Chapter 11: Suspension of Training
Lu Yunxi stared at the leftover fried shrimp on the table, a sudden thought striking her.
“Mom, can we have fried shrimp again tomorrow?” She blinked her round, dark eyes, turning on the charm as she coaxed her mother.
“You want more fried shrimp?” Lu Yuniang looked at her daughter’s longing expression with a hint of hesitation. Ultimately, she steeled her heart and shook her head. “Eating too much deep-fried food will give you a sore throat. How about I make you something else tomorrow? Braised prawns, shrimp fried rice, shrimp and egg custard, Longjing shrimp, boiled shrimp…”
Listening to the mouth-watering list of dishes rolling off her mother’s tongue, Yunxi subconsciously swallowed her saliva. “Mom, you know how to cook all of those?”
Lu Yuniang covered her mouth and laughed. “Of course. I might not be a master at other things, but I am an expert when it comes to fish, shrimp, and crab! My old home—your grandmother’s house—was surrounded by lakes. We ate fresh fish and shrimp every single day.”
Yunxi nodded eagerly.
Tomorrow, she would find out whether all blue-quality seafood dishes granted permanent attribute bonuses. If they did, she would happily go out and catch fish and shrimp for her mother every single day! Grinding stats would become so simple. She wouldn’t have to suffer through exhausting physical drills anymore; she could just eat her way to becoming a powerhouse!
Early the next morning, before anyone else in the house had even stirred, Yunxi slipped out to the stream, carrying a small bucket in one hand and a woven basket in the other.
This was the foolproof method she had brainstormed all last night. Catching aquatic life with a basket would be infinitely faster than trying to pin them down by hand!
She waded into the water and spotted a school of small fish and shrimp darting around. The moment they neared her feet, she scooped them up with swift, practiced strokes.
In just half an hour, she had gathered half a bucket of river seafood.
It was a blessing that the other villagers didn’t normally come down here to fish, leaving the stream practically overflowing. Better yet, these creatures were remarkably dense—they didn’t even have the sense to swim away when a human approached.
As the designated time for her morning training drew near, she wrapped up her harvest and lugged the heavy bucket back home.
Lu Yuniang had just finished washing her face and was preparing to cook breakfast when she saw her daughter march in with a bucket full of fresh river fish. Her face immediately lit up with joy.
“Xi’er, you brought quite the haul!” Her mother rummaged through the catch, selecting two larger fish and a dozen palm-sized river clams, transferring them into a wide basin. Only the tiny fish and shrimp, barely the thickness of a child’s finger, were left in the bucket. “Perfect! Today, I’ll make braised clams with bacon, steamed fish, and a rich fish-head tofu soup. How does that sound?”
Yunxi nodded rapidly. She didn’t care what specific dishes her mother made, so long as the final product turned out to be blue quality.
“There really isn’t much meat on these tiny fish and shrimp, though. Why don’t we pour them back into the stream and catch them again once they’ve grown?” With so many dishes already planned, Lu Yuniang didn’t want to bother with the tedious cleaning process for such tiny yields.
“Sure, I’ll go release them!”
After a grueling morning of physical training, lunch was finally served.
The seafood feast her mother had prepared wasn’t overwhelmingly aromatic, but it looked incredibly appetizing. Yunxi lost no time and secretly activated her Appraisal technique.
As it turned out, every single dish made from the river seafood glowed with blue text!
Originally, she would have been over the moon if just one dish met the criteria, but she hadn’t expected her mother’s culinary skills to be this formidable. Staring at the table full of blue-tier items, she felt ecstatic.
Unfortunately, none of the dishes on today’s menu provided permanent attribute increases.
One dish granted temporary poison resistance for an hour; another provided rapid health regeneration, restoring 100 hit points per second for one minute; and the last one replenished Qi.
They all sounded impressive, but they weren’t particularly useful to her right now. Especially the one that replenished Qi.
On her system character panel, there wasn’t even a resource bar for Qi. According to traditional medicine, replenishing Qi and blood was meant for those suffering from a weak constitution or deficiency, but Yunxi was in peak health. After eating the dish, she didn’t feel any mystical transformation—it just tasted incredibly good.
