Bang!
The door bolt snapped into two pieces, wood splinters flying everywhere.
Light from outside, mixed with dust, flooded into the dim room. Wang Guifen charged in first, her triangular eyes instantly gleaming with greed at the sight of the steaming bowl of dough drop soup glistening with oil on the table.
“Well, well, well!” Wang Guifen shrieked, spraying saliva everywhere. “So this is where the missing money from the house went! Stolen by you, this useless hen who can’t even lay an egg! Eating meat behind my back? You don’t deserve it!”
Behind her, Second Aunt Zhang Cuihua gulped loudly. Without even bothering to step over the threshold properly, she shoved Wang Guifen from behind, trying to squeeze into the room. “Mother! Don’t waste words on them! Hurry and take that bowl! Jin Gui’s precious hand is broken and needs nourishment. This meat must go to Jin Gui!”
These two women were like wolves starved red-eyed, seeing only that bowl of soup and completely ignoring the little girl standing by the door, who wasn’t even as tall as their knees.
Lin Wanrou’s face turned deathly pale with fright. Instinctively, she threw herself over the table, using her frail body to desperately shield the soup. “This is… this is Ya Ya’s life-saving meal! You can’t take it!”
“Get out of the way!” Wang Guifen stormed over, raising her large, fan-like hand to grab Lin Wanrou’s hair. “Ungrateful wretch! I’ll beat you to death today!”
Before that calloused hand could touch a single strand of Lin Wanrou’s hair, a wooden stick, as thick as a rolling pin, suddenly appeared in mid-air.
Whack!
A crisp sound rang out as the stick landed solidly on the back of Wang Guifen’s hand.
“Ow!” Wang Guifen cried out in pain, a red welt visibly swelling on her hand. She jerked her hand back and looked down.
Meng Yaya stood by the table, holding the fire poker, her small face expressionless.
“Where did these dog paws come from, reaching out where they shouldn’t,” she said, her voice both childish and icy.
Wang Guifen was furious. What evil had possessed this wretched girl today? She was getting fiercer each time!
“You little beast! I’ll tear you apart!” Forgetting the soup, Wang Guifen lunged at Meng Yaya, claws bared.
The room’s spatial dimension was narrow. Wang Guifen’s lunge was powerful and heavy, almost blocking all of Meng Yaya’s escape routes. Lin Wanrou screamed, “Ya Ya, run!”
Meng Yaya didn’t run.
Watching Wang Guifen bear down on her like a mountain of flesh, she didn’t retreat. Instead, she advanced. Her small body nimbly squatted down, dodging Wang Guifen’s grasping hands, while her right leg shot out swiftly, hooking precisely around Wang Guifen’s ankle.
Using four ounces to deflect a thousand pounds.
Wang Guifen had charged too fiercely, her stance unstable to begin with. Tripped by this sudden move, her upper body completely lost control.
“Ahhh—!”
Wang Guifen traced an awkward arc through the air, her entire body falling face-first, straight toward the pile of coal ash in the corner.
Thud!
Dust flew.
Half of Wang Guifen’s body was buried in the black coal ash, her two legs kicking wildly outside, looking exactly like an overturned turtle.
“Mother!” Zhang Cuihua exclaimed, wanting to help her up, but her feet honestly changed direction, heading straight for the bowl of dough drop soup on the table.
Who cared about the old woman’s life or death at a time like this? Grabbing a bite of meat first was what mattered!
Zhang Cuihua reached out to grab the ladle from the soup, her fingertips just touching the rim of the bowl.
“You want to eat dirt too?”
A sinister, childish voice exploded by her ear.
Zhang Cuihua turned her head and saw a wooden stick enlarging before her eyes.
Thwack!
Meng Yaya struck Zhang Cuihua's wrist with a stick, hitting a nerve.
Zhang Cuihua felt half her body go numb, her hand dropping uncontrollably. Before she could even cry out in pain, Meng Yaya had already leaped onto the edge of the kang, towering above her, and kicked Zhang Cuihua squarely in the shoulder.
This kick, while not as exaggerated as sending a two-hundred-pound man flying, was more than enough to knock down a woman who had long suffered from malnutrition.
Zhang Cuihua stumbled backward a few steps and landed squarely on the ground, right on top of Wang Guifen, who had just pulled her head out of the coal ash.
"Ouch, my back! Who in the world is crushing me!" Wang Guifen had just spat out the coal ash from her mouth when she was nearly knocked unconscious by the weight on top of her.
The room descended into chaos.
Meng Yaya stood on the edge of the kang, pointing the wooden stick at the two women piled on the floor.
"Last warning," she said coldly, "get out."
Wang Guifen’s face was pitch black, her hair covered in coal dust, looking as disheveled as a vengeful ghost that had just crawled out of a mine. She wanted to curse, but when she met Meng Yaya’s dark, piercing eyes, the foul words died in her throat.
This girl wasn’t right.
Truly not right.
Her gaze wasn’t that of a child—it was more like a wolf cub from the mountains, one that devoured people.
