Chapter 38: Stealing a Half Month of Leisure

After the stove was built, Gong Zhili installed a lid on the iron plate and used it to bake small bread and homemade pizzas. As a result, she bought many more items, even a barbecue grill, and bought charcoal from a charcoal-burning family in the village. Perhaps her idea of ​​"buying charcoal to barbecue at home" reminded the boss of the charcoal seller in Dacheng, and a few days later, she heard that he started selling high-quality charcoal.

Gong Zhili fiddled with the grill and found that except for herself, the two children could not eat the mixed chili powder she had prepared. After eating two skewers of grilled beef, they could only nibble on the grilled vegetables.

She was heartbroken and said, "Aren't you used to eating chili peppers yet?"

Nanako's mouth was red. She held the water cup and dipped her mouth in the ice water. When she tried to speak, the water in the cup made a gurgling sound.

Mimiko looked even more pitiful, with the area around her eyes red from the spiciness. Now she had milk in her mouth and her eyes were watery.

Chiri also bought the milk from a convenience store. As the store's variety of goods grew, the owner switched to a convenience store sign. Nanako waited until her mouth felt less painful and quickly said, "I like it! It's delicious!"

Gong Zhili sighed, "It seems that children still can't eat spicy food. I have to deal with these things myself."

She happily finished the rest of the kebab.

She took down the barbecue grill and put it in the storage room. It was a bit boring to eat barbecue alone, so she decided to wait until there were more people around to have barbecue.

Later, the custom-made double bed was built and placed on the second floor. She also converted the second floor into a bathroom. It was better to separate the upper and lower floors, so when there were many people, they didn't have to wait long to take a shower.

It took several days to renovate the bathroom. It was also at this time that she learned that there was someone in the village who was responsible for the maintenance of houses in the entire village, and he participated in the design of most of the houses built in the village.

It's especially reassuring to have something like bathroom renovations done by a skilled conductor.

After the renovation of the second floor was completed, Gong Zhili began to feel eager for the terrace. She measured the size of the terrace and built a square two-meter-high wooden frame at home. She used some tricks to make the base of the wooden frame tightly adhere to the terrace floor. Around the base, she used the remaining red bricks to build four flower beds, in which she planted windmill jasmine dug from the mountains. Although it is called this name, its real name is Trachelospermum serrata, and it has nothing to do with real jasmine. If you have to say, it is just that its flowers are white and fragrant. Gong Zhili took a fancy to its ability to bloom, so she planted two plants in the diagonal flower beds, letting them slowly climb up along the pillars until they covered the top of the wooden frame. The remaining two flower beds were planted with ivy with very beautiful leaves.

Then she hung adjustable bamboo curtains on the east and west sides of the shelf to prevent sunlight.

She also dug up wisteria in the mountains and planted it next to the west door. The wisteria also grew well under the eaves.

After she finished repairing the terrace, she took a day off, just weeding at home, feeding the chickens and ducks, and then went to the bookstore to buy some.

She didn't know what good books were available, so she asked her boss to go to a big bookstore and buy her a lot of best-selling books and complete sets of hot-selling comics.

From then on, she couldn't stop. For the rest of September, she spent a lot of time every day reading on the lounge chair on the terrace, and sometimes she used children's comic books to enlighten the twins.

During this period, she made some renovations at home, which was to make a thin partition fence in the living room. It was such a small thing, and she worked on it while reading a book. It took her several days to install it. At that time, the sofa had already been bought for several days.

With the sofa, Nanako and Mimiko were surprised to find that Lord Gong could become even lazier. The lounge chair on the terrace was not that comfortable, but the sofa was different. They also noticed that Lord Gong started taking naps with them these days.

That day, Chiri had lunch and turned on the TV after a while, but didn't watch it very seriously. Then she picked up a comic and lay down on the sofa. She fell asleep while reading.

Mimiko woke up during her nap to drink water. It was the first time that he saw that Mimiko was sleeping with a comic book covering her face. He was shocked and woke her up with a crying voice. Gong Zhili was quite troubled and tried to comfort her for a long time.

However, Mimiko seemed a little happy after knowing that she was taking a nap.

Nanako heard her sisters say this and could probably guess what she was thinking: "You think Lord Gong is becoming more and more relaxed in front of us, right?"

Mimiko nodded and then shook her head: "Mrs. Gong has always been very relaxed, but she didn't feel it was time to rest before, so she didn't take naps very often."

Nanako clenched her fist and said, "I've learned a lot of hiragana and katakana recently. I'm going to write a novel for Lord Miya in the future!"

Mimiko: "Then I will draw the best comics in the future!" Maybe I can even write an autograph for Lord Gong.

Both children were caught up in beautiful fantasies.

Gong Zhili weeds, waters the plants, and tidies up the remaining terraced fields every morning.

I do farm work in the morning, collect firewood in the afternoon, teach the children and read books in the evening.

Of course, it is also very pleasant to turn on the TV and listen to it while cooking in the morning, and it is also interesting to watch late-night programs after the children fall asleep. Although the program emphasizes that minors cannot watch it after the time limit, she doesn't care about this at all: the adult in the family is her!

She also caught up with the end of the summer TV series and watched the endings of "Train Man" and "The Queen's Classroom", and still felt a little unsatisfied.

She also sent a message to Gojo Satoru, hoping that next time he came, he would go to Akihabara to help her see if there were any latest DVDs. After watching the TV series, she also wanted a computer, and she was very interested in the forum of Densha Otome.

