Chapter 9 - 8: Unexpected Discovery of Mutated Lemon Fruit

The eldest and the second eldest were fast. Just as Sev Steele finished slicing a section of wild yam, they returned with a wheelbarrow carrying over a dozen relatively flat stones.

Sev glanced at the stones, estimating them to weigh a good hundred pounds altogether. She really had no idea where these two little brats got their strength.

"Where did the wheelbarrow come from?" Sev asked in a flat tone.

"We borrowed it from Mr. Hanson in Courtyard 1 of Building 2," Rusty replied.

Mr. Hanson, as he called him, existed as a vague impression in the original owner’s memory. He seemed to be a former mercenary who had been discharged due to genetic collapse. In The Wasteland, all Ability users could choose to join a Mercenary Guild and hunt Mutant Beasts with their teams. However, going out on hunts was fraught with danger. Accidentally wandering into highly radioactive zones could lead to genetic collapse, which resulted in a rapid decline of Abilities and a deteriorating physique. Simply put, one would become a cripple waiting to die.

But a lion in winter is still a lion. As a former mercenary, his savings were bound to be far greater than those of ordinary slum dwellers. Even though Mr. Hanson was now reduced to living in The Slums, he undoubtedly possessed quite a few everyday tools. Any other slum dweller would absolutely never lend such a wheelbarrow to two children.

Sev felt that borrowing someone’s tools for free was definitely inappropriate. She decided that once the wild yams were fully processed, she would have the two children send some over as a token of gratitude. With this in mind, she didn’t say much else and hurriedly directed her two ready-made sons to build a makeshift stove in the yard.

She planned to roast the wild yams before selling them. Roasted wild yams were not only more delicious but also more resistant to spoiling, giving them a longer shelf life. This way, if they couldn’t be sold for a good price, she could just bring them back as the family’s food reserves.

"Alright, you two go wash your hands and come help," Sev told the eldest and the second eldest.

Then, with a quick glance, she noticed the eldest hiding his hands behind his back, seemingly concealing something.

"Rusty, what’s in your hands?" Sev asked curiously.

"I-I’m sorry, Mom. I wasn’t just playing around. I just saw that these fruits were very pretty, so I wanted to bring them back for my sister to play with," Rusty’s voice grew softer and softer.

His adoptive mother had ordered them to go out and collect stones, but he had been distracted and did something else. In her eyes, this would surely be an unforgivable mistake. Rusty closed his eyes, bracing himself for a slap.

Sev took the two bright yellow little fruits from his hand. They looked about the size of kumquats, but the color was much closer to that of a ripe lemon. She brought the little fruits to her nose and sniffed them. She thought, "My goodness! It really is the scent of a lemon!"

She quickly recalled the records regarding plant mutations in The Wasteland and realized that the vast majority of plants grew larger, like those wild vegetable leaves the size of palm fans. However, a very small minority of plants shrank after mutating.

She wondered, "Could this little yellow fruit be a mutated variety of lemon?"

With this in mind, she quickly ran back to the bedroom, took out the Detection Knife, pointed it at the edge of the little yellow fruit, and pressed the red button.

A soft CLICK rang out. A few seconds later, an automated voice began to announce:

"BEEP! Edible plant detected: Mutated Lemon Fruit. Radiation level: 48. Classification: moderate radiation.

"This species is endangered and highly rare. Please promptly deliver it to the local agricultural research institute for study."

Hearing this announcement, Rusty’s eyes snapped wide open, a sharp glint flashing in them. As the oldest child in the family, he naturally understood a bit more. He had only treated it as a pretty toy for his sister because he had never seen a Mutated Lemon Fruit before. But now that he knew it was a rare species, he instantly understood its value.

He hadn’t expected this wicked woman to be so knowledgeable, rather than angrily throwing the fruits on the ground and stomping them to mush. After all, it wouldn’t have been surprising if she had done exactly that. Any valuable plants within the safe zone had long been dug up by others; how could they possibly wait for a child like him to pick them and bring them home?

It was pure luck that he managed to pick these two fruits today. Because his adoptive mother wanted flat stones, he and his younger brother had no choice but to rummage randomly through a pile of waste rocks. The fruit had been hidden in the crevices of the rubble. After discovering them, he thought they were pretty, so he plucked them to bring home.

"You two, go quickly and carefully dig up the entire plant for me! Pay attention, you must not damage the roots, stems, or leaves, and more importantly, do not let anyone notice!" Sev immediately ordered.

She even gave them a vacuum-sealed bag, telling them to dig it up with the roots and the surrounding soil. She actually wanted to go dig it up herself, but an adult running into a pile of waste rocks to dig something up would attract too much attention. If it were two children, bystanders would just assume they were playing around.

Rusty had clearly also figured out the logic behind this. He quickly grabbed Firestone and hurried off.

Meanwhile, Sev looked at the lemon fruit she had just sliced and carefully stuck out her tongue to give it a lick.

"PTOOEY! PTOOEY! PTOOEY! Good lord, that’s sour enough to kill a girl!" she exclaimed, unable to stop her tongue from sticking out.

But a few seconds later, the sensation lingering on the tip of her tongue was the authentic sourness of a lemon. This fruit was like lemon juice concentrated more than ten times over. Perfect. She had just been worrying about having no seasonings, and now didn’t she have some?

She hurriedly took out a small bowl and mashed the entire Mutated Lemon Fruit, not even sparing the peel. She then diluted it with cold boiled water to a volume of about five hundred milliliters. Today, she was going to roast lemon-flavored dried wild yams.

While she worked enthusiastically on her end, Rusty and Firestone on the other side were so nervous that they were sweating all over.

"Firestone, you have to be extremely careful. Once we bring this thing back, it can definitely be sold for a huge price. When the time comes, if that wicked woman thinks we’re useful, she probably won’t poison us!"

"Mhm, you’re right, Big Brother. We must make the wicked woman see our value. Only then will she keep raising us," Firestone nodded in agreement. After that, he didn’t dare to get hands-on. He watched Rusty dig by himself the entire time, only helping to move the rubble aside.

The two of them nervously brought the Mutated Lemon Fruit tree back. When Sev took a look at it, this thing couldn’t even be considered a tree anymore; it was at most a potted plant.

She rummaged around for a long time and found a broken wooden box in the woodshed. This was the box the original owner had used to pack her clothes when she left the orphanage. The material was actually quite good, but over the passage of time, all the paint had peeled off, making it look incredibly shabby. Had it not been in this state, her adoptive parents wouldn’t have allowed her to take it away when she came of age and left home.

However, last month, she had scavenged a lighter metal box from the junkyard. Looking down on this broken wooden box, she threw it into the woodshed, planning to burn it as firewood in the winter.

Sev felt that it was better to plant the flora in a wooden box, and this box was just the right size. She directed the eldest and the second eldest to dig up some soil from a corner of the yard, and then planted the precious Mutated Lemon Fruit tree in the wooden box. Afterwards, she drew some purified water and carefully watered the soil until it was completely soaked.

"Mom, are you not planning to hand it over?" Rusty asked.

"Mom, isn’t it too wasteful to water it with purified water?" Firestone added. Usually, their mother was reluctant to let them drink too much purified water, yet now she was acting so generously toward a plant.

"You guys don’t understand. If we hand this thing over, we can only get paid once. But if we raise it well, it might bear a lot of fruits in the future.

"It’s like if we got an egg. Is it better to just eat the egg right away, or wait for the egg to hatch into a little hen, and then let the hen grow up to lay more eggs?"

Sev explained to them earnestly, but both children listened with looks of utter confusion.