It must have rained a bit last night—there were indeed plenty of mushrooms on the mountain today.
It didn't take Li Ran long to fill two large sacks.
And throughout the process, his hands never stopped working.
With a small machete in hand, whenever he came across long dry branches, he would chop them into one-meter segments and tie them into bundles with rice straw. These were for Hanhan to carry down later.
He used a bamboo rake to gather the fallen leaves into piles, then packed them into his back basket.
There were also tree limbs as thick as his arm, broken off by strong winds, surrounded by clusters of smaller dry twigs.
Cutting all of those would take too long, so Chu Fan decided to haul them back first and store them behind the house for processing later.
After a busy half-day, over a dozen bundles of firewood had piled up on the hillside, and his basket was full of twigs and dry leaves.
Even with Li Ran's physical stamina, he was now drenched in sweat.
He wiped his forehead and sat down in the shade of a tree, resting and enjoying the mountain breeze.
The mountain air was clean, and the weather was nice. From this height, he could clearly see far into the distance below—the view was vast and open.
After spacing out for a bit, Li Ran shifted his attention back to the system interface.
In just this short half-day, his Frustration Points had already surpassed 900.
Li Ran grinned. "This batch of netizens has some fight in them!"
He immediately spent 800 Frustration Points to redeem an Advanced Construction Skill
The moment he clicked to learn it, a flood of exquisitely detailed architectural blueprints surged into his mind.
Each blueprint was accompanied by a complete and systematic building process—from intricate handling of materials, to the design and layout of water and electrical systems, to structural principles and lanalysis, all the way up to blending architectural styles with the surrounding environment. He now understood them all with crystal clarity!
At this moment, Li Ran felt like he could take on multiple roles: architectural designer, university professor, electrician, carpenter, bricklayer...
The Construction Skill was packed with professional knowledge and skills—it was far more useful than the Beast Taming No wonder the latter cost more than three times as many Frustration Points.
Li Ran was thoroughly pleased. "Tsk tsk, this system is incredible. These 800 points were well spent!"
As for building materials, Li Ran wasn't worried.
The mountains were full of mud, sand, stones, trees, and bamboo—all of which could be processed using the system's methods to become non-polluting, eco-friendly construction materials.
Now that was true, all-natural green building!
After mentally reviewing the designs, Li Ran quickly selected a blueprint to use.
It had a touch of ancient Chinese flair: the base was made of stacked boulders, like a stone fortress. The middle layer was a traditional timber structure using mortise and tenon joinery, and the top layer was a light bamboo loft reinforced with woven framework.
The whole structure could be completed without a single bag of cement or one steel nail!
Li Ran could already picture it—his grandmother sitting in the bamboo loft, enjoying the mountain breeze and watching the beautiful sunset…
"Heh heh, just you wait. Once this mountain villa is built, everyone will be green with envy!"
He still had just over 100 Frustration Points left. Figuring he might as well use them, Li Ran switched to the lottery interface and spent 100 points on a spin.
A misty white glow flashed, and a small bottle of green liquid appeared in his inventory.
[Congratulations, Host! You've obtained one bottle of Growth Serum!]
"So this is the stuff that accelerates all forms of growth? Why's it so tiny?"
Taking it out, Li Ran realized it was even smaller than it looked in the inventory—barely the size of an eye dropper.
He checked the store again and saw that each bottle of Growth Serum cost 500 Frustration Points, which eased his frustration somewhat.
Curious, Li Ran squeezed out a single drop onto the nearby grass.
In the very next moment, the grass within a radius of ten or so centimeters suddenly sprang to life, growing like mad.
In under thirty seconds, what had once been just a few centimeters tall was now higher than Li Ran's knees!
And each blade of grass looked lush and vibrant, rich green and full of moisture.
"Nice, this is so system-style!"
Li Ran nodded in satisfaction and stowed the serum away.
Just as he was about to leave, he suddenly heard a sharp rustling sound in the distance.
Turning around, he saw the panda Hanhan charging toward him at full speed, like it was doing a 100-meter sprint.
Li Ran was startled. Had the guy gone mad?
The live chat exploded with shocked reactions.
"What triggered Hanhan? Why is it suddenly running like that?"
"That speed—especially on an uphill run—even Bolt might not keep up!"
"Look at its glowing eyes! Maybe it spotted prey?"
"Wait—is it actually going to hunt?"
"No way! Pandas might eat meat and fear no animals, but they never hunt. The energy they'd burn chasing prey far outweighs what they'd gain by eating it!"
"So... the real reason pandas are lazy is just basic cost-efficiency?"
"Forget debating—someone quick, record this!"
Amid the chatroom's flurry of excitement and disbelief, Hanhan suddenly lunged—
At a patch of grass.
Like a starving lion, the panda clawed out a big handful of fresh green blades and stuffed them into its mouth.
Then it closed its eyes, chewing slowly and blissfully.
Li Ran let out a breath of relief—so that's what this was about.
But the livestream viewers were utterly baffled.
"So... Hanhan went berserk just to eat some grass?"
"That makes no sense! That run alone must've cost it ten days' worth of energy. Grass can't possibly replenish that!"
"The poor thing's probably sick of cabbage porridge. The sight of lush grass just overwhelmed it!"
"Yeah, that must be it!"
Believing they'd found the real explanation, the chatroom quickly turned to sympathy for Hanhan—and scolding for the streamer.
Meanwhile, on Li Ran's system interface, a fresh wave of Frustration Points began to roll in…
This book is provided by FunNovel Novel Book | Fan Fiction Novel [Beautiful Free Novel Book]