Chapter 83: Pretty Plump
The idea of sending female team members to test the mood of the Rose Corridor was temporarily put on hold due to lack of cooperation.
Meanwhile, Huai Yu happily grabbed a handful of bamboo heart tea and tossed it into her cup.
Boiling water was poured over it.
Wow!
A faint, refreshing fragrance immediately spread through the air!
But the tea was too hot—she blew on it a few times and still couldn’t drink it. Glancing at the three newly acquired vases, she decided to grab a pair of scissors.
After thinking it over, she also picked up a small basket.
—Rose Corridor, this time I’ll pick the biggest vase just for you. You won’t mind if I snip a few more flowers, right?
Cautiously approaching with the scissors, she found that the Rose Corridor really didn’t care at all. It even shook its branches proactively.
Huai Yu beamed. “Don’t worry, you’ll definitely be the best-looking one!”
She carefully selected a few branches and snipped away. Before long, the basket was full of blossoms.
The spots where she cut healed quickly, and new, tender green shoots were already sprouting from the nearby buds.
Next up, of course, was the wisteria!
The original treehouse was a mess now—the torn canopy had already been removed and temporarily stored away.
Only a few lonely framework pieces remained, and Huai Yu hadn’t hesitated to lavish them with her growth-boosting powers.
Now, she saw green buds just starting to emerge from the back branches, while in the front, a cascade of purple wisteria flowers in various shades was already dangling down.
They swayed in the wind—absolutely adorable.
But wisteria wasn’t great for vases, and Huai Yu couldn’t bear to cut too many since, unlike the Rose Corridor, they didn’t have such a powerful regenerative ability.
So she carefully snipped off just two strands for decoration.
And the main feature…
Ah, it could only be her brand-new neighbor!
“Kuang Biao, I’m gonna snip a few bamboo branches for the vase.”
Kuang Biao still sounded a bit weak, but he perked up at once. Shaking his leaves, he bent one bamboo stalk down voluntarily, then began pointing things out:
“The top left branch… yep, that one’s the most vibrant and well-shaped. Look at those leaves—so shiny!”
“When it comes to flower arranging, you better ask me. I totally get it!”
“I have aesthetic sense.”
“Unlike you,” he clicked his tongue. The whole bamboo grove swayed in disdain, and a leaf poked at Huai Yu’s clothes, “Your sense of style—can we even call it that? Honestly, you don’t have one at all!”
Huai Yu: …
She was poor at first, okay? Even her down jacket was second-hand, and the fluorescent pink pillowcase was a freebie. How was that her fault?
And now she’s being criticized by a bamboo? The world’s gone mad!
Grumbling, she gave a clean snip with the scissors, cutting down the branch Kuang Biao had pointed out.
She had to admit—it really did look quite nice.
Kuang Biao kept giving tips. “You can’t just stick the bamboo diagonally into the vase and call it done. Here’s a trick—find a stick roughly the diameter of the vase opening, split the bottom of the bamboo, and wedge it in. That way you can shape it however you want.”
Huai Yu: …
Even when she had absolutely nothing, she still made time to stick a flower in a bottle—she thought she was already very refined!
But what was this demon now?
A talking bamboo that understands flower arranging and critiques her taste?!
“That’s perfectly reasonable,” Kuang Biao replied, quite justified.
“My former master loved arranging flowers, burning incense, and making scented balm beneath my grove… Ever smelled plum blossom balm? Ever used rose lip paste?”
“Look at you—messy hair, no style, no sense of life.”
Huai Yu: …
Messy hair?? At the very least, she was clean and tidy, alright?
Still, for all the sass, chatting with Kuang Biao actually made life a little more enjoyable.
After all, being alone was really lonely sometimes. The nearby plants were either too weak to talk, or too strong and didn’t want to.
Talking to herself every day wasn’t easy.
With Kuang Biao’s guidance, she successfully clipped three more bamboo branches. Then she looked at the slowly growing bamboo shoots and decided—she’d cook them for dinner!
And the bamboo heart tea—it smelled amazing. She’d harvest more for drying tonight so she could take it to Boss Tang in the morning.
Even though she didn’t have anything she urgently needed to buy, after the treehouse got destroyed, she realized: having multiple income streams really does feel more secure!
She also needed to bring something nice to Uncle Zaozi to try.
Huai Yu had found that while Uncle Zaozi’s goods weren’t always cheap, he had lots of great sources—and you didn’t have to owe anyone a favor either.
Whether she needed anything now or not, keeping the connection was worthwhile.
With that in mind, she turned back toward the bamboo grove and asked:
“Kuang Biao, can you grow bamboo rice?”
Kuang Biao paused, confused. “Bamboo rice? I haven’t even flowered yet.”
Huai Yu said, “Didn’t you say you can bloom if you feel like it? Are you in the mood now?”
The bamboo grove had just sprung up and there weren’t any animals around yet. But once it flowered and produced bamboo rice, wouldn’t it attract more rodents?
Like… bamboo rats?
The whole grove shook furiously: “Nope, not blooming, don’t wanna! You want meat, why not dig on my left side? I get the feeling it’s nice and plump down there.”
Huai Yu blinked in surprise. “Really? There’s a burrow?”
“Nope, just lots of earthworms,” Kuang Biao said, totally serious.
