Lin Xizhi returned to Aunt Hui’s house alone.
Before leaving her pocket space, she picked a handful of baby bok choy and two fresh bottle gourds from the vegetable patch.
Outside the wooden shed on the threshing ground, there was an old, worn bamboo basket that had been carelessly discarded. She put the vegetables inside it and brought them home.
The moment she got back, she hurried to wash her hands and start cooking.
Meanwhile, Aunt Hui was practicing boxing in the courtyard.
She had her own unique set of exercises designed to strengthen the body.
Lin Xizhi had learned the routine in her previous life as well.
However, since she had never had any martial arts foundation back then, the movements had been nothing more than empty forms to her.
Just going through the motions.
But now she had just drunk water from the spiritual spring in her space.
Combined with the boxing techniques stored in her mind, she suddenly felt a strange and unfamiliar force flowing through every limb and every bone in her body.
Lin Xizhi couldn’t wait to find out whether practicing the same boxing routine again would now produce a completely different effect.
She quickly finished cooking, set the dishes on the table, and urged Aunt Hui to come eat.
The crisp, refreshing bottle gourd and the naturally sweet baby bok choy greatly whetted Aunt Hui’s appetite.
Unable to resist, she went to the cabinet and took out a jar of liaoshao that she had pickled some time ago to go with the meal.
Liaoshao was a side dish made by shelling and washing various kinds of tiny shellfish, then marinating them in soy sauce, garlic, chili peppers, cilantro, and several other seasonings.
The seasonings brought out the shellfish’s natural sweetness and umami to the fullest.
The meat became soft, silky, and slightly slippery, with a delicate sweetness.
It was a staple side dish in almost every household around Shajing Commune.
However, because the marinated shellfish remained raw, most people couldn’t get used to eating it.
When Aunt Hui brought the dish over, she placed it beside Lin Xizhi first.
“I made this myself. Try it and tell me how it tastes,” she said.
Without hesitation, Lin Xizhi picked the biggest piece in the jar.
Just as she was about to put it into her mouth, Aunt Hui suddenly shouted,
“Wait!… Y-you should try a small piece first!”
She had intended to play a prank on Lin Xizhi, but she also couldn’t bear to see such a large piece of shellfish wasted.
Lin Xizhi, however, ignored the warning completely.
Right in front of Aunt Hui, she popped the entire piece into her mouth.
While thinking to herself, Forget it. If it goes to waste, so be it, Aunt Hui waited for Lin Xizhi to spit it out in embarrassment.
To her surprise, Lin Xizhi smacked her lips repeatedly and exclaimed,
“It’s unbelievably fresh!”
Aunt Hui was speechless.
The girl’s health may be poor…
But her appetite is incredible!
Seeing that her prank had failed, Aunt Hui gave up and simply enjoyed her meal.
Halfway through eating, she suddenly remembered that Lin Xizhi had gone out earlier to bring Pei Yunnuo back.
Yet after being gone for so long, she had returned alone.
Aunt Hui’s expression immediately darkened.
“What happened? Your little sister refused to come stay here? The nerve of her! Is she actually looking down on this place?!”
Lin Xizhi had long grown accustomed to Aunt Hui’s unpredictable temperament and knew she hated long-winded explanations.
So she couldn’t be bothered recounting all the ridiculous events of the day. Instead, she calmly went along with Aunt Hui’s train of thought.
“That’s right, Master. She refused to live with us! She really doesn’t know what’s good for her. She’d rather go to the pig farm than stay with us!”
“Who does she think she is, some persecuted intellectual?” Aunt Hui fumed, nearly losing her appetite. “The pig farm is really that wonderful, is it? Fine! I’ll go see what she’s capable of accomplishing there!”
After dinner, Aunt Hui left Lin Xizhi a medicinal prescription for a tonic to strengthen her body, instructing her to simmer it for two hours before drinking it.
