The first rays of morning sunlight accompanied Zhu Cui as she made her way up the mountain to the halfway point.
Xiao An was already up, washed, dressed, and had just finished breakfast.
She knew very well that people would come up today. Some would be concerned about her, while others would be suspicious. One group after another would probably come to ask questions.
Zhu Cui had clearly been frightened. She grabbed Xiao An’s hand.
“Last night, Huang Ji was found on the mountain path opposite your house. Someone apparently pierced his thigh with a knife. Did you hear anything?”
Xiao An nodded. “I did. In the middle of the night, I heard someone screaming on the mountain path. I couldn’t tell who it was or why someone was screaming so horribly in the middle of the night, so I didn’t dare open the door to look. I was just thinking of going back to the village after breakfast to ask what happened. So it was Huang Ji? Why was he up here in the middle of the night instead of sleeping at home?”
Zhu Cui said, “According to Huang Ji himself, he got up during the night to relieve himself. He was squatting by the wall when suddenly a huge, dazzling ball of fire appeared right in front of him. It was jumping up and down in front of him. His body somehow lost control, and he ended up following the fireball.
“When he reached the mountain path, he finally realized what was happening. He turned around and tried to run back, but suddenly a knife flew through the air. It went into the back of his thigh and came out through the front.
“Huang Ji fell down and screamed in pain. The village dogs heard him first and started barking together, which alerted everyone. Several villagers came up and carried him back down.”
Xiao An thought to herself that Huang Ji was quite clever. Even after getting stabbed straight through the thigh, he could still come up with a lie to cover up the fact that he had gone up the mountain alone with malicious intentions.
Hopefully, he had learned his lesson and would behave himself from now on.
If he dared to do anything evil again, she would chop his head off. She would never allow such scum to remain alive and harm others.
Zhu Cui was clearly still terrified. Her entire body trembled slightly.
“Xiao An, you’d better stop living here. Come stay at my house. I’ll make your uncle sleep in the pigsty. Just endure it until autumn. If you can buy a house by then, that’s good. If you can’t, we’ll think of something else.”
Xiao An shook her head.
“Auntie, I don’t cause trouble or harm anyone. Whether it’s gods or ghosts, none of them will trouble an innocent person like me. I’ll be fine living here. Don’t worry.”
Just as Zhu Cui was about to persuade her again, the village head arrived with several villagers.
The village head asked Xiao An the same questions as Zhu Cui, asking whether she had heard anything during the night.
Xiao An repeated exactly what she had told Zhu Cui.
Most ancient people believed in ghosts and spirits. Yet the village head couldn’t understand one thing.
Huang Ji’s wife said that the knife belonged to their household.
But Huang Ji insisted that he hadn’t been carrying a knife when he got up during the night.
That left everyone puzzled.
Some villagers secretly began to suspect Huang Ji.
Someone said, “Could it be that he knew Su Xiao An was living alone halfway up the mountain, so he took the household knife and went up there to pry open her door, intending to do something improper to her?”
Another person said, “Xiao An knows martial arts. If she was the one who stabbed Huang Ji through the leg, it’s not impossible.”
Someone else immediately objected. “That doesn’t make sense. Even if Xiao An knows martial arts, could she really have that much strength? And Huang Ji is a grown man. Would he just stand there and let her stab him?”
“Something doesn’t add up. If Xiao An really did it, Huang Ji would definitely report her to the authorities and demand that she pay for his medical treatment.”
“Xiao An is so poor she can barely feed herself. Where would she get money to treat him? If he really reports her to the county office, not only will he fail to get any money, he’ll also ruin his own reputation. How would he continue living in the village?”
The villagers continued discussing the matter among themselves.
Xiao An didn’t care what they said. She only focused on taking care of her fields.
Muskmelon seeds normally took five to ten days to germinate. Before planting, Xiao An had soaked her seeds in the clear spring water from her space.
As a result, they had sprouted after only two days.
By the third day, the seedlings had already pushed their way through the soil.
That day, Xiao An sat on the edge of the field, admiring her melon seedlings.
Suddenly, a rabbit searching for tender grass darted out of a nearby ditch.
Xiao An’s eyes lit up.
Without thinking, she grabbed half of a wooden stick lying beside her and swung it at the rabbit’s head.
Unlike Zhu Cui, Xiao An had excellent accuracy.
The stick struck the rabbit directly, killing it instantly.
