Chapter 14 Chapter 14 People who lack common sense
A burst of laughter broke out by the lake, and Mimiko was startled when she heard it as she ran out with the bamboo plaque.
Nanako followed her, also holding a bamboo plaque, and heard the laughter and said to her sisters, "He is such a strange man."
Mimiko thought a little more than he thought, and said anxiously: "What Mr. Gong said just now about 'curse' and 'curse spirit'..."
Nanako comforted her: "Miya-sama is here."
In Nanako's eyes, Lord Gong is omnipotent.
And they are "family".
Gong Zhili looked at this person and laughed until tears came out of his eyes. He was speechless for a moment: "I said the wrong thing, is it so funny?"
Gojo Satoru laughed enough, wiped away the tears from the corners of his eyes with his fingertips, his face full of joy: "Who taught you these things?"
Gong Zhili: "Search on the Internet."
Gojo Satoru burst out laughing again.
Under Gong Zhili's glare, he raised his hands to show that he was no longer smiling and said, "So, you don't know my name?"
He guessed that the network Gong Zhili was on was probably the dark network where curse masters gathered, and everyone there called him "Six Eyes".
Gong Zhili said expressionlessly: "That's totally normal. You haven't introduced yourself since yesterday."
Although he called himself "Gojo-sama", it did not help her at all. She would not call him "Gojo-sama", just as he would not call her "Miya-sama".
Gojo Satoru sat on a pile of wood, as if he were sitting on a throne. He bent his long legs and a smile appeared on his lips: "I am the strongest in the world of curses - Lord Gojo Satoru."
Gong Zhili: "The strongest?" She scanned him from head to toe with that look and said honestly, "Maybe you're strong, but not the strongest, right?"
She is still sitting here.
Gojo Satoru: "If we really fight, I won't lose." He will never lose again.
Gong Zhili spread his hands: "Okay, Gojo-kun, let me introduce myself, I am Gong Zhili."
Gojo Satoru was dissatisfied: "Didn't you introduce your identity?"
Miyajiri: "Currently, I'm considered the landowner and nominal shrine maiden of this village."
Gojo Satoru laughed: "You are such an interesting guy."
He owns such a vast land and has even set up a barrier around it, yet he still has to look for food in the mountains every day. What a guy with no common sense!
Gong Zhili finished weaving the nest in her hand and looked at him: "If you don't know how to weave, give me the reed stem."
How could Gojo Satoru admit that he couldn't weave? Moreover, he had done the work and was able to control the cursed energy to supply the Six Eyes first so that he could learn the weaving technique!
What? The cursed power should be used for more important things? But he absolutely couldn't let his boasts become empty boasts! Learning to weave reed nests was more important!
So Gojo Satoru finished weaving the nest faster than Miya Chiri, and recovered some of his cursed energy in the process.
Gojo Satoru handed the nest to Mimiko, lowered his head, opened his palms and then clenched them: It's not an illusion, the cursed energy returning to the body is even more...heavy.
This reminded him of the cultivation principle that appeared in comics: as long as you tie lead blocks to your limbs in the early stages of cultivation and practice hard, when one day you take off the lead blocks, you will find that you have become as light as a swallow or extremely strong.
Practicing while the cursed power is suppressed can also have the effect of making one stronger.
He looked up at Gong Zhili and asked, "Are you interested in making a deal with me?"
Gong Zhili: "Although I don't know what you want to say, now is not the time."
Gojo Satoru asked: "Why? If you have any problem, tell me and I will solve it." He must take over this training ground!
Gong Zhili stood up: "You are here to help me build the duck house!" Don't be lazy, the bamboo strips are already soaked.
Gojo Satoru: Huh? Is that me?
However, the situation was stronger than him, and he really needed to verify his conjecture more, so he followed Gong Zhili and stood up to continue working.
Gong Zhili planted the pyracantha he dug around the large terraced land where the warehouse was located, leaving only the stone slope leading down from the house and the earthen slope paved with log steps leading from the land to the lakeshore.
As she worked, she verbally instructed Gojo Satoru: "Take out the softened bamboo strips, use the scraper in my backpack to scrape off the green skin on their surface, and use a planer to smooth out the burrs on the edges. Easy, right?"
If she did it alone, it would be very time-consuming. Now that she had free labor, she might as well use it.
Gojo Satoru faced the pile of wet bamboo sticks in silence, squatted down, and started working.
He wanted to call Jie and Gaozi over to suffer together, no, to practice together, but in the first few days of school, although he and Jie had a fight and their relationship improved a little, the rest of the time was spent on the road, killing curses and curse masters. This was not enough, and his time was very tight -
So he had to negotiate the deal.