Then she stormed out to find Pei Yunnuo and give her a piece of her mind.
Naturally, Lin Xizhi had no intention of stopping her.
Someone else was going to deal with Pei Yunnuo for her she couldn’t have been happier.
Now that she had the house all to herself, she felt even more relaxed.
She dragged a rocking chair beneath the vine-covered trellis in the courtyard.
Lying back comfortably, she enjoyed the cool evening breeze and took a nap.
As she gazed at the cloudless blue sky, she repeatedly reviewed Aunt Hui’s strengthening boxing techniques in her mind.
Once she had rested enough, she quietly began practicing them.
Her arms seemed stronger than before.
Her stamina had also increased considerably.
At this rate, if she kept drinking the spiritual spring water for a while longer, her progress would surely be astonishing.
If only I could become as strong as Ke Yuerong…
Then anyone who dared mess with me would get a good beating!
…
At the same time, the lingering anger in Song Zhuowei’s heart had yet to subside.
He gathered the entire Coastal Defense Team for another strategy meeting on how to wipe out the sea bandits.
This time, the meeting was highly productive.
They carefully mapped out the encirclement route for the pirates’ stronghold, Ghost Island.
They finalized the sequence for the amphibious landing operation, assigned personnel and units, and took inventory of their current weapons and combat supplies.
They also reviewed the condition and capabilities of every patrol and combat vessel under their command.
Although there was still room to improve their combat readiness, all of those remaining preparations could be completed within about a week.
It seemed that once Song Zhuowei gave the order a week later, the Coastal Defense Team would be able to set sail in full force and wipe out the sea bandits in one decisive campaign.
But Song Zhuowei knew very well that one week from now still wouldn’t be the ideal time to launch the operation.
The waters of Lingnan were heavily affected by the local climate, with frequent storms and rough seas.
Such unpredictable weather would greatly hinder any major military action.
At the very least, they would have to wait until winter officially arrived, when the sea would remain calm for extended periods.
And that was only the environmental factor.
Even setting the weather aside, the pirates’ base Ghost Island was itself an extremely difficult place to enter and even harder to escape from.
The surrounding waters had an incredibly strange climate.
For roughly ten months out of the year, the weather there was notoriously unpredictable.
Dense fog was commonplace.
And whenever dark storm clouds gathered without warning, accompanied by thunder and rain, the surrounding sea would erupt into towering waves.
Even worse, terrifying whirlpools capable of swallowing entire ships would sometimes appear.
That was precisely why Ghost Island was so easy to defend and so difficult to attack.
It was the fundamental reason the sea bandits had managed to survive and expand all these years.
In recent years, the pirates had actually become somewhat more restrained.
They were no longer as brazen as they had been over a decade ago, when they robbed every ship they encountered.
But they had stolen Lin Xizhi’s belongings.
Just thinking about it made Song Zhuowei wish he could march onto Ghost Island immediately and smash every one of those old bastards’ heads in.
He was furious.
He hated how slowly time was passing.
The more he thought about it, the more irritated he became.
As he stared at the blood-red setting sun sinking into the horizon where sea met sky, an idea suddenly occurred to him.
“Shuisheng, Daniu, Tianji you three are coming with me to Second Brigade.”
“Night patrol!”
The three men whose names had been called looked confused.
The area around Second Brigade consisted mostly of forests and rice paddies. There weren’t even any mountains there.
Why were they conducting a night patrol there tonight?
Still, if the captain had given the order, he surely had his reasons.
The three men grabbed their gear and followed Song Zhuowei toward Second Brigade.
At the Second Brigade educated youth dormitory, Pei Yuncheng had just finished dinner and returned to his room.
Several of the older educated youths suggested playing a few rounds of cards before bed, but Pei Yuncheng felt exhausted, as if he were a dead dog.
All he wanted was to collapse onto his bed immediately.
But just as he reached the bedside, a loud commotion suddenly erupted outside.