Chapter 21
After choosing the name, everyone celebrated for a while and then returned to their own tree house.
"How do we get our rooms allocated?" Yao Si asked passionately, jumping up and down.
"Let's draw lots. What do you think?" Wandi said, surveying the treehouse. "This treehouse is fantastic! Thank you to the two great engineers for your hard work!" The structure is well-designed, the theoretical knowledge is solid, and the modifications tailored to the characteristics of the trees are truly impressive. It's a neat and pleasing sight. It's both practical and beautiful, and it was completed in such a short time. Their excellence deserves all the praise.
Ji Wenxue and Yao Si laughed proudly at the same time, waving their hands like lucky cats, "Hahahahaha, we work together so well!"
Ji Wenxue: "Except Yao Si is a bit noisy..."
Yao Si was unconvinced: "Except Wen Xue is very noisy!"
"Okay, okay, you two can decide the winner later. Now come over and draw lots!" Ying Zhao greeted his two sisters with a smile.
The results came out immediately after drawing the lots. The final bedroom arrangement, from left to right, was: Yao Si, Ji Wenxue, Wan Di, Jiang Zouwei, and Ying Zhao.
After tidying up, everyone went out. A tall bonfire had been built outside. Everyone came out with smiles on their faces. After eating, everyone sat around the bonfire and chatted.
Yao Si was so happy that she could finally live in a house she designed and even have her own room. She couldn't stop smiling these past few days. The passionate emotions were like a fire burning in her heart, flowing out of her mouth unimpeded.
It's singing!
The melodious tune and inspiring lyrics drifted out like a soothing breeze from afar. Everyone fell silent unconsciously, and without knowing who started it, everyone gradually joined in clapping their hands in time.
Later, it seemed that some emotion that had been hidden in their bodies was awakened. They all stood up, looked at the eyes and smiling faces of their friends next to them, and held each other's hands while looking at each other.
The contact of their palms brought a crisp and swift sound, like a spark jumping out of a burning flame. These tiny but passionate sparks rang out one by one, igniting a prairie fire, and they finally found happiness.
Everyone held hands and sang and danced around the bonfire, laughing and enjoying themselves.
They have survived disasters more than once.
Yao Si and Ji Wenxue found so many leaves from somewhere, put water in them, and distributed them to everyone, saying that they wanted to have a toast to celebrate.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute. We need to think of a word when we clink glasses. It feels like something is missing if we just clink glasses dryly." Yao Si said, looking around for support.
"Then you come and order one." Wan Di smiled and raised her chin slightly to signal Yao Si.
"Okay!" Yao Si agreed loudly, but then turned bitter and said, "But I don't have any ideas."
"Why not use Didi? This is a female-specific physiological organ that carries powerful energy." Ying Zhao said, blinking slowly, her gaze turning to Wandi. "Besides, we have been reborn here, thanks to Wandi."
As the saying goes, one call draws a hundred responses. Ying Zhao's words immediately resonated with everyone, and they nodded in agreement. Everyone smiled and came closer, then raised the leaves together, "Didi!" After saying that, they took a sip and poured the remaining water on the fire.
"Preventing forest fires is everyone's responsibility." Ji Wenxue said with a smile and clenched fist.
After eating and playing, everyone returned to their rooms. Now that they had some free time, they noticed that the wall in the hall opposite the door was blocked by something.
"Yao Si, haven't you finished this yet?" Ji Wenxue immediately remembered the afternoon when they were squatting there carving a triangle. If it was a triangle, it should have been finished long ago. Could it be... Yao Si had also set up some kind of trick?
Seeing everyone looking at her with concern, Yao Si nodded quickly, "Yes, it's still a little short, but it will be done soon." She had prepared a surprise that would surprise everyone, and she was looking forward to everyone's reactions after it was done!
There are still difficult tasks to be done tomorrow, so everyone packed up and prepared for bed.
"Good night, everyone." After saying that, Wandi did a somersault and jumped up to the second floor. He stretched out his hand and opened the bedroom door, and the door closed just as he entered.
"There are...stairs on both sides." Ying Zhao swallowed his words silently.
Jiang Zouwei looked at the rest of the people as if scanning with a machine, without saying anything, he just stepped on the pillar a few times and went up.
Yao Si raised his hands and waved in all directions, and blew a kiss to his unfinished masterpiece, "Good night!" Then he took a few steps up the stairs, but did not enter the room. Instead, he stopped at a pillar beside the room and went in like a chimney.
"Huh?" Ying Zhao was dazzled by the maneuvering. While he thought the acrobatics were impressive, he was also puzzled: So no one uses the stairs? Are these two large staircases just for show?
