Tomorrow is Chinese Valentine's Day

Back at the camp, the cow and calf were still there, and they had accumulated quite a bit of cow dung.

Fortunately, the dung from cows that eat only grass wasn't as smelly as I had imagined. We could shovel it up, let it dry, and throw it into the fire as fuel.

The main focus of survival going forward was still planting. The girls continued weaving protective nets in the shade of the trees, while I made several more clay pots, jars, flower pots, and even a rickety iron hoe.

The flower pots were originally meant for raising seedlings.

But Shallow Fruit and Yao Yao didn't think so. Before I could explain the purpose of the flower pots, the three girls happily planted the little wild flowers they had gathered, mistakenly thinking I was a thoughtful guy who understood girls' love for flowers.

What could I do? Of course, shamelessly play along:

"I've loved flowers and taken good care of them since I was little. You can test me, I know all kinds of flowers. I was named Little Gardener of the Year in kindergarten for several years straight, and I had watered most of the flowers in our neighborhood flower beds..."

Yao Yao mercilessly exposed me: "Stop lying, it was you who killed Teacher's succulent in high school, right?"

"That was an accident!"

"An accident where you poured instant noodle soup into it? When Teacher smelled the beef flavor coming from the succulent, she almost cried."

Ning Shu laughed out loud: "Haha, I didn't know you had such mischievous moments, Lu Zhe!"

"Well, it was senior year of high school, the academic pressure was intense, sometimes I did some outrageous things. Later I reflected on my actions and turned over a new leaf. After graduation, I worked half a month just to buy her an even nicer potted plant."

Shen Bing nodded: "Admitting mistakes and changing for the better, still a very kind boy."

Yao Yao nodded: "Yeah, coincidentally it was on Qixi Festival that day, and our teacher who was not well-off had finally found a boyfriend, they almost broke up because of this incident."

Ning Shu burst out laughing: "Haha, Lu Zhe, are you the devil?"

"I really didn't notice the date that day... Oh yeah, today seems to be..."

The girls thought for a moment, and realized the same thing at once: "Tomorrow is Qixi Festival!!"

Counting the days, today was July 6th, tomorrow really was Qixi Festival!

The girls suddenly became excited:

"The day when the Cowherd and Weaver Girl meet!"

"Look, these days Lu Zhe has been feeding the cows, while we've been weaving."

"While they wove cloth, we're weaving protective nets. They were weaver girls, we feel like five pitiful little spiders!"

"We should be content with just having 'weaver' in our name."

"Sigh... doesn't this mean we might be the reincarnations of the Cowherd and Weaver Girls?"

"One cowherd and five weaver girls?"

"What's wrong with that? That's precisely the resolve a cowherd should have!"

"Class monitor, you know too much about unorthodox things, it's not good for your physical and mental health. I recommend you memorize some Confucian analects to cleanse your already rotten soul."

Ning Shu counted on her fingers: "Pick a way to die, Lu Zhe!"

"To be tenderly and gently nibbled to death by my beloved beauties."

"Keep dreaming!"

But joke as they may, being busy with farm work day after day, dirty, bitter and tiring, everyone was feeling a little depressed.

One or two days was fine, but long term it would definitely make the girls feel negative and weary. It'd be better to take this chance to relax!

As the ancients said: "Work and rest in moderation, go with the flow of your heart!"

Only balancing work and leisure could delight the body and mind, and improve work efficiency!

Lu Zhe looked at the time: "I propose we set aside the work progress for now. Let's prepare to properly relax and unwind tomorrow since it's a festival, and get back to the farm work the day after."

"Yay!"

"Awesome!"

"Best proposal of the year!"

Shen Bing also agreed: "Then let's put our heads together and think about how to spend this festival. I'll go first - we need to prepare lots of delicious food!"

Tang Xiaoguo nodded: "Mm, and do another thorough beach search, followed by a swimsuit party."

Ning Shu said: "Hold a bonfire party!"

Yao Yao said: "Everyone prepare a performance number, can also be a pair performance!"

Lin Shallow said: "Make some Kongming lanterns and write beautiful wishes on them, then release them together!"

...

Shen Bing nodded: "All great ideas, but we'll need to prepare a lot of stuff. Let's split into two groups - one to collect supplies, the other to decorate the venue."

Lu Zhe nodded: "Sounds good, let's do that!"

Tang Xiaoguo said: "How about some grape wine?"

The other five unanimously said: "No way!"

Eventually it was decided that Lu Zhe would take Shallow and Fruit to collect supplies, while Shen Bing took Ning Shu and Yao Yao to decorate the camp.

It invoked a sense of inter-school party preparation.

Everyone was very enthusiastic.

"Let's prepare some ingredients and make something nice. I suggest we search along the coast first to gather some seafood supplies, then go into the woods to hunt a sheep. Tomorrow we can roast a whole sheep."

Tang Xiaoguo was surprised: "That wild?"

"Life will gradually get better as long as you're willing to work hard, right? We can't keep eating python meat and gnawing on bananas, living like savages."

Lin Shallow agreed: "I concur!"

The three set off with backpacks to search along the coast.

After a few days, more bottles had been washed ashore. They washed them clean and took them back.

Other than bottles, they only caught a few conch shells and some sea grapes.

The two girls couldn't walk any further when they saw the colorful little fish in the water, running around trying to catch them, but were completely unable to.

Lu Zhe felt that if they wanted fish, they could just have Yao Yao go fishing by the reef. The little fish near this beach had little meat and were sly, really not worth wasting energy on.

But he didn't stop them either.

If bathing in the rain was the romance for boys, then catching little fish by the sea was the girls' dreamy delight.

Go on and play, I'll go find better stuff!

Lu Zhe discovered there were occasionally mangrove trees and reefs on the beach, which were the best hiding spots for crabs.

Catching a few crabs to improve their cuisine.

However, none to be found!

Lu Zhe searched for over an hour but only found one crab.

He finally startled it out with a stick, but suddenly sensed something amiss, an acute perception of danger made him subconsciously jump back!

A large coconut fell right where he was standing with a "pap", smashing the crab he just caught into crab paste!

Looking up, a monkey bared its teeth maliciously at him.

Then it plucked another one and threw it right at Lu Zhe. Lu Zhe dodged backwards.

On the other trees were also several large and small monkeys, all happily watching.

Lu Zhe understood it had no benevolent intentions of gifting him coconuts to make friends!

These things purely wanted to pelt him for fun!

Judging by their appearance, they were macaques, the most roguish of all monkeys!

Clearly, it dared to be so unscrupulously arrogant only because it knew Lu Zhe was helpless against them!

Indeed, even with ten times the agility, Lu Zhe still might not be able to catch the monkey in the trees.

No matter!

There were other ways!

Lu Zhe took out his slingshot, pinched a steel ball, and slowly raised it, aiming at the monkey's bright red crotch!