From the day he returned, he began preparing to save his friends, students, the future, and himself.
He is the strongest.
After he finished processing all the bamboo strips, Gong Zhili quickly finished planting the pyracantha and stood up, saying, "It's time to go cook."
Gojo Satoru asked: "Why don't you let the villagers provide you with food?" Didn't you just say that this land belongs to you?
Gong Zhili: "This is also part of the long story. Anyway, let's eat first."
Lunch consisted of taro pancakes made from the last bit of taro, stir-fried shepherd's purse with wild duck eggs, hairy straw mushroom miso soup, cold dandelion salad, and steamed chestnut rice.
Logically speaking, this should have been a sumptuous meal, but Gong Zhili still underestimated the appetite of a sixteen-year-old high school boy.
Nanako and Mimiko ate slowly, slower and slower. Finally, Mimiko pushed her bowl towards Gojo Satoru and said, "You eat it..." After all, this person still had to help Lord Gong with work in the afternoon, so she could eat fruit.
Gojo Satoru was speechless and pushed the bowl back: "Not really."
Gong Zhili thought for a moment and brought over a basket of apples: "Eat this. After you help me build the duck shed this afternoon, I'll take you fishing."
Gojo Satoru picked up the apple and began to chew it. After a moment, he said, "This apple..."
Gong Zhili: "Eat."
After lunch, the two children went to rummage and dry things. Gojo Satoru came with a worn straw hat and followed Miya Chiri to the warehouse in a good mood.
Gong Zhili didn't draw a picture. Instead, he took a branch and drew a layout on the ground for him to see: "The terrain next to the warehouse is higher. I plan to build a small house with a sloping roof with bamboo and fir bark, and paste the walls with lake mud and hay. It will be quick to build and will be warm in winter and cool in summer. I will plant grass on the half of the terraced field near the warehouse, and pave the other half of the terraced field near the lake with fine sand and pebbles. I will build a duck shed with bamboo next to the pyracantha bush, and put a grass nest outside. I will build a shallow bay near the shore with gravel and sow some bitter grass seeds." When the aquatic plants grow up, it will become a buffet restaurant for the ducks.
Gojo Satoru estimated the workload and his face darkened. "I have something to do tomorrow."
Gong Zhili was very calm: "Aren't you going to discuss a deal? No matter what you want, the content of my deal is actually very simple."
Seeing the look of enlightenment on Gojo Satoru's face, she clapped her hands and said, "Enough of the nonsense, let's get to work."
The first thing they started to make was a bamboo platform with prepared materials. Gong Zhili picked out the thickest bamboo tube as the main beam of the base, measured the size and drilled holes at both ends with an electric drill - fortunately, Suzuki had prepared a small battery-powered drill for her. Then she drilled holes in the four supporting columns, cut the bamboo strips into thin wooden sticks, and used them as screws to fix the supporting columns to the four corners of the main beam, and then tied them with hemp rope to temporarily fix them.
Gojo Satoru: "Were you a craftsman before?" The kind that specialized in repairing old temples.
Gong Zhili: "This kind of thing is very simple, for me, the 'strongest'."
The buildings in the territory were varied. She had helped repair the wooden and thatched houses that the poor lived in, and she had also lent a hand in building the brick and cement houses that the wealthier residents lived in.
Gojo Satoru's competitive spirit suddenly ignited: "How could I possibly lose to you in this aspect?"
He went to move the bamboo poles and began to drive piles into the area designated by Gong Zhili.
Gong Zhili ignored the sudden clamor of high school students in the background. She began processing the bamboo strips, laying them lengthwise on the frame as the "warp," weaving the horizontal "weft" threads up and down. She used an awl to adjust the tightness. When she reached the edge, she wrapped the edge with a double layer of bamboo strips, clamped it with needle-nose pliers, and finally tapped it with a mallet to close the gap. She laid the braided bamboo surface on the frame, drilled holes in the four corners and fixed it with bamboo strips. She applied wood glue to the key joints and filled the gaps with bamboo strips. The platform was almost complete. Next, she let it dry for a day, then ground the burrs, polished it, and applied two coats of wood wax oil, and dried it in the shade. Speaking of which, she still needed to buy some sandpaper, both coarse and fine, and wood wax oil.
The bamboo platform was placed on the first floor of the warehouse to dry. Gong Zhili went to check on the piles that Gojo Satoru had driven. Gojo Satoru said dissatisfiedly, "Are you worried about my work?"
Gong Zhili glanced at him and said, "You have never done this kind of work before. I checked and everything is normal."
After checking the bamboo stakes, she was quite satisfied and shouted into the house to call the two children out.
