Chapter 23: Picking Wild Vegetables!

Chapter 23: Chapter 23: Picking Wild Vegetables!

After draining a large bowl of salt and sugar water, Huai Yu let out a long breath, feeling strength finally return to her body.

Shouldering her multi-purpose shovel, she stepped outside her door to map out her next project.

Since she obviously couldn’t build the toilet directly adjacent to her living quarters, she decided to turn the intervening space into an open-air storage area.

By adding a roof, she could store her flammable dry grass safely outside the treehouse. This canopy would also serve as a covered walkway leading straight to the toilet shed on the far end. That way, she wouldn’t get soaked running to the bathroom on rainy days.

Having settled on a layout, she began prepping the tree trunks.

She sawed off the stray branches and piled them aside to use as firewood later. Next, she located the Y-shaped crotches along the trunks, making sure they were at roughly the same height, and laid thinner branches horizontally across them. She lashed the joints together tightly with vines and straw rope, winding them around as many times as possible.

Finally, two sideways U-shaped frames took form.

Huai Yu measured the distance between the trunks and began digging holes. She dug them deep, wedging the thickest logs inside to serve as sturdy support pillars. Doing this alone was incredibly difficult, but since the structure was only meant to be a temporary transition, a little roughness wouldn’t be a problem.

Once she overlaid two horizontal beams into an X-shape across the top, the framework for the first shed was complete.

But she wasn’t done yet.

She had used four of her eight logs, utilizing the thinner upper branches as crossbeams. After some quick mental calculations, she stepped a meter to the side and constructed an identical frame.

By three o’clock in the afternoon, both frameworks were finished.

Next came the straw mats.

To conserve her logs, she had only built the canopy about 1.8 meters high. However, the total length of the two sheds and the empty space between them stretched to over five meters.

Honestly, it was quite spacious. The fact that she had built it all by herself made it feel even grander.

Still, at a height of 1.8 meters, she couldn’t simply reach up and lay the mats over the roof. She had to resort to the most primitive method available: stacking bricks.

Huffing and puffing, she hauled piles of red bricks over and stacked them at strategic points around the frame. Stepping up onto her makeshift stools, she connected the straw mats piece by piece, tying them down securely. Paralyzed by the fear that her shoddy craftsmanship might leak, she added a second layer for good measure.

After a final check to ensure nothing shifted when tugged, she finally felt at ease.

The toilet itself occupied a quarter of the second framework.

She hung straw mats down all four sides, securing three and leaving the fourth loose as a door flap. It offered complete visual privacy from the outside.

Stepping inside, she positioned herself in the darkest corner and began to dig, eventually hollowing out a remarkably deep rectangular trench about sixty centimeters long and twenty centimeters wide.

The excavated soil wasn’t wasted; she piled it neatly behind the latrine pit alongside a thick, sturdy branch. This way, after using the toilet, she could simply use the branch to sweep a layer of dirt into the pit to cover the waste.

She had dug it so deep specifically because she had absolutely no desire to muck it out anytime soon. To prevent the sides from caving in, she even wedged a row of thin twigs along the inner walls to stabilize the soil.

With that, the toilet was officially finished!

She circled the structure, admiring her handiwork from every conceivable angle. Returning to the treehouse, she hauled out her bundles of dry grass and stacked them in a neat row beside the toilet flap, obscuring the entrance even further.

Perfect!

She was an absolute genius!

But a genius’s work was never done. A normal builder would secure their support pillars by tamping the earth or pouring cement. Since she didn’t have access to any of that, she took the red bricks she had just used as stepping stools and stacked them around the bases of all eight pillars. It was mostly for psychological comfort, but it made her feel better.

She didn’t waste the leftover bricks either, using them to pave a rough floor. When she ran out, she huffed and puffed her way through several more trips, eventually paving the entire interior of the toilet as well, leaving only the area with the dirt pile bare.

By the time she finished, the sky had already gone dark.

The additions might not look like much, but the labor had been incredibly taxing and time-consuming. Yet, as Huai Yu surveyed her completed domain, a profound sense of satisfaction washed over her.

As of today, her basic needs for food, clothing, shelter, and sanitation were finally settled!

Flicking on her flashlight, she dragged herself back to bed. Without even bothering to take off her clothes, she wrapped herself tightly in her sleeping bag and fell into a deep, exhausted slumber.

Outside in the night breeze, the scent of Roses drifted through the air, heavy with thick moisture. Hidden within that floral fragrance, pulses of a unique, unseen energy slowly surged toward the treehouse.

Beside her bed, sitting in its hollow-brick vase, the single Rose stem that had brought so much coziness to the wooden room began to sway gently.

Lying there with the quiet, steady rhythm of her breathing, Huai Yu remained completely oblivious to it all.

"ACHOO!"

Huai Yu sneezed violently, jerking awake from her groggy sleep. The treehouse was pitch-black, save for the faint threads of morning light seeping through the edges of the door.

She sat frozen on the bed for a moment before a sudden chill brought her to her senses. Pushing the door open, a blast of freezing wind hit her right in the face!

"HISS!"

It was so cold! She hurriedly shrank back inside and scrambled into her newly bought down jacket. Taking a deep breath, she finally rolled the door flap all the way up.

The next moment, she froze in place.

"It rained..."

While she was dead to the world, a light, pattering rain had fallen through the latter half of the night. The air was now laced with the faint scent of wet earth. The soil outside was thoroughly damp, and the distant meadows and woods were miraculously veiled in a fuzzy layer of fresh green!

Huai Yu whipped her head around to inspect the interior of her treehouse. It was perfectly dry. Not a single leak.

She snapped her gaze to the side canopy and the toilet shed—intact! Completely intact!

The only difference was that the red bricks along the edges had darkened in color, clearly having been soaked by the rain.

The morning radio broadcast hadn’t started yet. Huai Yu checked her watch; it was only seven o’clock. In the distance, Sanqing Mountain was shrouded in overlapping layers of mist. Even the petals of the Rose Corridor were dripping wet, their leaves a startlingly vibrant green.

She stood stunned for a moment before suddenly spinning around and darting back into the house.

"I can go forage for wild vegetables!"

Throwing her bamboo basket over her shoulders, she didn’t even bother grabbing her multi-purpose shovel before sprinting straight toward the mountain.

The rain might have stopped for now, but there was no telling if it would start up again later today. She had to hurry!

Navigating the woods was quickly becoming second nature to her, but Sanqing Mountain was simply too vast. The trails that had once facilitated human travel had long since been swallowed by the overgrowth. Huai Yu fumbled her way up along her previous trail markers. Before long, she spotted the pearl flower bush she had used as a landmark!

Standing amidst the mountains after a fresh spring rain, she could feel the restless stirring of every plant around her—the raw, untamed power of imminent, explosive growth.

The vegetation was rapidly sprouting, its root systems expanding further into the earth. The pearl flower bush in front of her had only been left alone for a single day, yet it had already produced a dense, overwhelming cluster of new tender leaves and fresh buds!

Without a second thought, she dropped her basket and pulled the branches toward her. She snapped off the fresh green tips one by one, moving with boundless, giddy joy!

The bush itself wasn’t particularly tall or grand, but by the time Huai Yu had stripped it bare, the harvest filled almost half her basket!

She stared at the now-naked branches and gently reached out to stroke them. Feeling a faint surge of energy thrumming beneath the bark, she whispered softly, "Sorry about that."

The next moment, she let go of the branch, her eyes widening.

From this new angle, she could see straight through the clearing to the trunk of a massive tree diagonally ahead. Sprouting right out of its bark was a fresh cluster of tender wild mushrooms!

They were wild mushrooms!