Xiao An happily ran over, picked up the rabbit, and smiled like a little lily blooming in the sunlight.
Unfortunately, Huang Xing, who was farming at the bottom of the hillside, happened to see the entire scene.
Huang Xing was Huang Ji’s cousin and also lived in Linshi Village.
He lowered his voice and said to his wife, “With that kind of accuracy, it’s entirely possible she was the one who stabbed Huang Ji.”
His wife shook her head.
“If she did it, why wouldn’t your second brother tell anyone? Why wouldn’t he even tell his own family? And that huge fireball he described jumping along the mountain path—Huang Ji was terrified out of his wits. Could he really have been pretending?”
The couple watched Xiao An and whispered among themselves.
By then, Xiao An had already carried the rabbit home.
The original Xiao An’s family had only two knives. The kitchen knife was chipped in two places and so dull that someone with weak strength could probably fail to cut even a finger with it.
The other was a small knife used for digging wild vegetables. Its tip was broken, so it was barely useful for digging vegetables and unsuitable for anything else.
Xiao An smiled.
With a wave of her hand, she took a sharp knife out of her space.
She placed the rabbit on a large stone and began skinning it.
Looking at the plump rabbit, Xiao An thought of Zhu Cui and her children, who had rarely had enough food.
She picked up the old kitchen knife and split the rabbit in half.
She placed one half into a clay basin and put it into her space.
She put the other half into another basin, locked the door, and carried it down the mountain to Zhu Cui.
Zhu Cui and Wang Dashan had just returned from farming.
When they saw Xiao An carrying half a rabbit, tears immediately streamed down Zhu Cui’s face.
“Xiao An, you said yourself that food is precious during a famine. Why didn’t you keep this for yourself?”
Indeed, in such difficult times, who would willingly give away food—especially meat?
Xiao An smiled.
“The children haven’t had a taste of meat in so long. This rabbit is perfect for them to satisfy their cravings.
“We’ve been neighbors for so long. From now on, don’t be so polite with me. If you’re always being polite, we’ll become strangers.”
Zhu Cui wiped at the corners of her eyes with her sleeve, but she couldn’t stop the tears.
Just as Xiao An was about to leave, Zhu Cui called her back.
Linshi Village was surrounded by mountains. The villagers’ fields were scattered around the various mountain foothills, and no family had large stretches of fertile farmland.
Zhu Cui and Wang Dashan’s several mu of land were at the foot of the North Mountain.
That morning, after finishing their planting, the couple had gone into the mountains to look for wild vegetables.
Unexpectedly, they had found a patch of kudzu vines.
After spending considerable effort digging them out, they had managed to find several kudzu roots.
Zhu Cui gave Xiao An the largest one.
Xiao An was a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, so she knew better than anyone that kudzu root could be used as medicine as well as food. It was valuable stuff.
She didn’t refuse the gift and placed the kudzu root into the clay basin.
Looking at Zhu Cui, she said, “Auntie, kudzu root and rabbit meat will go perfectly together.”
After returning to the bamboo house, Xiao An first went nearby and gathered a large bundle of firewood.
She took out her half of the rabbit and chopped it into pieces.
She placed the iron pot over the simple stove outside the bamboo house and lit the fire.
She added water and brought it to a boil, then blanched the rabbit meat to remove the blood and impurities.
After blanching it, she placed the rabbit meat in the pot and stir-fried it.
Unfortunately, she had no oil.
There was no soybean oil or vegetable oil, and she had neither scallions, ginger, nor garlic.
After stir-frying it for a while, she added the chopped kudzu root.
Then she added salt, some of the clear spring water from her space, and other seasonings she had stored there.
She covered the pot.
Once it came to a boil over high heat, she reduced it to low heat and let it simmer for an hour.
When the rabbit meat had become tender, she added a little MSG and served it into a bowl.
She placed the steaming rabbit meat on a large stone outside.
The cornmeal steamed cakes she had made earlier had been stored inside the space, where time remained still, so they were still warm.
With a wave of her hand, she took out one of the steamed cakes and began eating.
As she ate, Xiao An thought about the lack of furniture in the bamboo house.
There wasn’t even a table.
It was really inconvenient.
After finishing her meal, she planned to go into the mountains, cut down a tree, and make herself a dining table. Then, little by little, she would make a few chairs.
After coming to this world, time seemed to have suddenly become abundant.
There was enough time to make almost anything she needed.