CH 165

Chapter 165 - Rumors (3)

Bei Nuan ignored the gossipers and bravely continued with the following task. The keyword this time was forgiveness, and the following description was: forgive Du Ruo for something he did to you.

This task was really difficult. Du Ruo had never done anything that needed her forgiveness. She could only power through it.

Du Ruo quickly noticed that Bei Nuan was circling around him.

"What are you doing?" Du Ruo wondered.

"I discovered that the stones near you are especially good," Bei Nuan explained.

"Really? It's all stones. How can you differentiate between the good and bad ones?"

Bei Nuan picked one up and spouted off nonsense, "Look! This one. It's so big, so bright, so umm… plump?"

Du Ruo looked around in puzzlement. After that, whenever he saw a slightly prettier rock, he would put it in Bei Nuan's back basket.

Bei Nuan stayed by his side for a long time and finally found an opportunity.

When Du Ruo stretched out his long legs, she "accidentally" tripped over them and fell.

Du Ruo hastily helped her up. "Are you okay? Sorry, I didn't see you behind me."

Bei Nuan thought; no kidding! Of course, he didn't. He didn't have eyes on the back of his head.

"It's okay. It's not your fault." Bei Nuan patted off the dirt on her body and glanced at the taskbar. The forgiveness task had been marked completed.

Seeing Bei Nuan falling, Lu Xingchi came over.

"You can't even walk without tripping, and you still want to carry rocks. You don't have to bring down any rocks. I talked with the foreman. The baskets I already carried down will be counted towards you, and your quota of ten baskets is met for today." Lu Xingchi took the back basket off of her. "I'm leaving. Be good and stay here. Be careful."

Oh, so that was why he was so active about carrying down the rocks. Bei Nuan was a bit touched.

Lu Xingchi hastily went down the mountain to investigate the clue.

A new rumor appeared on the work site. That unfortunate F was deliberately tripped by that A, and the fall almost snapped her neck.

At noon, someone carried up two baskets on a pole to deliver lunch to the workers on the site. There were two options for lunch. The cheaper one consisted of something that resembled boiled sweet potato, but was much rougher, thinner, and longer. The more costly option was a stack of small, round cakes made of an unknown ingredient.

It wasn't a free lunch; the cost would be deducted from their daily wages.

Everyone went over to the foreman to register and get food.

There were too many people here, and Bei Nuan couldn't take out food from her pocket space, so she used the money Lu Xingchi had earned for her to exchange food too. She chose to buy the pseudo sweet potato. It didn't taste good at all. It only had a slight sweetness and didn't have a sweet potato's softness, sweetness, or its fragrant smell.

It was mentioned in the novel that this food was called cassava. It was the staple food of the laborers on the island. Although it was poisonous if not properly handled, it could be planted at any time of the year and had a high yield. It was a good thing during times of famine and could feed many people.

Bei Nuan had a hard time eating it, but she also felt bad if she didn't finish it. After all, everyone else was scarfing their lunches down.

Du Ruo could see that she was having a hard time, so he asked for her leftovers after he was done with his and ate it for her.

Bei Nuan didn't even have to think to know there would be new rumors.

Du Ruo finished eating the boiled cassava, and went to buy a stack of small, round cakes. He quickly polished them off.

Du Ruo marketed them to Bei Nuan, "Bei Nuan, these cakes are pretty good."

Bei Nuan was truly scared of buying them and not being able to finish them.

"It's okay. I'll go buy another stack. Eat as many as you want. I'll finish off the rest."

Du Ruo, who had been maligned to be a nefarious A, ran off to buy another stack of small, round cakes. He had been exercising hard today, running up and down the mountain and transporting a lot of rocks. He earned more money than Bei Nuan and freely spent his wages like a local tyrant.

He brought the cakes back and shared a few with Bei Nuan. "It's really good, try some."

As soon as Bei Nuan had a bite, she could tell that it was made of cassava too. This type of cake was made by grinding the cassava into flour and turning the flour into a small cake. Both sides of the cake were baked into a golden yellow, and it really was very good.

As Bei Nuan ate the small cake, she heard someone whispering nearby.

"Why do you think that A suddenly found his conscience and bought that F food?"

The other person answered with absolute certainty, "He's afraid that she'll die too quickly if she's starving, and he won't have anyone to bully."

Bei Nuan: "..."

Anyways, these people would keep finding new ways to twist the truth.