Carrying such a large bundle of leaves and vines back quietly from Zone 8 of the Rose Corridor was truly a big problem.
Fortunately, the vines were quite flexible. After Huai Yu stealthily crawled through first, she huffed and puffed, pulling them all in bit by bit like squeezing sausages.
She only needed to drag them through 29 more zones, a straight-line distance of over three kilometers, to reach the residential area she had chosen.
Help! That’s too far!
She stood there in a daze, her cheeks flushed from the early spring sun, with strands of hair sticking messily to the side of her face. Yet her mind was filled with the vehicle she had seen the night before—
She really wanted it! She really, really wanted it!
But for now…
“The snail carries its heavy shell, crawling step by step…” Panting, she hummed the tune, unsure how long she had been crawling before finally returning to the vicinity of the foundation.
The foundation remained unchanged, with bricks and stones scattered haphazardly among the ruins. The sprouting grass in the middle was tender and yellowish-green. Kneeling in the tunnel, she crawled forward with a “shuffle, shuffle, shuffle” and, sure enough, spotted her sleeping bag at the end of the bricks.
It was maroon, with scattered dried petals around it.
She silently placed the sleeping bag back in its original spot, then crawled out again. Gazing at this vast expanse of land, she inexplicably felt a sense of “home.”
Huai Yu pondered quietly for a moment, then nodded firmly—yes, since the territory was all hers, having a 600-acre home was perfectly normal, right?
She was so delicate and not particularly skilled, so waking up every day on a 200-square-meter bed with two hundred male servants was also perfectly normal, right?
It’s just that the male servants weren’t here yet…
A gentle breeze swept by, showering her with pink rose petals. Huai Yu puffed out her cheeks in frustration.
Alright, alright! The moisture in the air was growing heavier, and rain was likely within the next couple of days. She needed to hurry up and build her house!
…
Building a house was actually quite simple.
It was just that digging holes with tree branches was a bit tiring.
Especially since she had little strength. Huffing and puffing, she poked, twisted, and dug at the yellow soil, taking a long time to carve out a shallow hole.
The tree branch went in only about a dozen centimeters deep.
At this depth, how could it serve as a stable support?
Huai Yu was a bit annoyed.
It was already impressive that she knew how to build a house—she couldn’t possibly handle all these tasks too!
So she simply stuck the flexible branch she had snapped from the wisteria tree into the ground: “Hurry, hurry, take root deep down, go deeper…”
With both hands gripping it tightly, she flushed red again:
“Hmm—”
A cool, refreshing energy surged from within her body, flowing entirely from her palms into the wisteria branch.
But it didn’t last long. Soon, Huai Yu let go, panting heavily.
Though her hands had released the branch, it didn’t tilt or fall. Instead, it visibly wriggled and burrowed deeper into the ground.
At the same time, a slightly swollen bud on the branch quickly sprouted, burst open, and unfurled its leaves… It stretched forward continuously, growing thicker and sturdier until it became a solid, robust vine branch about two centimeters in diameter!
Huai Yu instantly jumped up!
The small hole she had painstakingly dug was nowhere to be seen. In its place stood an immovable, firmly rooted branch, its roots evidently buried deep in the ground.
She gripped the branch with both hands and pulled with all her might, yet even as her palms turned red, the branch didn’t budge an inch—just like when she had struggled with the wisteria mother plant in the mountains.
“Wow…”
She brightened up: So sturdy! Once I shape it into a frame, it won’t collapse even in strong winds or heavy rain!
But…
Looking at the shallow trench marks she had drawn on the ground, she realized that to build a proper-looking house, all thirty vines she had broken off would need to grow like this.
…
“Hmm—”
“Hmm—”
“Hmm—”
Huai Yu crouched there, her face flushed red as she strained with all her might. Sweat dripped from her forehead, sticking her fuzzy bangs to her skin, making her look even more disheveled.
She spent the entire afternoon on Growth Acceleration for the wisteria, but the energy within her body was too weak. After accelerating the growth of each vine, she had to rest for a long time.
By the time she had accelerated half of them, she was already dizzy with hunger, her stomach growling.
Grunting and panting, she knelt on the ground and skillfully crawled back into the tunnel, rummaging through her sleeping bag for a packet of Nutrient Solution.
This time, she could read it clearly. It listed various trace elements, but the main ingredient was something called mutated wheat starch…
“?”
She furrowed her brows, not daring to imagine that after all her hard work, she still had to drink something that sounded unappetizing just from its name.
But she was so hungry! So tired and hungry!
This world was so unfair to her—she even had to build her own house. Why couldn’t they just assign her two hundred male servants?
Even one would do!
Grievance filled her as she swallowed the sour, strange “paste” of the Nutrient Solution, which tasted like chewing on a wooden thermos stopper that had been used for over ten years.
After resting for a while, the sun gradually sank below the horizon, painting the sky with a fiery orange sunset.
Huai Yu crawled back out, sighed, and while regaining her strength, bent the wisteria vine planted in the middle to serve as the main “fishbone” structure.
Then, she twisted and wrapped the symmetrical vines on both sides around the “fishbone,” forming a shape like the Chinese character for abundance. As she accelerated their growth, she slowly built the framework.
By the time the sun had completely set and darkness enveloped the wilderness, she had used up the last of her strength, tightly winding the final two symmetrical vines at the archway.
Perhaps because she had exerted so much effort, or maybe because the archway was slightly smaller than the earlier fishbone structure, after the Growth Acceleration ended, the wisteria vines emitted a few indescribable rustling sounds.
Huai Yu looked over in surprise and saw that, following the sounds, flower stems rapidly sprouted, followed by buds…
Moments later, three plump clusters of wisteria flowers burst into bloom!
At that moment, all her resentment vanished in an instant.
The night breeze blew, cool and refreshing. Huai Yu shivered, then gently stroked the vines and hugged them close, murmuring in a coquettish tone:
“Stop growing, stop growing! You should sprout and grow anew from the roots! I need these vines to build a house, to block the sun—they can’t grow here…”
Then she added softly, “You’ve grown so diligently, and my new house is so big and spacious!”
Her voice grew even softer, gentle and tender:
“Thank you.”
The wisteria didn’t reply—of course it couldn’t speak. But in the deepening twilight, unseen by anyone, new buds sprouted once more from its roots.
Huai Yu sat up contentedly, broke off a slender side branch, and chewed on it. Then, her face wrinkled at the sudden sour bitterness, so she quickly spat it out with a “ptui, ptui, ptui,” pretending she had already brushed her teeth.
The next moment, she recognized the outline of the foundation by the faint light, found the right spot, and skillfully climbed back inside.
The maroon sleeping bag provided some cushioning on the hard bricks, and the temperature gradually rose in the enclosed space.
With the only half-kilogram of soybeans placed beside her, Huai Yu closed her eyes peacefully.