Chapter 13: Multipurpose Shovel

Chapter 13: Chapter 13: Multipurpose Shovel

Huai Yu didn’t really want a kettle. To be precise, her supplies were currently limited. With nutrient solutions sustaining her, her need for clean water wasn’t that urgent. She thought for a moment before asking earnestly, "If I wanted to exchange for a multi-purpose shovel, how much would you need? For example, with mung beans like these."

A multi-purpose shovel? Zhou Qian frowned. "Hold on, let me ask logistics. None of us have exchanged for one, so I’m not entirely sure."

Huai Yu nodded and waited obediently, holding her supplies in the large red bucket. Logistics quickly gave an answer. "It costs 350 Contribution Points."

Three hundred and fifty?! Huai Yu was quite shocked. She had gone to great lengths to dig up that burrow, and the mung beans inside were only worth twenty to thirty points. A third of the large pile of items she currently held had been advanced to her by others. Now a single shovel cost 350 points? Forget Huai Yu; even Zhou Qian thought it was expensive.

But the steeper the price, the more it was worth. Their current multi-purpose shovels were truly versatile—they included a hoe, a pickaxe, a window breaker, a saw, a wrench, a ruler, and everything else one might need. Furthermore, because they were forged from manganese steel, their hardness and durability were incredibly impressive. In today’s world, taking one of these out meant having a weapon capable of killing. Because of this, even Zhou Qian couldn’t request to borrow one, let alone someone with zero Contribution Points who had absolutely no way to prove her creditworthiness.

For now, he could only tell Huai Yu, "You can save up some food first and head to the trading market in the city later. They should have secondhand agricultural tools there." However, she had clearly already resorted to digging up vole burrows. In truth, Captain Zhou had no idea how she was supposed to generate income. He could only sigh once again. "If only you had chosen the Golden Yuan District back then. Climbing over thirty flights of stairs is exhausting, and the apartments don’t have doors or windows, but there are a lot of people living there. They have small trading markets. It’s much easier for neighbors to barter with one another over there."

More importantly, people could use their very first batch of resources to trade for things beyond just housing improvements. Meanwhile, the girl standing before him was still living all alone in a thatched hut.

Huai Yu, however, shook her head. At the time, she had only chosen Rose Mansion because of its vast space, but after living here for a few days, she roughly understood the current environment of those residential districts. To her knowledge, unfinished buildings were called unfinished because the Golden Yuan District was originally supposed to have thirty-seven floors. But construction had been halted at around the thirty-second or thirty-third floor. Living inside meant having nothing but a bare floor and ceiling—there weren’t even partitions between neighboring apartments. Of course, very few people would be assigned to the top floor, so she could have easily occupied an entire floor by herself. However, if a single girl were to live there, the trouble she would face would absolutely outweigh the physical labor she was enduring now.

Carrying her large bucket and the plastic water bottles, she offered a slight smile. "Thank you, Captain Zhou, and thank you, ladies. I’ll head back now."

Although secondhand farm tools were appealing, she was planning to go up the mountain. She might need to dig holes or chop down trees. All in all, a multi-purpose shovel was still more practical. However, if she managed to forage food from the mountain again, she wouldn’t be able to come straight here to trade it. After all, if they asked how she had ventured deep into the mountains, she would have no way to answer. But her house wasn’t fully prepared yet. Before the heavy rains arrived, she simply wouldn’t have enough time to go scout out the trading market. Huai Yu began to worry.

Just as she turned around, she heard Zhou Qian call out to her again, "Wait!" Huai Yu looked back and saw him pull a lighter from his pocket and hand it over. "If you really run out of food, you’ll at least need a fire to roast a vole. Make sure you cook it thoroughly." After all, the girl in front of him didn’t look like she knew how to start a fire by rubbing sticks together.

Huai Yu was speechless. She accepted the lighter with a complicated expression, unable to stop herself from praising him again. "Captain Zhou, you’re really so thoughtful." Even though she wasn’t actually that starved, nor did she have any desire to eat voles.

***

Walking the distance of over three kilometers took quite some effort. By the time Huai Yu returned to her little treehouse, it was evening once again. In early spring, the days were short and the nights were long. Without lighting, her available working hours were greatly reduced, so she could only quickly reorganize her belongings.

She pulled a thin vine and tied it to the thicker vines supporting the treehouse. The very first thing she did was hang up her clean, snow-white new towel. Wow! Then she placed her toothpaste and toothbrush on a blue brick to the side. The atmosphere instantly felt much more homely. She had no immediate use for the one-meter-long elastic cord, so she took it out, tied a knot, wrapped it around a few times, and exerted quite some effort to finally tie up her perpetually messy hair. She placed the rest of her things on the haystack, grabbed her red bucket, and hurried out the door.

Down a slope about a two-minute walk from the treehouse lay a small pond covering a few acres, its waters so clear the bottom was visible. Prior to this, however, Huai Yu hadn’t wanted to touch the water at all, save for washing her hands. Now that she had a container and Water Purification Tablets, she decisively dug out another vine, tied it to the bucket, and tossed it toward the center of the pond. After some careful and strenuous tugging, the large red bucket was seventy percent full of water.

Likely taking her current water storage needs into consideration, this red bucket was truly massive. Even after being hauled into the house, leaving it only sixty-five percent full due to spillage, it still looked like it held a solid thirty liters.

Huai Yu carefully counted out ten Water Purification Tablets and dropped them in. After a moment’s thought, she tossed in one more, then gently shook the bucket. The Water Purification Tablets dissolved rapidly, eradicating the microorganisms in the water. According to her original plan, she was supposed to use a towel as an initial filter. After all, the Water Purification Tablets only killed microorganisms and parasite eggs; they couldn’t eliminate physical impurities from the water. But whatever. Relying on nutrient solutions to survive was enough. Going to the bathroom was very inconvenient right now, so it was best to eat and drink as little as possible. As for her next step...

Since she had a lighter, it was naturally time to take advantage of the lingering daylight and haul back the dead branches and leaves that had been pruned in the distant grove! Lighting a fire at night meant she wouldn’t have to go to bed as soon as it got dark around six or seven o’clock. Lying down was a blissful thing in itself, but without a quilt, she could only crawl into a sleeping bag for warmth. And without a phone... She thought that if she hadn’t been strong enough, she would have ended up crying until dawn every single night.

She dragged her rather poorly crafted vine net forward once again. The small grove ahead had once been a lush, flourishing hillside. But after the plants mutated, the Alien Plant Defense Army had led everyone to scour every inch of Flower City. Any tree in the woods that showed signs of abnormal activity had been chopped down. The reason they hadn’t uprooted them entirely was simple—if all plant life was eradicated, the atmosphere would change, and humanity would inevitably face extinction. The entire country’s current strategy of half-defending against and half-repelling the Wilderness was also based on this consideration.

And so, the small hillside was genuinely left with nothing but a few bare stumps protruding like stubble. The rest were merely unimpressive, newly sprouted saplings.

Huai Yu gathered the dead branches, stepping on the excessively twiggy ones that were hard to drag, snapping them with loud CRACKs and SNAPs. Meanwhile, she was filled with anticipation. "Once this spring rain passes, the wild vegetables and mushrooms should pop up, right?"