Aunt Liu had had enough and started throwing a tantrum on the spot:

“Your chess and card parlor has no business anyway. Now with the flooding, even fewer people will come. I’m old but kindly came to support you, and you’re just thinking about your little sunflower seeds. So clueless—you deserve to make no money.”

Sister Yun threw the sunflower seeds to the ground and rushed over, ready to fight.

“You old hag, acting all high and mighty. You think just because you’re older you can do whatever you want?”

She grabbed Aunt Liu’s hair and yanked her down hard to the ground.

Aunt Liu screamed, “Xu Yun, you bitch—”

People around quickly pulled Sister Yun back.

“Big sister, calm down, calm down. This place still isn’t cleaned up yet; the important stuff comes first.”

“Aunt Liu, you should hold back a bit too.”

After a noisy scene, Aunt Liu showed her teeth grimacing as she crawled upstairs and went home.

Rain beat against the window, and the water on the first floor had piled even higher.

Sister Yun no longer wasted effort scooping water; she decided to move whatever furniture she could to the upper floors.

On the third floor, Ma Tian was very eager, “Sister Yun, you can’t stay here. Come move to my place; I just happen to have a room free.”

Ma Tian clearly had ill intentions. Yu Xifeng lowered his eyes, restraining the disgust in his gaze.

In the previous life, this guy was always getting handsy like a fly, really annoying.

Sister Yun didn’t agree. “Moving to your place is too troublesome. A friend of mine has a vacant room on the 15th floor, and I’m subletting it from her. I’ll go there for a couple of days first.”

The 15th floor was right next to Yu Xifeng’s.

Hearing this, Ma Tian stopped his hands from helping and stood still.

Sister Yun didn’t mind; she was strong and soon dragged quilts and chairs into the elevator.

The commotion died down, people gradually dispersed, and Yu Xifeng prepared to head back.

Four girls rushed in through the rain, drenched.

“Xiao Yu Jie, what are you doing here?” one of them asked excitedly.

It was Tan Wanwan, who lived on the 12th floor and was attending university in the same city.

Tan Wanwan warmly introduced, “These are my roommates. The rain was too heavy and their dorm is on the first floor, so it’s too damp to live there. I brought them to my place.”

She introduced to her roommates, “This is the sister who used to tutor me—Xiao Yu Jie is amazing; she graduated from B University.”

These girls were all still in school, in that phase of admiring academic achievements.

“Wow!”

“Hello, Xiao Yu Jie!”

“Xiao Yu Jie is so pretty and her school is great. She must have lots of handsome guys chasing her,” Qian Ying said as she moved closer, trying to grab Yu Xifeng’s arm.

Yu Xifeng carefully scanned their faces, stopped at Qian Ying, and stepped back, avoiding her touch.

She gave Tan Wanwan a slight nod and turned to go inside.

For lunch, she had a roasted duck rice box ordered from Xiang City. The meal had three compartments: one with braised duck leg meat, one with shredded potatoes, and one with cabbage.

She took it out of her space pocket, perfectly warm.

After eating, she packed the trash back into the space, cut an orange to eat, then took a cup of bubble tea to sip slowly.

More and more people were moving into the building. Yu Xifeng decided not to cook strong-smelling braised dishes anymore and focused on cooking plain rice, steamed pancakes, and sticky rice cakes.

It was still possible to go out, and takeout could still get in, so the smell of rice and dough wasn’t out of place.

During breaks between steaming pancakes and cooking rice, Yu Xifeng picked out some seeds to plant in the flowerbeds inside her space:

Durian, cherries, mangosteen, watermelon, red grapes, and coconut.

She wasn’t short on staple foods; she planted these because she loved eating them.

She had little planting experience, but had bought plenty of seeds and planned to try them all slowly.

Within two days, the seeds sprouted shoots, looking very healthy.

Yu Xifeng started shelling sweet peas—several hundred pounds of them. It was mindless work. She sprinkled some into the rice to cook together, which made the rice taste naturally sweet.

She put her tablet on the table and slowly shelled peas while watching a drama.

The drama was a highly rated series from a couple of years ago, full of love, hate, and tragedy. Yu Xifeng got absorbed in it.

But her hands never stopped working.

Suddenly, Yu Xifeng felt something was wrong.

Looking down, she saw a bowl meant to hold shelled peas was full of empty pea pods, while the edible peas were in the trash.

Yu Xifeng: “…”

Fortunately, the trash bag was fresh, so she carefully picked the peas out one by one.

To avoid this happening again, Yu Xifeng decided not to throw empty pods into the trash but got another plate instead.

She watched four episodes and shelled a big bowl of peas. She stretched, loosening her muscles, but was still captivated by the drama.

Then the door was knocked.

From the surveillance video, it was Sister Yun who had moved in today.

Yu Xifeng opened the inner door and, through the metal gate, asked, “What’s up?”

Sister Yun seemed startled by the alloy door: “Can I borrow some salt? I was halfway cooking and just need a spoonful.”

This was normal neighborly interaction. Yu Xifeng thought for a moment and handed over a bottle cap with salt.

The vertical bars on the alloy door made passing a bottle cap easy.

“Thanks! It’s so hard to go out during this typhoon, otherwise, I’d have gone downstairs to buy some.”

Remembering her previous pleasant partnership with Sister Yun, Yu Xifeng said, “After you finish cooking, when the typhoon passes, you should buy more stuff for home.”

“Yeah, for sure. We’re running low on rice and flour. I’ll buy more so I won’t have to go out again.”

After seeing Sister Yun off, Yu Xifeng rinsed rice, added a spoonful of sweet peas, started the electric cooker. Inside the pot were eggs; inside the steamer were sticky rice cakes, and she added another bowl to steam sweet peas, adjusting the heat carefully.

Yu Xifeng had exercised in the gym for an hour, came out once to check on things, and ate a small bowl of sweet peas and a boiled egg.

After showering, the second batch of food was almost done.

Having done this a few times, these simple cooked dishes were no trouble anymore.

Yu Xifeng lay in bed scrolling on her phone.

The wind howled fiercely; outside the hallway, windows creaked, cross-ventilation whistled, and random knocking sounds came from somewhere.

The property management chat group was full of complaints:

“@Property, my car’s been flooded. The underground garage drainage sucks. Don’t pretend to be dead.”

“Exactly! I spent tens of thousands on a parking spot, and pay so much yearly in property fees.”

“My clothes on the balcony all got blown away.”

“Can’t order takeout… living on instant noodles for days.”

“My kid cried scared. This typhoon feels really off this year—”

“Yeah, first time in over ten years.”

“Anyone know how to raise Australian lobsters?”

[Pictures][Pictures][Pictures]

The poster, nicknamed Chenchen’s Dad, shared pictures of chicken, duck, beef, and seafood. He even took close-ups of steaks and seafood.

In the corner of the pictures, huge stacks of rice and flour were piled very high.

Comments:

“Damn, that shrimp is longer than my leg!”

“King prawns, big bro is awesome!”

“Chenchen’s Dad is really loaded.”

“Big bro, can you finish eating so much rice?”

Chenchen’s Dad replied: “I had these lobsters air-shipped from Australia through a friend. They just arrived yesterday. I had booked the hotel to prepare them, but the typhoon came. If they die, they won’t be fresh.”

Chenchen’s Dad: “Sigh, my wife bought the rice. Moving it was exhausting. She spends money so recklessly, buying so much at once—I really have no words.”