Chapter 90: What Do Goslings Eat
Let’s leave the goose matter aside for now. Having already wasted a bit of time, Huai Yu had to hurry to buy some meat.
Just as she was about to leave, she paused and asked Boss Tang, “Is that butcher on the street reliable?”
Boss Tang replied with an “Ah?” and then recalled, “Oh, you mean the one who sells grains and meat and eggs? Reliable, yeah, but the mutation levels are pretty average. If you want better stuff, I can hook you up.”
“No need, no need.” Huai Yu quickly waved her hands. “I’m just curious.”
The grains she bought last time were kind of poor quality, but after purification, although the taste wasn’t great, they were still fragrant when cooked—just right for her current situation.
Since it was reliable, she decided to buy more this time.
So!
Half an hour later, Huai Yu returned, carrying five jin of pork back fat and two jin of pork meat.
There was no other choice—without a fridge, she couldn’t buy too much. Plus, meat was too expensive (emphasis on that!), and even this small amount cost her nearly 800 points!
ε=(ο｀*))) sigh.
At this point, she was really curious: “How do ordinary families in the city afford to eat meat?”
“Oh, that… according to national plans, it’ll take at least three more years before meat becomes generally accessible. This year, if people want meat, they just have to deal with it—there are meat-flavored nutrient pastes and seasonings…”
“Wanna try?”
Huai Yu shook her head without hesitation.
When it came to nutrient pastes, she was already numb to the one she was used to drinking. She couldn’t handle the shock of trying a new flavor anymore.
Speaking of which, she also needed to buy some green onions, ginger, and garlic—not just for cooking, but also to plant at home. But she didn’t plan to buy them at the market. She’d wait until she had time tomorrow to check out the Jinyuan community.
Sigh, she thought her home was already well-stocked, but clearly, it still lacked a lot… If only she’d pushed Wu Yue harder to compensate her last time!
If nothing else, she should’ve at least gotten a generator.
That guy looked like he had money just from his appearance.
*
The meat was placed at the very bottom of her pack to prevent theft. The barnyard grass, which looked exactly like rice, was also placed at the bottom—it was too heavy to sit on top.
In the middle sat a box packed tight with the two chubby goslings, and on top, she stacked three books.
The hardest part wasn’t the goslings—after devouring a whole head of cabbage, they seemed a bit sleepy and were now dozing in the box.
The hardest part? Those three books.
Huai Yu had racked her brain before choosing the most “normal”-looking one: The Lover Out of Reach—definitely not that one about frogs raising swans, thank you very much.
With the basket covered lightly, she boarded the bus again.
More and more people started crowding onto the bus. Thick coats and down jackets were gradually being swapped for lighter long sleeves.
Ever since that big rain, the sky hadn’t darkened again. The temperature kept rising. If it kept going like this, it’d become harder and harder to store fresh food—especially meat.
Though there wasn’t much meat to store these days anyway, it seemed like stockpiling was a natural human instinct. This made Huai Yu start to worry again.
It’s tough… How did people even survive back when there were no fridges?
Back at home, carrying her basket, Huai Yu instinctively walked toward the treehouse. Halfway there, she turned back toward her new house.
The wind howled. As the sun began to set, the air turned chilly again.
She looked at the rose corridor, its flowered walls swaying gently. Clearly, it was in a good mood. That cheered her up too.
But the moment she set the basket down, something felt… off.
The rose wall was swaying, but the bamboo grove in the back? Not even moving. Like it had sunk its roots deep into the ground and braced itself.
Thinking of Kuang Biao’s usual unreliability, she went around to the back to check—only to see the soil at the edge of the bamboo grove heaved up, like it had been freshly plowed.
And those marks… were very familiar.
—Back when she dragged Kuang Biao down the mountain, the big trees had fought like this too, using their roots.
“What’s going on here?”
She asked.
The bamboo grove remained still and silent, playing dead.
Huai Yu: …
Oh, wonderful! She’d only been out for a little while, and there’s trouble at home already!
She turned to head for the rose corridor. “I’m gonna ask the roses…”
The next second, the bamboo leaves rustled like crazy. Birds perched in the branches squawked and flew off in a panic.
Kuang Biao’s voice came, full of frustration: “N-nothing! My roots were just a little itchy, so I stretched them out a bit… but Rose wouldn’t let me.”
Huai Yu didn’t buy it.
“If you just wanted to grow bamboo shoots normally, why would Rose stop you? She’s the nicest one. Where were you trying to grow—my house?”
“If you’d told me earlier, I wouldn’t have let them put up roof beams. You could’ve just grown a shoot into the house!”
After her treehouse got wrecked last time, she’d become very sensitive about her home’s safety. Now that she almost got sneak-attacked again, the sarcasm came out in full force.
Kuang Biao rustled in shame, not daring to talk back.
After a long silence—
“How can you say that…” he mumbled, finally working up the courage. “I wasn’t trying to grow into your house! I just wanted to stretch a bit, maybe expand my border…”
“You said I could grow freely, right? It’s only like, one or two mu… you’ve got over 600 mu here! Can’t I have a little?”
Good grief.Huai Yu was speechless.
“Yes, I do have 600 mu, but even Xiao Tian has to file a report to share the land. Why should you be able to expand as you please?”
What starts as a mu today becomes two tomorrow, and before you know it, I’ll be begging you for space!
She crossed her arms, puffed up with anger.
“Alright, alright…” Kuang Biao replied, deflated.
After a long pause, he added with a fawning rustle of his leaves, “Uh… I’ve got a bunch of broken bamboo poles in the back. If you want them, feel free to take them.”
Huai Yu: …
Suddenly she was in a good mood again.
Honestly, if she could use him for materials from time to time, that’d be a pretty good arrangement.
By the time she dragged two bamboo poles into the clearing in front of her house, the sky had already darkened.
She quickly cleaned up and got ready to settle the two goslings.
After an afternoon nap, the grey, chubby little things now had a faint fuzz of feathers. They were crammed inside the box, getting restless.
When Huai Yu peeked in, both of them had their mouths wide open:
“Ahhh ahhh ahhh—”
Uh-oh… she didn’t have any fresh vegetables left at home!
She glanced around—
Can they eat rice grains?
Pickled veggies?
How about dried wild onions or dried shepherd’s purse if she rehydrated them?
After much thought, she lit the stove, grabbed a knife, and sliced open a bamboo shoot.
“Boiled tender bamboo shoots… they should be able to eat that, right?”
Sigh, the pot was just the right size, the water boiled perfectly—if only she had one of those plump little geese in there right now…
Huai Yu swallowed hard.
She was hungry.
