Lǐ Xiùxiù and Liú Cōngming looked at Liú Xiǎomǎn in confusion. The weight of seriousness on her face, far beyond her years, seemed to lower the already chilly air of the hut by several degrees.
Liú Xiǎomǎn didn’t speak. She bent down and picked up a partially burnt piece of charcoal from the extinguished stove.
Crouching on the uneven earthen floor, she drew a large, crooked circle with force.
“This is our cave,” she said quietly, yet with undeniable authority.
She tapped the inside of the circle with the charcoal, then lifted her head, her gaze burning onto her startled mother and brother. She spoke deliberately, word by word:
“We are going to fill this place—with grain and everything we need—completely.”
The atmosphere in the hut turned immediately solemn.
Lǐ Xiùxiù’s lips moved, as if she wanted to ask something, but the determination in her daughter’s eyes silenced her.
Liú Xiǎomǎn knew she had to give them a reason they could understand.
“Mother, do you remember what Grandma said? Ants moving their homes, snakes crossing paths… heavy rain is coming soon?”
Lǐ Xiùxiù nodded instinctively.
This was knowledge passed down through generations of villagers.
“But recently, I noticed something strange. The ants on the back mountain aren’t moving upward—they’re burrowing deeper underground. The stream’s water level has dropped; even the stones at the bottom are exposed. At night, there are fewer birds in the forest.”
Liú Xiǎomǎn wove her explanation with half-truths; these were actually data points she gathered via her system’s environmental scans, but presenting them this way made them believable.
“These are not good signs. I… I fear a severe drought. Not just a month or two, but possibly a long, long drought.”
Lǐ Xiùxiù’s face turned pale, as if all her strength had been drained.
A drought!
For a family living day-to-day, these words were scarier than any ghost or monster.
“A drought?!” she trembled. “Our harvest wouldn’t even last a month… what if it lasts for years…”
She couldn’t bear to imagine it, tears instantly filling her eyes.
Even Liú Cōngming, though young, felt the suffocating fear.
He clutched his sister’s clothes and whispered, “Sister… does that mean there will be no water to drink?”
“Don’t be afraid,” Liú Xiǎomǎn said, holding her mother and brother’s cold hands in her warm, steady grip.
“We know this first, and that’s our greatest advantage.”
She looked at them, her eyes radiating a calming strength. “If we prepare properly, when everyone else is gnawing on tree bark, we can be in our new home behind the waterfall, eating fragrant rice and stewing meat soup.”
Visualizing this hopeful future acted as a beam of light, temporarily dispelling the fear in Lǐ Xiùxiù and Liú Cōngming.
Lǐ Xiùxiù blinked back tears, and Liú Cōngming’s eyes brightened a little.
Seeing them regain composure, Liú Xiǎomǎn immediately seized the moment. She retrieved a sheet of oiled paper of unknown previous use, spread it out, and began frantically writing a list with charcoal.
The List:
With each item written, Lǐ Xiùxiù’s heart sank further.
Every single item on this list represented money—wealth she had never even dreamed of.
Liú Xiǎomǎn herself felt immense pressure. Her system points were already zero, all copper coins spent; she was now truly penniless.
She paused, calculating desperately in her mind.
To acquire half of this list would require at least a hundred taels of silver; to obtain everything could take several hundred!
A sum enough to buy a large estate in Qīngshí Town.
“Xiǎomǎn… we… we have no money,” Lǐ Xiùxiù finally admitted, her voice trembling.
The two silver earned from selling herbs seemed immense to her before—but compared to this list, it was negligible.
“Money can be earned,” Liú Xiǎomǎn’s eyes blazed with a fierce light, like wildfire igniting in the dark. “And it must be fast… and big!” Her voice was calm but resolute.
Her mind raced at lightning speed.
Planting crops in order, waiting for harvests—by then, it would be too late.
Doing needlework or selling small goods in town—mere drops in the ocean.
The only way forward: leverage her knowledge beyond this era and the system to acquire high-value, in-demand commodities.
Her gaze fell on the set of new herb-gathering tools in the corner, then to the smooth wooden token in her pocket, engraved with the characters “Huíchūn” (Return to Health).
This was her only lever capable of prying open large sums of money.
She must find Qián Zhǎngguì, but no longer could she approach him with ordinary herbs as before.
She needed a proposal shocking enough that even a cunning fox like Qián Zhǎngguì could not refuse—one that would make him willingly provide a hefty advance.
At that moment, idle chatter from neighbors drifted through the hut.
“Did you hear? Liú Dàbǎo was taken to town by his mother for a doctor. It’s crazy—he itched all over like a spirit possessed, scratching until he bled!”
“Yeah, spent a fortune too, but nothing helped. They just said he angered the evil energies in the mountains—terrible luck!”
Liú Xiǎomǎn’s lips curved faintly.
This was good news—the Liú estate’s energy was slightly drained; they wouldn’t interfere with her family for now.
She stood, the pressure from the impending drought pressing more urgently on her.
Less than thirty days remained before the drought fully erupted.
Grain prices were still stable, but she knew that as soon as signs of drought appeared, prices would spike wildly, daily.
Time was money—and life.
Liú Xiǎomǎn made a decision.
She would act immediately, using the system to perform a thorough scan of the entire back mountain, identifying the most valuable herbs or special plants, enough to astonish even Qián Zhǎngguì.
She gripped the Huíchūn token tightly, its edges digging into her palm, pain sharpening her focus.
She felt as though she held her family’s entire future in her hand.
Her gaze pierced the worn door and stretched toward distant Qīngshí Town, her inner voice screaming:
“Seed money, here I come!”