Chapter 94 - 93: It Is My Fault!

Chapter 94: Chapter 93: It Is My Fault!

The bamboo forest was dead silent; not even the wind could stir its leaves.

Huai Yu stood rooted to the spot for a long while before finally taking a deep breath.

"Kuang Biao?" she called out softly, her tone cautious.

For some reason, as soon as the words left her mouth, two green bamboo leaves drifted down in front of her, like tears falling with a soft PLOP.

Huai Yu’s heart tightened. She cleared her throat and simply called out again, "Um..."

Right, how did one call out to geese? She seemed to have forgotten to name them yesterday. Come to think of it, how did people usually call them?

"Tsk, tsk, tsk..."

Huai Yu resorted to the universal animal-calling technique.

Fortunately, this method seemed to work on all animals. The thick layer of leaves in the bamboo forest began to RUSTLE as something moved over quickly and heavily.

As the creatures drew closer under the sunlight streaming into the bright bamboo forest, Huai Yu saw with her own eyes that the two little grayish geese had grown a thick coat of down. Over a single night, they had transformed into two massive, inflated spheres.

No, to be precise, their fluffed-up feathers were a bit terrifying, making them look like giant, running sea urchins.

She wondered what sea urchins tasted like.

Huai Yu’s thoughts briefly wandered. By the time she snapped back to reality, the two little geese—well, giant goose-spheres—had already arrived in front of her.

"HONK! HONK! HONK!" they cried out, opening their bills and honking at the top of their lungs.

"Are you hungry?" Huai Yu asked, though looking at their seemingly ballooned sizes, she wasn’t entirely convinced by her own guess.

Just as the geese tried to waddle closer, a row of bamboo leaves suddenly shot out in unison right in front of them!

THWACK, THWACK, THWACK. The leaves embedded themselves into the dirt right before the geese, forming a tiny wall that looked like it couldn’t actually block anything.

But as if operating on some tacit understanding, the two geese were surprisingly obedient. Wobbly and swaying their chubby bodies, they waddled back into the bamboo forest.

After taking two steps, whether out of curiosity or displeasure, they pecked their dark, flat bills at a tall, sturdy bamboo stalk nearby.

With a loud CRACK and a SNAP, a clean cross-section was pecked straight through the adult bamboo, causing the two joints above it to SPLINTER open.

"Oh, wow..."

Huai Yu opened her mouth, staring up in dumbfounded silence as the tall bamboo stalk slowly toppled over. It made no great noise; even its snapping was eerily quiet.

She didn’t dare make another peep.

She thought, "Kuang Biao, oh Kuang Biao, I have truly wronged you!"

Huai Yu walked toward the center of the bamboo forest with heavy steps. The sunlight scattered through the bamboo grove, resembling Kuang Biao’s battered, hole-riddled heart that now had no words left to speak.

The small basket from yesterday likely couldn’t hold these two giant, running sea-urchin-like geese anymore, and compared to their thick, stiff down, she didn’t know if that handful of dry grass would even be of any use now.

Regardless, a thousand words couldn’t begin to describe her sheer relief! Thank goodness she hadn’t kept them in her room last night, or else the support beams of her newly built house would probably have been pecked into collapse.

When she reached the spot where she had placed their new nest yesterday, Huai Yu’s jaw dropped. She immediately understood why Kuang Biao didn’t want to say a single word.

The bamboo at the center, which had been lush and dense just a day ago, was completely destroyed. Even the exposed bamboo roots had been dug up, not to mention the bamboo leaves, branches, and stalks scattered everywhere.

Clumps of bamboo leaves had been pecked into a messy pulp, evidently tasted and rejected by the two geese as unpalatable. The thin bamboo branches had been pulverized. And the once thick, sturdy stalks were now riddled with holes; even the toughest joints had been torn apart.

Not to mention the bamboo shoots that had been trying their best to grow—their crisp skins and tender shoots had been smashed to smithereens. Just looking at the carnage, Huai Yu could easily picture the two geese aggressively pecking away while food dribbled out of their flat bills.

She wanted to say something, but when she turned her head, she saw the two geese following obediently behind her. As they waddled, they seemed annoyed that a fallen bamboo stalk was blocking their noble goose legs...

So they lowered their heads and gave it another peck.

This time, with their bills held vertically, they struck right at the joint. With a loud CRACK, the bamboo stalk cleanly split in half.

Even bamboo split for bamboo rice wouldn’t have such a clean cut!

As for where the basket had been, it was now shoved off to the side. A small depression in the ground was piled high with thick bamboo leaves, and the two geese flopped down onto it right in front of Huai Yu, looking as comfortable as could be.

Huai Yu was speechless. She didn’t know what to say. In any case, the destroyed clearing at the center amounted to far more than twenty square meters.

Carrying this heavy and guilty mindset, Huai Yu picked up her hoe again and dug up another full basket of bamboo shoots from elsewhere in the forest.

She figured that since Kuang Biao was already slacking off, refusing to speak or fight back, and was already so heavily injured... digging up a few more shoots wouldn’t really matter, right?

As for whether it would become the straw that broke the camel’s back—how could it?!

At most, this only counted as half a straw; it wouldn’t break anything.

Shouldering the bamboo basket, she saw that the two sea-urchin geese showed no intention of eating again. She hopped onto her bicycle and set off toward the Zone 69 camp.

Riding the heavy-duty vintage bicycle with her slender frame was a challenge. Even though the seat had been lowered as much as possible, she still found pedaling strenuous. Fortunately, once she got into a steady rhythm, the burden lessened. Before long, she arrived at Zone 69.

From a distance, the sentry at the gate recognized the frail yet heavily burdened figure and broke into a wide grin.

"Little Yu is here!"

Huai Yu nodded, returning a bright smile. "Is Brother Zhou Qian here?"

The sentry handed over a logbook. "Sign in here—I’ll call him for you."

However, after registering this time, she had to wait quite a while.

The sentry’s eyes kept darting to her basket. After hesitating for a long time, he finally asked, "Are those bamboo shoots?"

"Yes!" Huai Yu answered, looking like an innocent, naive young girl. "A huge bamboo forest suddenly grew behind my house! These shoots are quite tasty, so I dug up a basket to bring over. They’re free."

The sentry, who had heard multiple exaggerated versions of the epic tale ’Battle of the Rose Corridor vs. the Mutated Bamboo,’ was rendered speechless.

He couldn’t help but scrutinize Huai Yu again. Indeed, she was a tiny bit taller than when they had first met. Her cheeks had some color now, and she looked a bit plumper.

But to just casually dig up bamboo shoots—wow! And so many of them at once...

Could this really be a case of ’ignorance is bliss’ and ’fortune favors fools’?

He tightened his expression. "Actually, you don’t need to keep bringing us things. We have rules against casually accepting—"

"I’m not bringing you things," Huai Yu interrupted, smiling with bright innocence. "I’m treating! Am I not allowed to treat everyone to some bamboo shoots? I really just dug them up along the way; I didn’t spend a single point."

While she was arguing her case, a voice called out, "Little Yu."

Huai Yu looked over. "Captain Zhou!"

Then she paused, startled. "Why are you..." dressed like that?

He looked fully armed and ready for battle.

Zhou Qian shook his head without explaining. Frowning deeply, he looked at her. "Why did you come here?"

Huai Yu held out her woven basket. "I told you I’d treat you to some bamboo shoots! By the way, was the Bamboo Heart Tea from last time good?"

Zhou Qian blanked for a second, then let out a helpless laugh.