Barbecue Party and the Awkward Chu Haoling

As they had brought back too many kinds of seafood and it would be too much trouble to cook them one by one, everyone came to a unanimous agreement to barbecue in the yard in the evening. At the same time, they could also discuss the recent events in the base. When night fell, three large grills were set up in the yard. Two square tables were full of various seafood skewers as well as other barbecue ingredients such as fresh corn. There was also the sauce specially made by Yun Yao on the grill.

"Just let them do it themselves, Sis. They can manage the barbecue.

Seeing that Yun Yao was going to grill food for everyone, Yun Che stopped her after coming out of the next room. Ye Xingchen also smiled and stood up, "That's right, Yao, we can do it ourselves. What would you like to have? I'll grill them for you."

"Uncle Ye, I want meat, BBQ meat!"

Before Yun Yao could answer, Chenchen who was squatting on the ground playing with Xiaobai raised his hand and shouted loudly—he liked all kinds of meat.

"Okay, BBQ meat, gimme a minute!"

Ye Xingchen, who always didn't know what to do with him, walked to the grill with Jiang Shang following in tune with him, "Let me do it, Senior."

"Let's do it together?"

Ye Xingchen turned to look at him, raising his eyebrows and with a smile on his face. Jiang Shang grabbed his hand emotionally, "Sure, let's do it together."

"Look at you, what's there to be so happy about?"

This was why he could never say no to him—he was simply too adorable.

"I'm happy being with you!"

Jiang Shang took his hand, and his smiling face was full of love, looking nothing like the terrifying man holding a ribbon and a nine-section whip on the battlefield.

"Mm, I'm happy too."

Ye Xingchen couldn't help but caress his face lovingly, and the two of them looked as if they were in a romantic drama. Chu Haoling on the opposite side of the grill couldn't stand them, "Erm, can you guys go back to the room if you wanna act lovey-dovey? Or at least stay away from me?"

Could they spare a thought for others? The two of them were the mushiest couple around.

"Haha…"

Ye Xingchen would probably feel embarrassed in the past, but he was now used to their teasing. He merely smiled and took Jiang Shang to the side to choose the food to grill. Lu Haixuan took two oysters and placed them on the grill, "Go take a seat over there, Chu. I'll do the grilling for you."

With that said, Lu Haixuan skillfully took the garlic and rubbed it on the oysters, and only one of them had a small amount of fresh chili added to it. Although most of them didn't know how to cook, grilling seemed to be an essential skill for men and everyone knew how to do it.

"I want grilled squid, lamb skewers, potato, lotus root slices and corn."

Chu Haoling didn't stand on ceremony with him either, and the things he ordered happened to be the ones he was grilling. Lu Haixuan smiled, took over the skewers and brushed the barbecue sauce on them skillfully. Chu Haoling didn't leave, but leaned close to him and whispered, sounding a little unnatural, "Erm, are you still mad about what happened during the day?"

He wasn't sure if Lu Haixuan was really mad. He couldn't tell from the way he behaved, and this was why he found it troublesome being in a relationship. He used to do whatever he wanted, but now he had to worry about another person's feelings. He hadn't done that on purpose during the day. They were all men, and he had hugged the person out of habit without thinking much about it. It was only he was jealous and pulled him away that he realized he shouldn't have done that.

"Nope."

After taking a glance at him, Lu Haixuan's lips curled into a smile. He was obviously very happy that he was aware of his feelings, and other things didn't matter anymore. He had never expected himself to be more important to him than food in the first place.

"No? Then what did you want to talk to me alone when you came back?"

After shooting a glance at him, Chu Haoling twiddled his fingers and mumbled awkwardly again—he was really not used to having such conversation.

"Chu."

Seeing this, Lu Haixuan put down the skewers and turned to look at him, "I admit that I was really jealous at the time. If you hug another person now, I will still be jealous because I like you very much and don't like seeing you being too close to others. I wasn't mad. I wanted to talk to you alone because I hope you can understand how I feel. Che was right. Love is between two people, and being more honest and less suspicious will make a relationship more lasting. I want to be with you for the rest of my life, and I don't want to wait for you to slowly realize this."

He didn't know if he liked Chu Haoling at the beginning and had gotten together with him merely out of responsibility. However, he was now sure that he liked him, and he even found his extreme love for food very adorable and likeable.

"Got it, I'll take note of this going forward. Enough about saying that you like me, don't you find it disgusting for two men to talk about this?"

Chu Haoling's cheeks were hot, and he didn't know whether it was because of the fire or because he was embarrassed, but Lu Haixuan assumed it was the latter, "No, it's not disgusting for two people who love each other, regardless of gender."

With that said, Lu Haixuan turned around and started grilling for him with a smile on his face, thinking that what Chu said about not liking him wasn't true.

"Hurry up, I'm starving."

