Chapter 30 Custom Furniture for the Whole House
Although she couldn't contract the panda cub herself, Zuo Shan still didn't give up on the idea of temporarily adopting it, after all, she was pregnant with a baby who was suspected of being a natural-born superhuman.
She had a general understanding of the panda cub's growth cycle. Based on its weight, the little guy should be between the newborn and juvenile stages, which takes about nine months.
But it is, after all, a mutated beast, and its weight will grow to a terrifying ten tons in the future, so this stage may take longer.
During this stage, it can survive on bamboo leaves and doesn't eat too much; about one or two pounds of bamboo leaves a day is enough.
Right now, there's a pile of bamboo that Jia Yiming and the others cut down right in front of her house. If you just collect a few bamboo leaves, you'd estimate they weigh over ten kilograms, enough to feed her for at least a week.
Hopefully it won't be too picky about food. If it only eats fresh bamboo leaves, then she really can't keep it alive and will have to send it back to the bamboo forest. After all, she can't go to the bamboo forest to scavenge every day.
Mao Li was sent to pick all the bamboo leaves and weave a small basket about 50 centimeters square for the panda cub. Zuo Shan put the still-sleeping little guy into the basket.
Smelling the familiar scent of bamboo leaves, it wiggled its little body, then lay on its back with its belly up and continued sleeping.
Sigh! What a heartless little rascal!
Zuo Shan sighed, then took out the two edible wild vegetable leaves he had collected that day, put them in a pot and cooked them. He ate one leaf directly, and cut the other into thin slices to dry as food.
She opened her wristwatch and glanced at the balance. The five-figure savings in silver coins filled her with a strong sense of security.
With all that, she could even stay home and rest during her pregnancy until her baby was three years old before going out to scavenge.
But she understood the principle of not living off one's savings. As a pregnant woman, she would have another baby who would be unable to work in the future. If she didn't take advantage of the fact that she could still travel around and save up some food, she would be caught off guard if a serious illness or disaster struck.
So, I'll continue to run every day and do some scavenging along the way.
Well, even scavenging became a side job; she's been corrupted and decadent by this sudden windfall.
Lying on the thick straw mat, Zuo Shan glanced at the pine nuts hidden in the corner, then at the old basket containing dried yam strips, and the uneaten alfalfa leaves on the vine rack on the other side.
She drifted off to sleep contentedly. No matter how many hardships the future might hold, at least she had weathered the initial difficulties, and she believed that things would only get better from now on.
The next morning, Jia Yiming arrived with a stranger, a mercenary. He introduced the man as Jiang Sha, the warehouse manager in charge of logistics for their mercenary group.
Jiang Sha is in his forties, with a kind and honest face, but he has a pair of skillful hands. He is usually in charge of dismantling the mutated beasts harvested by the group and distributing firearms.
Making storage cabinets and shelves is his side job; this skill cannot be used to make a living in the wasteland, it is purely a personal hobby.
He was an ordinary person with no special abilities, but Commander Lei specially recruited him into the mercenary group because of his honesty, integrity, and ability to organize his belongings, which far exceeded that of ordinary mercenaries.
At first, some people were unconvinced, but after seeing how he cleaned up the messy, dirty, and smelly warehouse and made it look brand new, no one complained anymore.
Moreover, he doesn't participate in the various income sharing of the guild; he only takes a fixed salary of 3,000 silver coins per month.
Jiang Sha knew that he didn't contribute as much as the mercenaries who were fighting the mutated beasts on the front lines, so he always tried his best to make them comfortable.
Every time he received a mission to go out, he would prepare the necessary weapons, equipment and dry food for everyone. After returning from the mission, he would immediately bring everyone hot water and clean towels, and then wipe the bloodstains off their weapons.
In short, with him around, the entire mercenary group felt like they had a caring butler and nanny, and now everyone felt they couldn't live without him.
"Uncle Jiang, thank you so much for making this trip in person!" Zuo Shan thanked him earnestly, and didn't forget to transfer 100 silver coins to him and Jia Yiming each.
