one fish would survive.
Zhou Qian couldn’t help but touch his nose, feeling a bit guilty.
Looking for one fish in such a large pond, and especially a mutated black fish—it wasn’t just about the bait. What kind of fishing line and rod could withstand such strength?
“Oh, right.”
Huai Yu suddenly became excited, “Fanta—the team member from Shen Xing once sent me a bunch of miscellaneous items, half of which were heavy metals.”
“You could go check and see if there’s anything useful—by the way, could you help me chop some firewood?”
This was Huai Yu’s biggest trouble right now.
The firewood she had brought down from the mountain earlier, and the one Lin Xuefeng had chopped and neatly stacked, had already been used up.
Recently, she had been dragging dry twigs from a small dirt slope to cook.
But because those twigs had been cut years ago by the Defense Army during their cleanup, they burned poorly, and because they were scattered, even with Big C and Second C helping, they didn’t know how to fit them properly into the stove, so Huai Yu had to redo the work.
Now…
“My house has no firewood left.”
