Chapter 24: Street Thugs

"Oh, Mu Bin has a bicycle. Where are you going? We'll go with you," Li Yiyun said, growing anxious when she saw her leaving.

Without a second thought, she reached out and grabbed her.

Leng Hui stopped in her tracks and turned around, asking understandingly, "Aren't you two supposed to be on a date today?"

People of this era were still quite reserved, especially adolescent boys and girls who had only recently graduated from school.

The moment Li Yiyun heard the word 'date,' she felt her entire face burn up.

She stomped her foot and complained, "Oh, what nonsense are you talking about?"

Leng Hui was bewildered. "..." What did she say?

It was just a perfectly normal sentence.

Looking at Li Yiyun's reaction, it made their relationship seem like an illicit affair that couldn't be seen in the light.

Meeting Leng Hui's innocent gaze, Li Yiyun's small face turned beet red. "Quick, tell me, where are you planning to ride to?"

"To the outskirts of town to dig for wild vegetables."

Leng Hui didn't want the two of them following her, so she made it up on the spot.

However, the more she thought about it after saying it, the more she felt that going to the outskirts to dig for wild vegetables was actually a viable option. After all, wild vegetables were food, and they were green, radiation-free, and pollution-free.

Li Yiyun glanced at Mu Bin, feeling conflicted. They had agreed to see a movie today; she couldn't just ditch him halfway through to follow Leng Hui to the outskirts, could she?

Having lived through many years in the apocalypse, how could Leng Hui not see Li Yiyun's hesitation? She waved her hand at her. "Alright, you two go have fun. I'm leaving first."

Leng Hui waved her hand with effortless grace, walking away with a sense of freedom.

Li Yiyun, however, frowned slightly.

Mu Bin watched Leng Hui leave and asked, "Leng Hui should be around your age. What's her family situation like? She must be looking for a job right now, too, right?"

Li Yiyun turned her gaze back and sighed. "Leng Hui's family conditions aren't as good as mine. I heard her say that ten people in her family all live together, which is very inconvenient. As for a job, she probably hasn't found one yet, otherwise she wouldn't be heading to the outskirts at this time of day."

Upon hearing this, Mu Bin instantly lost interest in Leng Hui. "And here I was, thinking of introducing her to my cousin since she's your classmate. You know, given my aunt's family status, they wouldn't look for a girl from a family like Leng Hui's to be a daughter-in-law."

Li Yiyun nodded; she also felt that given Leng Hui's circumstances, she naturally wouldn't be a match.

"Leng Hui has been beautiful since she was a child. Back in school, many boys liked her. I think if she wants to find a partner, it shouldn't be difficult."

"Is that so? Has she ever expressed interest in anyone?"

"I don't know. She never reveals such things to me," Li Yiyun shook her head. She had been Leng Hui's desk mate, but Leng Hui never shared much of her private business.

Furthermore, she had a temper; if anyone provoked her, she would simply beat them up.

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 was so flirtatious, would be even less suitable for his cousin.

Leng Hui had no idea what Mu Bin was thinking; otherwise, she would have certainly cursed him out and beaten him until his parents wouldn't recognize him.

***

Upon arriving at the steel plant, Leng Hui was only allowed into the premises after registering with the security guard.

When Leng Yongkang learned that someone was looking for him, he came out of the workshop only to find it was Leng Hui. He asked irritably, "Are you so idle that you've got nothing better to do? You keep running to my factory for no reason. Didn't you say you had plans today? Is your plan to come here and disturb my work?"

Leng Hui picked at her ear and reached her hand forward.

Leng Yongkang instinctively slapped her hand away. "Do you think I'm a money-printing machine? It hasn't even been that long and you're asking for money again."

"The car keys!" Leng Hui said, speechless.

People said that men in their forties were mature and steady, but she had never felt that from Leng Yongkang.

His way of handling things was even more boisterous than hers.

Leng Yongkang froze. "Where do you want to go with the car keys?"

"To the outskirts to dig for wild vegetables."

The family ate pickles every day, and they were so salty that no one could stand it.

As soon as Leng Yongkang heard she was going to dig for wild vegetables, he grew nervous and warned her, "You can go dig for wild vegetables, but there's no fine grain left in the house for you to mess with. You are not allowed to go raiding your grandmother's chest again!"

Leng Hui found it both funny and frustrating. "She isn't stingy; why would I go raiding her chest for no reason?"

Suppressing his anxiety and having no choice but to give in, Leng Yongkang handed her the keys.

Having obtained the keys, Leng Hui was in a good mood. Before leaving, she gave Leng Yongkang a provocative whistle.

With a dark face, Leng Yongkang watched Leng Hui leave like a street hoodlum. He ran a hand through his hair in frustration and smoked a cigarette outside before returning to the workshop to continue working.

***

Leng Hui rode her bicycle out of town and turned onto a rural dirt road. The road was less than two meters wide and had simply been leveled with soil. Because people passed through it constantly, the dirt road was quite hard-packed.

However, it was uneven, making the bicycle ride quite bumpy.

After riding for about ten li, she stopped in a mountain forest.

Although this dirt road was usually deserted, leaving a bicycle by the roadside wasn't safe. In the end, taking advantage of the lack of people, she tucked the bicycle into her space.

In fact, Leng Hui had several bicycles in her space, but those were modern geared bicycles that didn't fit this era, making them inconvenient to ride.

Entering the forest, Leng Hui retrieved a machete from her space. Whenever she encountered dead trees along the way, she would chop them into sections and store them in her space.

To put it nicely, while they lived in the city, their resources were sometimes not as abundant as those in the countryside.

Sometimes, when she encountered areas with many pine needles, she would collect some from the ground to use as kindling later.

The spring breeze blew through the forest. The woods were damp, and many nameless small flowers had bloomed everywhere. Walking through them, the scent of decaying leaves mixed with the fragrance of vegetation, an aroma that was quite addictive.

Leng Hui thought that this was probably what the natural scent of the world was supposed to be like.

At home, a piece of coal or a stick of firewood was precious, but in this forest, they were everywhere.

After gathering a small pile of firewood—enough to last about half a month if using a wood-burning stove—Leng Hui finally spotted signs of bamboo.

At the boundary between the forest and the bamboo grove, Leng Hui discovered a particularly large bamboo shoot growing from the ground. She also found some ferns.

Late March and early April were the peak times for bamboo shoots and ferns to emerge. Anything she saw, she plucked and put into her space.

Entering the bamboo grove, there were even more shoots. Most were only a couple of days old, at their tenderest and most delicious stage.

In the past, the original owner of this body would go into the mountains every year, sometimes with adults and sometimes with playmates.

With the original owner's memories, Leng Hui could easily identify which things in the mountains were edible.

As she moved through the bamboo grove, she kept her body hunched over. No matter how strong her body was, she couldn't endure it for long.

She sat down on the ground, looking at the thicker bamboo stalks around her. She felt a slight urge to chop some down; perhaps she could weave baskets or winnowing trays.

But for now, she was truly exhausted.

She took some bamboo shoots out of her space, organized them into small bunches, and tied them with resilient small twigs. If they weren't tight enough, she would wedge a few more shoots in until the bundles stayed firm.

After tying about twenty bunches, she used larger branches to tie them into one large bundle, making it easier to strap to the back of her bicycle when she returned.