Bai Zilin looked down at his injured legs. Ever since the silly girl had cleaned his wounds the previous night, they had stopped hurting. He felt so energetic now that it was as if he had never been injured at all.
The day before, he had lost a great deal of blood. His head had been heavy and muddled, and even opening his eyes had taken effort. Yet now, he was completely recovered. The silly girl truly was his lucky star.
Bai Zilin crawled to the edge of the kang bed and scooped up another ladle of water to drink. It tasted wonderful. He noticed that after drinking it, he didn’t feel quite as hungry. Still, water was only water. Without food, he had no idea how long he could hold out.
Nor could he keep relying on the silly girl to bring him food. She herself barely had enough to eat.
Sigh…
He and the silly girl really were a pair of fellow sufferers.
Meanwhile, the supposedly starving Liu Ye was happily roasting fish by a small river.
She had just caught them herself. In the parts of the river that had nearly dried up, many fish were lying stranded and half-dead. She had stored eighteen large fish weighing two or three jin each inside her space, and roasted fifty or sixty smaller fish.
To her surprise, they tasted pretty good.
Of course, there was still no salt, so the flavor was lacking a little.
Liu Ye ate half of a roasted fish and placed the remaining half into a bowl before storing it in her space.
She planned to save it for Brother Bai’s dinner.
With that family of his, there might not even be anyone willing to bring him food. In the end, he still had to rely on her.
After extinguishing the fire, Liu Ye followed the stream farther up the mountain.
Who knew how long this drought would last? She needed to stockpile as much food as possible for the journey when people eventually fled the famine.
Actually, with her space, she didn’t even need to become a refugee. She could simply hide inside it until the disaster outside passed. Or perhaps never come out at all and just live inside the space forever.
But then again…
That sounded far too lonely.
She wasn’t someone who could stand loneliness for long.
Besides, she really wanted to travel south and see the world.
“Rustle, rustle…”
Hearing movement in a patch of grass, Liu Ye casually waved her hand.
She didn’t even bother checking what it was. Whatever it was, it was instantly collected into her space.
Then she continued walking.
A rabbit suddenly darted out from the grass.
“Collect.”
The rabbit vanished.
From far away, she spotted a pheasant beneath a tree.
Can I collect something from that far away?
She gave it a try and waved her hand.
The pheasant disappeared instantly.
“Holy crap! It actually worked!”
“My space is seriously overpowered!”
Liu Ye wandered through the forest for another hour. Apart from gathering half a basket of wild vegetables, she didn’t encounter any more pheasants or rabbits.
So she decided to head back down the mountain.
On the way down, she got lucky and collected another wild rabbit.
The unexpected gain filled her with delight.
By the time Liu Ye descended the mountain, it was around two or three in the afternoon.
The hillsides were still crowded with people digging for wild vegetables.
From a distance, she spotted Liu Ya and Liu Qing among a group of girls.
The sisters saw Liu Ye as well.
In perfect unison, they curled their lips in disdain, lowered their heads, and continued digging as though they hadn’t seen her.
They could pretend not to notice her.
But Zhao Shuangshuang, the village chief’s daughter, couldn’t.
She ran over and blocked Liu Ye’s path.
“You big idiot! Where are my basket and my chopper? I told you to gather wild vegetables for me, but you ran off with both of them! Give them back!”
Liu Ye feigned stupidity and shook her head, backing away fearfully step by step.
Then she suddenly realized something.
She had forgotten to put the basket on her back into her space.
Zhao Shuangshuang noticed it too.
The fool was carrying a basket today.
She immediately grabbed it.
“Is my chopper inside? Give it back!”
Liu Ye obediently removed the basket and handed it over.
There was no chopper inside.
She had long ago stored it in her space.
The basket only contained half a load of wild vegetables.
Seeing the vegetables, Zhao Shuangshuang’s eyes lit up.
They were large, tender, and far better than the ones she had gathered herself.
She rummaged through the basket but found no chopper.
Nor did she intend to return the basket.
“Hmph! You stupid fool! You must have lost my basket and chopper. Fine, then these vegetables belong to me as compensation. Now get lost!”
Liu Ye immediately hugged her head and bolted toward the village.
Before long, she reached home.
There she saw Wang Shi, Bai Zilin’s mother, sitting at the entrance with another woman.
The woman looked oddly familiar.
Wait… doesn’t she resemble Zhao Shuangshuang a little?
Wang Shi waved impatiently at Liu Ye.
“Go, go, go! What are you staring at? Get back to your yard, you unlucky thing!”
Liu Ye pouted and returned to her dilapidated courtyard.
Then she quietly hid beside the wall, eager to eavesdrop.
Wang Shi patted the other woman’s hand with a guilty expression.
“Sigh… No one is to blame. It’s just that my son doesn’t have the fortune to deserve your Shuangshuang. Sister Zhao, don’t take it to heart. If I were in your shoes, I’d break off the engagement too. Who would willingly marry their daughter to a cripple?”
The village chief’s wife, Zhao Liu Shi—whom the younger generation all called Aunt Zhao—nodded awkwardly.
“Thank you for understanding, Sister Bai. If nothing had happened to Zilin, I truly would have loved for him to become my son-in-law. Ah… Heaven really has no eyes. How could this happen to Zilin…”
Wang Shi immediately seized the opportunity.
“Sister Zhao, Zilin has run out of medicine, and our family is short on money. Could you perhaps…”
Before she could finish, Zhao Liu Shi sprang up from her stool as though it had suddenly grown nails.
“Well, it’s getting late. I’d better be going now. No need to see me out, Sister Bai…”
“W-Wait! About the money…”
But Zhao Liu Shi was already far away.
Wang Shi spat on the ground.
“Pah! Hypocritical witch! My son was injured, and you came to cancel the engagement right afterward. And you call yourself a decent person? Pah! Rotten woman!”
After venting her anger, Wang Shi picked up the two stools and returned to the courtyard.
Not long afterward, the sound of cursing erupted from the Bai household.
Liu Ye stood up from beside the wall.
So Brother Bai and Zhao Shuangshuang had been engaged.
She had never expected that.
When had that happened?
How come she had never heard about it?
Then she remembered something.
She needed to check on her space.
Squatting down beside the wall again, she flashed into the space.
The moment she entered, she noticed an animal lying on the ground.
“What is that?”
It looked somewhat like a deer, but it had no antlers.
Its fur was gray and relatively short.
She didn’t recognize the animal at all.
Whatever.
If she didn’t know what it was, she could still eat it.
Grabbing one of its legs, she dragged it over beside the wild boar and then went to inspect her crops.
Sure enough, the soybeans and corn had fully matured.
The plants had turned yellow-gray.
The corn cobs were large and long, while the soybean pods were swollen and full.
But how was she supposed to harvest them?
Did she need to cut them down with a chopper?
She had never harvested crops before and honestly had no idea.
Still, cutting them down seemed like the right approach.
So Liu Ye fetched her chopper and started with the soybeans.
The yield wasn’t very large.
After harvesting everything, there was only a small pile.
Then she cut down the corn stalks and picked the ears of corn.
After counting carefully, she discovered there were sixty-five ears in total.
Suddenly—
A flash of golden light burst across the black soil.
The farmland instantly doubled in size.
Liu Ye swallowed hard in shock.
This was way too fantastical.
Way too frightening.
The sudden transformation had scared the life out of her.