Chapter 33 A Whole Night Through, So You Can Tell Just How Strong The Wind Is Right Now

“It lit up!”

“We finally got everything together.” Bai Xi slapped the mud off her hands. “Come on, let’s go back and see what our kitchen looks like after the upgrade.”

Bai Yu nodded and took Bai Miao by the hand.

The three of them quickly returned to the island. Carrying the Upgrade Card that was now glowing to show all the materials were collected, they walked up to the kitchen door.

Bai Miao was young, but when it came to upgrades she was already very experienced. Before Bai Yu could say anything, she grabbed the card and hurried to the front of the kitchen, pressed the card against it, called out “Upgrade,” then scurried back to Bai Yu’s side.

In front of them was still the familiar white mist wrapped around the kitchen.

“Hopefully it gets a bit bigger. Then we could sit inside the kitchen and eat.”

“It could, but then we wouldn’t have any tables or chairs.”

“True. Then do we need to upgrade the table and chairs too?”

“After the kitchen upgrades, should we build the dock first?”

“Let’s build a house first. Once the dock is done and we move the boat, it won’t be convenient to sleep on the boat anymore. It rocks at night and you can’t sleep soundly.”

“Right. Then let’s find a good spot on the island to build the house first,” Bai Yu said, pointing toward a spot further inland. “These past two days I’ve looked around the island. There are a lot of sheltered spots deeper in, but our house needs to be a bit closer to the outside. That spot would be perfect.”

Bai Xi looked in the direction Bai Yu was pointing. Before she could see clearly, the white mist shrouding the kitchen dispersed.

As expected, the kitchen space was clearly much bigger than before.

As the one in charge of cooking, Bai Xi hurried into the kitchen. When she saw what it looked like inside, she turned back in delight. “Eldest Sister, come take a look. What a huge pot.”

Bai Yu pulled Bai Miao into the room as well. She also saw the big pot sitting on the stove and suggested, “Xiao Xi, try stir-frying a dish. I’ll get the fire going for you.”

“No problem!”

Bai Xi actually did not know much about cooking. All her cooking experience came from making Casserole Pot stews on the boat. With limited conditions, whatever ingredients they had, she just threw straight into the pot to boil.

During their time on the island, because their only cooking tool was still the Casserole Pot, they were still just boiling things to eat. Now that they had this big pot, she could not wait to try something new.

Once Bai Yu had the fire going, she immediately poured in a spoonful of oil, then tossed the chopped vegetables straight in and started stir-frying with a clean wooden spatula.

Then…

“So much white fog.”

“Cough, cough, cough…”

“Xiao Xi.”

“My bad, I didn’t think stir-frying would turn out like this.” Bai Xi was coughing just as hard. “No one told me stir-frying makes this much fog… no, smoke, right? Before, when we were cooking, if the firewood was a bit damp, it would spew this much smoke too.”

Bai Yu was still in the kitchen. When she came out, she was holding a plate of pitch-black food.

Bai Xi stared at the plate for a long time, then asked in shock, “This is the dish I made?”

Bai Yu held the plate closer to her.

Bai Xi lowered her head and sniffed the charred vegetables on the plate. “You know, it might look terrible, but it actually smells pretty good.”

“Want to try it?” Bai Yu said with a smile.

Bai Xi really did reach out and pick up a small piece that did not look too burnt, put it in her mouth and chewed, then turned her head and spat it out, spitting a few more times after. “It tastes weird, not good at all. What a waste, a perfectly good plate of food, burned to ruins.”

“It’s fine, it’ll be better after you do it a few more times.” Bai Yu took the plate aside and dumped it out. “We can throw it into the sea later to feed the fish. You give it another try first. If it still doesn’t work, we’ll go to the Magic Plane and ask how people over there cook.”

“Yeah.” Bai Xi glanced at Bai Yu’s bowl, where there were still black marks. “That’s all we can do.”

After that, Bai Xi tried twice more. Although the final dishes were not as strange as the first one, they still did not look very good. She had no choice but to give up on stir-frying for the time being and instead used the big pot to boil dishes and eat them with soaked rice.

At the same time, she steamed a big bowl of meat.

Wild boar skin was thick. Before, when they used the Casserole Pot to cook it a few times, it was never quite done. Using this big pot, though, it cooked through very quickly. Not only was it cooked, it was also incredibly tender and soft.

They were in the middle of eating when the sound of howling wind suddenly came from outside.

They hurried to the kitchen door, only to see a huge piece of cloth blowing in from who knew where.

“Eldest Sister, that’s a sail.”

“For a sail this big, how big must that boat be?” Bai Yu said in surprise. Feeling a movement at her leg, she pressed Bai Miao, who was trying to poke her head out to look, back inside. “You’re so tiny, the wind will blow you away.”

“Let me take a look.” Bai Miao strained, pressing down on Bai Yu’s leg as she stuck out half her head. The moment she poked it out, she spat in annoyance. Her hair had been blown by the wind and plastered all over her face again.

Bai Yu could only keep helping her smooth her hair back, holding it in place so she could look outside.

Just then, Bai Xi suddenly cried out in shock, “Eldest Sister, a ship! A sail that big flying past, doesn’t that mean there’s a ship not far from us, and a big one at that?”

Bai Yu’s eyes also widened in surprise.

But once the shock passed, she frowned slightly. “We can’t go back yet.”

“Eldest Sister?”

