Zhuang Xiao had only just counted to the third egg when a soft voice came from the corner, belonging to a teenage boy:
“Jie, no need to count. I’ve counted them several times already. Twenty-six are low-radiation mutation eggs, forty-three are medium-radiation mutation eggs… sixty-nine edible eggs in total.”

That many?

She couldn’t believe it.

No, she still had to count them again—just for peace of mind.

Yan Ming: …

As expected, even his lucky sister couldn’t handle the excitement of so many eggs.

Yan Ming kept grinding wheat non-stop, all for the sake of a single bite of egg at lunch.

He looked at the wheat flour gathering below the millstone and thought: tonight, he had to work overtime to help finish building his sister’s house. That way, maybe they’d still catch the last day of the wheat collection campaign.

High-starch, high-protein food—his sister’s household had it all. He really wanted to ask if she needed another little brother.

Yan Hu: …

I don’t want a brother like you anymore—I want a little sister like Zhuang Xiao.

When Huo Xiao came back in from outside, he found Zhuang Xiao happily counting the eggs, her smile practically reaching the sky.

Seeing him, she held up one of the mutant mantis eggs, grinning from ear to ear.
“Let’s eat these for lunch today!”

She hadn’t tried mutant mantis eggs before—who knew if they were good or not…

Just the thought made her mouth water so badly, it felt like drool was about to pour from her eyes.

Huo Xiao chuckled. “Sure.”

In fact, that was already the plan for lunch.

He stepped forward to help pack up the mantis eggs, but Zhuang Xiao quickly hugged the stash protectively.
“I’ll do it, I’ll do it…”

Something like this had to be done personally—for maximum satisfaction.

Huo Xiao handed her a storage box and said,
“Set aside four.”

He had promised those to the Yan brothers earlier—not as payment exactly, but since he was rushing the house build and making them work overtime, this counted as a little perk.

Especially with the bonus of mutant mantis eggs—one per person—it made for a nice treat.

During midday, when it was too hot to work outside, the brothers could still help grind wheat indoors. A worthy trade.

Zhuang Xiao took the box from him and carefully arranged each egg inside like a precious treasure.

Looking at the neatly packed eggs, her mood soared.

Lunch was simple.

The mantis eggs had already been cleaned and processed, ready to eat straight out of the shell. Everyone sipped nutritional fluid while taking small bites of egg.

Bliss.

As for Huo Xiao, Yan Hu, and Yan Ming—their usual diet consisted of nothing but grass leaves and nutrient fluid. So this was an absolute delicacy to them.

Zhuang Xiao, for her part, had been malnourished for ages. Half of it was cravings, and the other half was sheer curiosity about what a mutant mantis egg would taste like.

The taste?
Like egg white, with a slight gaminess—but not bad at all.

Definitely better than the green porridge they’d been eating every day.

Zhuang Xiao still had an unfinished grass mat. Originally, she’d been weaving it to hang over the bedroom door. Now that their house had actual doors, she planned to repurpose it into a cooling mat for summer.

Sleeping on grass mats was a bit pokey—not exactly comfortable.

And with the heat climbing and no air-conditioning in sight, she had to finish weaving this mat fast.

So that afternoon, she lounged in her hammock, lazily unraveling the grass curtain thread by thread.

Once the sun’s radiation levels dropped, she finally set out.

She estimated that by the time she returned in the evening, the framework of their new house might already be standing.

The discouragement from the morning had been completely healed by the mutant mantis eggs, and now she felt energized again.

There were still four or five hours before dark—enough time to go a bit farther.

She decided to head to the hillside where she’d first landed in the wasteland. She remembered that area had many strange plants, and she’d squatted there for nearly an entire afternoon without seeing anyone else come down the slope.

It would only take an hour to walk there—not too far.

Now that their courtyard had expanded, the few green plants she’d brought back looked too sparse. She wanted to dig up a few flowering plants to add color—cheer herself up a bit.

Of course, if they were edible, even better.

With that thought, Zhuang Xiao set off, guided by her memory of that night.

Along the way, she passed many people still out collecting. Occasionally, she heard beeping from others’ wristbands coming from within the grass and shrubs.

The closer she got to her destination, the fewer people she saw.

But she wasn’t completely alone.

After all, beyond the official gathering zones designated by the Safe Zone, many people had their own private foraging spots.

Ever since arriving here, Zhuang Xiao had stayed within the boundaries Huo Xiao had marked for her, so she hadn’t yet had the chance to discover a territory of her own.

Standing atop the hill, she looked down and spotted the large plant growing near the bush where she had hidden that night.

It had white petals and a yellow center—five petals to each flower. The entire plant was covered in them.

Besides the flowering plant, the most eye-catching part of the landscape was the grove of towering ancient trees at the base of the slope.

Zhuang Xiao observed carefully for a while and, seeing no signs of mutant birds or animals, decided to head down.

Her wristband hadn’t given any alerts either, meaning she was still within the area that was regularly cleared of mutant creatures.

After scanning the white flower with her wristband, she was surprised to learn that the mighty-looking plant was actually an herb—and a familiar one.

Nightshade!
Or more precisely, a mutated version of it.

It was far too large to dig up, but maybe it bore edible fruit?

Though it wasn’t autumn yet, some early-blooming varieties might already have fruit.

Zhuang Xiao spent the entire afternoon working beneath that nightshade bush.

Just as she had guessed, there were plenty of green fruits growing on it—each one grape-sized, hanging in small clusters. Very pleasing to the eye.

Hidden under leaves, they weren’t easy to spot, so finding them took some effort.

The green ones were too bitter to eat.

Zhuang Xiao didn’t even bother testing them—she went straight for the purplish-black ones. In the end, she managed to collect thirteen edible nightshade fruits.

She tasted one—it was still a bit sour and tangy, not quite sweet yet.

But still—not bad!

She’d just found her second fruit-gathering spot in the wasteland.

She marked the location on her map and headed back.

Passing the purslane patch on her way home, she tried her luck again and managed to find three medium-radiation mutated leaves. Some of them were a bit old and might be tough to chew.

Some of the purslane had also begun to seed. The seeds were black and resembled sunflower seeds, though mutated—they were roughly the size of a regular wheat grain.

(Of course, by “regular” wheat grain, she meant normal world wheat, not the date-sized ones in this place.)

Purslane seeds were said to improve eyesight and hearing. Zhuang Xiao planned to use them for tea—since the water here always had a weird taste.

Besides, her eyes had been feeling strange lately. She didn’t know what was wrong exactly.

Maybe drinking mutated purslane seed tea would bring unexpected benefits.

The seeds were too tiny to test individually, so Zhuang Xiao just scooped them all into her bag and decided to test them one by one when she got home.

Fate was funny like that—
The people she’d run into in the morning… she ended up meeting again that afternoon.