Chapter 155: Bookstore

Chapter 155: Bookstore

This is a building shaped like a tree, about three to four meters tall. From a distance, it looks like a squat tree. It’s actually a small cabin with a log exterior, shaped like a tree. It has thick branches and green leaves hanging from them. These leaves are carved from green wood. There are also arc-shaped lattice windows of varying heights carved into the stout trunk.

It has a warm, fairy-tale feel that makes it instantly lovable.

The main entrance hall, about one meter above the ground, also follows an arc shape, with glass and wooden strips forming a lattice pattern. A short flight of steps leads up to the entrance of the bookstore.

There are two vending machines on either side of the entrance, showing this is a business.

Inside, the space has a high ceiling, making it quite spacious, with over 100 square meters of area and a height difference of more than ten meters. It is the tallest single-story structure among all the current raft buildings.

The interior walls, like the exterior, are also arc-shaped. Currently, during the power supply period, Wu Shaoshan found the switch and turned on the lights, filling the high-ceiling space with a soft, clear, warm yellow glow.

The whole interior of the 100-square-meter building is furnished with wooden tables and chairs, with a very reasonable layout. It doesn’t waste space or feel cramped.

A column in the center supports the high ceiling. The column is about one meter in diameter and encircled at the base by a circular bar. The staff can see the entire bookstore from any point within the bar.

The most ingenious feature is the interior walls. Every part of the walls, except for the windows, is lined with bookshelves, stacked in layers nearly ten meters high. The arc-shaped walls are filled with a variety of books. The bookshelves, of a simple and rustic style, have different categories of books color-coded and placed on various types of shelves.

Wheeled ladders are placed against the walls, allowing users to reach any bookshelf on the upper walls.

At the central bar, there is a simple water bar for selling drinks. In one corner of the bookstore is a communal bathroom, small but equipped with all necessary facilities.

After looking around, some impatient companions were eager to get books but were stopped by an invisible wall of air.

"It's probably because the bookstore hasn't officially opened yet. Or maybe you need to pay a certain amount of points to get the books you want," Wu Shaoshan guessed. She wandered around, looking for her cabin.

So far, every upgraded raft has transformed the original cabin into a two-bedroom, one-living room apartment.

However, she had searched but couldn't find the door to the small apartment.

"Could it be outside?" Zhang Tian suggested.

So, everyone left the bookstore again and finally found another staircase on the left side of the bookstore. This was a spiral staircase built along the stout trunk, winding upwards to the top of this "tree."

Because the branches had been blocking it and it was nighttime with poor lighting, it was only now that everyone discovered there was indeed a tree house at the top of this "tree."

That was Wu Shaoshan's living space—her home.

Shu Fu followed behind Wu Shaoshan and Zhang Tian, walking up the spiral staircase to the top of the tree, where there was a wooden platform. On one side was a triangular-roofed log cabin, and on the other side was a fence. The platform looked very much like a balcony, with a wooden round table and two chairs placed on it.

After Zhang Tian knocked on the door as a visitor, she entered the house smoothly.

Shu Fu could enter anyone's house without hindrance, but she knew how much Wu Shaoshan valued her personal space. So, after asking her for permission, she followed behind her and Zhang Tian into the house.

The lights soon came on, and the interior of the simple and rustic log cabin was indeed quite spacious. However, unlike the business area of the bookstore downstairs, the ceiling here was quite low, only about 2.2 to 2.3 meters high, giving the house an even more delicate fairy-tale feel.

The layout of the house was similar to that of Lu Zheng and Yao Ruoyun's apartment in some places. Upon entering, there was an open-plan kitchen and living room, furnished simply with minimalist wooden furniture, all in a clean and tidy light wood color scheme. In addition, there was a bathroom and two rooms.

Honestly, Zhang Tian would fit in just right living here. Although it would be a bit of a hassle to apply for visitor status every 12 hours, a person's sleep typically lasts 8 to 9 hours, which is plenty of time for eating, washing, and overnight stays.

As for during the day, Zhang Tian would need to work at the inn up front. The working hours at the inn are different from those of other rafts, with two shifts, morning and evening, alternating between two people. The morning shift starts at seven and ends at four in the afternoon, with an hour for lunch and a break in the middle.

The evening shift starts at 2 PM and requires six hours of work, including a one-hour dinner and rest break, making the total shift seven hours, with work ending at 9 PM.

The inn's staff currently have one day off per week. Lu Zheng mentioned that they probably could switch to two days off per week if they hired three more employees.

Overall, Zhang Tian is quite busy, and no matter when she knocks, whether Wu Shaoshan is home or not, as long as she clicks on her personal panel, Zhang Tian can enter the house. It's roughly the same as entering a password.

