There was probably no one in this world other than Fu Lisheng’s own granddaughter who would dare curse Fu Lisheng so casually.

Du Lai didn’t respond, just smiled briefly and turned back to continue working on the other side of the roof.

There was no sun today. The weather was cool, and on an ordinary day, clambering up and down like this to build a bamboo shelter would have left him on the verge of heatstroke.

Even so, he’d worked up a full sweat. His clothes were soaked through, the moisture sitting on his skin and making it itch — especially his neck, where the metal collar Fu Miaoxue had clasped on was particularly uncomfortable.

Du Lai reached up to feel it and suspected he had developed a heat rash.

He called out to Fu Miaoxue: “Hey, help me get this thing off my neck — it’s getting in the way.”

Fu Miaoxue hurled a stone with full force, and it struck with a satisfying thunk. She jumped on the spot in delight, cheering with excitement!

Du Lai had no choice but to raise his voice again: “Young lady, this thing is interfering with my work.”

“What do you mean, ‘this thing that thing’?” Fu Miaoxue turned around and asked with a smile. “Did you see that just now? I hit the fruit core! I just started practicing and I already hit it! Aren’t I amazing? Aren’t I incredibly amazing?”

“Yes, you’re amazing — the most amazing in the whole world.” Du Lai said, trying not to laugh. “Help me take the collar off, it’s really in the way.”

Fu Miaoxue blinked, then replied, “I can’t take it off — I forgot the password.”

Du Lai: “……”

“If you can’t take it off, you can’t take it off — it looks good on you anyway~” Fu Miaoxue said with a cheerful smile and went back to collecting stones, carrying on with her practice.

Du Lai didn’t know what to say.

Her own possession, and she didn’t remember her own password?

Fine, fine… He could get it off himself — it would just require some tools, something like thin wire. But where was he going to find thin wire out here?

He’d deal with it later.

Du Lai sighed inwardly, gathered the vines off the ground, and turned to head into the forest.

Fu Miaoxue called after him, “Where are you going? You’re not going to watch me practice anymore?”

Du Lai walked away without looking back. “I’m going to cut thatch grass for the roof.”

Fu Miaoxue called out, “Isn’t the roof already built? Don’t bother, there’s no sun today, it’s not hot at all — let’s go to the beach and dig for clams!”

“It’s precisely because there’s no sun that I need to finish the roof first.” Du Lai pointed up at the sky as his voice grew distant. “Rain is coming — if we don’t get the thatch on quickly, the roof will leak!”

As his words faded, so did he.

Fu Miaoxue stood where she was, lips pressed to one side, looking up at the sky and muttering to herself, “Even on a cloudy day, it doesn’t necessarily rain…”

……

Du Lai did not find any thatch grass.

He didn’t dare venture too far, afraid of being caught out in a sudden downpour, so he gathered what banana leaves he could find nearby and arranged them over the bamboo roof like overlapping fish scales. He then pressed them down with bamboo poles and secured everything with vines so the wind couldn’t blow them loose.

The moment the roof was finished, the sky opened up in a light drizzle.

Fortunately, they now had a shelter spacious enough to stay dry in. The extended eave covered the campfire perfectly — no risk of rain dousing it. As for food, there were still a few roasted bird eggs left, so hunger wasn’t a concern.

Compared to the desperate scramble of their first days stranded on the island, the two of them were now considerably more comfortable.

Du Lai used the runoff from the eave to slowly work the mud into a paste.

His hands were nimble — in just a few movements, he shaped the mud into a little bird, plump and crouching on a leaf tray, with an endearingly clumsy charm.

Fu Miaoxue sat alongside him and tried to do the same. No matter how she shaped it, it didn’t quite look right. In the end, she gave up on realism entirely and started making all manner of bizarre figures.

She was having a wonderful time, unaware that she’d smeared several streaks of mud across her own face, and asked Du Lai, “Why did you dig up so much mud?”

“I was hoping to make some clay pots, but the texture of this mud is too coarse — it probably won’t survive firing.” Du Lai placed the little bird he’d finished beside the campfire to dry. “Once it hardens a bit, you can use them for target practice to build up your throwing force.”

—