Although Commander Lei promised her that the furniture would be made for free, she couldn't really let him do his work for her for nothing.
After getting up in the morning, Zuo Shan drew the dimensions of the furniture she needed on the open space in front of the door. Her drawing wasn't very professional, but the numbers were clearly marked.
Jiang Sha, a professional, saw it clearly at a glance and nodded with satisfaction. Before coming, he thought it would take a lot of effort to communicate with this Ms. Zuo.
After all, girls from the wasteland are mostly uneducated and lack experience, and he was worried that they wouldn't be able to express their needs clearly.
But when he saw the picture on the ground, his impression of her immediately changed. She must be a girl who, although poor, was willing to put in the effort to learn culture. He had genuine respect for such a girl.
No wonder she was in the prime of her youth, yet she didn't depend on a man for survival, but instead chose to scavenge for a living on her own.
Jiang Sha's woodworking knife and hacksaw blade were exceptionally sharp. Jia Yiming assisted him, and the two of them quickly split the bamboo sections.
Watching as bamboo strips were smoothed and flat by his hands, then connected and fixed with screws, finally becoming beautiful and practical storage cabinets and shelves, Zuo Shan couldn't help but marvel!
Mao Li hid in the shadows and recorded the whole thing.
As the young prince of the mechanical race, he has an extraordinary learning ability. As long as he records the method of making furniture, he can try to replicate it when he has enough energy in the future.
They brought nutritional supplements for lunch. In District 50, people only buy these when the weather is extremely cold and they can't go out to scavenge.
However, mercenaries almost always ate it as their main meal because it provided enough calories. Although other nutrients could not be guaranteed, in the wasteland era, being able to eat one's fill was already a good thing.
As the host, Zuo Shan naturally couldn't just watch his guests prepare their own lunch, so he took three moderately irradiated alfalfa leaves, three pine nuts, added dozens of yam strips, sprinkled a handful of coarse salt, and cooked a large pot of wild vegetable and yam paste.
In her opinion, this was the most basic lunch for entertaining guests, but Jia Yiming and Jiang Sha's eyes lit up.
Even among mercenaries, they rarely get to eat such a lavish meal. Wild vegetables are common, but pine nuts and yam strips are seldom seen on the menu.
"Miss Zuo, this is too extravagant of you. We ate several days' worth of food in one meal. We are really sorry," Jia Yiming said apologetically.
He wanted to resist eating it, but since the food was already cooked, it would easily spoil if he didn't eat it. Besides, the porridge smelled so good that he really couldn't resist!
Jiang Sha felt the same way. His wife was also a scavenger who could barely support herself. He also had his elderly mother and children to support, and their family was not well-off.
When he saw the porridge in the bowl, his first thought was that he wished he could take it back to his mother and daughter to eat.
Thinking that Zuo Shan, a single woman, was already struggling to make ends meet, they felt guilty about taking her lavish lunch for free. So, after discussing it, they each gave her three nutritional supplements.
“Miss Zuo, please don’t look down on this. It’s what our group gave us. It’s really awful, and we’re all tired of it. Take it with you when you go out scavenging; it’ll fill you up.” Jia Yiming said earnestly.
Zuo Shan stopped being coy and accepted the gift generously, thanking him.
This was the first time she had ever received a nutritional supplement. In the original owner's memory, she would only use the silver coins in her account to buy one when she was extremely hungry in extremely cold weather. However, she would not drink it all at once and would save it to drink over three days.
Although Jia Yiming and his companion gave them six nutrient solutions, they still felt they had gotten a good deal, as Miss Zuo's porridge was just too delicious.
Such honest people, they will definitely do their best to help Miss Zuo if she needs anything.
Zuo Shan herself wasn't too distressed, because her upbringing had instilled in her a habit of being generous to guests.
Besides, she had just received 50,000 silver coins, so she decided to be generous this once.
In modern times, it would be impossible to buy such custom-made furniture for the whole house without spending tens of thousands of yuan, but here, she only paid them two hundred silver coins and a meal of wild vegetable porridge.
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