The next day, Bai Youwei slept until the sun was high in the sky—slept fully, slept well—and only then finally got up to wash.

Cheng Weicai was preparing lunch.

Without a gas stove, cooking was very inconvenient. Cheng Weicai always started preparing well in advance.

Tan Xiao and Pan Xiaoxin were nearby helping.

Although sometimes they helped and only made things worse.

……

The morning passed in calm and leisure. Bai Youwei brushed her teeth and watched them bustle about, feeling the whole time that she had forgotten something.

Had she forgotten about Shen Mo? …That probably wasn’t it. Shen Mo had gone to see his father—he’d told her before he left.

Then what was it?

Bai Youwei kept thinking.

“Ah!” She remembered. “Let’s have steak for lunch!”

Tan Xiao, Cheng Weicai, and Pan Xiaoxin all looked at her, their expressions blank.

Bai Youwei pulled out the golden key, opened the dollhouse door, and said cheerfully, “You’re all here anyway—after the steak, you can help me tidy up the place.”

When the dollhouse door swung open, the interior blazed with golden light—dazzlingly brilliant!

All three were stunned.

Tan Xiao almost didn’t recognize the dollhouse and exclaimed in surprise, “Oh my goodness! Youwei, did you get a whole new place? Is this the reward from the new game?”

“No.” Bai Youwei propped herself on her crutches and walked inside, squeezed in among a pile of gold and silver trinkets, and waved them in. “Come in first, I’ll explain inside.”

The three exchanged glances and squeezed in one after another—

It really was packed. Almost the entire ground floor had no room to stand. The floor was piled high with gold and silver jewelry and beautiful clothes—hats alone numbered seventy or eighty, of every kind: jeweled ones, fur ones, ones adorned with silk flowers, all sorts!

There were also some ornate, expensive dining sets tossed carelessly underneath. Without thinking, they’d step on one and crack it, and Cheng Weicai’s heart ached every time.

“If it won’t all fit inside, just throw the overflow outside.” Bai Youwei didn’t care in the least. She squeezed straight over to the refrigerator and shoved aside the nearby heavy gold ingots—only then could she open the fridge door—

She pulled out a few cuts of steak.

The steak was pre-seared: a perfect medium-well, though after being frozen it had lost the fresh aroma of right off the pan. Still, being able to eat steak at all was already a luxury right now.

“Cheng-laoshi~~” Bai Youwei called for Cheng Weicai. “Come take a look at the fridge—if anything’s expired, throw it out! Keep whatever’s still edible! We’re having steak for lunch today!”

“Xiaoxin~~your job is to put all the clothes upstairs in the wardrobe! If the wardrobe is full, stuff them into the study! The study isn’t getting any use right now anyway!”

“Tan Xiao~~you’re in charge of throwing the weapons into the storage room first, and stacking the gold and silver in the courtyard! Otherwise having it all here is way too much in the way!”

One round of assignments, and each person knew exactly what to do.

Tan Xiao had the heaviest task—and it was all physical labor. After hauling gold several trips, he couldn’t help but ask:

“Youwei, if you don’t want this stuff, why did you move it into the dollhouse in the first place?”

“It looks good stacked up there. Open the window and you can see a mountain of gold and silver—don’t you find it pleasing to the eye?” Bai Youwei said carelessly. “Besides, when you don’t have a weapon on hand, you can throw it at people—it’s not bad.”

Tan Xiao hefted a gold brick and nodded. “You’ve got a point!”

He went back to moving gold.

……Except for Bai Youwei, everyone was busy.

Once the place had been tidied and cleaned again, Cheng Weicai had also heated the steak. Bai Youwei glanced out the door—Shen Mo still hadn’t returned.

That wasn’t strange. Father and son reuniting—of course they’d stay for a meal.

At the dining table, Cheng Weicai cleared his throat and said hesitantly, “Youwei…”

“Hmm?” Bai Youwei ate her steak.

Cheng Weicai said, “Xiaoshen has helped us a great deal on this journey. I’ve heard his father hasn’t been in the best of health lately. Should we… go pay him a visit?”