When Xia Xiaonuan arrived home, the sky was completely dark.
She hurriedly took the firewood out of her spatial dimension and lit the stove pit. Then, feeling her way in the dark, she spread out the kang matnow, she could finally sit on the kang!
She took out the iron pot, filled it with water, and boiled a pot of hot water. For a brand new pot, it should ideally be seasoned with some fatty pork or oil first, but she had neither pork nor oil. Instead, she simply filled the pot with water, gave it a scrub, and went ahead and boiled a pot of hot water.
After the water boiled, she took her newly bought bowl, scooped up a bowl of water from the pot, and sat by the stove pit drinking the hot water while tending the fire. With a bowl of hot water in her belly, she felt exceptionally warm and was very happy because of it.
The next day, Xiaonuan got up very early, boiled some hot water, and tore off all the tattered old paper from the windows. She wiped the window frames clean and left them to air out, waiting for the sun to come up before pasting new paper onotherwise, if she tried pasting it while it was freezing, the paper would end up falling off anyway.
Taking advantage of this time, she went into her spatial dimension to wash her face and ate a few fruits for breakfast. Coming back out and seeing that the time was right, she mixed up some paste, took out the newly purchased window paper, and patched up all the broken spots on the windows. With the wind blocked out, the room instantly warmed up.
Standing inside her room, she looked at her home: the windows were patched and no longer let the cold wind draft in, there was a mat on the kang, she had new clothes, plus a pot, a basin, and a bowlher home was starting to look nice, filling her with happiness and a sense of well-being.
In the afternoon, she grabbed her chopping knife and rope and headed up the mountain to chop firewood. Before leaving, she stored her basin, bowl, new cotton-padded clothes, and millet inside her spatial dimension. Finally, she took out the large lock she had bought the day before, securely locked the door, and set off for the mountain with a complete peace of mind.
From then on, Xiaonuan finally settled down in this home. Every day she went out to chop firewood; although she couldn’t burn it all herself, she didn’t dare bring too much out openly, so she simply stored the excess inside her spatial dimension.
One day, Xiaonuan shouldered two exceptionally large bundles of firewood and delivered them to the village head’s house. When the village head and Xiao Mei saw her, they initially refused to accept them, but Xiaonuan was extremely persistent, saying that the two of them had saved her life. Now, she had nothing else to repay them with, but she had plenty of strength and could easily chop a lot of firewood, so they had to keep it no matter what.
In the end, the village head and his wife accepted the firewood. At the same time, they were quite curious: why did Xiaonuan have such immense strength? Xiaonuan thought for a moment, shook her head, and only said that on the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year, she discovered her strength had suddenly increased and her complexion had improved. It was precisely because of this that Xiaoju had stubbornly accused her of stealing and using her vanishing cream. As for why this happened, she herself had no idea.
Xiaonuan didn’t mention anything about the Southern Heavenly Gate; she had decided that apart from herself, she would never tell a single soul about it.
Starting from that day, Xiaonuan delivered a load of firewood to the village head’s house every few days. And from then on, the word about Xiaonuan’s superhuman strength spread all through the village.
When Xia Shitou and Du Dingxiang heard about it, they slapped their thighs in regret. Du Dingxiang, in particular, regretted it to no end: if they hadn’t driven Xiaonuan away, she could have ordered Xiaonuan to do every single chore around the house! How leisurely would her life have been? Which woman in the village could enjoy such comfort?
Xia Shitou and Du Dingxiang immediately put their heads together and decided that they absolutely could not let Xiaonuan continue living outside; they had to bring her back as soon as possiblethe family needed her far too badly.
On this day, Xiaonuan quickly finished chopping two large bundles of firewood and sat resting on a hillside, feeling a bit bored. Suddenly, she remembered the two books in her spatial dimension, so she quickly slipped inside.
There was no sun in the space, but it was very bright. Xiaonuan pushed open the door of the small house and, upon entering, found that the two books were still resting on the table.
