Chapter 78: Extreme Heat 19
Lu Qingyuan returned.
“Are you alright?”
Chu Yian quickly opened the door, seeing some bloodstains on his clothes and his hair slightly disheveled; other areas were unclear.
“I’m fine.”
Lu Qingyuan entered the house, closed the main door, and walked straight to the well. “That person has been dealt with. Bring some things over to cover the well.”
Chu Yian didn’t ask how he dealt with it; she simply followed his instructions and found the wooden planks previously used to cover the well.
The two of them worked together to cover the well, and Chu Yian also swept some fallen leaves to cover the wooden planks over the well.
But this was still not enough.
Their house was by the roadside, making it impossible to avoid people passing by later. Throughout the latter half of the night, footsteps outside frequently sounded, keeping Chu Yian highly tense.
Game Day 14, 8:00 AM
The temperature was already 40 degrees Celsius, so there were hardly any travelers on the road.
The two couldn’t just sit idly at home. Although the weather outside was very hot, it wasn’t entirely unbearable. To prevent anyone from entering, they could try to make some traps.
Chu Yian walked around the house, looking for anything usable. Suddenly, she saw a pile of broken glass on the floor next to a window on the second floor.
This must have been the window glass, which had cracked due to the intense heat of the sun.
The glass reflected light in the sun, revealing sharp edges. Chu Yian looked at these glass shards, and an idea suddenly sparked in her mind.
“Teacher Lu, let’s cover all the walls with glass shards!”
Chu Yian picked up two sharp shards and ran out, telling Lu Qingyuan her plan. With the main door locked, wouldn’t anyone trying to get in have to climb the wall? If the top of the walls were covered in glass, how would they climb then?
Lu Qingyuan took the two shards and nodded slightly at her idea. “How do we do it?”
At this moment, the scorching sun was already hanging in the east. Chu Yian swept the courtyard clean and mixed the cement and sand. Lu Qingyuan, meanwhile, removed all the windows from the second floor inside the house, not sparing any other glass items indoors.
Cement paste is the adhesive used in building construction.
When first mixed, it is a flowing paste, but after drying, it solidifies into a hard, block-like form.
Chu Yian finished mixing the cement paste, then ran into the house to get a ladder.
The cement paste was carried up in a small bucket, spread about 4 centimeters thick on top of the wall, and while it hadn’t set, the glass pieces Lu Qingyuan found were inserted, with their sharpest corners exposed.
One person handed things from below, and the other applied cement from above. They both became skilled with practice, and their coordination grew faster and faster.
It took them two hours to cover all four walls.
The temperature was now 46 degrees Celsius.
Chu Yian was extremely hot.
She climbed down from the wooden ladder, her face flushed from the sun, her vision intermittently blurring, and she felt like she would collapse after just a few steps.
But she didn’t fall.
A strong player wouldn’t be defeated by a minor heatstroke. She widened her eyes, bravely walked step by step back to the basement, and took a bottle of Huoxiang Zhengqi water to refresh herself.
Lu Qingyuan, who had already reached out beside her:… He retracted his arm and slowly entered the basement.
“Do you have more of this medicine?”
“Yes.”
Chu Yian handed him the box, then drew a bucket of water to shower, changed clothes, and fell asleep instantly in bed. A strong player wouldn’t be defeated by high temperatures, but she needed to sleep to recharge.
Lu Qingyuan took the heat-relief medicine, turned his head, and saw that she was already asleep.
And she was sleeping in his bed.
He paused for a moment, then walked straight to the bed and reached out to nudge her.
Chu Yian hugged the quilt and rolled to one side. Perhaps because she had been very hot and then immediately took a cold shower, she felt a bit dizzy now.
“Teacher Lu, turn on the electric fan.”
Noon.
Hunger and her biological clock woke her up.
Chu Yian, feeling much more comfortable after waking up, then realized she wasn’t sleeping in the right spot. She was half a meter away from her own floral bed, with a half-meter-high low wall separating them.
She had slept in the wrong place.
Chu Yian sat up instantly and immediately checked her surroundings. She saw Lu Qingyuan just coming down from upstairs, holding some tools.
“Teacher Lu, I just…”
“I added a door above the basement. Let’s see if we can find a way to disguise it.”
Lu Qingyuan said preemptively, “I’m going to rest first. Call me when it’s time to eat.”
“Alrighty.”
Chu Yian nodded, “Go ahead and rest assured.”
Lu Qingyuan:…?
“No. Teacher Lu, rest assured and sleep.” Chu Yian turned to make his bed, dusted off non-existent dust from the sheets, and then ran towards the basement stairs to see what the door Lu Qingyuan mentioned looked like.
In the construction layout of this house, the stairs occupied a separate room.
Both the stairs leading upstairs and those leading to the basement were in the same place. Lu Qingyuan had installed a door on the first floor’s ground.
It opened outwards.
Although the door was already installed, it was… clearly not serving its purpose of concealment at all.
Now this problem was thrown to her, which was a bit challenging.
Chu Yian looked at the differing colors of the wood and the ground, thinking she could mix some cement to smear on the door to make its color look more like the ground. However, the weather was very hot now, so even if they were to disguise the door, they would have to wait until the temperature dropped a bit.
Chu Yian glanced at the time, preparing to cook.
Opening the refrigerator, she saw that the stored meat had softened again.
For food safety, she had to take out these meats and inspect them one by one. This concern was necessary, as she found that the package on top had already begun to spoil. Although she had considered that a power outage might spoil these foods, she hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly.
She frowned slightly, clearing out the spoiled food.
A total of three packages of fresh meat had gone bad.
As for the rest… rather than let these meats spoil, it was better to eat them all.
There was plenty of rice, noodles, flour, and various instant foods, so there was no need to worry about going hungry in the coming days. Chu Yian made up her mind and took out all the remaining meat.
The chicken was used for soup.
The rabbit meat was seasoned and blanched first to remove its gamey smell.
The pork, beef, and lamb, being slightly frozen, were easy to slice. She cut them into two-millimeter-thick slices.
With preparations complete, she took out her treasured old hotpot base, heated and stir-fried it until fragrant, then poured the well-simmered chicken soup along with the chicken into the pot. After it boiled, she added the rabbit meat to stew.
Besides meat, she also peeled two potatoes and washed a large cabbage.
Lu Qingyuan wasn’t woken up by a call; he was awakened by the aroma of hotpot.
The entire house was filled with the fragrant smell of hotpot. He opened his eyes and saw that Chu Yian had prepared everything. She had even taken out frozen drinks and turned on the air conditioner. The heat from the basement was quickly drawn outside, making the room especially cool.
Chu Yian saw Lu Qingyuan sit up, and she waved her chopsticks at him, “Teacher Lu, time to eat!”
