Outside the house, there was still some moonlight, providing a bit of brightness, while inside the house, it was completely dim. Bao Gu was worried that if there were any wild beasts that had made this long-uninhabited wooden house their den, it would be dangerous for her to barge in like this.
It was said that houses left uninhabited for a long time were prone to attracting dirty things, and Bao Gu dared not stay in this old house covered in three feet of dust.
She dragged the fallen heavy wooden door outside, exerting all her strength to prop it up against the wall at an angle, then squeezed into the triangular gap between the wall and the door panel.
She inserted the arrows from her quiver on both sides to set up a simple defense, covered her growling stomach with her hands, leaned against the heavy wooden wall, closed her eyes, and prepared to sleep. She thought that once she fell asleep, she wouldn’t be afraid and wouldn’t feel hungry!
Just as she closed her eyes, she heard the buzzing of mosquitoes circling around her, not only annoying but also itching her all over. Bao Gu was tossed and turned by the mosquitoes and couldn’t fall asleep!
She took out her bundle from the storage bag and used her dress to make a simple mosquito net, but these hateful mosquitoes still managed to crawl in through the gaps and bite her.
She thought that since the storage bag was so big, why couldn’t she fit herself inside it? She tried several times but couldn’t fit herself in, and she couldn’t use the storage bag to catch the mosquitoes around her either.
Bao Gu could only give up on using the storage bag and turned her attention to the pile of clothes that could be used to fend off the mosquitoes. She lifted her large skirt made of two taels of gold, tied the waist of the skirt tightly with a belt, and then crawled into the skirt.
She tied the waist of the skirt at the top of her head, and the skirt body and skirt hem hung down on her sides, covering her securely. She used the large skirt as a mini circular mosquito net to finally keep the mosquitoes out. The sound of birds woke Bao Gu from her sleep. She crawled out from under the skirt and removed the arrows used to defend against wild beasts, placing them back in the quiver, then crawled out from the gap between the door panel and the wall.
By this time, the sky was already bright, with the morning sun shining, making everything around her glisten, turning the desolate wilderness she had felt at night into a fairyland on earth.
The night before, she had been worried about wild beasts, but she found that her worries were completely unnecessary. Thick, chest-high, bowl-sized logs surrounded the wooden house, forming a solid wall that tightly enclosed the small courtyard. The logs were covered with thorny vines that Bao Gu couldn’t name.
She felt that even if there were leopards here, they would be blocked by these thorny vines.
The small courtyard had been abandoned for a long time, and the grass in the yard was already knee-high.
What surprised Bao Gu was that there were actually two fruit trees in the courtyard. She couldn’t name these fruit trees, as she had never seen them before. They were about ten feet tall, with fist-sized, bright red fruits hanging from them, round and very appealing. She knew that any fruit planted in front or behind a house was edible, and being both hungry and thirsty, she hurried over to climb the tree and pick the fruits. The shape of the fruit tree was somewhat like an orange tree, making it easy to climb.
Bao Gu sat on the fruit tree, picking the large, round fruits. She was so hungry that she picked the fruits and wiped them on her sleeves before biting into them. The fruits were sweet and juicy, and after eating them, a cool sensation spread from her stomach throughout her body, making her feel comfortable and causing all the pores on her body to relax.
Bao Gu realized that there were benefits to entering this poor immortal’s abode, even though it was poor, the fruits were delicious! She knew that she was eating “immortal fruits” that were not seen in the mortal realm, and eating them would surely bring great benefits.
She had read in the biographies that if someone mistakenly entered a divine place and ate certain fruits, they would gain certain benefits, such as immortality or lightness of body. Bao Gu ate one fruit after another, eating eight in one go, which made her burp and feel like she was about to burst. She felt a bit uncomfortable in her stomach and felt the need to use the bathroom.
Bao Gu covered her stomach and hurriedly looked for an outhouse, searching around the wooden house but not finding one. She then rushed to the sides of the house, clenching her buttocks tightly as she circled the house, but still couldn’t find an outhouse. Her stomach was rumbling loudly, and she couldn’t hold it in any longer. She quickly found a slightly lower grass pile behind the wooden house to relieve herself.
As soon as she squatted down, there was a continuous sound of splattering, and a foul smell filled the air, making Bao Gu almost vomit. She endured it as much as she could, but in the end, she couldn’t hold it in.
It was extremely miserable for her, as she had to deal with her stomachache while vomiting, almost crying. She never expected that what she vomited out was a sticky, black substance, similar to black sesame paste. Weren’t the fruits she had just eaten bright red? Were these seeds poisonous? Who would plant poisonous fruits in the courtyard in front of the house? Could they kill someone if eaten? Bao Gu was terrified!
Fortunately, after vomiting, she felt much better in her stomach. She felt that she had relieved herself enough and didn’t feel anything else wrong, so she relaxed a bit. As she prepared to get up, she realized that she didn’t have any toilet paper. Bao Gu had to awkwardly shuffle forward with her stinky bottom, using the leaves of some unknown wild grass to wipe herself.