After resolving their differences, Chu Haoling took out a fruit and started biting it while sparing no effort to exploit his personal griller. Lu Haixuan nodded with a smile on his face. Yun Che and the rest who saw this from a distance smiled at each other after realizing that their worries were unnecessary. Since being with Chu Haoling, Lu Haixuan had matured a lot and was now capable of settling their issues without them having to worry so much.

"Looks like we have to do the grilling ourselves. What do you wanna eat, I'll grill for you."

Since everyone was grilling by themselves, Xing Feng wasn't going to sit back and wait for food either. He still gotta feed his wife.

"Hmm… just some meat and vegetables will do."

Yun Che, who wasn't picky about food, thought for a while. After nodding at him, Xing Feng got up and went to the table to choose the skewers they needed. Gu Mingxuan yelled jokingly, "Chief, grill two oysters for me!"

"Dream on, do it yourself."

"Haha…"

It wasn't Xing Feng who answered him, but Yun Che who was sitting next to him. Since neither of them lowered their voices, everyone burst into laughter. Gu Mingxuan stood up helplessly, "Looks like I really gotta do it myself…"

"Let me do it."

Yun Yao stood up before he finished speaking, and everyone immediately turned to look at them. Yun Yao blushed at once, seemingly realizing how intimate her action was. Everyone started cursing themselves silently for looking at them and causing the awkward situation.

"Thank you, Yao."

Nonetheless, Gu Mingxuan was rather calm and went back to his seat looking unaffected. The innocent Chenchen looked up and said, "Mom, I want meat."

He was indeed his mother's darling son, giving her an out at the right time.

"Okay, meat huh? I'll grill for you right away."

Yun Yao heaved a sigh of relief and patted her son's head before turning around. Gu Mingxuan kept looking at her back. Yun Che and Leng Yehan who were at the same table exchanged glances, smiling with their eyes. Yun Cheng, who was in the middle, looked at them with a puzzled face. Since he didn't understand what they were talking about, he simply played games on his tablet while biting a crystal nucleus. His intake of crystal nuclei seemed to have increased, either due to the surplus or he needed more energy.

"Che, what do you think about the land reclamation?"

Gu Mingxuan randomly started a topic since everyone was chatting while barbecuing. He had already told them in the afternoon all the things that had happened in the base.

Yun Che said while eating melon seeds, "It's good. The military said they would provide the seeds for free and take a 10% cut of the fee. What if we don't want their seeds? Does that mean we don't have to pay tax?"

They were fine with paying 10% to Mo Army, but not to the three armies and the government.

"I doubt that's possible. They have the right to collect 10% of the management fee as long as it's in the base."

Gu Mingxuan shook his head after pondering for a while. The payment was unavoidable, just like every citizen had to pay personal income tax before the doomsday. The fee for contracting the 20 acres of land had been waived merely because they had contributed a lot, and the possibility of having other payments waived was low.

"It shall not be in the base then."

Since the base would only continue to extend forward and unlikely to expand sideways, they could start with this without having to open up mountains and forests. There were villages to the left and right, and they just had to enclose the entire village before destroying all the zombies inside. As there usually weren't many people inside, zombies wouldn't go in for no reason. Needless to say, they would need to stand guard personally during planting and harvesting where a lot of manpower would be required.

"Not in the base?"

Gu Mingxuan frowned, for this wasn't something that could be done easily. First of all, manpower was a big problem. Moreover, the terrain outside the base wouldn't be just a few dozens of acres. A large number of earth and gold superfunction possessors would be needed for building the enclosure, and the manpower from Chaoyang and Peak alone wouldn't be enough. They also had to clean up the zombies, do the ploughing and planting, etc., which would take at least a month or so. Managing it in the future would also be a big problem. They could stop zombies, but what about humans and mutant beasts? It would be troublesome if they went down the mountain.

"This matter can't be decided so easily, let's discuss it tomorrow. We gotta make it big if we decide to do it."

Knowing what he was thinking, Yun Che ended the topic with a smile before asking, "Are our 40 acres of land next to each other?"

40 acres of land could be used to grow many things, but they had to do some transformation first.

"Yep, Loser and Joy Squad's are also next to us. They've followed your instructions and not done anything yet."

Gu Mingxuan nodded and stopped harping on the topic. It was about time that they planted something on their existing land. Others were almost done with the ploughing and planting of the seeds. People who were jealous of them were probably going to spread rumors if they continued to leave it unattended. After all, most people in the base hadn't been allocated land, and there were jealous people everywhere.

"Haha…we're not paying tax anyway. Let's start with it tomorrow. Get someone to enclose the 40 acres of land first and do the ploughing before setting up greenhouse tents over them. I have plastic film here, so be sure to cover them up well. We gotta build a few reservoirs inside and make sure the sprinklers are properly set up. We have no lack of electric pumps. Also, inform Chen and Lei to start work with us tomorrow."

He wasn't planning to grow vegetables but grains. Even if they didn't need them, they could still use the grains to buy people off. Going forward, what people needed weren't vegetables, but food that would fill them up.