Volume 10: Our Journey Chapter 326 Good Neighbor (I)
"Hey, Evelyn, the woodfruit yogurt you requested."
Dahe yawned and casually threw a fist-sized glass bottle into the window. Evelin, who was sitting behind the desk under the window, quickly stretched out her hands to catch it.
After living on the grassland for so many years, Evelyn built her own house. Her house is particularly conspicuous among the residential areas that pursue tall, spacious and neat. It is a two-story building imitating a tower (that is, a cylindrical shape). The surface is also covered with a layer of wooden structure decoration to disguise it as wood. The shapes of windows and doors, the small chimney on the roof, etc. are particularly particular about the mood. The small garden in front of the house is actually planted with flowers and plants, not just a yard of onions and garlic.
On a fresh morning, Dahe, wearing a neat sun cloth uniform, stood in a delicate garden full of flowers, leaning his arm on the window and talking to the elf girl who lived in a small single-story building less than 2.4 meters high. This scene was full of the atmosphere of a romantic fairy tale no matter how you looked at it...
"Don't throw it, can't you just hand it in!" Evelyn carefully put the yogurt bottle away and said unhappily, "Ah, you stepped on my flower bed again! Can't you just walk on the right path!"
"Your yard is so small, and the gravel road is winding around in circles. How can people walk on it..." Dahe yawned again, "Don't worry, I paid attention to my steps and didn't step on your flowers."
Evelin stood up and observed the yard, confirming that the flowers and plants in the yard had not fallen over, and then sat back down with peace of mind: “Why are you yawning so early in the morning? Didn’t you sleep well?”
"Chengfeng, who lives next door to me, brought his foreign student to his house for extra lessons. He made a lot of noise all night. It's strange that I could sleep well." Dahe said unhappily, "If it's difficult to teach that human cub, just beat him a few times. Is it necessary to go through so much trouble?"
“I understand a little bit why you weren’t asked to lead the study abroad group…” Evelin squinted at her, “Forget it, I’ll be more merciful. Come stay with me for a few days. My place is the quietest in the entire community…”
Da He turned and walked away without looking back, muttering rudely, "You ask me to do this and that all day long even though we don't live together. What will happen if we live together..."
"Hey?! Do you have to be so stingy? Be a gentleman!" Evelyn shouted.
Daha walked faster. In the blink of an eye, he jumped out of the yard and landed on the street. After a few steps, he disappeared around the corner.
"This guy is becoming more and more difficult to control." The elf girl, who failed to keep him, slammed the table angrily.
Evelyn lived with Taiga for quite a while when she came to the Fire Department. Taiga's lazy attitude was reflected in her unwillingness to take responsibility and not liking to manage things. She was also very skillful in doing simple tasks that could be done easily. After getting used to eating snacks made by Taiga herself, Evelyn didn't think highly of other people's skills...
Although she was angry, Evelin still finished the special yogurt made by Dahe in one go with toasted steamed bread slices and fresh lettuce, leaving not a single bit behind.
Residents like Evelyn who own private homes have their own kitchens and cellars to store food. If they don't want to go to the cafeteria or miss the time to go to the cafeteria, they can also cook some fast food at home.
Yes, that's right. You have to go to the cafeteria to eat the main dishes. If you cook at home, most of the dishes are ready-made instant foods such as bread, steamed buns, pancakes, vermicelli, and dried vegetables... The population of Huoyan City is not sufficient to allow some people to "return to the family" and give up their jobs, and even call it housework, which is also a social contribution. The cubs have to work hard, and adults can forget about staying at home.
Evelyn, who is used to having some toasted bread or steamed bread with a plate of lettuce salad and dairy products for breakfast, will never cook lunch and dinner by herself. She just doesn't like to eat too "heavy" early in the morning, but she doesn't intend to go against her stomach.
Evelyn had just finished her breakfast when the most active "part-time member" of her magic application team came to her door impatiently... He turned into a wolf, carrying two empty baskets on his back, and rushed into her yard. He lay on the windowsill and shouted to the roof: "I'm ready, Evelyn! Let's go!"