After cleaning herself, she felt another rumble in her stomach. She quickly plucked several large leaves and rushed to a low-lying area resembling a drainage ditch near the edge of the fence, a distance away from the previous spots, to relieve herself again. After some time, exhausted, Bao Gu emerged from behind the wooden house, feeling dizzy and her legs trembling.
She used her hands to fan away the lingering foul smell in the air. She couldn’t count how many times she had relieved herself, but she knew that she had filled a whole row behind the house, from the left corner to the right corner, with each spot being black and stinking, making her almost vomit several times. What made
Bao Gu most angry was not just the black and stinking mess she had produced, but also the fact that she was covered in a layer of black, muddy grime, and when she rubbed her body, she could form large, round mud balls, even bigger than the health pills sold in the pharmacy. Holding her nose, Bao Gu ran to the edge of the small stream outside, where she found a stone-arched bridge over the stream.
Under the bridge, there were even stone steps along the stream. She stood on the stone steps by the stream and looked into the clear water, which was about waist-deep and filled with many fish of different sizes and species. She didn’t have time to examine the fish closely and quickly waded into the stream to wash off the stench from her body. The cool stream water was a bit chilly, but the gentle flow of the water was quite comfortable. Bao Gu bathed in the stream, rubbing off the black stuff from her body.
She didn’t worry about anyone accidentally seeing her bathing, as it was clear that this place had been uninhabited for a long time, with no footprints or paths in sight. Bao Gu scrubbed herself thoroughly, and she watched as the mud she had scrubbed off her body flowed downstream, causing the fish to avoid the dirty water. Bao Gu cursed the ancestor who had planted the poisonous fruit trees in the courtyard in her heart once again.
Suddenly, a voice filled with disdain sounded above Bao Gu’s head: “So stinky!”
Bao Gu looked up and saw her “Corn” senior sister standing on a flying sword above her, which startled her into a sharp scream.
She quickly covered her chest with her arms, trying to hide her budding breasts. Yu Mi, standing on the flying sword, had been investigating the source of the stench and hadn’t paid much attention to the skinny Bao Gu.
It was only when she heard the scream and saw the covering motion that she instinctively looked at the area Bao Gu was trying to hide, then clicked her tongue and said, “What’s there to hide on that flat washboard?”
She adjusted the position of her flying sword and took another look at Bao Gu’s chest, then changed her statement, “Well, it’s not a flat washboard, it’s a flat washboard with two small steamed buns stuck on it. Such a small chest, it’s better to cover it up.”
Bao Gu: “…” She wanted to curse!
Blushing and angry, Bao Gu buried herself in the stream, leaving only her neck and above exposed, forgetting the stream’s clear transparency.
Fortunately, Yu Mi had no interest in the flat washboard-like Bao Gu and said, “By the way, I forgot to tell you last night, I came specially to tell you that you shouldn’t eat too many of the bright red fruits on the two trees in the courtyard. You should only eat one at a time, and with your current constitution, it’s best to wait three to five days between each fruit. If you eat too many, you might vomit and have diarrhea, stinking yourself to death.”
The smell from the house made her frown again, and she looked at Bao Gu, who was glaring at her with a face full of anger, and said, “You didn’t eat too many of those fruits, did you?”
Bao Gu couldn’t take it anymore and shouted, “You forgot such an important thing? Do you know how many I ate? Eight! Do you know how long I’ve been having diarrhea? Go and see for yourself in the backyard!”
Yu Mi made a sound of surprise and said, “Uhhh, I have something to do, so I’ll leave first!”
She controlled her flying sword and flew up into the sky, but then turned back as if she had remembered something, tossing a jade slip into the grass by the stream and saying, “Although there are many medicinal herbs and fruits on the mountain, you can’t eat them casually. This jade slip contains detailed information about various herbs and fruits. Oh, and I’ve also planted some spiritual herbs in the courtyard, but they’ve been overrun by weeds due to neglect. When you have time, clear the weeds and tend to the spiritual herbs, and in a hundred years, they’ll be worth a couple of low-grade spirit stones. Use whatever you need from the things in the wooden house, and don’t throw away what you don’t need, as it wasn’t easy to acquire these items. Also, your talent is poor, so you need to work hard in your cultivation and not be lazy. If you haven’t made any progress or breakthroughs to at least the mid-stage of Qi Refinement after ten or twenty years, I’ll kick you out.”
After saying this, she didn’t wait for Bao Gu’s reaction and flew away on her flying sword. Bao Gu’s face turned green and then pale, and the veins on her forehead bulged. After enduring for a while, she suddenly felt something uncontrollable, and the water in the stream behind her began to bubble, with a large amount of black, stinking substance rising to the surface and spreading.
Bao Gu clenched her legs, and the clean body she had just washed was now covered in stinky, black feces again… Her small, thin face turned as green as grass and twisted with disgust. The fish downstream suffered even more, with many of them jumping out of the water, and some of the smaller ones floating lifelessly on the surface…