She felt a brief pang of disappointment, but she quickly managed her expectations. How could every single meal grant permanent stats? If it were really that easy to become a martial arts master by just eating, my dad would have conquered the world by now.
Shaking off her disappointment, she cleared her mind and focused on enjoying her lunch. Every bite of her mother’s cooking was pure bliss.
That night, Yunxi was just getting ready to tuck herself into bed.
Suddenly, a loud, aggressive pounding rattled her door, accompanied by a booming voice shouting, “Xi’er! Xi’er?!”
Watching her door panels shudder under the impact, she pressed a palm to her forehead. Here we go again. Every single time her father sought her out at night, it was always to tack on extra training. Needless to say, he was here to increase her workload.
However—
“Xi’er, starting tomorrow, you are suspending all of your training drills!”
Her father stood there with a deadly serious expression, but Yunxi’s jaw dropped in sheer shock.
What? Did those words actually just come out of my father’s mouth?
She subconsciously took a few steps back, eyeing the man up and down with deep suspicion. Did someone kidnap my dad and switch him with an impostor?
“Who are you? How could you say something like that? You can’t possibly be my dad!” She glared warily at the man, finding his sudden change in character incredibly bizarre.
“What kind of nonsense are you spouting, you brat?!” Lu Dahu was nearly driven to madness by his daughter’s profound lack of filial piety. He marched right up and gave her a firm, affectionate smack on the head. “How am I not your father?! Are you looking to go find yourself a replacement dad?!”
“Ouch!” Yunxi rubbed the top of her head, her eyes wide. But hearing that familiar, exasperated tone, she was entirely certain that the man before her was indeed her real father.
But wait…
She was an agile fighter who could effortlessly dodge the lunges of rapid field mice, yet she hadn’t even been able to register her father’s sudden strike?
Yunxi was secretly astounded. She hadn’t realized her father was such a hidden powerhouse!
“Starting tomorrow, you will be helping us build a house. You need to learn the trade of architecture!” Leaving no room for debate, Lu Dahu turned on his heel and impatiently went back to join his wife.
Staring at the empty doorway, Yunxi was completely flabbergasted.
She, a five-year-old toddler, was being forced to learn structural engineering and house construction?
Incredible. In her previous life, children were subjected to preschool cram sessions for painting, ballet, and coding. In this life, she was getting a preschool vocational class in masonry! It seemed that whether one lived in ancient or modern times, the exhausting cycle of societal pressure never truly stopped. The grind really did start from the cradle.
The next morning, the Lu family of three sat huddled around the dining table, staring intently at a spread of architectural blueprints.
Yunxi secretly let out a breath of relief. Thank goodness they weren’t dragging her out to haul heavy bricks right away, otherwise she would have coughed up blood from sheer exhaustion.
“Take a look at this design,” her father said, pointing enthusiastically at a blueprint with a look of immense pride. “It’s a stilt house constructed entirely from bamboo. The bottom level is elevated and empty, making it perfect for raising chickens and ducks, while the upper level is where the family lives. A house like this can be built on a massive scale. What do you think? Do you like it?”
“Absolutely not,” her mother shot the idea down instantly. “The stench of poultry droppings will waft straight up into the living quarters. People won’t even want to step foot inside, let alone live there!”
With a flourish, her mother produced a different drawing. “Look at this one. It’s a treehouse built into the canopy, complete with a beautiful winding staircase leading up. It looks wonderful!”
Yunxi leaned over to look and found it genuinely beautiful—it looked exactly like a legendary elven cottage from a fantasy setting.
“Ah, that drawing is just a fantasy. Nobody actually knows how to construct something like that right now!” Lu Dahu scratched his head helplessly.
Mother and daughter: “…”
After thoroughly reviewing every single blueprint and carefully weighing various practical factors—such as their budget, the local terrain, and structural difficulty—the family finally reached a consensus. They decided to build a traditional, three-entry courtyard mansion.
