Chapter 22: Overwhelming Wealth

Chapter 22: Chapter 22: Overwhelming Wealth

Huai Yu returned to the little treehouse with her flashlight. The time on her watch already read 9:30.

The room was a mess. The items she had bought at the trading market were piled up haphazardly, looking like a junkyard under the beam of the flashlight. The vine net bag she brought back from the mountain was still thrown on the floor. Only less than half of the water remained in the mineral water jug. In the square enclosure built in the middle of the room, the embers of the fire were stone cold.

"I’m incredibly exhausted today!" she thought.

But time was tight, and she couldn’t rest yet. She went outside to gather another pile of branches and leaves, then lit the fire once again. The warm firelight danced. After lowering the woven straw curtain door, her entire body relaxed.

However, after lying on the haystack for only a brief moment, Huai Yu climbed back up.

Out of her three woven baskets, she used one as a storage bin. She carefully wrapped the newly bought sugar and salt, her own soybeans, and the peanuts and small yams sponsored by the field mice in leaves, then placed them inside. The large waterproof storage bag held her newly bought down jacket, sweatpants, underwear, and brand-new sneakers.

"It is so spacious! It looks like it can hold a lot of things!" she thought.

The more she looked at it, the happier she felt. She wished she could go to the mountain tomorrow to harvest two baskets of wild vegetables and fill the room to the brim! But looking at the dry grass piled on one side of the treehouse, Huai Yu could only suppress her eagerness.

"Wild vegetables will grow batch after batch, but if I don’t build a toilet before the heavy rain, answering nature’s call will become a massive problem!" she reasoned. She still needed to prioritize.

She sighed, then placed her cups and washbasins on the makeshift washstand holding her toothbrush and toothpaste. The bath soap and laundry soap were set aside, and the iron pot, which she wouldn’t need for the time being, was casually placed there as well. She stuffed three plastic bags into one of the woven baskets, keeping the other as a spare. She placed them next to her multi-purpose shovel, ready to grab and go up the mountain at any time.

"Right now, my most pressing task is weaving straw curtains!" she reminded herself.

The small stack she wove last night was piled beside her bed. As for craftsmanship, there was absolutely none to speak of. It was just simple three-strand braids woven over and under each other to barely form a straw curtain. The curtain wasn’t smooth or straight at all. The broken ends of the dry grass stuck out, looking rather silly. She could only say that her proficiency increased toward the end. Regardless, they were functional enough.

After strolling around the trading market today, Huai Yu became increasingly certain that Captain Zhou hadn’t told her the true price either time he helped her exchange for the waterproof tarps. Valuable points needed to be spent where they mattered most. For things like the toilet, a straw curtain would be enough to block the rain. She could gradually replace them once she accumulated more points in the future.

The firelight danced slowly, and the temperature in the room gradually rose. Building on yesterday’s practice, Huai Yu’s weaving movements grew faster and faster today.

The night gradually deepened.

Early the next morning, Huai Yu woke up to the sound of the broadcast once again. She hadn’t gone to sleep until one o’clock last night, so struggling out of bed was incredibly difficult.

Lifting the straw curtain, she felt the wind blowing in gusts. The damp moisture in the air was palpable even without listening to the weather broadcast. Although the broadcast predicted heavy rain the day after tomorrow, Huai Yu looked at the weather and felt that tomorrow wasn’t looking too promising either. She grabbed her multi-purpose shovel and rope. After a simple wash, she hastily bit open a pouch of nutrient solution and headed straight up the mountain.

After all, building materials were so expensive right now. If she wanted support beams to build a shed and a toilet, she would have to go visit her "relatives" on the mountain.

This time, Huai Yu knew the way perfectly. The Rose Corridor was also gradually becoming more polite; it voluntarily opened up a path without needing her to say any nice words.

Huai Yu didn’t walk too far. The mountain was so high, deep, and massive, and everything she had to do today involved heavy manual labor, so it was best to gather materials nearby. After all, walking from Zone 37 to Zone 8 took more than half an hour! Fortunately, the one thing the mountain’s edge did not lack was trees, especially young, newly grown ones. They were only about as thick as a young woman’s wrist, possessing just the right amount of load-bearing capacity while still being light enough for Huai Yu to drag. Furthermore, many of the trees had not yet sprouted green leaves, which reduced their weight significantly.

She picked up her multi-purpose shovel, chose a direction, and tied her bungee cords to a few surrounding trees to prevent her target tree from falling in the wrong direction later.

Hacking, sawing, and violently kicking—these actions were truly a bit too much for a frail young woman to bear. After two hours of panting and exhausting physical labor, Huai Yu finally managed to pile up eight evenly sized tree trunks by her feet. Although the trunks weren’t thick, their branches spread out over quite a large diameter. She tied them up with rope again, hooked them with a few vines, and dragged them back with all her might.

Actually, if she wanted to save energy, having the vines take root and grow themselves would be better. Even though it cost some of her ability and the feeling of exhaustion was unpleasant, it would spare her this grueling labor. But Huai Yu was terrified of the Defense Army coming over.

Her treehouse was completely covered by layers of leaves and waterproof tarps. The wisteria branches were also quite cooperative, pausing their lateral buds while their root systems spread entirely through the soil underneath. After a while, they would break through the soil on the other side and grow into sturdy trunks. But that would be at a normal growth rate, so even if the Defense Army came, they wouldn’t notice anything suspicious.

Not to mention the leaves used to roof the treehouse were already shriveling and turning yellow; they would completely dry up in less than two days. Of course, even withered, they could obediently stay piled on the roof to provide warmth, cold protection, and insulation. But this way, no one would question where she got such fresh sycamore leaves when it was only early spring.

However, if she built a corridor and a toilet using the same method, the difference between dead and living tree trunks would be far too obvious. Moreover, she didn’t have enough points left to shamelessly ask for waterproof tarps to cover everything up all the way.

"Expending physical effort is fine; I just need to push through this period first," she decided after mulling it over.

Huai Yu continuously convinced herself as she huffed and puffed, dragging the load. The tree trunks were too large. When she reached the Rose Corridor, she had no choice but to untie them and drag them through one by one. The branches snagged on the vines of the Rose Corridor, causing its flowers to twitch and dart around in obvious displeasure. Terrified that it might trigger an alarm, Huai Yu had to coax it with gentle words.

Dragging the trunks made her want to cry.

"WAAAH, this is just too hard! Why does it have to be so exhausting!" she thought miserably. "Did I enjoy some kind of overwhelming wealth in my past life, and now my luck has bottomed out, forcing me to live like this?"

When she finally dragged the tree trunks back to the treehouse in a sorry state, she raised her wrist. It was already 12:00 PM. But she still couldn’t rest.

Huai Yu used a towel to wipe the sweat dripping all over her face and head. She then lit the fire, set up the pot, and boiled a large pot of water. As the water boiled, bubbling away with a steady BLUB BLUB, she thought that if she could just toss in a packet of instant noodles right now, it would probably be the most delicious thing in the world.

Huai Yu stared at the pot, which was entirely empty except for the water. She felt a surging wave of craving, but no matter how much she craved, there was nothing to eat! Right now, the only edible things she had were the seeds she had set aside and the remaining nutrient solutions. Finally, her gaze shifted upward, landing on the pinecone suspended by vines in the exact center of the treehouse, masquerading as a chandelier.

"Forget it," she thought.

She gloomily withdrew her gaze and sprinkled the salt and sugar she had bought yesterday into the pot.