Chapter 221 - 188: Physical Labor

Chapter 221: Chapter 188: Physical Labor

Perhaps because he rarely bared his true feelings, Zhou Qian felt a little awkward after saying those words. He straightened up, his gaze fixing on the flower basket in Huai Yu’s arms. "Is this a gift for—"

His smiling words came to an abrupt halt.

Because stacked in the small bamboo basket like snow were vibrant, tender pink-and-white blossoms and glossy green leaves. They looked so lively, delicate, and fresh that it was impossible to ignore them.

"Are these... flowers from the Rose Corridor?"

For some reason, Zhou Qian remembered the severed flower branch cut by an ice blade in Huai Yu’s treehouse back then. Even though he now knew she harbored many secrets, he still couldn’t stop his heart from racing and his body from tensing up.

Honestly, he didn’t deserve such a massive bouquet!

But what he felt didn’t matter. Huai Yu loved decorating her house, and she enthusiastically offered him the basket. "Aren’t they pretty? I picked them out especially! There are fully bloomed ones and some with buds. If you keep them in a vase, they’ll last for a very, very long time."

Zhou Qian quickly found an excuse. "Thank you, I love them. But as you know, I live a rough life. I don’t have a vase at home."

"I know that!" Huai Yu said as she walked into the courtyard on her own. "You forgot I’ve already been to your house. How could I not know whether you have a vase or not? But your comrades were very thoughtful. They left three buckets of various sizes. There’s a tiny one that I think you probably won’t use, so it’s perfect for arranging flowers."

Under the sunlight, the emerald-green well that looked almost like glass stood there, inexplicably making the small courtyard look brighter.

Familiar with the place, Huai Yu stood by the well and took out the smallest bucket. She even sighed in admiration. "You have a well at your house. It makes changing the water for the flowers so much easier."

As she walked, the rose branches in the flower basket swayed back and forth, seemingly brimming with life. And with every sway, it felt like they were tugging at Zhou Qian’s heart.

He subconsciously followed her and asked, "But wouldn’t using this bucket be an insult to them?"

"Not at all," Huai Yu said, taking the flowers out of the basket.

She had probably planned this all along, as she had cut many more branches this time than she usually did for her own vases. Without needing much styling, she transformed the entire small bucket into a fluffy, full, and massive bouquet. Then, she took a step back, inspecting it from left to right, clearly very satisfied with her gift.

"The Rose Corridor isn’t so superficial as to be picky about vases. Plus, this bucket is an oak color, so it matches really well."

Zhou Qian was speechless.

Being as rough around the edges as he was, the idea of an oak-colored bucket pairing well with roses completely went over his head. Right now, he was just racking his brain, trying to think of a way to return this bouquet to its original owner.

Just then, his eyes lit up as he spotted a chubby bamboo shoot left in the bamboo basket. "How about we leave the flowers for now? Let’s eat first! I’ll stir-fry the bamboo shoot for you for lunch."

Huai Yu let out an "ah" of surprise, then shook her head. "No need, I’ve already figured out how we’re going to eat it."

She rolled up her sleeves and prepared to crank the bucket up from the well. But as she grasped the wooden handle, she suddenly noticed the tall and sturdy Zhou Qian standing nearby and realized something—that’s right! With Zhou Qian being so big, he should be the one doing the heavy lifting! She decisively took a step back and directed, "Crank the bucket up."

Zhou Qian gave her a bewildered look.

He gripped the handle and turned it a couple of times. As the coarse hemp rope coiled around the windlass, he sensed the weight was off. This bucket didn’t seem to have been lowered into the water.

The next moment, Huai Yu cheered and took the bucket down. She opened it to reveal a massive basin of meat!

She proudly showed off her prize. "Bullfrogs and wild pheasant! This is way better than the food at the hospital. We can chop the bamboo shoot into it and boil it all together for lunch!" Which meant, she wouldn’t need his help with cooking. "You won’t have to spend any time cooking! Brother Zhou Qian, hurry up and draw some water so we can get these roses set up. By the way, do you prefer having flowers in the living room or the bedroom?"

Zhou Qian remained silent for a moment before giving his final, stubborn answer. "The living room."

The wooden bucket filled with water, combined with such a massive bouquet of flowers, was a bit too heavy for Huai Yu to carry. Treating it like a formidable enemy, Zhou Qian carefully picked it up and placed it on the living room table.

Although he still felt wary on the inside, for some reason, as the flower branches trembled slightly on the table, they seemed to infuse the neat and simple room with a surge of vitality.

His expression involuntarily softened.

Turning his head, he saw Huai Yu looking at him expectantly. "Are you in a better mood now? If you are, when can you help me move the vats?"

Zhou Qian chuckled.

Right. The shock he received that morning had been so great that he had completely forgotten about the most important heavy lifting he was supposed to do.

He readily agreed, "Sure, I’ll head over after lunch. While you’re at it, you can think of any other heavy chores, and I’ll do them all for you."

He had his comrades to help build his house, and the Defense Army provided for all his daily needs. But Huai Yu’s home was something she had built up bit by bit, starting with nothing but a dozen pine cones.

When he thought back to how miserably she had cried when her treehouse was destroyed...

Even now, looking back, Zhou Qian couldn’t help but blush.

Speaking of heavy chores, Huai Yu had plenty of them!

"Can you help me till the soil? I can give you some vegetable seedlings."

Her Inducing Ability gave her a unique advantage in farming. She could easily induce a single potato to cover a huge patch of land. It would be a huge waste not to expand her scale.

"Besides..." she continued, "Do you know how to fish? There’s a really fierce snakehead fish in the pond, and I can’t catch it."

It was the big snakehead she had caught on Sanqing Mountain using a fish trap. She had originally kept it in the puddle under the barnyard grass tree, planning to eat it herself, but she had been delayed.

By the time she woke up, the fish was nowhere to be seen. It had likely already made its way into the pond.

And Huai Yu had bought fish fry to raise in there!

This was a disaster. It was probably going to eat them all.

Later on, she tried using her Purification Ability to lure the big snakehead, but when she lowered the trap, it got torn open, and the fish vanished without a trace.

Now, she could only rely on Zhou Qian!

Otherwise, not a single fish would survive in her massive pond.

Zhou Qian couldn’t help but touch his nose, feeling a bit guilty.

Finding a single fish in such a large pond—and a mutated snakehead at that—was no easy feat. Setting aside the issue of bait, what kind of fishing line and rod could withstand that kind of monstrous strength?

"Oh, right." Huai Yu perked up again. "Fen Da—Sister Chen Xing’s team member—once sent a lot of miscellaneous items to my place. Half of them are heavy pieces of metal. You can go check if there’s anything you can use. Oh, and while you’re at it, could you chop some firewood for me?"

This was currently Huai Yu’s biggest headache.

The firewood she had previously dragged down from the mountain, including the ones Lin Xuefeng had neatly chopped and stacked, had long been burned up.

Lately, she had been dragging dead branches back from a distant small hill just to have fuel for cooking.

But because those branches had been chopped down by the Defense Army during a clearing operation many years ago, they burned up too quickly. Also, since they grew in all sorts of messy shapes, even with the assistance of Big and Second, the pups didn’t know how to properly stuff them into the stove, so Huai Yu still had to redo the work. And now, she announced, "My house is about to run out of firewood."