Chapter 53 - 52: Inducing a Superpower

Chapter 53: Chapter 52: Inducing a Superpower

There was nothing quite like the feeling of a bright, sunny day.

As Huai Yu finished tidying up the room, the warm sunlight continued to shine on her back through the gaps in the dappled leaves. She looked up and saw that the two layers of thick, supernaturally grown tung tree leaves covering the roof had already dried up and slightly curled at the edges. A few more days of this warmth, and the leaves would likely turn so brittle they would crumble to dust. After some thought, she decided to keep them for now.

Although the waterproof tarp was good, it wasn’t quite thick enough. The temperature difference between day and night in early spring was drastic, making the nights freezing cold, especially since she had started out with nothing but a sleeping bag. Furthermore, because burning wood produced smoke, Huai Yu didn’t even dare to keep adding firewood to keep the fire going through the night. The sleeping bag and the leaf roof had been her saving graces, preventing her from catching a cold during those first few days.

"I’ll just wait until tomorrow!" she decided.

Tonight, she would tie the straw curtains she had woven during the rainy days back together. Tomorrow, she would remove all the leaves, let the house bask in the sun for a day, and then lay down the straw curtains and waterproof tarp. She believed she wouldn’t need to replace them for a very long time.

With everything organized, she took out her multi-purpose shovel and began carefully trimming down the extra branches left over from building her clothes rack. The thicker ones needed to be sawed shorter, while the thinner, longer ones were snapped in half using her knee and bare hands. She then stacked them as neatly as possible next to the woodpile by the straw shed.

However, after dumping a bundle of awkwardly shaped branches onto the pile, Huai Yu glanced at the perfectly stacked, smooth-edged firewood nearby. She couldn’t help but spread her palms and stare at her hands.

"Why don’t I have a Water System Superpower?"

If she were like Lin Xuefeng, she wouldn’t have to worry about dampness on rainy days, struggling without proper knives or saws, or fending off people with malicious intentions... How wonderful that would be! But right now, her abilities were limited to weak growth acceleration and purification. Aside from the Huai Bi curse—making herself a walking target for harboring a treasure—she had nothing else to show for it.

She sighed. Feeling a rare sense of relaxation, she simply lay back and rested on the pile of hay that served as her "bed," now warmed by the sun. Before long, she actually drifted off into a hazy slumber.

Perhaps due to the complete release of her long-tense nerves, she slept deeply. By the time Huai Yu woke up again, only the tangerine glow of the sunset remained on the horizon.

She bolted upright and checked her watch. It was already 5:00 PM!

Flustered, she immediately scrambled to pack things up. She dragged the waterproof tarp back onto the roof bit by bit, brought the solar lamp inside, and gathered all the thoroughly sun-dried hay. She also had to bring in her quilt and clothes; she absolutely couldn’t let them absorb the outside moisture again. By the time she finished these rushed chores, the world outside was cloaked in the deep purple of twilight.

The solar lamp had been charging all day. Full of anticipation, Huai Yu turned it on.

CLICK.

In an instant, the room was bathed in brilliant light. This bright white illumination was entirely different from the dancing, orange glow of a fire, making the entire treehouse feel significantly more spacious. Her brand-new folding bed sat right in the corner, ready for her to simply lie down and pull up the covers to sleep.

However, at this moment, Huai Yu felt a twinge of regret.

First, the bed was rather small, meaning her quilt could easily slip off and fall to the ground. Second, the bottom was just a thin layer of fabric. While her top half would be covered by a warm quilt at night, drafts could still seep through from beneath and freeze her shoulders and back. Therefore, she still needed to stuff the space under the bed with hay and spread it outwards to keep the quilt from getting dirty if it fell.

Realizing what she was complaining about, she couldn’t help but chuckle.

"Human greed truly knows no bounds!" she thought.

She had started out with nothing but a sleeping bag that Captain Zhou had given her out of pity, and now she was actually picking apart the flaws of a real bed! Even if there were better beds out there, did she have the money to buy them, let alone the means to haul them all the way back here?

Amused by her own thoughts, Huai Yu happily pulled out her newly bought quilt cover and slipped it on. Once her most important resting area was set up, she finally started the fire and placed her pot over it.

"What should I eat tonight?" she wondered.

This was a question she pondered carefully several times a day. The seven unfinished packets of nutrient solution still sitting in the corner served as a constant reminder to cherish her current meals.

After mulling it over for a moment, Huai Yu decided that on such a good day, she had to cook a proper stir-fry to celebrate! After a few days of gradually adjusting her diet, her stomach should finally be able to handle oily, solid food!

And so, she sprang into action.

Using the last bit of the rice she had previously purified, she cooked up a generous, luxurious bowl of steamed rice for tonight! Meanwhile, she pulled a basin’s worth of bean sprouts—grown entirely using purified water—from her basket and stir-fried them vigorously with lard and crispy bits of pork cracklings!

The bean sprouts were crisp, the cracklings were savory, and the soybeans had a uniquely satisfying texture. She took a chopstick-full of the glossy, oil-glistening bean sprouts and pork cracklings under the light, followed by a mouthful of the snowy-white, fragrant, and soft rice.

Whew...

It was so piping hot that Huai Yu almost teared up. But it was so incredibly delicious!

She held her bowl under the light, practically radiating happiness. Overhead, the large pinecone disguising the lightbulb looked remarkably rustic, making the scene feel like the most perfect home and life she could ask for.

After eating and drinking her fill, Huai Yu sat in a daze for a while before remembering that she still had eight small ginseng roots left to process today.

The eight ginseng roots had truly mutated. As for their appearance... well, Huai Yu couldn’t identify what type of ginseng they were, nor could she even tell they were ginseng in the first place. In her mind, the slender little body should at least have a long stem topped with a few leaves or a cluster of red berries. Occasionally, the berries might be yellow. But the leaves were definitely not supposed to look like these wispy tendrils.

Furthermore, Flower City didn’t produce ginseng. Even on Sanqing Mountain, she had yet to see anything like this, so she had no idea how Uncle Zaozi had gotten his hands on them.

"But there’s no reason for Uncle Zaozi to lie to me, right? He’s already so capable," she reasoned.

Now that the "little carrots" had been dug out, they had lost quite a bit of moisture. Huai Yu picked one up, inspected it from all angles, and after some thought, hesitantly began to purify it.

As her power slowly surged, she could feel the small ginseng in her palm becoming increasingly pure. However, its exterior remained severely shriveled and ugly, and its leaves still drooped listlessly.

She withdrew her hand, slightly puzzled, and stared at it again. She figured that since she wasn’t going to sell or eat the ginseng right away, and given how cheap they were... Okay, mainly because they were cheap!

Huai Yu brought over a basin of purified water and decided to make a bold attempt! This time, she tried using her minuscule growth-acceleration power, which was even weaker than her purification ability.

Unlike before, as the power surged this time, she could feel it much more distinctly.

Under the bright light, tiny, firefly-like specks of green light slowly drifted around her. At the entrance of the treehouse, the cluster of wisteria flowers that had survived the heavy rain completely unscathed began to sway rapidly. Not far away, the silhouette of the Rose Corridor shifted in the night as its vines stretched out, thrashing menacingly in the dark—

[WARNING! Mutant Value in Zone 37 of the Rose Corridor is rising rapidly!]

[WARNING! Mutant Value in Zone 37 of the Rose Corridor is rising rapidly!]

[WARNING! Mutant Value in Zone 37 of the Rose Corridor is rising rapidly!]