"She actually made this request to me after watching the TV series!" Gojo Satoru felt very unbalanced after reading the email, and complained to Jie and Nozomi.

"Densha Man is quite handsome," Glass said objectively, "Miss Hermès is also very beautiful." She also bought a set of Hermès teacups when the TV series was first broadcast, but now she doesn't have time to watch the ending. She will talk about it next time she meets Chiri.

"We have video equipment in the dorm, but we didn't think of sending her one. It's normal that she's a little inconvenienced right now," said Geto. "She'd be bored staying in the village all the time, so she'd probably want a computer to keep up with what's happening in the outside world."

Gojo Satoru sighed, "It's very troublesome to use computers in her village—we don't have time lately!"

Although they were discussing topics such as computers and VCRs, they had not had a rest for several days.

Gojo Satoru's plan is bold and radical, but it catches those who can fight off guard. They are busy with this, pursuing a blitzkrieg and a one-hit kill.

The three of them hadn't had a good rest for a long time.

The email they received was like a sudden, gentle and lively interlude in the tense rhythm. Several people temporarily forgot about the bloody storm in the outside world and were able to chat and laugh easily.

"Then send her an email and we'll bring it to her next time we go." Glass yawned and turned to check on another classmate, "Geto, are you okay? I've been craving the original Curse Jade lately."

They had no way to return to the village, which meant that in order to increase his combat power, Geto Suguru had to swallow a lot of cursed jade.

I didn’t feel anything when I didn’t know what that thing tasted like, but after I knew it, I felt uncomfortable every time I saw him eating the Curse Jade.

Xia Yujie was surprisingly calm: "The feeling of swallowing without end is different from the feeling of being relieved by enduring short-term pain."

He knew that if he could enjoy the sweetness of konpeito, he would not find the temporary pain unbearable.

What tormented him in the past was the despair of having to do something even though he saw no end in sight. Now that despair had disappeared, his mind had never been so clear.

"Glass, you get some sleep first," Xia Yujie arranged, "Satoru and I will take turns keeping watch."

--

Miya Chiri had no idea what earth-shaking changes were taking place in the world of sorcery, because after October, her life became busy again.

She found that the temperature at night was dropping every day, so she went to the village to buy a lot of cotton and cloth, preparing to make her own quilt.

She had helped others pick cotton in the territory before, but she didn't have the tools to do so. So she just picked the cotton directly from the villagers' fields.

It was October, and the cotton-growing families in the village were rushing to harvest cotton from morning to night. Gong Zhili stood by the field and directly took away three large bags, then went home to pick the cotton slowly.

She tasted the joy of buying directly from the source, and she went to the village one after another to collect a large bag of freshly dug sweet potatoes, several large pumpkins, and a lot of old ginger.

Nanako looked at the large bags of cotton, sweet potatoes, and ginger in the utility room and wondered, "Can we use so many things?"

Cotton is not a big deal, as a lot of it should be used to make the quilt. She is even worried that it might not be enough. But what about the sweet potatoes and the big pumpkin? If they are just left there after buying them, won’t they go bad?

Even at such a young age, Nanako already knew how difficult it was to run a household. She shared her concerns with Gong Zhili, who was reading a comic with an apple slice in his mouth. Hearing this, he said, "Why worry about that? Sweet potatoes can be dried, and pumpkins can be stored for a long time. We can definitely eat them before they go bad, don't worry."

She thought for a moment, and to divert the child's attention, she said, "Let's play with cotton balls together."

A few days ago, I picked off the dead leaves and shells on the cotton, and picked out the fine debris on it. It's time to try fluffing the cotton.

She thought back to the tools she had used to pick cotton in her territory, and felt that there was no need to find such precise tools. She went to the bamboo forest and cut a bamboo, split it in half, knocked off the nodes inside, baked it over a campfire until it bent, and carved grooves on both ends.

As for the bowstring, she went to the fishing tackle owner and asked for a bunch of discarded fishing line, twisted it into a strand, and wrapped it tightly around the groove, bending the bamboo into the perfect arc.

For the wooden hammer, just pick a clean and beautiful hardwood trunk from the firewood pile, wash it and dry it to make the cotton-plucking hammer. For the cotton-pressing board, just pick a flat one from the wooden board, wash it and use it directly.

With this complete but strange set of tools, she fluffed the cotton in a strange way.

The twins were stunned.

They found it hard to understand how such a strange tool could make the cotton expand so much. Moreover, the sound made by the string was so strange, "Beng-Beng-Beng-" and sometimes there would be a sudden "Zheng~~" sound, which gave both children small bumps on their arms.

But as they watched, they seemed to understand the beauty of the patterns in it, especially when the quilt was pressed into shape and Lord Gong used yarn to weave a grid on the cotton. When they touched it with their hands, they seemed to be able to feel the warmth and heaviness of such a quilt covering their bodies.

Nanako said, "I want to learn this in the future."

Mimiko: "I want to learn too."

They were still young and didn't quite remember how difficult previous winters were. The leaky house, the cold bedding, and the frigid air seemed to have been away from them for a long time. But when they saw and touched this quilt, their hearts seemed to be tightly surrounded by soft cotton, and they felt a warmth they had never felt before.

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The author has something to say: Ha! Writing about winter in the summer, how come I never catch up with the right season?