"Get out of my garden!" Evelyn yelled.
"Oh." Moss turned around and wreaked havoc on Evelyn's garden again... Rushing out to the street, wagging its tail and yelling, "Let's go, Evelyn! Let's go collect!"
The residents on both sides were alarmed. Evelyn's neighbor, a lynx who was very grumpy when she woke up, opened the bedroom window and yelled, "Why are you making trouble so early in the morning? Moss, do you deserve a beating?"
"It's getting late, we've already had breakfast!" Moss was not afraid at all, "Evelyn! Collect, collect! Awooo awooo——!"
Evelin, who was in the room, silently held her forehead with her hand.
To be honest...if it weren't for the fact that moss, as a "vehicle", could save a lot of trouble when collecting samples, she really didn't want to continue employing this child laborer who was so excited that he could officially skip classes on the day of collection...
The residents in the area where Evelyn lived were all cat people (so she said her area was the quietest), and the members of the Magic Application Team were all Evelyn's neighbors. Moss's noise could be heard throughout the whole street, and after ten minutes or so, the members, some yawning, some full of energy, gathered in front of Evelyn's yard, ready to go.
"How is the hemp patch that your group used cross-pollination on last time doing?"
"Very good. The rhizomes of this batch of hemp grass have grown particularly tall, strong and dense . However, they are a bit too high. I don't know if they will fall over. I am observing them..."
"In my opinion, thick and strong hemp grass is the best, and the fiber produced by fermentation will be stronger. I heard that the Agriculture Department is trying to use horsetail grass pollen to fertilize rice, so why don't we look for ideas from this aspect as well."
"Oh? Then where does the pollination come from?"
"Let's give it a try. Last time we used the pollen of snake vine to pollinate ground creeper. Didn't that batch of ground creeper give us a surprise? They were not afraid of aphids at all."
"But its drought tolerance has decreased, and the vines are not as strong as the original plants..."
Amid the whispers of the team members, Evelyn packed her luggage, came out wearing a neat canvas work suit (not the kind used on the ship, but a cotton and linen blended fabric with a certain amount of hemp yarn) and a backpack, and waved her hand in high spirits: "Everything is ready, let's go!"
"We've already finished, you're the slowest one!" The cat tribe members all said to her, "Just cut your hair short, Evelyn. We always have to wait for you to do your hair for a long time."
"Stop talking nonsense. Short hair doesn't look good with a skirt!" Evelyn was used to being scolded. She climbed onto the moss's back and retorted, "I don't want my aesthetic taste to be distorted by you guys."
"My feet hurt after squatting in the experimental field for too long yesterday, so Moss asked me to sit down." A Lynx team member said as he grabbed Moss's neck hair and climbed onto her.
"Me too. I stood for a long time yesterday..."
"Hey, hey, we agreed that I can only carry three people at most!" More and more people were pulling their long hair to climb onto themselves, and Moss was annoyed.
"What does it matter? You didn't carry any stuff with you when you went there anyway!"
The Holmes Kingdom study abroad group, with dark complexion and unsteady steps, came out of their instructor Chengfeng's house. Before they got used to the glaring sunlight, they saw a team consisting of cats and a smaller snow wolf parading through the streets... On the back of the snow wolf, which was only three meters long without its tail, there were more than a dozen cats crammed together.
Prince Hain, who had never won the "debate" with Chengfeng the whole night, silently watched the overwhelmed cub Moss, who had a big cat lying on his dog's head... uh, wolf's head, walk from one side of the street to the other until he disappeared from his sight.
Prince Hein, who was already in a very bad mood because of his terrible loss (being ridiculed and criticized), suddenly felt a strong surge of grief and indignation in his heart - these grassland people treated their own orc cubs so harshly, no wonder they were so cruel and ruthless to a young man like him~~~~~!
I'm still a child! Why are you trying so hard to attack me so crazily?
Prince Haien had been in Fire City for less than a week, but he already missed the good old days when he was the pride of the day and was admired by everyone at the Elliot Palace Royal Academy...
