Chapter 137: Mental Illness
Boss Tang looked troubled.
“It’s best not to—his abilities are strong, but he’s always doing strange and bizarre research. I worked really hard just to get his charges reduced to a common black-market dealer…”
“Let him quietly suffer a few months of hardship first. We’ll see after he gets out.”
Huai Yu was puzzled, “But since he’s so capable, can’t he just do specialized research?”
“No.”
Boss Tang shook his head firmly. Then, remembering what Huai Yu had just told him earlier, he finally made up his mind, “He’s mentally ill.”
Huh? This time it was Huai Yu’s turn to be dumbfounded.
“He really has a mental illness.” Boss Tang sighed. “When he’s messing around by himself, without proper equipment or other ability users to assist him, and with us keeping an eye on him, the problems are manageable.”
“But if he were put into a formal research institute, I’m really afraid he’d cause an uncontrollable disaster… Little Yu, didn’t he seem normal to you at the auction?”
“He wasn’t like that before.”
Boss Tang frowned, racking his brain, and finally pulled out a few descriptors, “He used to be the type… the type you girls love in those storybooks, a real refined gentleman.”
“He was good at everything. Back then, he was famously the golden child.”
“But not long after the catastrophe, one day he just suddenly snapped… and became obsessed with studying plants and animals…”
In short, it was hard to put into words. They weren’t close to Gao Ming, so they could only tell something was wrong from his behavior. A few of his old friends had worked together to cover it up, which was why he hadn’t been forcibly taken away.
Huai Yu didn’t fully understand.
But if someone’s mental state was unstable, letting them handle dangerous research really wasn’t responsible.
So she could only nod obediently, “Then I won’t go see him now. If he gets out and is in a better state, I’ll ask him then, okay?”
Boss Tang nodded and reminded her again, “So… make sure no one finds out about Keta Rō’s abnormalities!”
Huai Yu nodded seriously—Keta Rō had saved Zhou Qian’s life, so she’d definitely protect him!
…
Leaving Boss Tang’s shop, Huai Yu wandered around the market and started another big shopping spree.
But compared to the bottles, jars, and buckets she bought before, this time she focused entirely on food.
Pork, lard, soybeans, mung beans, rice, millet, flour…
She stuffed her basket until it was absolutely full.
She spotted vegetable seedlings again and, thinking of the hardship of farming, really didn’t want to buy them. But remembering how miserable it was to have no vegetables, she reluctantly spent some points to buy a few.
Not a lot—just enough to plant a small patch of land for now!
If she’d known Keta Rō’s group ball was so useful, she wouldn’t have used it as fertilizer before.
And those two little goslings at home, always eating bamboo shoots or grass leaves—their spiky feathers still hadn’t grown into real feathers… Would they never learn to fly?
Even an ugly duckling turns into a swan someday, right? When would these two finally change?
She thought about the pile of junk at home. There had been so much going on lately she hadn’t even had time to properly sort through it yet!
And also—Huai Yu checked her pocket. Inside a plastic bag were two peach pits.
The peach flesh had been gnawed completely clean by Zhou Qian, but could these pits be coaxed into sprouting a little tree?
She silently calculated in her head which of her abilities she should use—or maybe both together?
Otherwise, what if the mutation turned out to be something like “super extra horrible taste”—what would she do then?
She clutched her heavy basket on the crowded bus. As the bus passed the city’s administrative hall, she saw a long line already forming out front.
She pressed her face to the window to get a better look, and overheard people on the bus talking—
“The garrison army is recruiting again, right?”
“Yeah! Great benefits. My son has a bit of fire ability—I wonder if he’ll get picked…”
“My nephew has a bit too, but it’s weak, so the family didn’t let him apply… You’re really letting your kid go?”
“Ah, we can’t stop him! His dad’s sick, and you know how expensive treatment is.”
“And with jobs so hard to find, if he doesn’t take a risk, the whole family will suffer…”
“We shouldn’t have to worry too much these days, though. Aren’t things back to normal now? As long as we don’t mess with the mutant plants out on the wastelands, they won’t cross over from the Rose Corridor, right?”
“Exactly! That’s why we dared to let the kids take a shot. Worst case, they get assigned to logistics or something…”
“Honestly, if it weren’t for the Rose Corridor, our city wouldn’t have bounced back so fast.”
“Right. I heard a lot of other cities are still stuck in planned economies.”
“Can’t be helped. Over there they’re still fighting off invading mutant plants and animals while trying to rebuild livelihoods. It’s rough…”
The conversation drifted, and soon everyone was chatting about the garrison army’s benefits and job positions.
Huai Yu listened silently, gaining a deeper understanding of how important the Rose Corridor really was.
So—what was its true nature?
Ah! That Rose sure was tight-lipped!
…
She had left home early, so even after running around all morning, it was only a bit past noon when she got back. The sun was shining high, and the wasteland was lush and green, looking like a peaceful countryside.
The giant yard-long bean vines in the distance were too huge to trellis, so they’d curled themselves around the vegetable plot a few times, like a giant snake coiled on the ground.
Luckily, she’d let the surrounding weeds grow thick on purpose, so unless you got really close, you couldn’t tell.
But whether it was the coiled snake or the pretty scenery, Huai Yu didn’t have time to admire it—she grabbed a hoe and went straight to work.
The plants were thriving now, and the roots of the wild weeds clung to the soil like iron claws. After digging up just a small patch, she was already exhausted.
But she couldn’t leave the seedlings sitting around too long, so even though her body ached, she grit her teeth and kept working.
As she dug, she muttered angrily—If life had been good before, she could have accepted it. But in her dreams, she knew she’d been foolish and had even gotten herself a boyfriend who was extra poor on top of that. She didn’t even know if they’d gotten married!
If it was true love, as long as they made it work, fine—but she was the one who had come down from the mountains!
Even if true love couldn’t stay by her side, he should have at least left a message or a keepsake or something, right?
She was so capable—she’d definitely get rich sooner or later. When her name got famous, what if that guy showed up one day with a kid in tow—Huai Yu stabbed her hoe into the ground with extra force, regretting that she hadn’t just changed her name altogether.
Worst case, she shouldn’t have used the “榆” in her ID. That character was so easy to recognize!
Even using “余” (leftover) or “玉” (jade) would’ve worked!
So annoying!
