Chapter 11: A Perfectly Ordinary House
The small courtyard outside the house was paved with cement, not entirely level, with a couple of puddles.
In a corner of the yard, gravel was piled up, with a shovel stuck in it.
This place didn’t seem abandoned. If nothing went wrong, Long Qinxin must have paid a lot of money to make the original owner move out immediately.
Entering the house from the yard, the living room on the first floor had a square table in the center, with a two-meter-long cool bed made of bamboo strips behind it.
Both the cool bed and the square table were a bit old, especially the square table. There was a crack in the center of the table, showing its age.
The living room floor was not tiled, but was also cement, though not as rough as the courtyard.
“…”
In silence, this place indeed reminded Lu Zhiyin of the rural houses she had seen before.
On one side of the living room was a corridor, which passed by the stairs to the second floor. If you ignored the stairs and continued forward, you would reach the kitchen for fires and cooking.
The somewhat familiar earthen stove, the bamboo-woven cupboard, the stone water缸, and the iron pot hanging beside the cupboard.
The rustic atmosphere was overwhelming, and Lu Zhiyin felt a bit dazed again.
The kitchen floor was scattered with sparse pieces of firewood. As Long Qinxin carried Lu Zhiyin past, the firewood she stepped on snapped, making crisp cracking sounds.
At the end of the kitchen, there was a wooden door, precariously hanging. The gaps between the wooden boards let in light, making one feel that the door would break.
It was inconvenient for Long Qinxin to carry Lu Zhiyin. She struggled to pull off the door and kicked it open with her foot.
With the creaking of the wooden door, a foul smell assailed them.
The pungent odor made both Lu Zhiyin and Long Qinxin frown.
Lu Zhiyin knew what this place was. It should be a pigsty, a place where pigs were raised in the countryside. Below the pigsty was likely a pool full of dung water.
Her face turned pale.
“Do you want me to live here?”
Clutching Long Qinxin’s sleeve with her left hand, Lu Zhiyin was unwilling to live in a place like a pigsty.
“No, I’m just showing you around.”
Fortunately, Long Qinxin wasn’t that deranged.
Avoiding the stench of the pigsty, Long Qinxin retreated with Lu Zhiyin.
She placed Lu Zhiyin on the pile of firewood next to the stove and locked the pigsty door.
“I won’t let Zhiyin live in such a smelly place.”
Lowering her gaze, Long Qinxin slowly walked to a corner of the kitchen near the door.
She used her foot to rake away the various dust and straw on the ground and lifted a thick wooden board.
A hole about one meter in diameter appeared in Lu Zhiyin’s line of sight.
Imprisonment in the basement was a plot from the game, but the location seemed different from the present.
“The owner of this house has a cellar. This will be your residence from now on.”
Long Qinxin did not turn around to look at Lu Zhiyin’s face, but lowered her head and looked at the ladder leading to the cellar floor.
The owner had left in a hurry. He didn’t have time to clear out the cellar when he left, so there were still quite a few potatoes and some cured meat in the cellar.
Moreover, the cellar was not well-ventilated, and it was unrealistic for humans to live there now; they would suffocate.
Long Qinxin did not want Lu Zhiyin to die.
“Live in the cellar? I’ll suffocate…”
Looking at the pit in the distance, Lu Zhiyin touched her shoulder. She lowered her head, her voice weak, as if wanting to refuse but not daring to resist.
Her pitiful tone made Long Qinxin’s eyes darken.
She felt like bullying Lu Zhiyin like this.
She had many thoughts about Lu Zhiyin: wanting to pity her, wanting to bully her, wanting to see her smile, and wanting to see her cry.
Various conflicting emotions mingled, making Long Qinxin a bit strange.
But it didn’t matter, a person’s life was a mixture of contradictions; one should just follow their heart.
“Qinxin…?”
Seeing the dazed Long Qinxin, Lu Zhiyin tentatively called her name.
“…Ah, I’m here.”
Coming back to her senses, Long Qinxin covered the cellar again and returned to Lu Zhiyin’s side.
Remembering Lu Zhiyin’s previous question, Long Qinxin smiled silently.
She picked up Lu Zhiyin, ignoring the dust and firewood debris on Lu Zhiyin’s clothes, and carried her out of the kitchen, walking upstairs.
“Where you will live later will depend on when I renovate the cellar. For now, you will temporarily stay upstairs.”
As she spoke, she took Lu Zhiyin to the second floor.
The second floor of this house was spacious, with a living room, three bedrooms, and a bathroom.
The balcony was wide, with iron railings, and there were also floor-to-ceiling windows, but the glass of the floor-to-ceiling windows had a slight green tint and was not completely transparent.
The living room floor was still not tiled, and there was no furniture. It was empty, and it was unclear what the living room was for.
Or perhaps there used to be furniture here, but the owner took it away?
Lu Zhiyin thought it was the latter.
Long Qinxin did not let Lu Zhiyin linger in the living room but carried her back to the master bedroom.
In the center of the master bedroom was a fairly spacious wooden bed. Beside the bed was a black and red wooden wardrobe, with a black box placed above it.
If nothing went wrong, the contents of these containers should have been moved out.
The wooden bed in the center of the bedroom had no mattress or bedsheet, only bare wooden planks.
Surprisingly, the master bedroom had an en-suite bathroom, with a bathtub built of bricks and cement.
Unlike the bare cement floors elsewhere, the bathtub was tiled.
“It’s a decent house, don’t you think, Zhiyin? Do you like it here?”
Long Qinxin placed Lu Zhiyin on the bed and patted her back, dusting off the dirt on Lu Zhiyin’s body.
“I like whatever Qinxin chooses.”
Lowering her gaze, Lu Zhiyin answered in a muffled voice.
She didn’t actually like it, especially the wooden plank bed beneath her. The thought of sleeping on these bare wooden planks tonight made her scalp tingle.
What was the difference between this and sleeping directly on the floor?
However, thinking that she wasn’t assigned to the pigsty, she felt a sense of relief.
“…Mm.”
Listening to Lu Zhiyin’s answer, Long Qinxin stroked her head.
Long Qinxin knew Lu Zhiyin was lying, but she wasn’t in a hurry to refute it. She was already imagining how she would bully the docile girl in front of her later.
“Actually, I was supposed to bring you here tomorrow. That way, I could at least buy a new set of furniture, not to mention renovating the cellar. But I just couldn’t help myself, I couldn’t help but want to bring you to a world that belongs only to the two of us. So I brought you here today. You’ll have to make do on this bed tonight.”
As she spoke, Long Qinxin rested her head on Lu Zhiyin’s lap.
Furniture… there were many types of furniture, and hobby horses and adult toys could also be considered furniture?
She had learned many tricks from the internet and wanted to try them all on Lu Zhiyin.