“That is our ship. This is our kitchen, and our classroom, and the Rain Pavilion,” Bai Yu pointed to each in turn. “If we go back to the mainland, even the slightest change to our ship will be noticed. Sure, going back would mean a more stable life, but if we returned now, it would just be the three of us living together. There would be no one else.”

Back when they were all captured and taken out to haul cargo, it was not just the three of them, but all their relatives as well. Now they could technically go back, but going back did not mean a family reunion.

Bai Xi came back to her senses and looked at the ship beached on the sand. “Even if we go back, it might not be a peaceful life anyway, right?”

Bai Yu started, then slowly nodded.

If they went back, they would only be ordinary commoners. Once someone discovered their strange abilities, not only would their lives not be peaceful, they could even bring disaster down on themselves.

“Honestly, we’re doing pretty well on the island,” Bai Xi said with a smile. “We don’t worry about food or drink, and we have clothes. We still have several pieces of fabric we haven’t used yet. We don’t even have to go into the water to live here. Life is easier than it was on the mainland. Instead of going back to live in constant fear, we might as well stay here.”

“There will come a day when we go back,” Bai Yu said. “Once our ship grows bigger and can withstand the storms at sea, and once we know the way home, then we can return.”

“And there’s the wind and rain,” Bai Xi said, reaching out to feel the wind outside. “With wind this strong, even a big ship might not fare well in the waves, let alone a little one like ours.”

“Exactly. It would take us at least several days to get back, maybe even ten days to half a month. The weather at sea is unpredictable. Without thorough preparation, drifting out there, we could easily run into danger.”

As they spoke, the wind outside grew stronger and stronger.

They had originally left the kitchen door open while they talked, but seeing the wind pick up, they rushed to shut the kitchen door.

Even so, the kitchen’s doors and windows still rattled slightly under the force of the wind outside. It was clear just how strong the wind was right now.

At the same time, the sky was growing darker and darker.

At this hour, they would normally go back to the ship to rest, but after feeling the wind outside for a moment, they did not even dare step out of the kitchen. They simply decided to stay in the kitchen and rest there.

Fortunately, the kitchen had just been upgraded that very day, and the floor was still relatively clean.

After confirming that there was no way they could fight their way against the wind to sleep on the ship, they lay down in the kitchen without even changing their clothes.

The wind blew the whole night through. Even in the newly upgraded kitchen, they could occasionally hear the wind howling, which showed how bad it was outside. Because of that, even though Bai Yu heard the sounds, she did not dare go out to check what was happening.

Not until dawn the next day.

Light from outside slipped into the kitchen through the cracks in the window. The faint glow, no longer carried by the wind, was enough to tell that the gale outside had probably died down.

Bai Yu got up, walked to the kitchen door, slid back the bolt, and opened it. Even though she had been mentally prepared the night before, she still gasped when she saw the scene outside.

“What is it?” Bai Xi rubbed her eyes as she walked up beside Bai Yu. The moment she saw what was outside, she woke up completely, almost in tears. “All that firewood we worked so hard to stockpile!”

“The Rain Pavilion doesn’t block the wind,” Bai Yu sighed. “Normal wind and rain don’t affect it much, but with wind like yesterday’s, the wooden curtain we hung on the Rain Pavilion to keep out the rain got ripped right off. When we build a woodshed later, we need to pick a spot that can really shelter it from the elements.”

Bai Xi nodded helplessly. “Yeah.”

The two of them stepped out of the kitchen, closed the main door behind them, and headed toward the Rain Pavilion.

Only when they got closer did they realize things were even worse than they had imagined. Aside from the Rain Pavilion itself, which had not been damaged by the wind, all the firewood that had been stacked here had been blown apart.

Some pieces had not gone far and were scattered around the island, but others had already been blown into the sea. Looking out into the distance, they could see logs bobbing on the surface of the water.

The wood on the island could be picked up and used right away, but the pieces floating on the sea would need to be dried before they were usable, even if they managed to retrieve them.

Without hesitating, the two of them split up and began gathering the firewood scattered around the island, carrying armfuls back to stack inside the Rain Pavilion again.

The wind had died down, but if they left this firewood outside and it rained again, it would all get soaked.

“Xiao Xi, take some and put it in the kitchen. Leave some here to burn. Even if the wood by the Rain Pavilion ends up getting wet later, we can use the stuff in the kitchen. If it really doesn’t work, we’ll go to the Forest Plane to gather more.”

“Okay.” Bai Xi answered, hugging an armful of firewood as she opened the kitchen door.

After she set the firewood down, she saw Bai Miao lying there half-awake with her eyes barely open. Smiling, she squatted in front of her and said, “Miao Miao, time to get up.”

“Second Sister?” Bai Miao was still a little dazed, looking around in confusion.

“Did you forget? The wind was too strong yesterday, so we slept in the kitchen instead of going to the boat.” Bai Xi gently picked her up, and once she had come around, took her outside to help tidy up.

After washing her face and using the toilet, Bai Miao finally woke up completely, and she also saw the firewood scattered across the island.

“Miao Miao, come help us pick up the firewood.”

“Oh.”

Bai Miao agreed obediently, her little short legs pattering as she ran to pick up wood. In no time, she had gathered a small bundle of firewood.

With the three of them working together, it did not take long before all the firewood scattered openly across the island, everything they could see, had been collected and carried back to the kitchen and the Rain Pavilion.

Bai Yu was weaving curtains again.

Remembering that it was a new day, Bai Xi quickly urged Bai Miao, “Miao Miao, time to Check-in.”

Bai Miao ran over to her happily, lifting her hand and cheering, “Check-in!”