novelsite Chapter 179 Doubt
Chapter 179 Doubt
A soy milk maker! She had completely forgotten to prepare this thing before, or rather, it was in the "non-essential" category on the survival supplies list.
The thought of making a hot cup of homemade soy milk from soybeans on a cold winter morning... On a whim, the soy milk maker vanished from my hands and was safely stored away in my storage space.
Incidentally, she also swept a few unopened boxes of instant coffee packets scattered nearby into her space. She didn't like drinking coffee herself, but she thought that since she had found them, it would be a waste to leave them here. She figured she could trade them for other small items with others later.
The three of them searched high and low, leaving no drawer, cabinet, or corner untouched, as Lu Hu had said. Although most of the rooms had indeed been emptied, leaving only furniture that couldn't be taken and a lot of useless documents, their tenacity in "scraping every inch of the place" resulted in each of them making a decent haul.
Besides the small appliances and tissues that Xu Xiaoyan found, Xie Yingtang found a intact toolbox, several rolls of insulating tape, and an unopened utility knife blade; Wang Xiao was particularly fond of the small cooking pot with a steamer rack and the folding recliner, and also found several stainless steel lunch boxes and a multi-functional knife. These items may not be of high value individually, but at this moment, they undoubtedly greatly enriched their supplies.
After searching for about half an hour, the three of them reunited at the second-floor stairwell, each dragging their own trailers. "Almost done, right?" Xie Yingtang glanced out the window. "Time to meet up with Brother Lu to pick some fruit."
"Let's go!" Wang Xiao was full of energy, but it was quite a struggle to get the trailer loaded with miscellaneous items down the stairs. The stairs were made of metal with anti-slip stripes, and although the slope was not gentle, pushing it down directly could easily cause the trailer to tip over and damage the goods.
So the three of them decided to work together to move the trucks. Xu Xiaoyan carefully controlled the tow truck's handles and center of gravity from above, while Xie Yingtang and Wang Xiao supported them from below and stabilized the trucks. They moved them down step by step. There were bound to be some bumps and minor close calls during the process, but they managed to move all three tow trucks safely to the open workshop on the first floor without any major incidents.
After a short rest, they pushed the trailers out of the factory and headed back towards the sea buckthorn garden. The wheels bounced and rattled on the snow and potholes in the factory area.
As they crossed the wasteland between the factory and the orchard, returning to the edge of that familiar sea buckthorn forest laden with red berries, Wang Xiao suddenly stopped, and the handle of the trailer in his hand also paused.
He squinted, pointed to an area to his right, his voice filled with surprise and a hint of barely perceptible tension, and shouted, "Look! Over there! What happened to that huge patch of sea buckthorn?! Where are the berries? Where did all those dense berries go? My God, this...this looks like someone rakes it up! It's completely bare! Did someone pick them first? Wait, didn't Brother Lu come back first? Could there be someone else besides us? This...how many did they pick?! That's ruthless!"
Xu Xiaoyan's heart skipped a beat. Good heavens... wasn't that the very place where she had used her spatial abilities to recklessly and ruthlessly harvest resources?
At the time, she was completely immersed in the rhythm of "maximizing the harvest". Wherever she went, the dense clusters of fruit on the branches were almost completely stripped, leaving only bare branches and a few stray fruits. She only cared about efficiency and did not consider the matter of concealing the traces of picking at all. In her subconscious mind, she was the only one in this area and there was no need to pretend.
However, the cleanliness of this area now stands in stark contrast to the surrounding trees laden with fruit!
Xu Xiaoyan inwardly felt a sense of foreboding, but her face remained impassive. She didn't even try to avoid Wang Xiao's finger pointing in that direction; instead, she followed his gaze with a "puzzling" look, as if she were also noticing the unusual place for the first time.
She braced herself and spoke in as calm a tone as possible, "You think only Tiger knows how to get in here?" She tilted her head slightly to look at Wang Xiao, "Don't forget, this garden used to have employees. The owner ran away, but who knows if some employees remember the way and sneak back to pick the produce? This place is so clean; it doesn't look like something a novice would do!"
Upon hearing this, Wang Xiao's doubts quickly vanished, replaced by a look of sudden understanding. He nodded, "That's right! Maybe they've already come several times, picking only the best ones!" He then clenched his fist, the brief tension from discovering the "anomaly" immediately replaced by a competitive and urgent sense of "not falling behind," and said with great enthusiasm, "Then we have to hurry! Didn't Brother Lu say that if we don't pick them now, and the temperature drops again in a few days, all these fruits will freeze and rot on the ground, what a waste! We can't let others have them! We have to pick the best ones too!"
Xie Yingtang nodded slightly. "Let's make the most of our time." He took the lead, pulling his trailer towards another area where the fruit was abundant.
The little incident passed without incident, and Xu Xiaoyan secretly breathed a sigh of relief. She pulled the small cart and, together with Xie Yingtang and Wang Xiao, found a place where the branches were covered with sea buckthorn berries. They immediately dispersed and began a new round of picking.
This time, with trailers as transportation support, everyone was much more at ease. When they saw branches with dense fruit, they didn't hesitate to strip them off, and the sacks swelled up at a visible speed.
During a break from picking, Xu Xiaoyan took out her phone, turned on the camera, and quickly snapped a few photos of the sea buckthorn forest laden with fruit and the silhouette of the abandoned factory in the distance.
"Xiaoyan, what are you doing? Why are you playing on your phone in this cold weather?" Wang Xiao, who was sitting next to her, straightened up to rest and asked curiously when he saw her holding up her phone.
Xu Xiaoyan shook her head, quickly stuffed her phone back into the pocket closest to her body temperature to keep it warm, and said vaguely, "Just to keep a record." Wang Xiao didn't delve into it, muttered "Don't let it run out of battery," and then started picking again.
After two hours of frantic picking, the temperature dropped significantly. The trailer was already piled high with sacks of sea buckthorn berries, tied together with ropes to prevent them from rolling off during the bumpy ride. If we picked any more, there would be no more room to put them, and we were also nearing our physical limits.
The three men, pulling a heavy trailer that required almost all their strength to push, slowly began to converge towards the entrance of the barbed wire fence. The trailer wheels struggled to move forward on the snow and the uneven ground, leaving deep ruts.
On the way, they encountered Lu Hu, who was still behind a patch of sea buckthorn not far away, bending over and seemingly carefully selecting something. Wang Xiao called out to him, "Brother Lu! You haven't finished picking yet? We're all full! The truck can barely move!"