Chapter 81: Did You Really Dig Bamboo Shoots?
The cotton fluff at the top of the purified water quickly coagulated into a layer of murky yellow mud.
Huai Yu stared at it for a while, realizing that she had used way too much cotton fluff!
Given the clarity of the pond water now, it was almost like using disposable materials.
However, there were plenty of cement and brick scraps nearby. She hadn’t really seen piles of fine sand and stones… What was going on? Did the construction site have no leftover building materials?
While pondering this, she once again placed the pot on the fire. Once it was dry inside, she threw in the bamboo hearts, which had been laid out to dry overnight and most of the morning, now softened and sagging.
The heat from the pot quickly brought out a faint, unique fragrance from the bamboo hearts.
Huai Yu instinctively reached out to grab the bamboo hearts and rub them in the pot, but when she saw her soft, fair hands, she immediately pulled them back.
—Oh my god! She couldn’t help but click her tongue. She couldn’t even imagine how rough and calloused she had been in the past! Did she really have the audacity to throw her tough, iron hands into the pot to stir tea before?
What kind of hard, impoverished life had she lived?
She certainly couldn’t live like that anymore!
So she grabbed a spatula and pressed down on the bamboo hearts, turning them slowly, trying her best to flatten them into straight strips.
But as the temperature rose, the moisture from inside the bamboo hearts gradually evaporated. Not only did their color fade, but their shape also became less neat.
After more than half an hour of roasting, the bamboo hearts had become dry, twisted, and thin strips.
But the fragrance was still delightful.
Fresh and elegant, with none of the “dirty” smell she had expected.
Indeed, as the bamboo had said, these highly mutated plants had low mutation values in their edible parts.
She gently flipped the bamboo hearts over and lowered the fire, leaving just a few pieces of firewood to continue drying.
The longer it roasted, the more the fragrance became prominent, until the entire room was filled with this light and delicate aroma.
“Done!”
She quickly spread out the bamboo heart tea to cool. Just as she was about to boil some water and try brewing a pot, she heard someone calling from afar:
“Xiao Yu!”
Huai Yu stuck her head out and saw the familiar car parked not far away, with Zhou Qian holding three vases and waving at her.
Ah! The vases she wanted!
Because they were so rare and impractical, she hadn’t directly asked for them that night. She was told they’d be brought over later.
She hadn’t expected them to arrive so quickly!
Huai Yu hurriedly waved back in response and was about to run over, but then she remembered the freshly made tea…
Her hand was still warm from holding it, so she grabbed a handful of bamboo heart tea wrapped in paper and ran over to Zhou Qian.
“Captain Zhou.”
Having helped Huai Yu rebuild her home, Zhou Qian was much friendlier toward her now. He smiled as he looked at her. “Aren’t you calling me Captain Brother anymore?”
Huai Yu paused for a moment, then flashed a sweet smile, saying gently, “Captain Brother.”
Zhou Qian: …
Ahem!
He tightened his expression, trying not to let his face show his emotions, and then handed her the vases.
“Here! I specifically found these vases according to your request—apparently, they are handmade, each costing over a thousand.”
He clicked his tongue twice, saying, “I don’t understand why a vase would be so expensive. It looks nice, but it’s so fragile. Now it’s just sitting in the warehouse, and we can’t even use it to hold water because it’s too brittle.”
He rambled on, but Huai Yu was beaming at the three vases.
Clearly, these were a set of three, in large, medium, and small sizes, with slight differences in shape.
But the purity, gloss, and clarity of the white porcelain were all very close.
This would definitely look amazing if used for flower arrangement!
She suddenly thought of the broken ice sculpture. She held back her feelings of sadness, carefully cradling the vases in her arms. Then, she freed one hand to pass the bamboo heart tea over to Zhou Qian.
“It’s freshly roasted and hasn’t cooled yet. It’s best to let it cool, but you can still drink it.”
She wanted to mention that it would last longer if cooled properly, but since there wasn’t much bamboo heart tea left, and she had only grabbed a handful, it didn’t seem necessary.
Zhou Qian looked at the paper package, opened it, and sniffed. He was surprised. “It smells quite nice. Where did you get this from?”
Before he could finish, he suddenly looked up at the large bamboo forest behind her house and finally realized—
The bamboo forest!
He had been looking for a while and felt something was off, but he hadn’t thought it was the harmonious, natural-looking bamboo forest right behind the house!
“You… you!” He pointed at Huai Yu. “When did you have a bamboo forest here?”
He thought back to the mutation warning in the rose corridor last night, and then to the bamboo that had been thrown around by the rose corridor. Now, seeing the bamboo forest so close to her house…
That wasn’t a bamboo forest!
It was clearly a natural graveyard!
But Huai Yu looked completely innocent.
She gasped, then turned around. “What’s wrong? When I woke up this morning, the bamboo forest was already here. I thought all mutated plants were like this.”
“Though, it seems to have a good temperament. See, these bamboo hearts are from this morning.”
Good temperament…
Good temperament, and it was caught by the rose corridor? It must be trying to sneak through!
Good-tempered mutated plants… oh! Coming from the wilderness, could any of them really be that good-tempered?
Zhou Qian didn’t believe it.
But when he looked down at the bamboo heart tea in his hand, still slightly warm, the fragrance lingered at the tip of his nose.
No need to brew it, he already knew the mutation level must be very low.
How to explain this?
“Is it really very good-tempered?”
He was incredulous.
“Really, really good!” Huai Yu looked innocent. “I even dug bamboo shoots.”
What?!
Zhou Qian almost jumped up!
Then he gritted his teeth. “I’m going to take a look.”
If Xiao Yu can dig bamboo hearts and bamboo shoots, surely it wouldn’t be too much for them to do the same?
Or maybe they could transplant a branch to observe it at their camp, or even send it to the research institute… either way, it could work!
This thought had barely crossed his mind when, just a few meters away, he saw the branches of the rose corridor tremble again!
Although the mutation alarm hadn’t sounded yet, if he took another step forward, it seemed like the alarm would go off immediately.
Zhou Qian: …
He grudgingly took a couple of steps back.
Meanwhile, Huai Yu, oblivious to everything, happily walked ahead, holding the vases, and curiously looked back at him.
“Why aren’t you moving?”
“It’s nothing.”
Zhou Qian tightened his expression. “This rose corridor favors females over males. I’ll go back and research it, then bring a few female team members to try.”
In the past, no one was allowed to get close, which was fine. But now that Xiao Yu was practically building a house next to it, what had changed?
Even with the high affinity of wood-type abilities, hadn’t the rose corridor never shown such affinity before?
