[Grassland/0090-1144-3656: Senior, you're only a few years older than me. Let me tell you, back where I came from, I was already very mature. They tested me when I enrolled, and my mentality was at least twenty years older than my actual age. Steady, brave, righteous, proud... those were all the assessments I got back then.]
The word "young" seemed to have struck a nerve. Junior Schoolmate insisted quite stubbornly that he was absolutely not a child.
He even gave an example to prove it.
[Me: Yeah, not much older at all. Everyone I met back then said I was young.]
Ye Fei thought back to those days. Whether he was working part-time or doing an internship, everyone called him a young man, so all the errands and heavy lifting fell to him.
He was young, so he got pushed around plenty. If he refused to cooperate, his only choice was to find another job somewhere else and spend another probationary period proving himself...
Thinking about it that way, he felt more and more that this world was a much more comfortable place to live.
At least he no longer had to put up with people around him finding all sorts of excuses to assign him unnecessary work, just because he had no connections or contacts and couldn't afford to cause trouble for anyone.
Here, he had two little companions who, although a bit rambunctious, were sweet and adorable, and could even hunt.
[Grassland/0090-1144-3656: My youthful senior, I'll leave you to it. I'm going to eat.]
Junior Schoolmate apparently still couldn't get over the issue of being "young." He said goodbye to Ye Fei and made himself scarce.
Ye Fei didn't reply this time. He tidied up his yard, checked the vegetables sprouting new leaves, and spent a while inspecting the grapevine. Once he confirmed that it was putting out new buds, he contentedly picked up the two little ones and set them on the table to eat.
"Yip, yip~"
Little Fox had rested for a while. Although there was no direct display of the results, the rest had helped. The wound had already scabbed over, and negative conditions such as bleeding were no longer an issue.
After another night's sleep, Little Fox would be more or less back to bouncing around tomorrow.
"Be good and eat first. After you finish, get some more rest. From now on, no running far away when we go out. Stay close to me..."
Even though he knew they couldn't understand, Ye Fei reminded the two little ones again.
"Wooo..."
Little White Tiger picked up a piece of meat and ate it slowly, tilting that little head to look at Ye Fei. Those round, watery eyes tried to win him over with cuteness so he would stop being angry.
"Eat."
Although Ye Fei had little resistance to these two little furballs acting cute and clingy, he still tapped their heads with a finger, telling them to behave.
This time, the two little creatures understood. They obediently lowered their heads and ate. Once they were full, they neither fussed nor made noise, simply waiting for Ye Fei to finish eating and carry them to bed. He even had to tuck them in.
As for whether they obediently went to sleep after being tucked in...
By then, Ye Fei had already gone outside and sat down in the yard to quietly cultivate.
So even if the two little creatures weren't sleeping, as long as they didn't make a fuss, Ye Fei wouldn't know.
The night's cultivation passed with the occasional "spiritual energy +2" notification.
Early the next morning, Ye Fei checked his spiritual energy. His cultivation rate had more or less stabilized. For the time being, he was gaining twenty-odd points each night.
Still, always sitting on the ground in the yard to meditate wasn't ideal. Even though the wind and snow couldn't penetrate his padded clothes, he ended up coated in snowflakes every morning. He was practically becoming a snowman.
"Yip, yip, yip~"
Hearing Ye Fei start sweeping away the snow, Little Fox leaned against the inside of the window and called sweetly to him.
Little Fox had already recovered and wanted to come out and play.
"All better now?"
Ye Fei listened to Little Fox's soft cries and watched that little head bobbing back and forth. Everything really did seem fine now.
Setting down the broom, he went inside, put some mutton on to stew for breakfast, and added a little salt.
After setting the timer, he walked over to the bed and picked up the two little furballs staring eagerly at him.
"Awooo~"
Once outside, Little White Tiger spotted the unswept snow in the yard and excitedly tried to jump down to play.
They had been kept inside ever since returning yesterday. Only the fox had been injured, yet Little White Tiger had been forbidden from coming out, too.
"Go play."
He had originally intended to keep them in check, but faced with those two pairs of expectant eyes, Ye Fei let them go off and play on their own.
"Yip, yip~"
Little Fox hopped about on Ye Fei's shoulders and nuzzled his cheek before jumping to the ground and running beyond the fence with Little White Tiger.
They wouldn't go far today, nor would they venture too far afield anytime soon, but hunting was still a must.
Ye Fei stayed home to clean the yard. Looking at the vegetable patch, he once again began wondering what to do.
The timber came in whole logs, so he couldn't use it for the grapes or tomatoes. Yet in just one short day, the tomatoes had shot up another stretch. He couldn't put off dealing with them any longer.
The cucumbers and tomatoes both needed trellises, while the grapes needed an even taller structure to grow on...
Since he didn't have what he needed, he would look for it on the trading interface.
As he swept away the snow, Ye Fei opened the trading interface and began searching by category.
It wasn't that he didn't want to search directly. The main problem was that he didn't know what the thing was called.
He opened the planting category, only to find it full of seeds and seedlings, none of them cheap.
Searching for tools brought up things like hoes and shovels.
He patiently searched page by page, but even after browsing more than a hundred pages, he hadn't found anything suitable.
Dejected, he closed the planting interface and found the wooden goods section instead.
This time, he actually found something he could use.
[One bundle of large bamboo skewers. Price: 5 points]
If Ye Fei hadn't taken a curious look, he really would have missed it.
This item went completely beyond his understanding of bamboo skewers.
[One bundle of large bamboo skewers: Bamboo product. Long cylindrical rods, 3 centimeters in diameter and 3 meters long. 10 rods per bundle.]
Ten of these "bamboo skewers" cost only 5 points. Ye Fei promptly searched for them separately, confirmed that this was the cheapest listing, and bought two bundles.
"They're really sturdy..."
Taking one out, Ye Fei laid it at an angle against the ground and stepped on it a few times. It was even sturdier than the bamboo he knew.
Since these "bamboo skewers" were already pointed at one end, Ye Fei drove several into the ground near the tomato plants. Then he spent another 2 points on a bundle of hemp rope and tied several more rods horizontally across them, doing the same for the cucumbers.
With the horizontal and vertical rods interlaced and a few more added as braces, the simple cucumber and tomato trellises were complete.
With that taken care of, he just had to wait for the grape seedlings to grow a little bigger before preparing a new trellis. A grape trellis really wasn't something a few poles could hold up.
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