Tang Village was located in the northeast of the Eastern Country, and even in the heat of a summer day, the caves within the forest still carried a chill.
As the father and daughter duo entered, breezes filtered through the tree canopy and into the cave, making Tang Shu tighten the only T-shirt she was wearing.
Seeing this, her father, with his substantial life experience, took a large coat from a wooden rack inside the cave and threw it over Tang Shu’s shoulders.
"Put it on, you’re as skinny as a little chick."
His tone was one of disdain with a touch of contempt, reminding Tang Shu of the days when she was force-fed as a child.
"Dad, I eat quite a lot and am not skinny at all."
There was really no need to treat her as a boy, determined to cultivate her into a muscular and strong type.
Tang Shu swore that she was just slender in appearance, she did have the muscles she needed. Ever since she started practicing Inner Strength, her appetite had doubled, and her body had already changed noticeably from before.
Hearing this, Father Tang looked at her thoughtfully for a long while.
"You do look sturdier than before, but that delicate frame... takes after your mother."
She remembered that her mother, a typical small figure from the Jiangnan Water Town, was just five feet three inches tall, and there she was, five feet eight inches with a model’s figure—yet her father commented that she took after her mother?!
Did he have some misunderstanding about genetic inheritance?
Before Tang Shu could figure out her father’s unique thought process, he had already picked up a trowel at hand and started ruthlessly digging up a snow lotus.
It was this very act of observation that let Tang Shu glimpse the state of medicinal herbs growing inside the cave.
The semi-transparent snow lotuses were blooming brilliantly, unaffected by the long journey and change of environment, looking even larger than before; the Full Moon Plants were thriving, with their long leaves shading one another, and they had grown noticeably taller since the last time she saw them; more than a dozen Moon-facing Grasses stood in a row, all leaning in the same direction...
Wait a minute, more than a dozen?!
Tang Shu exclaimed in astonishment, "Dad, did you propagate the Moon-facing Grass?"
When she originally brought them over from the Great Northwest, there was only one plant. It hadn’t been long since she last saw them, and now they had reproduced into a large patch? She should have never worried about these plants that thrived in shade and cold not surviving!
Father Tang lifted his chin slightly, his trowel not missing a beat as he skillfully uprooted a snow lotus.
"A trifle, if I can keep them alive, I can make them flourish."
Tang Shu silently gave her old man a mental thumbs-up.
"Seeing them now, you’re reassured, right?"
"Reassured. With you here, what’s there not to be reassured about?"
Tang Shu flashed a bright smile, which earned her an expressionless glance from Father Tang as he carried the freshly unearthed snow lotus out of the cave, where Tang Shu couldn’t see the pleased curve already forming at the corner of his mouth.
In the capital, the Du Pharmaceutical office building.
Approaching noon, an office worker dressed in a white shirt finished their tasks, stretched where they were seated, and got up to clock out using the pupil recognition system at the front desk.
"There’s a new grilled fish restaurant that’s opened downstairs, wanna try it out today?"
"Sure, the place’s decor looked pretty classy. The two of us can’t finish a fish, right? Should we call a couple others to give it a shot?"
"That works. Xiao Zhang and Sister Chen from the admin team didn’t bring lunch, we can invite them along."