She casually picked up Secrets of Heaven and Earth and flipped through it to see what was recorded inside. Opening it, she discovered it contained not only text but also numerous illustrations. It taught methods on how to sit in meditation and how to perform breathing and breath-control (na), with clear and easy-to-understand text alongside vivid, lifelike imagesit seemed to be a manual on internal martial arts cultivation (neigong).
Absorbed in reading, Xiaonuan involuntarily sat down on the nearby bed and began trying to learn by following the methods taught in the book. Before she knew it, she became deeply immersed and entered a state of meditative focus (jing), and by the time she opened her eyes again, she had no idea how much time had passed.
Startled, Xiaonuan hurried out of her spatial dimension, only to discover that the sky had turned completely dark. She hastily hoisted her firewood and rushed back home.
The next day, after finishing her firewood chopping, Xiaonuan entered the space once more. This time, she picked up the other book, Number One Sword in the World, and opened it. It was also illustrated with text and picturesit turned out to be a swordplay manual.
Xiaonuan didn’t have a sword, so she found a tree branch and, following the instructions in the sword manual, began practicing the moves step by step on the grass.
From that day on, Xiaonuan would rapidly finish chopping a portion of firewood each day, then enter her spatial dimension to study the contents of these two books, practicing until dusk before emerging to carry her firewood back home.
After practicing this way for a while, she no longer wanted to use a random tree branch, so she went to a tree inside her spatial dimension, cut off a branch, stripped away the excess twigs, smoothed it down with her chopping knife, and crafted a wooden sword for herself. She didn’t know what she was going to use these skills for; she simply felt it was extremely fun and genuinely enjoyed learning themthat was all.
Furthermore, she discovered that every time she finished meditation and breathing exercises, her body felt exceptionally comfortable, warm all over, and seemingly immune to the cold.
On this day, after finishing her practice and coming out of the space, she found that it was once again very late. However, she wasn’t particularly worried; she shouldered the firewood she had chopped in the morning and headed down the mountain.
As she walked along, she suddenly heard a sound coming from the mountain woods nearby. Stopping to listen closely, the sound vanished. Thinking she might have misheard, she paid it no mind and continued walking down the mountain with her firewood.
After taking just a few steps, she heard the sound in the woods behind her once moreand this time, she was certain: there was definitely something there.
Stopping in her tracks, she lowered her load of firewood, turned around, and quietly gazed toward the source of the sound. Xiaonuan wasn’t particularly scared; she believed that such a quiet dusk didn’t hold ghosts or demons. She was merely curious about what kind of creature was following behind her.
She stood quietly, her gaze fixed intently on the spot where the noise came from, but after staring for a long time, she still saw nothing at all.
She hoisted her firewood and continued down the mountain, keeping a sharp eye out on the bushes beside her with her peripheral vision.
The rustling sound rang out again. This time, she finally saw clearly: two glowing green eyes in the bushes were staring fixedly at her, and a massive wild boar was trailing along behind her as she moved forward.
Xiaonuan wasn’t overly flustered; she knew the wild boar would likely launch an attack on her very soon. Setting her firewood down once more, she checked her chopping knife, feeling it was a bit too short and not very handy for dealing with a wild boar.
She used the knife to slice through the rope binding her firewood, causing the massive bundle of branches to scatter across the ground instantly. Bending down, she grabbed a thick tree branch from the pile and gripped it tightly in her hand.
Almost immediately, the wild boar suddenly burst forth from the bushes, charging toward her at an extremely high speed.
Xiaonuan raised the wooden club in her hand and brought it down fiercely onto the charging wild boar’s head. The wooden club snapped upon striking the boar’s skull. The boar seemed momentarily stunned, shaking its head in place before charging back at Xiaonuan with even greater fury.
Bending down instantly, Xiaonuan grabbed another relatively thick wooden club from the scattered firewood, hoisted it high, and smashed it once more onto the charging boar’s head.
The club broke again. Xiaonuan immediately picked up another wooden club and delivered yet another ferocious blow to the head of the oncoming boar…
After she lost count of how many clubs she had broken, the wild boar finally collapsed to the ground, let out a few grunts, gradually lost its breath, and stopped moving entirely.