After a short while, Lin Chu saw a transparent, slightly white thing appearing through the thin fingers of Old Yang’s dark and skinny hand.

The thing wiggled a couple of times and seemed like it wanted to burrow deeper. Lin Chu immediately stepped forward and grabbed the snow worm.

The snow worm struggled a few times in her hand.

The icy, thread-like object wiggling in her hand was not a pleasant sensation.

Lin Chu promptly submitted it to the system.

This snow worm was both transparent and delicate. She feared that it would disappear in the blink of an eye, so submitting it to the system was the safest option.

Another 20 points were credited to her account. Lin Chu didn’t linger and turned to leave, but then saw the water footprints she had left on the floor.

She immediately crouched down, pulled out a rag from her pocket, and wiped away her own footprints.

As for why she didn’t wipe away Yang Qianqian’s…

Old Yang’s bed was already wet enough, and Aunt Curly-Hair didn’t need to guess who had caused it. Wiping it away would just be redundant.

Moreover…

There was no time.

She could already hear Aunt Curly-Hair’s footsteps entering the hallway.

After wiping her own footprints, Lin Chu returned to her bedroom and locked the door.

A few seconds later, the main door was unlocked with a key.

Aunt Curly-Hair was humming a discordant tune, seemingly in a good mood.

However, when she saw the water footprints leading to Yang Qianqian’s bedroom, her humming immediately stopped.

With a “clang,” she put down the basin she had been holding and quickly ran into the bedroom. Upon seeing Old Yang curled up in pain, she began cursing loudly.

“Damn it, Yang Qianqian, he’s your father! Can’t you hope for him to be well? You wouldn’t go out in the snow when asked, and now that your father has finally been out in it, you had to pour hot water on him!”

Another round of continuous cursing followed as Lin Chu quietly listened, lying back on the bed.

With her current enhanced senses, she could hear Aunt Curly-Hair cursing while seemingly searching for something on the bed.

In the end, it seemed like she didn’t find what she was looking for, but let out a long sigh.

Lin Chu narrowed her eyes, thinking about the snow worm she had just submitted to the system.

Was Aunt Curly-Hair looking for that thing?

Although she wasn’t sure if Aunt Curly-Hair’s sigh came from not finding the fallen snow worm, everything that had just happened confirmed many of Lin Chu’s guesses.

It seemed that when exposed to hot water, the snow worm would be forced out of the body.

Moreover, like Lin Chu, Old Yang had the snow worm coming out of his ear. Could it be that the snow worm also entered through the ear?

And from the looks of it, it appeared that each person only had one snow worm in them at a time.

After finishing her rant in the bedroom, Aunt Curly-Hair, still unsatisfied, went to knock on Yang Qianqian’s door and scolded her some more.

It wasn’t until an angry neighbor knocked on her door, asking her to stop shouting, that she finally stopped.

Once Aunt Curly-Hair had quieted down, she had nothing else to do. Not long after, she knocked on Lin Chu’s door.

After knocking for a while, she tried turning the doorknob. It was locked and didn’t open.

Her expression changed.

Before she could react, the door “creaked” open in front of her.

Lin Chu was leaning against the door, holding her head, looking weak as she stared at her.

The bed was messy, clearly indicating she had just gotten out of it.

“Auntie, what’s wrong?”

Seeing this, Aunt Curly-Hair immediately smiled.

“You’re still the good niece, huh? You’ve been sleeping here, and nothing strange disturbed you, right?”

Aunt Curly-Hair’s eyes were full of inquiry.

Lin Chu tugged at a few strands of her hair, looking at her with some confusion. “I think I heard some noise, but I’m not sure if it was a dream or something…”

“It made my head hurt even more, and when it got quiet for a moment, I heard you knocking. At first, I thought it was a dream…”

As she spoke, she glanced at the doorknob.

Aunt Curly-Hair immediately realized that it was the sound of her turning the doorknob that made Lin Chu open her eyes and realize that what was happening was real, which is when she came to open the door for her.

Thinking of her stubborn daughter, Aunt Curly-Hair gave Lin Chu another smile.

“Go ahead and rest, my dear niece. Something happened at home, but I didn’t disturb you, right?”

After saying this, she took the initiative to close the door behind Lin Chu.

Lin Chu watched the still-pressed-down doorknob with an unchanged expression, simply covering her head as she turned to go back to bed.

“Hey, my dear niece…”

The door suddenly opened, and Lin Chu staggered back a few steps, looking somewhat confused at the woman who had come and gone.

Seeing that Lin Chu was only startled but not in any other distress, Aunt Curly-Hair nodded with satisfaction.

“Ah, I have such a bad memory, I forgot what I wanted to say. Anyway, my dear niece, get some good rest.”

After saying that, she truly closed the door.

Lin Chu stepped forward, locked the door, and then sat back on the bed.

She could tell that Aunt Curly-Hair was testing her.

Actually, Lin Chu wasn’t afraid of the other person discovering something, but there were still things she needed to confirm with Aunt Curly-Hair.

She would endure it for a couple of days.

Once she heard Aunt Curly-Hair settle down in the kitchen with the snow she had dug up and started making dinner, Lin Chu got up and returned to the shelter.

It was dinner time.

The weather was cold, and Lin Chu wanted something spicy.

Fortunately, there was a large box of self-heating hot pot from the express delivery station.

The entire box of hot pot had been repurposed and was now all edible.

Lin Chu pulled out two boxes: one spicy beef hotpot with beef tripe, and one spicy lamb hotpot.

She followed the instructions to heat up the hot pot and took out a box of rice she had prepared earlier. Lin Chu then sat cross-legged on the activity room floor and began eating.

Outside the window, snowflakes were falling. Sitting inside eating spicy hot pot, it felt like the perfect day.

If not for the splitting headache she had experienced a few hours earlier, Lin Chu might have believed she was simply enjoying an ordinary and comfortable day in her small rental apartment.

By night, after finishing her evening strength training and taking a comfortable hot shower, Lin Chu was about to go to bed when she once again heard a loud noise coming from outside.

This was the downside of living with others.

Whenever there was noise, she had to go check.

Lin Chu resigned herself to putting on her thermal clothes, stepping out of the shelter, lying on her bed, and listening carefully to the noises outside.

“Old Yang, it’s so late, where are you going?”

“Wife, my head doesn’t hurt anymore, but I’m freezing…”