Chapter 166: Departure!
It was the first time Huai Yu spent the night away from home.
She found it so novel, staring at the bright hospital lights with fondness: “When electricity isn’t so expensive anymore, I want to install lights at home too.”
“You can install them now,” Zhou Qian said, flicking the switch to turn the lights off with a snap. “Save energy—just run a wire from my place. The light won’t use much electricity.”
Huai Yu thought about it, then started muttering again: “I really want to buy a game console! Boss Tang said the game Master’s Sword is super fun!”
“Buy it,” Zhou Qian agreed. “Life is hard, and joy is hard to come by too.”
Huai Yu immediately felt satisfied: “I’ll buy it when I save up 20,000 points!”
And similarly—“I’ll run the electric wire when I save up 30,000 points!”
Zhou Qian: …
Good, this little girl, though young, really knows how to budget.
His hand was resting beside the bed when a spiky little head nudged over, making a faint scratching sound.
A moment later, there was the sound of Big Cub and Second Cub scurrying off with pat-pat-pat footsteps.
In the dark, Zhou Qian felt around the bed frame and found a neat cut along the edge.
Great. Before the head nurse even arrived in the morning, they’d probably already used up three kilowatts of electricity.
But thinking about how Huai Yu went to the highway entrance all by herself, he silently comforted himself: even though Big Cub and Second Cub’s names were sloppily written and hard to recognize, at least they were genuinely capable.
…
At 12:30 a.m., a nurse gently knocked on the door.
Huai Yu blinked in confusion for a moment, but then the light above her head snapped on. Zhou Qian was watching her: “Take Big Cub and Second Cub, and be careful.”
“Okay!”
The little girl, as if heading to a night market, put her packed basket on the floor, fetched the disgruntled Big Cub and Second Cub from the bathroom and placed them inside, then excitedly waved at Zhou Qian:
“Take care and get well! I’m off now!”
When she passed by the nurse station, she happily handed the nurse two pieces of rock sugar: “Thank you, sis!”
…
The May night still carried a hint of chill. Huai Yu stood at the gate, wrapped in her coat. There weren’t many streetlights—mostly because the solar-powered ones had been broken for a long time and still hadn’t been fully replaced.
Big Cub and Second Cub peeked their heads out of the basket, their sharp spikes faintly reflecting the cold night light.
Before long, Uncle Zaozi rode up on his bicycle, a flashlight tied to the handlebars: “Come on! Hold on tight!”
He looked energetic. Huai Yu yawned and asked curiously, “Uncle Zaozi, how are you so full of energy?”
Uncle Zaozi was puzzled: “Did you not drink tea? That batch of tea you sold me—the one with a bit of mint in it—it’s super refreshing!”
Huai Yu: …Thanks, but she’d rather stick to her ginseng tea. Whether it’s refreshing or not doesn’t matter; she just didn’t want to overwork Keta Rō.
But Uncle Zaozi was still waiting for an answer, so she said, “I still need to grow!”
Uncle Zaozi laughed loudly: “That’s true! You’re so light on the back seat—it’s like carrying nothing at all. So, what do you think? Cool bike, right?”
“I just got it, added a back seat and a kickstand. It pedals super smoothly now.”
It really did feel lighter than her own big old 28-inch bike. Huai Yu gave her honest feedback: “It’s so fast! Uncle Zaozi, you’re really strong!”
Uncle Zaozi was pleased: “A workman must first sharpen his tools if he is to do his work well. I’m planning to make a big purchase tonight. I’ve got sacks ready at the front. If the bike wasn’t good, it’d be so much harder.”
Huai Yu blinked, suddenly curious: “Then… if you end up with a sack full of goods, will you still be able to carry me?”
Uncle Zaozi was a bit embarrassed.
He had forgotten he needed to bring Huai Yu back too.
Luckily, Huai Yu was just asking out of curiosity and quickly added: “Once you’re done buying, it’ll be nearly morning, right? Are there buses nearby?”
“Yes, yes!” Uncle Zaozi perked up: “It’s almost 1 a.m. now, and we should get there around 2 a.m.”
“The convoy at the highway entrance doesn’t come back together; their timing is unpredictable. So, if we don’t find anything good, we might have to wait there until morning—”
He thought about it: “Buses start running at 7:30. Little Yu, you…”
Realizing he had volunteered to bring her along but completely forgot to plan for her return, Uncle Zaozi’s voice turned a bit sheepish.
But Huai Yu was cheerful: “I can take the bus! Buses are super convenient!”
She had Big Cub and Second Cub in her basket, so she wasn’t planning to buy anything. She was just there to check things out tonight.
Even though Uncle Zaozi acted casually, biking over an hour with a passenger was still tiring. Huai Yu was genuinely touched and didn’t mind his small oversight at all.
Uncle Zaozi quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
Still, Huai Yu remained curious: “Uncle Zaozi, did you used to ride over there late at night like this a lot, collecting those dates with mutation value 23?”
That was kind of shocking!
Back when they didn’t know each other well, Uncle Zaozi could shamelessly brag, but now he seemed a bit embarrassed:
“That’s not quite how it happened!”
“I biked all that way, but didn’t find anything good, so I just picked up someone else’s dates on the way back.”
“That’s called…” He rummaged through his memory for a fitting idiom and finally said:
“That’s called ‘a thief never leaves empty-handed’!”
Right after saying it, he realized something seemed off, but before he could figure it out, he remembered how he’d tried to fleece Huai Yu when they first met, so he awkwardly added:
“When you’re selling stuff, the fun is in the bargaining… Even though my asking price was high at first, I sold it to you cheap in the end, right?”
“After that, I really didn’t handle anything like that again!”
Huai Yu thought for a moment and smiled brightly: “Not true, Uncle Zaozi. I think you have a great eye. The stuff you picked was all really good quality.”
She really meant it sincerely.
“And you did handle stuff like that again. You collected those mutant ginsengs too.”
Hehe, she was the one who bought that mutant ginseng too.
If she weren’t on the bike right now, Huai Yu would’ve been tempted to pull out her ginseng tea for a sip.
Not for any reason—just to match the vibe.
Uncle Zaozi: …
Young people these days—why are they so particular?
He cleared his throat and quickly changed the subject:
“So… why do you live alone in the Rose Corridor?”
Huai Yu didn’t want to admit she started with zero contribution points, so she stammered:
“I… I was scared of bad people if I lived alone.”
“Besides, I’m really good at farming, and the Rose Mansion offers 600 acres!”
The conversation was getting a bit awkward, so Huai Yu remembered something and cautiously asked:
“Uncle Zaozi, that time you sold the chicks, the handwriting on the temp worker’s pay stub… who filled that in?”
He’d said his daughter did the drawing, but Boss Tang mentioned that his kids had long since…
She didn’t mean to bring up something painful, but she just wanted to understand who was telling the truth.
Uncle Zaozi didn’t say anything.
After a while, he finally spoke slowly: “That extra zero you noticed… early that morning, your aunt was nagging about the kid scribbling, and I just went along with it…”
He sighed: “There’s no kid.”
