Fu Yinli put down the axe in his hand. “It’s not that we’re building a chicken coop—I need to prepare the materials in advance.”
Their biggest problem was a lack of supplies. They needed to build a warehouse, frames, and a chicken coop—but where would they even get materials from? They didn’t even have nails.
Still, Fu Yinli figured that since he had time, he might as well prepare in advance. Once materials became available later, they could get everything built properly.
Ruan Zhe nodded. “Let’s plant the vegetables first.”
Fortunately, both of them were the type to plan ahead. The vegetable plot had already been tilled; now they just needed to form ridges again.
Fu Yinli was good at that and quickly got it done.
Then Ruan Zhe took the seedlings out of a lunch box. Their roots had grown quite a bit and were tangled together, making them hard to separate.
“We don’t have much land. Should I open up a few more plots, or plant them together to save space?” Fu Yinli asked as he watched her carefully separate them one by one.
Ruan Zhe laughed. “You idiot. If you plant eggplants and chili peppers together, it’ll turn into an aphid meeting. By the time you want to treat it, you won’t be able to save anything. Believe me, your vegetable garden will become a graveyard.”
She used her finger to poke a hole in the ridge, placed a chili seedling inside, then pushed the soil back and pressed it down gently.
This time Fu Yinli learned his lesson. He didn’t speak recklessly again. He took the eggplant seedlings from her and walked to another patch of land. “I’ll follow your lead.”
Seeing how careful he was, treating the seedlings gently, Ruan Zhe naturally didn’t discourage his enthusiasm. A man like this—if you were afraid he wouldn’t do well and stopped him from trying, he’d end up taking it for granted later.
“You can definitely do it. You learn everything really fast.”
Receiving her praise, Fu Yinli felt more confident. He followed her every step precisely. Then Ruan Zhe glanced up and quickly stopped him.
“Chili peppers should be planted in tight clusters, but eggplants need space. You need at least forty to fifty centimeters between plants. Eggplant leaves are big—if they don’t get enough light, they won’t grow well and pests will show up too.”
“So many rules,” Fu Yinli said with emotion. He thought he knew a lot, but vegetables had already challenged him several times today. “So growing food isn’t that easy.”
Once they got the hang of it, they worked much faster. There weren’t many seedlings to begin with.
Watching Fu Yinli bring water over and slowly pour it at the base of each seedling, Ruan Zhe sighed in admiration. “You even know to water the root zone.”
Seeing her satisfied expression made Fu Yinli slightly uncomfortable. Ever since he had revealed his extraordinary abilities at the age of fifteen within the corporation, no one had looked at him like this again.
Now, being looked at this way by his little wife—it was both helpless and a little funny.
“You taught me. Of course I have to learn it properly.” Fu Yinli scooped up some soil and gently covered her fingers resting on the ground.
Ruan Zhe lifted her index finger. “I’ve sprouted!”
Fu Yinli’s cold, expressionless face softened into a smile at her cute action.
Though the curve was slight, Ruan Zhe still noticed it. “Hey, your mouth just lifted by two pixels.”
The two of them laughed and teased each other for a while before Fu Yinli went off to move bricks and dig soil.
Ruan Zhe still wanted a clay stove.
The RV stove was too small, with only one burner and very limited space. The ventilation wasn’t good either—in fact, even the bedsheets and curtains already carried a faint smell of cooking oil. She just hadn’t had time to care about it properly.
If they built a stove in the farm, they could stew big pots of food, bake flatbread, and boil water outside. Inside the RV would only be for simple, convenient cooking.
Fortunately, when they had been at the old man’s place before, she had seen broken bricks and stored them in the farm. There weren’t many, but enough for a simple stove.
She was now drawing a stove design in a notebook. Fu Yinli had never seen something like that before, so she needed to make everything clear so he could understand it.
When Fu Yinli had almost finished preparing the materials, Ruan Zhe took the blueprint and went to find him.
The stove itself was simple, but she still explained why each part was designed that way. Fu Yinli seemed to rely more on precise measurements.
“Look, this is the base—a square, sixty centimeters per side. This is the fire chamber, circular, forty centimeters in diameter. This is the fire opening, facing south, twenty centimeters high and fifteen centimeters wide. This is the flue, facing north. We’ll build a chimney out of bricks; it doesn’t need to be too tall—half a meter is enough so the smoke can disperse. On top, we’ll place a big pot. I checked—the pot is fifty centimeters in diameter, so the fire chamber opening needs to be slightly smaller so the pot can sit securely.”
Ruan Zhe wasn’t short among girls—she was 166 cm tall—but her head was now right in front of him, looking fluffy.
Fu Yinli couldn’t help but pat her head. “You’re really teaching me like I’m a child. You even drew sectional dimensions so clearly. I’ll build it and you can check if it works.”
Ruan Zhe didn’t mind his affectionate gesture at all. Her mind was already filled with excitement about the new stove. “It’ll definitely work!”
Fu Yinli picked through the bricks. Fortunately, not too many were broken.
“Without cement, how do we build it?”
“Mix soil with chopped grass and turn it into mud. Once it dries, it becomes very solid.”
Ruan Zhe had already thought it through. The dried grass they had found earlier while reclaiming land could also be used.
Fu Yinli brought over the dried grass piled beside the vegetable field, chopped it into small pieces about three to four centimeters long, and mixed it into the soil.
“There’s a stream here, so water is convenient. We can use well water for drinking, and stream water for daily use.” Fu Yinli had carefully considered everything after expanding the farm, but there were too many things to account for—he could only do what he could step by step.
“It would be nice if we could raise some fish, in that pond over there,” Ruan Zhe said dreamily while continuing to mix mud.
She had barely had one good meal, and now she was already dreaming of more—like someone who just escaped hunger and immediately started thinking about feasts.
“There will be,” Fu Yinli said, signaling her to move aside as he picked up a shovel to mix it faster.
This guy was absurdly optimistic. In this kind of environment, let alone people—even animals might struggle to survive, let alone raising fish.
But it was good to have dreams. No need to crush them.
Fu Yinli worked the mixture until it reached the right consistency under her guidance. Seeing that she hadn’t left, he suddenly held out his hands.
“Fu Yinli, does this look like you?”
In his palms was something she had made earlier without him noticing—a clay turtle with a head, tail, and patterns on its shell.
“Smack.” The turtle was flattened by the shovel and shoveled back into the mud pile.
“Not at all.”
“You’re so unfunny,” Ruan Zhe muttered, but didn’t interrupt him anymore. It was time to get serious.
Building the stove also required a foundation. She pointed at the base section of the blueprint.
“First dig a shallow pit on the ground—ten centimeters deep, sixty centimeters wide, square-shaped. Lay a layer of crushed stones at the bottom, then a layer of mud, and then start laying bricks.”
“This spot isn’t very good,” Fu Yinli said, looking around. “Wife, have you thought about it? The farm will expand in the future. How should we plan everything then?”
Before Ruan Zhe could answer, her phone in her pocket suddenly rang.