"What are you still standing there for? Go back, take a shower, sober up, and come back to report!" Cheng Feng saw a group of international students standing outside in a daze from the window of his house, and he was furious. "You are so far behind others, so you should work hard to catch up. Why waste your time dawdling?"
Prince Hein no longer cared about feeling wronged and quickly called on his country's students to follow him and leave quickly.
As for why there was no carriage or something when the distance from the Fire City residential area to the Lakeside Hotel was two or three kilometers...don't even mention it. If you do, the instructor will scold you and make you doubt your life.
Something like "The brain on your neck is for thinking, the hands are for working, and the feet are for walking forward. Mommy doesn't know how to do it, and Mommy won't do it. Is the purpose of your birth just to make shit?! " This kind of super ugly words, Chengfeng couldn't help but cursed after leading this group of foreign students for more than three days...
Well... the fact that Chengfeng, who is good at organizing and mobilizing, was forced to ignore unity and start cursing, on the other hand, does indeed show that these international students are indeed difficult to teach - to use Chengfeng's own private complaints to his good friend Dahao: Niu Jiao is simply countless times less troublesome than them.
There is nothing that can be done about it. After all… the phrase “personally involved in everything” was used in ancient China to praise those “great sages” of scholar-officials. It would be a miracle if these young masters and young ladies, who have never had to work with servants since childhood, could adapt well to the work of the Snow Wolf tribe right from the start…
Not to mention the "Snow Wolf-style reality beating" that these international students received, the magic application team led by Evelyn returned to the city before dark after traveling dozens of kilometers and collecting wild plant samples from several places where their growth process was deliberately not affected. Without even having time to eat, they returned to the laboratory with great interest to compare them with the samples artificially transformed in the indoor greenhouse.
Because they have not yet obtained the black oil mine (that is, petroleum) from the dark elves, the synthetic fiber project of the magic application team is still a long way off. Evelyn has focused on natural fibers in the past few years and has achieved certain results: first, the cotton seeds imported from St. Bridget have been soaked in sulfuric acid, alkalized, and hybridized with local plant pollen to obtain northern cotton seeds with certain cold resistance. The two years of trial planting have been quite smooth, and they are negotiating with the Agriculture Department on how to expand the scale of planting without affecting the existing arable land.
Secondly, a good breakthrough was made in the direction of improving the local flax. After many crosses between the northern fiber flax seeds domesticated by the Minotaur and the southern flax seeds imported from St. Brigid, the second-generation flax was obtained, which retained the cold resistance and had a higher fiber content. Although the height of the plants was still difficult to control and they would easily fall over once they grew vigorously, the fact that the price of ready-made clothes sold on the shelves of the Welfare Department had dropped by one-fifth was enough to illustrate Evelyn's efforts.
By the time Evelyn finished her work for the day, it was already dark and there were almost no pedestrians on the street. Evelyn did not go to the cafeteria to eat leftovers, but went straight to Dahe's house.
"Here you go again." Da He, who was wearing sleeves and a waistband, was making himself a midnight snack. He was disgusted when he saw Evelin coming to his house. "Can you go to the cafeteria more often and stop coming here to eat for free? I'm not open for business."
Evelyn's answer is always just one sentence: "What do you want to eat today?"
Da He: “…Egg-filled pancakes.”
Evelin rubbed her hands together, “Hurry up, I’m starving, three servings first.”
"Why don't you learn Ayun's ability to do things by himself, but only learn his shamelessness!" Dahe shouted.
The egg-filled pancake is made of rice flour and potato starch. Nowadays, the per-acre yield of wheat on the grassland has been stabilized at about 600 kilograms, while the per-acre yield of rice is still stubbornly maintained at more than 300 to less than 400 kilograms... In other words, rice flour is more precious than wheat flour. Only people like Dahe who are very picky about food and have the conditions to be picky can be so "luxuriant" as to use rice flour instead of wheat flour.
