Chapter 7: Pinus armandii Pinecone

Chapter 7: Chapter 7: Pinus armandii Pinecone

The next day, Huai Yu woke up to the broadcast again. The sun had just peeked over the horizon. The morning light spilled onto the ground, piercing through the frame she had built yesterday and casting long, slanted shadows. The wisteria vines were very obedient. There were barely any leaves on their bare branches; the only eye-catching feature was a cluster of wisteria flowers swaying in the wind by the entrance.

Huai Yu held a pouch of nutrient solution in her mouth, sucking on it with a GLUG GLUG GLUG sound. Her face was expressionless. After all, eating this for three consecutive days had caused its taste to downgrade from acceptable, to slightly unpalatable, and now, to downright awful. She thought, "I have to eat this stuff for a month..."

Wait!

She suddenly dropped to her knees with practiced ease, then SWISH SWISH SWISH, scrambled back into the tunnel. As she continued drinking the nutrient solution, she began counting. "One pouch, two pouches, three pouches..."

There were twenty-six pouches left.

When it was distributed, they had said it was a month’s supply. But she had consumed one pouch the day before yesterday and two pouches yesterday! And she had felt hungry again early this morning. Could it be that it was only enough for half a month?

Sunlight shone into the tunnel through the holes in the foundation bricks, casting faint spots of light on the maroon sleeping bag. The soybeans huddled there silently. It was obvious that with her current abilities, even if she managed to stimulate their growth, they wouldn’t yield many beans. She didn’t even need to calculate to know that, at most, she would get no more than forty catties. And right now, let alone farming, she hadn’t even finished building her house!

PLOP.

The nutrient solution pouch, sucked completely dry, fell from her mouth to the ground. Her mood plummeted along with it.

Because of this realization, Huai Yu puffed her cheeks in frustration as she went to Zone 22 to snap off branches. Area 1 of the Rose Mansion covered a total area of six hundred acres, divided into thirty-seven zones. Zone 22 was a small hill that had been cleared exceptionally thoroughly by the Alien Plant Defense Army, leaving only a few sparse tree stumps sprouting. Huai Yu came here to snap off a slightly thinner branch to use for roofing her house later.

Standing on the small hill and looking into the distance, the nearest Defense Army outpost was quite far away. If calculated according to the Rose Corridor’s zoning, it was probably past Zone 60. Actually, she had been unlucky that night. The place where the abnormal movement occurred in the Rose Corridor was right near the intersection of Zone 37 and Zone 38. Because of that, the Mutant Value detector there had been exceptionally close. Meanwhile, Zone 38 belonged to the allocated land of Area 2 of the Rose Mansion.

But right now, Huai Yu didn’t know anything, nor was she in the mood to care. She only wanted to hurry up and finish building her house before the leaves completely withered.

Once the main frame was fully built, the rest was just tedious work. For instance, what Huai Yu had to do now was use the long, thin, and sharp wooden thorn in her hand to slantingly pierce the stems of the tung tree leaves she had picked yesterday, creating a "Y" shaped fork. She then wedged this fork onto the frame of the house. Although it seemed a bit inadequate because the leaves weren’t large enough, once the leaves were fixed in place one by one, she tied them with even thinner vines. By layering them multiple times, the structure became sturdy and airtight.

The only problem was that the tung tree leaves didn’t have good waterproofing, but there were no other alternatives around. After all, Flower City had four distinct seasons, and it often snowed in winter. In this kind of environment, plant leaves wouldn’t grow too broad to avoid frostbite. The work wasn’t difficult, but it was incredibly tedious. Fortunately, since she didn’t have anything else to do right now, she could be patient and build the house solidly step by step.

However, after using up half of the leaves, she still felt that it wouldn’t be safe in the event of heavy rain. But it didn’t matter. She was so smart; she had already thought of a backup plan yesterday. Well, she probably had. Even if she hadn’t, there was still time to think of one now!

Amidst her inner struggle, Huai Yu remembered the maroon sleeping bag in the tunnel, and a flash of inspiration struck her! She rummaged through the pile of leaves and gathered the twelve Pinus armandii pinecones she had obtained yesterday.

A Pinus armandii would normally need to grow for ten to twenty years before bearing pinecones, but the giant pine tree Huai Yu had encountered towered into the clouds. Its age was unknown, and the pinecones it produced were naturally exceptionally large. With a diameter of nearly ten centimeters and a length of twenty centimeters, Huai Yu stared at them, her mouth watering. She couldn’t even imagine how well the little squirrels were eating.

However, these were meant to be traded with people for supplies. Ultimately, she could only bear to pick out a slightly smaller one. She broke off the scales one by one to extract the pine nuts inside. Counting them, a single large pinecone yielded over a hundred pine nuts! So wealthy! Such a good, giant pine tree!

The only problem was, whether due to the variety or having endured wind, sun, and rain on the tree for too long, these pine nuts not only lacked the rich flavor of a Korean pine, but they didn’t even have the faint, unique fragrance of a Pinus armandii. They were even a bit astringent in the mouth.

Huai Yu ate two, her interest waning, and once again sighed. "How did I know so much in the past? I even ate several varieties of pine nuts... I used to be so wealthy!" But now, she didn’t even have a place to live. The contrast was too great. Sure enough, this world had done her wrong! She hummed twice in grievance. In the end, her current life was more important; large beds and handsome servants were a distant dream.

And although these weren’t as delicious as she remembered, they were still pine nuts. Considering that a person was allotted a minimum of only one catty of soybeans nowadays, she knew these had to be somewhat precious. Huai Yu picked up a thin vine and tied them on one by one. Soon, she had strung together a long chain of a full eleven large pinecones.

Since she was going to trade them, dragging them on the ground wouldn’t be good. Therefore, after thinking about it, she slung them diagonally across her shoulder. She thought, "Waterproof large roof, here I come!" She walked away happily.

Meanwhile, far away at the Alien Plant Defense Army outpost in Zone 69.

Because it was adjacent to the Rose Corridor, and the Rose Corridor had diligently guarded this Wilderness defense line for Flower City ever since its appearance, there were rarely any people seen around here, even though the Defense Army was stationed at this location. But right now, as the guard at the entrance looked into the distance, he saw a young girl walking over slowly, her body strapped with some strange objects.

The guard was speechless.

He picked up his walkie-talkie to report. By the time someone finally got interested and came to the door to take a look, the girl from afar had already reached the entrance. It was only then that the guard could see clearly—slung over her shoulder was a massive string of pinecones.

The Defense Army soldier who had come out to check the situation was also stunned. "Little girl, it’s you?" ℴ

Huai Yu was exhausted from the walk. She waved her hand, unable to even speak, her breath coming out in heavy and haggard pants. After all, the pinecones on her body were simply too large, each weighing almost a catty. With eleven pinecones, it was at least ten catties in total. And walking from Zone 37 to Zone 69 was a distance of at least over three kilometers... It had truly worn her out.

When she finally caught her breath, looking at the familiar Defense Army soldier who was frowning at her, she hesitated and said, "That night, one of your men said his captain told him to bring me a sleeping bag... Was that you?"

Thinking for a moment, she added, "Captain."