“Hey, Mu Bin has a bicycle. Where are you going? We’ll go with you,” Li Yiyun said anxiously as she saw Leng Hui leaving.
Without hesitation, she quickly reached out and grabbed her.
Leng Hui stopped and turned around, asking understandingly, “Weren’t you two supposed to have a date today?”
People of this era were still quite reserved, especially young men and women who had just graduated from school not long ago.
Upon hearing the word “date,” Li Yiyun instantly felt her entire face burn.
She stomped her foot and complained, “Oh, what nonsense are you talking about?”
Leng Hui was confused: “…” What did I say?
It was just a normal remark.
But judging by Li Yiyun’s reaction, it seemed as if their relationship was some illicit affair that couldn’t see the light of day.
Meeting Leng Hui’s innocent gaze, Li Yiyun’s face flushed completely red. “Hurry up and tell us, where are you planning to ride your bike?”
“To the outskirts to dig for wild vegetables.”
Leng Hui didn’t want the two to follow her, so she made up an excuse on the spot.
But after saying it, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that going to the outskirts to dig for wild vegetables might actually be a viable option. After all, wild vegetables were food too, and they were radiation-free, pollution-free green vegetables.
Li Yiyun glanced at Mu Bin, feeling conflicted. The two of them had agreed to go see a movie today—how could she just abandon him halfway to follow Leng Hui to the outskirts?
Having lived through the apocalypse for many years, how could Leng Hui not see Li Yiyun’s inner struggle? She waved her hand and said, “Alright, you two go have fun. I’ll be on my way.”
Leng Hui waved goodbye without a care in the world, leaving with effortless grace.
But Li Yiyun frowned slightly.
Mu Bin watched Leng Hui leave and asked, “Leng Hui should be around your age, right? What’s her family situation like? She should be looking for a job now too, shouldn’t she?”
Li Yiyun turned her gaze back and sighed. “Leng Hui’s family isn’t as well-off as mine. I heard her say that her family of ten lives together—it’s really inconvenient. As for work, she probably hasn’t found any yet. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be heading to the outskirts at this time.”
Hearing about such circumstances, Mu Bin immediately lost interest in Leng Hui. “Considering she’s your classmate, I thought about introducing her to my cousin. But you know, given my aunt’s family’s standards, they wouldn’t want a daughter-in-law from a family like Leng Hui’s.”
Li Yiyun nodded. She also felt that with Leng Hui’s background, she naturally wouldn’t be a suitable match.
“Leng Hui has been pretty since she was young. Back in school, many boys liked her. I think if she wanted to find a partner, it shouldn’t be too hard for her.”
“Really? Did she ever show interest in anyone?”
“I don’t know. She never shared things like that with me,” Li Yiyun shook her head. Although she had been desk mates with Leng Hui, Leng Hui never shared many personal matters with others.
Besides, she had a hot temper. If anyone provoked her, she wouldn’t hesitate to throw punches.
This was one of Leng Hui’s flaws, and as a friend, Li Yiyun wouldn’t easily reveal it to others.
“Oh,” Mu Bin nodded. A woman like that, who seemed fickle and flirtatious, was even less suitable for his cousin.
Leng Hui had no idea about Mu Bin’s thoughts. If she had known, she would have cursed him out and beaten him until even his own parents wouldn’t recognize him.
When she arrived at Zha Steel Factory, Leng Hui registered at the security gate before being allowed to enter the factory area.
Leng Yongkang, upon hearing someone was looking for him outside, emerged from the workshop and found it was Leng Hui. He asked irritably, “Have you got so much free time you’re bored out of your mind? Why do you keep coming to my factory for no reason? Didn’t you say you had plans today? And your plan is to disturb me at work?”
Leng Hui picked her ear and reached out her hand.
Leng Yongkang instinctively swatted her hand away. “Do you think I’m a money printer? It hasn’t been long since last time, and you’re already asking for money again.”
“Car keys!” Leng Hui said, exasperated.
People said men over forty were mature and steady, but she had never seen that in Leng Yongkang.
He was more excitable than she was.
Leng Yongkang was taken aback. “Where are you going with the car keys?”
“To dig for wild vegetables outside the city.”
The family had been eating pickles every day, and those pickles were unbearably salty. Who could stand that?
Hearing she was going to dig for wild vegetables made Leng Yongkang nervous. He warned her, “You can go dig for wild vegetables, but we don’t have any fine grains left for you to waste. Don’t go prying open your grandmother’s chest again!”
Leng Hui didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “If she weren’t so stingy, why would I bother prying open her chest?”
Suppressing his unease and unable to shake her off, Leng Yongkang reluctantly handed her the keys.
With the keys in hand, Leng Hui was in a good mood. As she left, she provocatively whistled at Leng Yongkang like a street ruffian.
Leng Yongkang watched her leave with a dark expression, irritably running a hand through his hair. He smoked a cigarette outside before returning to the workshop to continue working.
Leng Hui rode her bicycle out of the city and turned onto a rural dirt road. The road was less than two meters wide, simply leveled earth, hardened from years of use.
Though uneven, it was manageable on a bicycle, albeit bumpy.
After traveling about ten li, she stopped in a wooded area.
Though this dirt road was rarely traveled, leaving the bicycle by the roadside was unsafe. Eventually, she took advantage of the absence of people and stored the bicycle in her space.
Actually, Leng Hui had several bicycles in her space, but they were modern geared bicycles, unsuitable for this era, so she couldn’t take them out to ride.
Entering the woods, Leng Hui retrieved a machete from her space. Whenever she encountered dead trees along the way, she would chop them into segments and store them in her space.
It sounded nice to say they lived in the city, but sometimes resources were scarcer than in the countryside.
In areas with abundant pine needles, she would gather some from the ground to use as kindling later.
The spring breeze swept through the forest, damp and fragrant. Unnamed little flowers bloomed everywhere, and the air was filled with the intoxicating mix of decaying leaves and the fresh scent of plants.
Leng Hui thought this was probably the natural scent of the wilderness.
At home, even a piece of coal or a stick of firewood was precious, but here in the forest, they were everywhere.
After gathering a small pile of firewood—enough for about half a month if using a wood-burning stove—Leng Hui finally spotted bamboo.
At the edge where the forest met the bamboo grove, she found unusually large bamboo shoots emerging from the ground and also discovered fiddlehead ferns.
Late March to early April was the season for bamboo shoots and fiddlehead ferns to sprout. She harvested every one she saw into her space.
Venturing deeper into the bamboo grove, she found even more bamboo shoots, most of which had sprouted just a day or two earlier—at their tenderest and most flavorful.
In the past, the original owner of this body would come to the mountains every year, sometimes with adults, other times with friends.
With the original owner’s memories, Leng Hui could easily identify which plants in the mountains were edible.
Moving through the bamboo forest while crouching all the time, even with her strong physique, Leng Hui couldn’t endure it for long.
She plopped down on the ground, eyeing the thicker Mao Bamboo around her and considering cutting some to take back—perhaps to weave baskets or winnowing trays.
But right now, she was truly exhausted.
Taking out some bamboo shoots from her space, she organized them into small bundles, tying each with flexible twigs. If they felt loose, she inserted a few more bamboo shoots until the bundles were tightly secured and wouldn’t fall apart.
After bundling over twenty small clusters, she tied them together into a larger bundle using bigger branches, making it easier to strap onto the back of her bicycle for the return trip.