"Sister Ying Zhao, don't worry. The other pillar will bring her up again." Ji Wenxue explained that the mechanism originally only had the one that fell down, but it was discovered by Yao Si, so the other party simply made another mechanism that went up and connected the two together.
"By the way, Sister Ying Zhao, I'm going up too, you should hurry up too!"
Ying Zhao nodded, but still stood there. She was curious about how Ji Wenxue would get up there.
Ji Wenxue crawled into the pillar with an ascending mechanism from the bottom. Then there seemed to be Yao Si and crackling sounds. After a long quarrel, both of them finally emerged with their hair and clothes in disarray.
Ying Zhao walked up the stairs slowly, step by step. Regardless of whether she could perform those difficult moves, the most important thing was that she really liked walking up the stairs, and she could exercise while going up the stairs!
After a good night's sleep, an accident suddenly happened before I was about to leave the next morning.
"Sister Wandi, Aunt Lan has passed away!" Ji Wenxue ran over and said, stunned for a moment. Aunt Lan was still lying quietly in bed. Her body and mind felt that this information was unreal. As she spoke to Wandi, she didn't even know what she was saying.
Ying Zhao arrived quickly and lay down beside the bed to examine her. "Aunt Lan had worked hard all her life and was in poor health. She was already menopausal at this age. She wasn't able to eliminate all the toxins that caused food poisoning. The toxins were partially inhibited by medication, but they had already penetrated deep into her bloodstream and bone marrow. She also experienced the fear and brief suffocation caused by the flood, and her body couldn't handle it, so she passed away."
Death had a profound impact on everyone. Although we had experienced many dangerous situations before, even close calls with death, we had always escaped harm in the end. The horror of death was subconsciously, briefly, and selectively forgotten.
Today, Auntie Lan made us realize how fragile our lives are. Death lurks in every aspect of life, and escaping danger is a small probability event.
Despite the grief, we must still do what needs to be done. Respect for life includes understanding and dealing with death. Everyone gently rubbed Aunt Lan's skin with water. Under the soft, supple skin, one could still feel the blood vessels, but sadly, they were no longer beating.
Auntie Lan treated everyone with sincerity and kindness, treating them like her own children. Even at her age, she was always the first to do the work. Her wrinkles concealed wisdom. She had led them in foraging for wild vegetables to fill their stomachs, taught them to identify grains and their habits, and was the first to discover insects in the soil, saving them from wasting the land's food.
In fact, when dealing with things, everyone just focuses on the present. Those times and memories are only recalled inadvertently later, making people's hearts become soft and sour all of a sudden.
"But we don't have a coffin yet, and it takes men to carry the coffin!" Yao Si suddenly said.
No one responded for a long moment, then Wandi's voice was heard, "No need for men, and no need for coffins. Everyone, follow my previous plan."
Her tone was normal, but Yao Si felt a palpable skip in her heart. She sensed Wan Di's emotions: indifference, disappointment, disapproval... As if remembering something, Yao Si felt deeply lost. She felt a surge of regret, yet also felt humiliated by being publicly rejected like a target.
She didn't dare to refute, but only felt sadder.
Afterward, because she had said things like, "The portrait should be held by a boy," and "The burial and reclamation of the land should be done according to the rules," Yao Si later recalled that she had said something crazy. Mandi sent her back to the house, telling her to come back and find them when she was more alert.
Yao Si walked backwards in a daze, but she didn't return to the tree house. Instead, she went to a small hillside. Sitting high up, leaning against the roots of a tree, she looked out at the endless grassland, which made her feel relaxed and happy. But today, it seemed to make her irritable.
She didn't know what Wandi and the others were doing. Yao Si felt her mind and heart were in a mess.
She subconsciously felt sorry, but at the same time, a wave of resentment welled up in her heart. The tug of these two forces was tormenting her, and the breeze felt like tiny, sharp thorns on her skin.
Yao Si sat here, put his knees together to make a support, and put his head on it.
She tried to distract herself with something happy. As she looked, she suddenly felt the emptiness of the vast area. There was almost no sign of human activity, and the only sounds were the wind and the chirping of insects. Yao Si's own breathing, once noticed by her, became deafening.
The memories Yao Si had tried to avoid were easily brought back. She thought back to her childhood, when her family wasn't in good health, and they'd encouraged her to exercise. But her loved ones no longer had that opportunity; they'd passed away one after another, and Yao Si had already attended many funerals since she was little.
Yet, after such a close relative passed away, she was not allowed to participate in any other formalities besides the mourning ceremony, which was performed at the behest of the funeral director. At first, she simply thought it was an age restriction or a form of protection. Later, seeing her cousin treated as a key figure and involved in everything, she realized belatedly that the real issue was her gender.
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