She asked the two children to go to the lake to pick up pebbles. The lakeshore was very long, and not all places were covered with grass. Some places were made of stones. The sun was not as strong as at noon. She saw that the twins had been staying at the door watching them, so she simply called them out to play with stones.
As for whether they really have to rely on themselves to slowly pick up stones - stones are different from reeds, but they are very heavy, and now it is just for them to pass the time.
Gong Zhili looked at the two children for a while, making sure they wouldn't run around, and called out to Gojo Satoru: "We have something important to do today."
Gojo Satoru: Is this “us”?
Gong Zhili said seriously, "Can you swim?"
Gojo Satoru: "Yes, do you want to go into the water and catch some fish?"
Gong Zhili: "Go shovel the lake mud. I'm afraid you might accidentally fall into the water and drown."
Gojo Satoru: "Do we really have to play in the mud?"
Gong Zhili continued seriously: "How can you say it's just playing?"
No matter how reluctant he was, Gojo Satoru still put on a long rubber jumpsuit and stood by the lake with a gloomy face. Miya Chiri stood on the boat. She was going to use her strength to transport the lake mud to the shore, and then the two of them would transport the mud to the terraced fields one shovel at a time.
Gojo Satoru felt like he had escaped a disaster.
No, he wasn't avoiding work, it was just that the feeling of being dirty was hard to like.
As Gong Zhili mobilized his power, waves rose from the lake, swirling eddies across the dark green surface. As if pulled by invisible ropes, thick black mud broke through the water, slinging long arcs through the air. The grass on the shore trembled, and the heavy silt dripped with glistening water droplets as it fell heavily. The fishy smell tangled with the lake breeze in a spiral. With a flick of Gong Zhili's wrist, another pile of dark brown sediment flew through the reeds, muffled and humming, forming a small, bubbling mound.
Gojo Satoru had moved away from the lake when the mud fell, and now he had no desire to get closer. He said, "It smells terrible!"
If his shamelessness was still there, he could block out the smells he didn't like, but now—
Gong Zhili stood on the boat and said, "Then go to the barn and chop hay."
She specified the length of the hay segments, and Gojo Satoru accepted the new task, threw down his shovel and left decisively.
Nanako heard the conversation between the two and muttered, "If only I were older."
She certainly wouldn't mind the smell.
Mimiko was busy picking up pebbles, not even looking up: "If we pick up more, Master Gong will have less work to do."
Gong Zhili did not deal with the lake mud immediately. The commotion just now attracted the villagers to watch and marvel from the opposite side of the lake. She simply drove the boat to the other side.
The villagers immediately asked, "Master Gong, is there anything we can help with?"
Gong Zhili shook his head and said, "Is there a wheelbarrow that can carry mud?"
Kumiko Sugiyama, whose family's main business was digging lotus roots, immediately said, "I have some at home. I'll go and bring them over!"
Without waiting for Gong Zhili to answer, she turned around and ran home in a hurry, followed by a few onlookers.
After receiving a push-wheelbarrow from a villager, Gong Zhili said, "Thank you. I'll wash it after I use it."
She returned to the shore with the wheelbarrow. Gojo Satoru had somehow cut enough hay sections and was waiting for her on the shore.
The walls were quickly plastered, and Gong Zhili also added several layers of platforms made of branches inside the hut to accommodate more chickens.
The next step is to let the sun dry the moisture in the lake mud. Once the house becomes solid, cover it with fir bark and the job is done.
Construction of the chicken coop was suspended, and they moved on to the duck shed. The duck shed was much simpler, using only wood and bamboo poles to build a relatively sturdy frame, and finally covered with cedar bark. Gojo Satoru disagreed with this: "Such a simple structure will be blown away by the slightest strong wind."
Gong Zhili smiled and squatted down.
Gojo Satoru raised an eyebrow: "What do you mean?"
Gong Zhili said softly: "Thank you for the magical power sent by Master Gojo——"
With that, she placed her hand on the ground, stirring the various seeds dormant in the soil into life. Wisteria, like curling dark green veins, climbed along the wooden shed's pillars, instantly tangling each swaying fir bark, then unceremoniously dropped clusters of purple flower spikes. New grass rustled on the mud walls of the chicken coop, and the veins of newly sprouted creeper leaves suddenly stretched like bowstrings, covering the entire wall in one go. The bare dirt outside the chicken coop bulged and bulged, and the rootlets of wild thatch burst through the soil, spreading wildly in the blink of an eye to form a rustling green carpet that stretched to the designated edge and continued to expand.
Gojo Satoru: "...As expected of me, I can create such a beautiful building."
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