After lunch, the girls of 806 went into the space to work.
The chicken coop was bustling with activity. The hens had laid more eggs and hatched five more chicks. This brought the total number of chickens to eleven.
But there was still plenty of meat stockpiled in the refrigerator that they had not finished eating. Afraid the chickens would keep multiplying endlessly, Xiao Feiran quickly separated the two roosters and set up a separate enclosure for them.
Over at the vegetable patch, after harvesting a large amount of sweet potatoes, potatoes, and corn, Zheng Wan began trying to grow rice. At that moment, she and Huang Yiyi were digging up soil together.
Meanwhile, Cheng Zhi and Chen Siyu crouched beside the rabbit enclosure, barely daring to breathe. The two female rabbits were panting heavily, their round bellies twitching from time to time.
“When I was little, the rabbits at my grandma’s house looked like this when they were having babies too.” Cheng Zhi’s eyes were filled with anticipation. Suddenly thinking of something, she poked the person beside her. “Look, the three of them each have a different color. Their babies will definitely come in all three colors too. Let’s guess how many of each color there’ll be?”
The moment that came up, Chen Siyu immediately got excited too and patted her chest confidently.
“I take care of them every day. My guess will definitely be more accurate!”
Rabbit births were slow, and Cheng Zhi did not want to sit around waiting, so she went over to help in the fields.
As Huang Yiyi mixed the soil, she fantasized about the future. “By around Christmas, the rice should be ready for harvest, right? Wan, when the time comes, how about we make clay pot rice to celebrate?”
Zheng Wan paused her movements and tilted her head as she thought for a moment.
“We could, but the problem is we don’t have a clay pot. I wonder if it’d still taste good made in a rice cooker.”
Cheng Zhi had just been about to say that if they wanted a clay pot, they could buy one on the way to the city later, when an excited cry from the other side interrupted her.
“It’s born! It’s born! The first one’s black!”
Everyone in 806 immediately stopped what they were doing and gathered around the rabbit enclosure.
Cheng Zhi had only just arrived when Little Yellow gave birth to another one. The second was yellow.
“Woohoo, one to one tie. It looks like Contestant Yellow and Contestant Black currently have evenly matched genes.”
Chen Siyu burst into laughter.
“They’re giving birth, not competing. Stop making ridiculous commentary.”
Little Yellow’s delivery went very smoothly. She gave birth to five in a row. Aside from the eldest being black, the other four were all yellow. Cheng Zhi and Huang Yiyi stared in complete shock. It seemed the father’s genes had been utterly crushed by the mother’s.
Cheng Zhi was even crueler. She lifted Little Black Rabbit up by the ears and said, “You’re useless.”
What male creature could possibly endure that kind of humiliation? Little Black Rabbit grunted unhappily at Cheng Zhi while frantically kicking its legs against her, as if saying, If you’re so capable, you do it. If not, stop talking nonsense.
Things were not going as smoothly for Little White Rabbit on the mat beside them. Little Yellow had already finished giving birth, yet she still had not delivered even one baby.
Afraid something might happen, Chen Siyu moved all the rabbits out of the space and placed them on the already collapsed bed. That way, if anything went wrong, everyone would notice immediately.
After working all afternoon, Zheng Wan thoughtfully cooked each person a sweet corn cob to replenish their energy. They had just come out of the pot and were still too hot, so nobody rushed to eat and simply set them aside to cool.
But before the corn could even cool down, someone suddenly knocked on the door of 806.
Cheng Zhi immediately signaled everyone to put everything away. Looking through the peephole, she saw a buzz cut male student wearing a white T-shirt. His features were cold and sharp, and he had a high nose bridge. Perhaps because of his upright posture, standing there gave him an air of righteousness. He did not look like someone here to cause trouble at all.
Qi Yanche stood expressionlessly outside room 806, every movement radiating unwillingness, because he had been forced into this.
The entire thing was Lu Yuan’s dog’s nose’s fault. He had crouched by the crack of the door and sniffed desperately, catching traces of a faint aroma. The other three had not believed him, so he had forcefully shoved them against the crack to smell for themselves. Nobody knew whether hunger had made them hallucinate or whether there really was corn, but the three of them smelled it too.
Room 835 immediately exploded into chaos. Three grown men bawled their eyes out, saying they wanted corn too, they wanted something hot and freshly made too. No matter what, they insisted Qi Yanche go trade for some.
Qi Yanche was on the verge of losing his mind. Pointing around at the empty dorm room, he said, “Friends, what exactly do we even have left to trade? Can’t we just wait two more days and eat after we get to the city?”
They understood the logic.
But they refused to listen.
They directly shoved Qi Yanche out of the dorm.
At that moment, Qi Yanche, standing outside room 806 and knocking on the door, looked like a single father raising three children by himself, his face filled with helplessness.
Seeing no response from 806, Qi Yanche gently knocked twice more and said, “Hello, we’re from 835 across the hall. We’d like to trade for some more things with you.”
Xiao Feiran’s eyes widened. She did not dare speak and mouthed silently, Was this classmate always this handsome?
Huang Yiyi burst out laughing and lowered her voice.
“Yesterday you were still calling the guy across the hall a homeless man. Why is he suddenly a classmate today? Hahahaha…”
Cheng Zhi: “…”
Every single one of them was a sucker for good looks. Nobody had any room to judge anyone else.
Ignoring her roommates, Cheng Zhi asked the person outside what he wanted to trade for.
Qi Yanche appeared calm and composed on the surface, but inside he was panicking terribly.
“We… we smelled corn. We wanted to trade for a few cooked corn cobs.”
Only then did all five girls of 806 realize they had forgotten to block the door earlier. The five exchanged glances and retreated toward the balcony side to quietly discuss the situation.
Now that they had exposed the fact they had cooked corn, Chen Siyu was so nervous she could barely sit still. She was terrified the people across the hall would realize they were eating well and living comfortably and decide to rob them.
Cheng Zhi held down the agitated Siyu.
“We’ve only gone out once these past days. Since they live across from us, they definitely already know we have food. Right now there’s only one issue. The corn is cooked. We’ve exposed the fact that we have electricity, and that’s the key problem.”
Xiao Feiran was much more relaxed. She waved her hand casually and said giving them two cobs was fine. Anyway, they would be moving out in two days and would never see each other again in this lifetime. If those people developed bad intentions over two corn cobs, Xiao Feiran would not mind killing them at all.
Cheng Zhi also felt giving them some was fine. First, she felt 835 did not have bad intentions. Second, she trusted the strength of their dorm. That chainsaw could either kill them or scare them half to death.
After reaching a decision, Cheng Zhi, acting as the spokesperson, returned to the door carrying two corn cobs and asked:
“We can trade, but we don’t have much ourselves, so we can only give you two cobs. What can you trade for them?”
Qi Yanche had already been close to giving up after waiting outside for a while. He had not expected 806 to actually agree.
Thinking about the pitiful amount of stuff left in his room, he could barely open his mouth. He could only ask in return:
“Is there anything you need?”
That question stumped everyone in 806 too. Their supplies were complete. From rice to potato chips, they had practically everything. For a moment, they genuinely could not think of anything they needed.
A gleam flashed through Xiao Feiran’s eyes as an idea occurred to her. She tested the waters cautiously.
“I have an idea. Our dorm only bought oranges, lemons, and apples. I’m getting a little sick of them. How about we ask what fruits they have?”
Cheng Zhi raised both hands in agreement. She hated apples the most. If survival had not depended on it, she would not want to take even a single bite of an apple.
The other three could not think of anything more necessary either, so they agreed with the idea of trading for fruit.