Chapter 9: Genius Label

Chapter 9: Chapter 9: Genius Label

The twelve-pound tarpaulin thoroughly exhausted Huai Yu. A mere two-pound difference became the straw that broke the camel’s back once it rested on her shoulders. By the time she returned to her new house in Zone 37, the last thing she could do was drop the tarp and collapse on the ground.

"I’m so tired, so tired, so tired..."

"Where is my manservant... I’m seriously so exhausted!"

She was covered in sweat, and she knew without looking that her face was a complete mess. She hadn’t even brushed her teeth properly that morning...

But with her body being so weak, there was absolutely no way she could bathe in the water during this season. Even a sponge bath was out of the question!

She took a few deep breaths. Once she felt the chilly wind WHOOSHING through her clothes, she quickly scrambled back to her feet. The construction of her house was over eighty percent complete. She needed to push through in one vigorous effort so she could sleep in her new home tonight!

With that thought in mind, new strength seemed to surge through her body. She unfolded the tarp and dragged it bit by bit onto the round, leafy roof. The wisteria frame held up valiantly, not swaying in the slightest, looking exceptionally secure.

Huai Yu stepped into her little treehouse (since it was built entirely against the tree). She found that the cracks which had previously let in faint rays of daylight were now completely obscured. No light could seep through anymore, making her all the more delighted!

"Sure enough! Asking the big pine tree for pinecones was a brilliant move!"

The excellent results granted her boundless energy. She gathered the remaining leaves and wove them together one by one using thin vines. This formed a natural decoration at the doorway. Even after the leaves withered, they would still conceal the truth of the wisteria roots taking hold.

"I really am a genius."

As Huai Yu thought this, she silently added another label to her unknown identity.

***

However, compared to the cold, hard bricks and stones down in the tunnel, this little treehouse—or rather, grass hut—was in direct contact with the ground.

It was about two meters tall—perhaps slightly more, considering the highest point of the frame was secured and wrapped while Huai Yu stood on her tiptoes with her arms raised. When it came time to tie the leaves, she had to carefully step onto the structure to reach. It was evident that she had truly poured her heart and soul into building this house.

From a distance, the entire treehouse looked like an irregularly shaped upside-down bowl, or perhaps an asymmetrical rectangle. Regardless, with a diameter of about 3.5 meters, the total area of the room exceeded ten square meters, making it quite spacious.

Huai Yu pondered for a moment. Seizing the remaining daylight, she walked over to a nearby foundation and searched for loose, small bricks and stones one by one. Then, like an ant moving house, she slowly hauled them back to her new home.

Her luck was good. Whether the original builders had cut corners or it was a structural necessity, a section of the foundation was paved with small blue bricks instead of the massive concrete blocks and foundation stones used elsewhere. There was also a scattered pile of red bricks nearby, but there were far fewer of them. They probably weren’t meant for the foundation, and they didn’t look as sturdy as the blue bricks, so Huai Yu decisively chose the blue ones.

HUFF, PUFF. One brick at a time. Not only did her hands turn red, but she felt as if her back was about to break. But by the time the sun set and twilight descended, the ground inside the ten-square-meter treehouse had been elevated and paved as flatly and evenly as possible.

"This way, I won’t have to worry even if it rains heavily!"

Well, maybe not too heavily. If it rained too hard for too long, being on flat ground still posed a slight risk of flooding.

At that moment, as Huai Yu looked at her little house, she felt an overwhelming sense of satisfaction! She really ought to have wiped down the blue bricks, but she had done too much work today and was truly exhausted.

Huai Yu crawled back down into the tunnel, stuffed her nutrient solutions and soybeans into her sleeping bag, and dragged them all the way out.

"From today onwards, I’ll never have to crawl back and forth again!"

***

On her fourth day down from the mountain, even the broadcasting voice right next door sounded pleasant to the ear.

"Today is Saturday, March 21, 2066. Cloudy. The air Mutant Value is 5. Sanqing Mountain and the Wilderness currently show no abnormalities...

"Flower City’s former Red Victory Pedestrian Street has been tentatively designated as the Red Victory Trading Market...

"With the Spring Equinox past, experts from the Department of Agriculture encourage everyone to select warm environments and attempt cultivating your own crops. Self-sufficiency will help alleviate the strain on grain reserves...

"The Medical Department advises citizens to test the Mutant Value when foraging for wild vegetables, to prevent bodily harm from accidentally ingesting produce close to the critical threshold...

"Fugitives from the Third Prison are still on the loose..."

Huai Yu sat comfortably on the blue bricks paving the entrance of her treehouse, gazing into the distance. The Rose Corridor stretched continuously forward by her side, remaining as docile and fragrant as ever. Sleeping in a real house felt entirely different from sleeping in a tunnel, so much so that even SLURPING the nutrient solution from the pouch in her mouth didn’t seem quite as unbearable.

The broadcast went on reporting item by item for a full thirty minutes. Huai Yu patiently listened to it all, then promptly forgot every single word. It didn’t matter, though. She still remembered what she needed to do today. For instance, she first needed to find some dry grass that wouldn’t shed debris, then figure out a way to find a container for water, so she could finally clean yesterday’s blue brick floor.

However, while dry grass was easy to find, a container was hard to come by!

Although no one had explicitly said it, she vaguely knew that she was a bit different, and for now, she didn’t want to go anywhere crowded. At this moment, she had no choice but to brainstorm solutions while gathering dry grass.

Countless stalks of tall cogon grass grew amidst the ruined foundation. They had turned yellow and withered in the autumn, yet they hadn’t rotted or fallen over. Instead, they continued to sway in the gentle breeze, shielding the newly sprouting yellow-green shoots at their bases. Looking out from afar, these tall cogon grasses were scattered sporadically across this vast wasteland, and there were quite a lot of them.

Huai Yu didn’t have a knife, so she could only snap them off one by one. Once she gathered a handful, she folded them in half twice and pulled out a single grass stem to casually tie it together. It barely qualified as a brush.

There were still some withered paulownia leaves left over from yesterday. HUFFING and PUFFING, she carried a hollow brick over to the nearby pond. First, she jammed broken brick pieces tightly into the bottom section as a supportive base. Then, she layered the overlapping leaves into the hollow holes, forming a makeshift container.

She scooped water from the pond handful by handful until she had finally collected about a soup bowl’s worth. Although the hole was only a size or two larger than a fist, it was barely enough if she was just wiping the floor bricks.

She dipped her grass brush into the water and scrubbed the floor bricks clean, then used the dehydrated paulownia leaves to carefully wipe away the faint, dirty watermarks...

Now, inside the humble room, there was only a sleeping bag and a large pinecone with a small piece snapped off, suspended by a vine in the center of the treehouse. At first glance, it looked as if a non-luminous lightbulb were hanging there.

Clean blue bricks, a maroon sleeping bag, twenty-four neatly arranged pouches of nutrient solution, and a small mesh bag of soybeans. Although she had practically no worldly possessions and the treehouse was incredibly empty, Huai Yu felt that she had perfectly demonstrated her attitude toward living a refined life.

As for what came next...

Taking advantage of the daylight shining into the room through the doorway, Huai Yu brushed aside a cluster of blooming, cascading wisteria vines and made her way over to the Rose Corridor.

"Can I pick a few flowers?" she asked, pointing at the hollow brick serving as her makeshift water basin. "The room will only look nice with some fresh flowers on display!"