**

After Wu Shaoshan and Zhang Tian moved out, the number of guests at Lu Zheng's inn returned to the original six. The large inn was empty, and they were missing out on some raft points every day. However, the vending machine was doing good business. Except for Shu Fu and Yao Ruoyun's family, everyone had already used up their fresh fruits and vegetables.

Every time new items were stocked in the vending machine, they would be sold out within an hour.

Lu Zheng sold all the stock he had on hand, and the pressure fell on Yao Ruoyun's family from the planting house. Fortunately, before long, the first batch of chickens and ducks from the pet house were ready for harvest. This batch accounted for about half of the total number.

At first, Zheng Feifei and her team lacked experience. After taking care of the fluffy creatures for a few days and brushing up on the relevant knowledge, they learned that chickens and ducks come in different varieties, including meat chickens and egg-laying chickens.

Meat chickens matured quickly for harvest, while egg-laying chickens matured slowly and laid eggs at a slower rate.

After the meat chickens were harvested, not all of them were slaughtered; some were kept as breeding chickens.

Even the meat chickens from the raft pet house were very suitable for breeding. After brushing up on the relevant knowledge and making careful selections, they were finally able to move the other harvested meat chickens to the collection area.

Each hive house in the pet house has a collection area where slaughtering and cleaning are fully automated. It can even specify whether to remove the head and claws, and whether the final product is halved or kept whole, with all the internal organs retained. The heads and claws are packaged separately and sold to those who particularly like these parts.

Since the first harvest was relatively small, Zheng Feifei and her mother selected the fattest chicken and divided it into three equal portions, giving them to Wu Shaoshan, Longsheng, and Yue Dong as a work perk.

In addition, they kept two chickens and two ducks for their own family. The remaining half chicken and half duck automatically appeared in the profit area of Shu Fu's space, with the rest sold to Lu Zheng. He set the half chicken as one product and selected the 'limit purchase' option, allowing the vending machine to finally have the first batch of fresh meat for sale.

That day, it was like a holiday for everyone, with the aroma of chicken soup wafting from every raft.

The chicken meat from the raft pet house was incredibly fresh and fragrant, even though it was just a meat chicken. Since each chicken was raised to be very plump and fresh, no one wanted to braise or fry them.

Such chicken soup required no seasoning other than salt, just a handful of scallions sprinkled before turning off the heat.

Some companions kept scallions and garlic on the window sills of their own rooms. Those who couldn't keep scallions alive would go to Yao Ruoyun's raft to get some. Scallions, like leeks, will continue to grow if the roots are kept.

Moreover, the vegetables planted in the planting house naturally had short growth cycles, so scallions grew quickly in batches. Yao Ruoyun's family gave away these seasoning vegetables instead of selling them.

Curious about the chicken meat from the raft pet house, Shu Fu also made soup in the Drift Island House. However, with rich ingredients, she added bamboo pith and bamboo shoots to create an even more fragrant and delicious bamboo pith chicken soup.

She didn't take any other side dishes and was quite full after drinking half a pot of soup and eating one chicken leg and some bamboo pith.

After the meal, she went to the tree house bookstore behind, which had begun a trial operation the previous day. The books inside were not for sale, but after spending a certain amount of points to get a bookstore card, you could read inside the bookstore.

When guests left, the books could not be taken out of the bookstore area unless they went to the counter to handle the borrowing procedures. The operator would scan the bracelet on the counter and then the book being borrowed, allowing the guest to take the book away.

Borrowed books must be returned within the specified time, and if there was any damage, the guest had to compensate with a certain amount of points. However, once the books were returned to the shelves, they would return to a brand-new state when another guest took them down to read. These bookshelves seemed to have a self-repair function.

If the borrowed books were not returned within the specified time, the books would disappear from the person's home and return to the bookstore's shelves. The guest's bookstore card would be automatically locked for a period, during which they could still read books inside the bookstore but could not borrow any more.

Wu Shaoshan was initially worried that she wouldn't be able to manage everything on her own, having to handle the counter, organize the bookshelves, and clean the bookstore. However, through the electronic panel inside the main entrance of her residence, she quickly figured out how to operate the bookstore and found that managing it alone seemed feasible.

But since she was still working at the pet house, she temporarily scheduled the trial operation of the bookstore on her work rest days.

There weren't many people on the raft, and not everyone enjoyed reading, so the bookstore didn't need to be open every day. With three rest days per week besides her work at the pet house, she currently felt it was more than enough.

For these three days, she tentatively planned to operate for two days, and there was no need to stay in the bookstore all day. As long as she handled the bookstore card for the companions who wanted to read, they could freely stay and read inside the bookstore.

