Although there was not much difference between A-rank and A+-rank, Su Mingyue was still incredibly excited. What did this mean? It meant that her mental power could recover, which meant that the recovery of her former 3S-rank mental power was just around the corner!
After being a strong person for so long, the feeling of being as weak as a chicken was truly unbearable!
But what exactly was the trigger that allowed her mental power to recover? Clearly, using mental power was not the answer. After all, she had used her mental power quite a lot over the past two days, yet instead of showing any signs of increasing, it had only left her feeling more and more exhausted.
Strangely enough, however, after waking up this time, she had not even used her mental power yet, and it had actually increased! What on earth was going on?
Su Mingyue could not help but fall into deep thought, carefully recalling everything she had experienced today, trying to find some clue that might be connected to the increase in her mental power.
After thinking it over and over, could it be because she had eaten meat today? Or perhaps because her physical condition was much better than it had been yesterday? Even so, after racking her brains for a long time, Su Mingyue still could not determine the real reason.
Fortunately, such a small difficulty was not enough to stump Su Mingyue. Since she could not find a definite answer for the time being, why not test each possibility one by one?
First, she would verify whether the theory that “eating meat can increase mental power” was actually true. If she remembered correctly, yesterday Grandma had divided the chicken that Wang Daqiang’s family had given them as compensation into three equal portions.
One portion had already been cooked for lunch yesterday, and another had been cooked for lunch today. By that calculation, there should still be one final portion of chicken stored in the cabinet inside the house!
The moment Su Mingyue thought of the rich, savory taste of the chicken soup, her throat instinctively moved. Her appetite immediately surged, and she could not help swallowing hard.
Thinking about the remaining portion of chicken in the cabinet, she secretly decided, “Tonight, I’ll stew the last portion of chicken into soup and finish it off!”
With that thought, Su Mingyue raised her head and glanced at the sky outside the window, realizing that it was still early. She gently lifted the quilt and slowly sat up from the warm bed.
Since all the supplies that had originally been stored in her space had inexplicably disappeared, if she wanted to survive the difficult three years of famine that were about to come, she had to start taking action as soon as possible. She needed to make the most of the remaining months of this year and stockpile enough food to last through the next three years.
Fortunately, her space still existed. As long as she properly stored the food she collected inside it, she would not have to worry about anyone discovering it or stealing it. After all, in a year of disaster and famine like this, people would often stop at nothing to survive, and anything could happen.
Although Su Mingyue was quite confident in her own fighting abilities and was not afraid of any attackers who might come after her, she knew very well that human nature was unpredictable. As the saying went, “One should never intend to harm others, but one must always guard against others.”
Besides, the era she was living in now had clear laws and regulations. If she acted impulsively and casually killed someone, and accidentally attracted the attention of the police, that would be troublesome.
She still wanted to live a carefree, peaceful retirement life. She did not want to end up under police scrutiny. So no matter what she did, she had to be cautious and careful and absolutely could not act recklessly.
There was another problem as well: stocking up on food required money, and she had no money!
She searched through the original owner’s memories again and discovered that her mother had once told the original owner where the family’s money was kept. Su Mingyue got out of bed and followed those memories to find it.
All the family’s money was kept in the bedroom of the original owner’s parents. There was a large wooden chest in their room where the family’s valuables were stored.
Of course, the family did not really have anything particularly valuable. There were only a few pieces of fabric.
These fabrics had been painstakingly saved by the original owner’s mother, who could not bear to use them. She had carefully folded them away and stored them, intending to use them for Su Mingyue and Su Qingfeng.
Apart from that, most of the other items were clothes belonging to the original owner’s parents—clothes they themselves could not bear to wear, with relatively few patches. There were also two quilts in the chest that were about seventy percent new. The original owner’s parents had treasured them and could not bear to use them on a daily basis, so they had carefully put them away as well.
Tucked right against the edge of the chest was a small bankbook. Su Mingyue reached out and took it, gently opening it. Her eyes fell on the amount of money recorded inside.
In fact, this family had never originally owned a bankbook like this. After all, they were poor and had little spare money to save.
The reason this bankbook existed was entirely because of the compensation money the mine had paid after the original owner’s father died—three hundred yuan in total.
The original owner’s mother had loved her husband deeply and simply could not bear to spend the money he had exchanged for with his life. So she chose to deposit it in the bank, hoping to preserve it until Su Mingyue and Su Qingfeng grew up and could use it.
Unfortunately, fate had other plans. The original owner’s mother never got to witness her two children grow into adults before she passed away soon afterward, following the original owner’s father in death.
In addition to the bankbook, there were also two sugar coupons and five ten-yuan bills in the chest. Together with the ten yuan that Wang Daqiang’s father had paid as compensation, they had a total of only sixty yuan in cash.
As for the two yuan in medical expenses, Su Mingyue had given them to Su Heping. He had been the one to pay the bill for her at the clinic at the time. However, when Su Mingyue tried to give him the money back, Su Heping stubbornly refused to accept it. With no other choice, Su Mingyue waited until he was not paying attention and secretly slipped the two yuan into the pocket of his clothes.
In fact, Su Mingyue had never once considered spending even a single cent of the three hundred yuan that the original owner’s father had exchanged his life for.
There was only one reason: she knew that she was not the original owner. If she used that money, she would inevitably feel uncomfortable about it. She would feel that she had no moral justification for spending it and could not do so with a clear conscience. Therefore, Su Mingyue decided to use the entire three hundred yuan for Su Qingfeng.
After all, Su Qingfeng would soon be old enough to attend school. But where would the tuition fees come from?
Although Su Mingyue had now taken over the original owner’s body, logically speaking, she should shoulder the responsibility of taking care of her younger siblings. However, when it came to Su Qingfeng, she was not yet prepared to completely accept him as her responsibility and devote herself wholeheartedly to caring for him.
If Su Qingfeng turned out to be obedient and sensible and treated her, his sister, well, then perhaps she would seriously consider cultivating him and giving him a good future.
But if Su Qingfeng turned out to be far from what she expected and did not suit her temperament, then, well, sorry about that. At most, she could guarantee that he would not go hungry and would grow up safely into an adult. As for anything beyond that, there was no need to think about it!