"Fine… just fine, Lin Wanrou! You let your daughter hit her elders!" Wang Guifen, too afraid to provoke Meng Yaya, redirected her anger toward Lin Wanrou. Struggling to push Zhang Cuihua off, she scrambled to her feet, backing toward the door while hurling threats. "Just you wait! I’m going to find the village chief! I’ll call a village meeting to denounce you!"
Zhang Cuihua clutched her wrist, shooting a venomous glare at the meat soup on the table. She swallowed hard before scrambling after her mother-in-law, fleeing the house in a panic.
Only after the two figures disappeared beyond the courtyard gate did the room fall silent again.
Lin Wanrou’s legs gave way, and she collapsed onto a stool, gasping for breath. She looked at the mess on the floor, then at her daughter standing calmly on the kang, and tears began to stream down her face uncontrollably.
"Ya Ya… we’ve made a huge mistake," Lin Wanrou’s voice trembled. "If your grandmother really goes to the village chief, we’ll be driven out of the village."
In these times, being expelled by the clan meant a mother and her child simply couldn’t survive.
Meng Yaya jumped down, propped up the broken door panel to block the draft, and walked back to the table. Picking up a ladle, she added another piece of luncheon meat to Lin Wanrou’s bowl.
"Being driven out might be for the better," Meng Yaya said, chewing a large piece of meat and speaking indistinctly. "It’ll be easier to join the army then."
"But the travel expenses…"
"After we eat, I’ll figure it out." Meng Yaya continued chewing the meat, her words muffled.
Although there were many items in her spatial dimension, most were modern packaged goods that couldn’t be directly exchanged for money. To legitimately gather enough travel funds to go to Beiping, she’d have to rely on the resources of this era.
She remembered from the original owner’s memories that the back of the mountain connected to a stretch of primeval forest. The villagers only dared to linger around the outskirts, as the deeper parts were said to be home to wild boars and wolves.
To others, it was a forbidden zone. But to her, a post-apocalyptic world hunter, it was a granary.
After the meal, Meng Yaya instructed Lin Wanrou to hide the remaining half bag of flour in the deepest part of the cellar.
"Mom, stay here and guard the door. Don’t open it for anyone," Meng Yaya said, slinging a small basket over her back—the one the original owner used for gathering firewood. "I’m going out for a bit."
Lin Wanrou grabbed her arm. "Where are you going? After that fight, the whole village will be watching us. Don’t wander off!"
"I'm going to dig for wild vegetables." Meng Yaya pointed toward the back mountain. "The Immortal Grandpa said there are some good things left for me up there."
At the mention of the Immortal Grandpa, Lin Wanrou's grip loosened slightly. Though worried, given the family's current situation, who else could she believe in besides that elusive immortal?
"Then… don't go too deep into the mountains, just stay near the edges." Lin Wanrou's eyes reddened as she instructed.
Meng Yaya nodded obediently, hoisted the tattered basket—larger than her own small frame—onto her back, and toddled out of the yard on her short legs.
Along the way, many villagers pointed and whispered about her.
"Look, it's that girl. I heard she threw her grandmother into the chicken coop?"
"Really? Someone so small?"
"Wang Guifen just ran to the brigade headquarters with her face covered in black soot. The Meng family is in for some drama now."
Meng Yaya kept her gaze forward, paying no attention to the gossip.
Once past the village entrance, she quickened her pace and slipped onto the narrow path leading to the back mountain.
As soon as she entered the woods, Meng Yaya's entire aura shifted.
The innocence belonging to a three-year-old faded away, replaced by an animal-like alertness. She took a deep breath; the air was thick with the scent of pine resin and decaying leaves, along with a faint trace of blood.
The smell of prey.
Though this body was weak, at least her senses remained sharp.
She followed the scent deeper into the woods for about two li. The surrounding shrubs grew denser, and the villagers' footprints were no longer visible.
Suddenly, the grass to her left rustled.
Meng Yaya halted abruptly, a stone already clenched in her hand.
A plump gray wild rabbit poked its head out, nibbling on tender grass. The rabbit weighed at least seven or eight jin—in these times of scarce oil and salt, it was practically a walking piece of braised meat.
"Dinner is secured."
Meng Yaya held her breath.
Though there was meat in her Spatial dimension, this rabbit was her "legitimate catch"—a stepping stone to cover her travel expenses.
Just as the wild rabbit perked up its ears in alarm—
"Swish!"
The stone shot through the air with a faint whistle.
"Thud!"
It struck the rabbit precisely on the temple. The fat creature didn't even let out a cry, kicked its hind legs a few times, and collapsed stiffly into the grass.
Meng Yaya walked over, lifted the rabbit by its long ears, and weighed it in her hand.
Plump enough.
She tossed the rabbit into her basket and was about to turn back down the mountain when her keen hearing caught an unusual disturbance.
Not an animal.
People.
And many of them, with chaotic footsteps, closing in on her from all directions.
Meng Yaya narrowed her eyes and adjusted the basket on her back. It seemed some fools had come looking for trouble.