Unless someone really liked the book they were holding and wanted to take it home, she would need to come over and handle it. But even then, a shout would suffice. She was usually either in the tree house upstairs or in the bookstore downstairs, so a shout would always be heard.

She wanted to try out the soft opening to see if she could handle two jobs at the same time. If possible, she planned to continue working at the animal care house. After all, there really aren't many people on the raft right now, and she would get really bored just watching the shop all day.

In addition, another reason for the soft opening was to see if she could handle working six days a week with only one day off. If not, she would hire an assistant for the bookstore—someone who would work just two days a week.

Shu Fu had already signed up for a bookstore membership the day before. The bookstore had a huge collection of books. Although she had also downloaded a large number of books on her phone, she knew e-books were just not the same as physical books. Her own physical books were limited, and the unique atmosphere of the bookstore made reading here feel special.

After two days of soft opening, Wu Shaoshan still wanted to hire an assistant to take care of the cleaning.

Currently, only Xu Tingfeng and his brother are unemployed on the raft. However, Jiang Dai was also very interested in this job because it required her to work just two days a week, leaving her with three days off.

When Shu Fu arrived, Xu Tingfeng and Jiang Dai were pitching themselves to Wu Shaoshan. She looked around but couldn't find Xu Jiechu.

She didn't ask any nosy questions, just found the mystery novel she had started, grabbed a sofa seat, poured herself a cup of iced lemon tea, put on her headphones, and quietly began reading to the soothing piano music.

Soon after, Zhang Tian also arrived at the bookstore, said hello, and then found a book she wanted to read, quietly sitting in a corner to read.

Shu Fu knew that Zhang Tian's ability to peacefully accept Wu Shaoshan's transformation was not only due to Wu Shaoshan's efforts but also because Zhang Tian must have put in the effort to adjust her own mindset.

After all, it's understandable to feel down if even the last friend had become a person with special abilities, and while the raft could still tow, she herself had a raft but had to live in someone else's Drift Island House. Anyone would feel down about it for a while.

However, because Zhang Tian had moved into Wu Shaoshan's tree house on the raft and had to frequently activate the visitor function every day, Wu Shaoshan discovered an upgraded visitor feature.

When the same person had been a temporary visitor for seven consecutive days, the next time they knocked, the prompt on Wu Shaoshan's panel would change: "You have a fixed visitor—Zhang Tian. Allow entry? Note: The fixed visitor period is 24 hours."

This unexpected discovery made both Wu Shaoshan and Zhang Tian very happy. In Wu Shaoshan's view, the visitor function might upgrade again, allowing visitors to stay even longer.

Perhaps one day, "visitors" could become true "family."

Beyond the raft, there was an endless expanse of the dark ocean. In the silent dark nights, huge shadows would occasionally leap out of the water surface and then crash back down. Some of these shadows were whales living in the deep sea, while others were new species of giant sea fish they had never seen before.

It was also possible that these were not new species but ocean creatures that had previously only lived in the deep sea, mutating so they could pass through the shallow waters and reach the ocean surface to see what had become of this planet, now almost entirely a water world.

Usually, the deeper the water, the greater the chance of encountering giant marine life. Whenever they had sunlight or the means to record, they would use their phones to capture these moments and send them to Shu Fu.

Shu Fu would mark the latitude and longitude of these marine creatures in the photos and videos. Then, Lan Lan would upload them to that website, providing new data for officials and scientific researchers, making use of the greatest feature of the Drift Island House—reconnaissance.

Occasionally, in the distant waters to the left of the raft, small pieces of land—now more accurately called islands—would appear. Sometimes, near these pieces of land, they could also see huge ships. These were vessels built with the entire nation's effort. Some pieces of land had two or three ships docked nearby, while smaller pieces of land had only one.

These giant ships reminded Shu Fu of the "Noah's Ark." Each of these ships might be carrying all the survivors of a nation, bearing their hope for survival.

No wonder the Fengshang Plateau in the Hua Country was coveted by some countries that would go to great lengths to seize this piece of land.

Days passed slowly in this tranquil and comfortable drifting time.

They drifted at an extremely slow pace on the sea for another month and returned to the southern waters of the Fengshang Plateau. It was already September, and summer had completely passed.

During this period, Yao Ruoyun's planting house raft underwent significant changes. After successively harvesting thirty different types of fruits and vegetables and reaching a certain sales volume, it upgraded from a planting house to a planting gallery!

**

The author has something to say:

Meat chickens can be kept for breeding, depending on their growth and health conditions. This is raft breeding, so they are in the best condition and can be safely kept for breeding.