Chapter 135: Chapter 135: Moving House, Farm Harvest

The household appliances had already been delivered and installed. As for the kitchen essentials, Gu Qinghuan had long since placed orders through the vending machine, prepared everything, and kept them in her space. She could just take them out and arrange them when no one was looking. Now, only a few small pieces of furniture were missing, but that wasn’t a big deal.

Zhong Luoning’s fever had subsided. After Gu Qinghuan gave her some spiritual spring water to drink, she was in pretty good spirits, though she still refused to lie down and rest, insisting on getting up to help out.

But honestly, there wasn’t much at home that needed her help.

Gu Qinghuan found a chair and moved it to the small courtyard at the front door, letting Zhong Luoning lie down and watch the three children play. She even thoughtfully brought over a blanket to cover her.

This little courtyard came with the small villa. No one knew how it had been arranged before, but now, apart from the paved areas, the rest of the land was planted with all sorts of cold-resistant vegetables by Aunt Wu and the others. The harvest season was just around the corner, and Gu Qinghuan was about to benefit from it.

The courtyard of the small villa across the street, which they had rented out, was also filled with vegetables. When the previous tenants moved out, they took all the ripe produce, but there were still plenty of unripe vegetables left.

These days, while flowers and plants are nice to look at, vegetables and fruits are far more practical.

Gu Qinghuan didn’t mind at all. In fact, she planned to continue the tradition and plant all sorts of vegetables and fruits here.

Dabao and Beibei were running wild in the courtyard, dragging Yuran along with them. Although Yuran didn’t speak or respond to them, deep down she probably wanted to interact with other children, so this time she didn’t avoid them. Instead, she quietly followed behind the two.

Watching this, Zhong Luoning felt a complicated mix of emotions.

Xiao Zhuo had told her before that Yuran’s condition was more about emotional withdrawal than true intellectual disability—she had a good chance of recovery, but it would require a lot of companionship, care, and patient guidance from her family.

Ideally, she’d have siblings to play with her, or perhaps some small animals to keep her company. Sometimes, that could have unexpectedly good results.

But the Xu family’s environment was what it was. The whole family looked at Yuran as if she were a fool, always speaking harshly, calling her “little idiot” or “dummy.” The child was so scared she’d hide whenever she saw them. How could she possibly receive any love or care?

No matter how hard Zhong Luoning tried, it was hard to make up for that.

She had wanted to give Yuran a younger sibling to keep her company, but she knew very well that her body had been damaged when she gave birth to Yuran. The doctor had said it would be nearly impossible for her to have another child in her lifetime. Besides, she had no desire to have another child with Xu Jianguo—just the thought disgusted her.

She’d tried raising small animals. Once, when she took Yuran to the market, Yuran had been drawn to some chicks a farmer was selling. So Zhong Luoning bought two chicks for her and, to avoid disturbing others, kept them in the attic.

Every day, she’d take Yuran to feed the chicks vegetable scraps and rice bran, clean up after them, and take care of their droppings. The chicks grew quickly.

Yuran spent most of her time playing with the chicks, and for once, a rare smile appeared on her face. Zhong Luoning thought this was a great idea.

But one day, when she came home, Yuran was crying her heart out, acting out violently, kicking and hitting everything in sight. The chicks were gone.

Later, she found out that Yuran’s grandfather had killed the two chicks right in front of her and taken them away as a gift for someone.

After that, Zhong Luoning had a huge fight with the Xu family. It was from that point on that Xu Jianguo started abusing her.

Back to the present—watching the three children play together, with Dabao and Beibei taking such good care of Yuran, Zhong Luoning felt a sense of peace. It had been so long since Yuran was this happy.

It was as if a weight had been lifted from her heart. Life would slowly get better, wouldn’t it?

With Zhong Luoning watching the three kids, Gu Qinghuan and Xu Huaian went back to the rental house to bring over their luggage and tidy up before returning the place.

Zhong Luoning assured them she could look after the children, so they could go without worry.

Back at the rental, the two of them stuffed all their belongings into the space in one go.

With more people at home lately, Xu Huaian hadn’t been in the space for several days. Now was the perfect time for him to go in and tidy up the livestock area and feed the animals.

Gu Qinghuan never bothered with these things.

Xu Huaian had bought an automatic feeder from the vending machine. It dispensed food on schedule, which was very convenient, though it still needed to be refilled from time to time.

“Huanhuan, Huanhuan, come in here!” Gu Qinghuan was tidying up outside when Xu Huaian called her from inside the space.

When she went in, she saw Xu Huaian holding two little gray-and-white rabbits in his hands.

“Look what I found!”

“Where did these rabbits come from?” Gu Qinghuan asked in surprise. She didn’t remember having such small rabbits in the space.

“They’re the babies of the breeding rabbits we brought in earlier. They must have been pregnant before we brought them in, and now they’ve given birth. We’ve been so busy lately, I didn’t notice. Today I checked and they’re already this big. Look, there are several litters of bunnies in the rabbit hutch. Rabbits breed fast—one or two months per litter. We’ll need to separate the babies, or they’ll starve if they can’t get enough food,” Xu Huaian explained.

Gu Qinghuan didn’t know much about this, so she just let him handle it.

But the rabbits were really cute—tiny, fluffy, and absolutely adorable.

She thought of Yuran’s condition. She’d seen a video online about an autistic child who was healed by raising a puppy.

Having a small animal should help with autism. Since they couldn’t get a dog right now, a rabbit would do just fine.

“Let’s keep two baby rabbits—no, three! Buy a few small cages for them, and give them some spiritual spring water. Later, we’ll take them back for the kids to keep as pets—they’ll love it.”

Gu Qinghuan had originally thought two would be enough, but then remembered there were three kids at home. If they only brought back two, it might cause arguments, so three it was—one for each child, nice and fair.

Xu Huaian always agreed to her suggestions without hesitation. He quickly ordered three small rabbit cages from the vending machine, each with its own little nest and water dispenser.

Even though he’d marveled at it many times before, Xu Huaian was still deeply curious about what kind of wonderful world Gu Qinghuan’s future life came from. There were so many dazzling products available—even a tiny rabbit cage could be made so exquisitely. It was truly amazing.

After drinking the spiritual spring water, the three baby rabbits seemed even more lively. They weren’t afraid in their cages, their bright little eyes darting around.

Then, Xu Huaian collected over a hundred wild pheasant eggs from the pheasant nest, and discovered five newborn wild boar piglets among the wild boar herd.

That was a surprise within a surprise—one more wild boar meant hundreds more pounds of meat in the future.

Xu Huaian separated the sow and piglets, feeding them grass and rice bran mixed with spiritual spring water.

Once he finished tending to the animals in the space, Gu Qinghuan had just about finished packing up as well.

There wasn’t much to bring—just their clothes, bedding, and some kitchenware.

Once they finished, they went straight to the landlord to return the house.

The landlord lived in another small courtyard in the same alley. He was a nice person. Seeing that Gu Qinghuan had left the place spotless, he refunded the remaining rent without a word."