In short... whether rice flour pancakes or wheat flour pancakes are tastier is a matter of personal taste, but the enjoyment of eating egg-filled pancakes made of rice flour will definitely make people feel more "high-end".
“It would be great if the Welfare Department could also come up with this kind of snack that’s a little more troublesome but tastier.” Evelyn was quite satisfied with the meal anyway. “Well, the ketchup seems a little lacking. Dahe, please add more ketchup to the next pancake.”
"How can you be so picky about free food?!" Dahe, who was standing in front of the honeycomb coal stove and spreading rice milk on the heated iron plate, raised his voice.
Evelyn: "Put two more leaves."
"That's enough!"
As the two were arguing, someone came knocking on Daha's door.
Before Da He put down the spatula he was using to push the rice paste, he heard the door lock click. The guy who knocked on the door didn't even have the patience to wait for the owner to open the door, and directly used magic to open the lock...
"I told you I saw Dahe buying eggs at the Welfare Department! Look, she's really making delicious food!" As soon as Auston saw the things laid out on the stove in the living room (a honeycomb coal stove with an iron plate that could be used as a table), his voice immediately raised two tones and he flapped his little wings excitedly.
"Hush! Don't say that, idiot!" Balk cursed his stupid old father in a low voice, put on a smile and picked up the oil paper bag in his hand, "I'm here to have supper with you guys, Dahe, I brought roast duck and spare ribs!"
"What does spare ribs smell like?" Evelyn was originally planning to chase the two away, but when she heard Balk's words, she immediately changed her scolding to waving, and even took the initiative to pull a chair for Balk...
"Spicy flavor, the kind sprinkled with sesame seeds. Dahe, please make the egg-filled pancake more spicy for me." Balk walked into the house naturally, poured himself some juice (canned water), and got himself a plate...
"I don't want mine spicy, and I'll put more ketchup in it. Do you have condensed milk? If you do, add that a little too." Austin flew directly to the river and wandered around it.
Da He took the time to slap the old dragon away: "It's ok for Balk to bring his own dry food, but what qualifications do you have to ask for a lot when you always come here empty-handed?!"
"My son brought it, what's the difference between what I brought!" Auston said confidently, "Evelyn still has nothing."
Evelyn: "Balke, pour me a glass of juice too, add less hot water."
Taiga, with dead fish eyes, said: "...Compared to you two, even Balk looks cute."
As usual, she ate and drank Dahe's food, and consumed a lot of snacks and tea at Dahe's house. It was not until she felt sleepy that Evelyn stopped harassing Dahe and returned to her room.
"Huh? Is there a letter?" After opening the door, Evelin bent down and picked up the envelope from the carpet opposite the door, put it on the desk, and went into the bathroom to wash up.
The coarse pottery pipes buried underground when Huoyan City was still a tribe were gradually replaced with ceramic pipes and hard rubber pipes as the city expanded. Although hot water could not be supplied to residential buildings, there was no problem in getting tap water to every household... Faucets and water towers were not too difficult to break through, the only difficulty was the materials (the durability of iron pipe faucets was lower than that of ceramic ones, especially in the harsh winter climate on the grassland, and iron pipes were prone to bursting. Hard rubber was more expensive than iron, but more durable and not afraid of bursting).
After taking a cold shower and changing into a nightgown, Evelyn took off the thin plastic hood that protected her hair and sat down at her desk to open the letter.
The emergence of Fire City has boosted the economic circulation of the Northern Continent. The Adventurer's Guild, the Bards Guild and even the Spellcasters Guild have come to the Northern Continent to develop their "business" (the Alchemist Guild didn't come because of historical factors). Now there is also a "store" of the Bards Guild in Fire City, and two bards have been stationed there. Receiving private letters is no longer as difficult as before, and they have to wait for the Elf Port to receive them and then forward them in batches.
Evelyn, who had received many letters from Ananas, was in a relaxed mood from opening the envelope to flattening the letter paper, until her eyes swept across the beautiful elven flower-shaped characters, and her face suddenly became extremely ugly.
