On the third morning, Su Nianqiu woke up bright and early.
She wasn’t woken by a rooster crowing—she was woken by hunger.
The most direct symptom of pregnancy was an insatiable appetite. Last night’s bowl of thin porridge mixed with sweet potatoes would have barely gotten her through a normal meal in the past, but now, before the night was even over, her stomach started protesting.
Rolling over, she glanced at the pale dawn light outside the window and made sure Su Jianguo and Li Xiulan were still asleep. Then she closed her eyes and let her consciousness dive straight into the space.
The spirit spring was still bubbling away.
Su Nianqiu squatted down first to gulp down three large handfuls of the spring water, which left her stomach feeling warm and chased away most of the hunger.
Then she stood up, clapped her hands together, and got down to business:
Taking stock of her assets.
She had already checked out the bamboo building. The ground floor was entirely empty except for a stone table and two stone stools—nothing else.
She walked around to the back of the bamboo building and squatted down in front of that patch of black soil to inspect it closely. The plot was about half a mu in size, and the turned-over earth was moist and loose. Though she had majored in design, she still knew the basics—with soil like this, anything would grow.
The problem was, where were the seeds?
She dug through every nook and cranny of the space.
On the second floor of the bamboo building, she found a concealed compartment. When she pushed it open, Su Nianqiu’s eyes lit up.
Neatly lined up inside were a few items:
A coarse cloth sack. Opening it revealed half a bag of unhusked rice seeds.
Three withered ginseng rootlets, their color turned dark and yellowish, looking like they had quite a few years on them.
A palm-sized pottery jar. When she pulled out the stopper and sniffed—medicinal liquor, and potent stuff at that, which made her sneeze from the fumes.
At the very bottom, pinned down, was a scroll of yellowed silk fabric.
Su Nianqiu unfolded the silk. Written on it in tiny, meticulous traditional characters were instructions regarding the use of the spirit spring: Crops watered with spirit spring water would have their growing cycle shortened to one-third of the normal time; medicinal herbs soaked in it would have their efficacy doubled; and drinking the spring water long-term would strengthen the body and prolong life.
One-third of the normal growth cycle.
Su Nianqiu’s eyes brightened.
It was early July outside, right in the middle of the rice-transplanting season. If she planted rice inside the space, a crop that normally took four to five months to harvest outside could be gathered in just a month and a half here!
And not just rice.
If she could get her hands on vegetable seeds or even medicinal herb seeds, this space would essentially be a miniature gold mine!
She picked up the three ginseng rootlets and inspected them again.
Though shriveled, she had worked closely with traditional Chinese medicine families back when she designed high-end qipaos in her past life. She could tell that these roots were at least thirty years old.
Thirty-year-old ginseng roots weren’t much on the outside—they’d fetch three to five yuan at most. But if she soaked them in spirit spring water to double their medicinal efficacy, their quality and apparent age could rival fifty years or even more.
Fifty-year-old wild ginseng roots in this era—
That was hard currency.
On the black market, a decent ginseng root like that was worth at least twenty or thirty yuan.
Su Nianqiu took a deep breath, reined in her excitement, and began mapping out a plan in her head.
Step one: Soak the ginseng rootlets in spirit spring water to upgrade their quality and value. Step two: Figure out a way to get various vegetable and grain seeds, clear the land inside the space, and solve her family’s food supply problem. Step three: Once the ginseng was ready, find an opportunity to test the waters at the township black market, trading it for cash and various ration coupons. Step four: Use the startup capital to buy more seeds and supplies, creating a sustainable cycle.
As for her long-term planning—
Su Nianqiu rolled up the silk scroll, put it back into the secret compartment, and a slight, confident smile touched the corners of her lips.
The college entrance exams would resume next year.
Right now, barely anyone across China knew about this yet. But she did.
Not only was she going to take the exam, but she was going to get the top score, and she was going to walk out of this dead-end village with the baby in her belly held high.
In her past life, she was an orphan who relied on scholarships and odd jobs to finish her design degree, clawing her way up to become a top-tier designer. With a cheat code backing her up in this lifetime, she refused to believe she couldn’t turn things around.
First, Su Nianqiu placed the three ginseng rootlets into a pottery jar filled with spirit spring water and left it in the secret compartment of the bamboo building.
Then, she dug around in the dirt next to the space’s vegetable plot and actually managed to unearth a few wild vegetable seeds. Whether they came naturally with the space or not, she didn’t hesitate—she soaked them in spirit spring water following the instructions on the silk scroll and planted them in the black soil.
After finishing all this, she exited the space. By then, the sun was fully up outside, and she began folding her quilt as she got up from the kang.
Li Xiulan pushed the door open and looked pleasantly surprised to see her daughter briskly getting dressed and folding her blankets on her own.
“Qiuer, are you feeling better?”
“Much better, Mom,” Su Nianqiu smiled. “I’m hungry.”
“Oh! I’ll go make some noodles right now. Yesterday your dad went to the neighboring village and managed to trade for two catties of fine white flour. I’ll roll out some noodles for you!”
White flour. In this era, it was a precious luxury that ordinary families only dared to eat during the New Year. For Su Jianguo to manage to get two catties of it meant he must have swallowed his pride and begged someone hard.
A mixture of warmth and sorrow tugged at Su Nianqiu’s chest.
She followed Li Xiulan into the kitchen.
Taking advantage of the moment her mother lowered her head to knead the dough and turned away to grab the water ladle, Su Nianqiu quietly let her consciousness sink into the space, guiding a small half-bowl of crystal-clear spirit spring water with her fingertips and stealthily mixing it into the flour basin and the iron pot of boiling soup next to it.
Since the house didn’t have any proper side dishes, Li Xiulan could only pluck a small handful of withered green onion leaves from the base of the backyard wall, chop them up, and toss them into the pot to flavor the broth.
“Qiuer, we don’t have any vegetables left in the house, so you’ll have to make do with plain noodles,” Li Xiulan sighed apologetically as she set a large bowl of steaming clear soup noodles on the table.
“It’s not making do at all. White flour is a wonderful thing,” Su Nianqiu smiled. She picked up a pair of chopsticks, slurped a mouthful of noodles into her mouth, and her eyes lit up instantly.
The noodles infused with the spirit spring water weren’t just exceptionally chewy and smooth; they also possessed an indescribable, refreshing sweetness and fragrance. Even the meager, shriveled onion leaves had been elevated to release a rich, savory aroma. Best of all, once that bowl of hot noodles hit her stomach, it radiated warmth, completely sweeping away the weakness and exhaustion caused by her pregnancy and leaving her body surging with strength.
“My, this white flour really is different. Why does it smell so good?” Li Xiulan took a sip of the broth from her own bowl, murmuring in surprise, “Even my old aching legs don’t feel quite as sore.”
“That’s right. The white flour Dad went through so much trouble to get has got to smell good,” Su Nianqiu chimed in smoothly without missing a beat.
Li Xiulan didn’t probe any further, chalking it up to good, nourishing grain, and watched her daughter eat with a beaming, delighted smile.
Su Nianqiu calculated quietly in her mind. While the spirit spring water could strengthen the body and improve the flavor of food, it couldn’t magically conjure up vegetables and meat out of thin air. Relying solely on drinking water wouldn’t provide the developing baby with a well-rounded diet.
She still needed to get her hands on seeds to farm inside the space as soon as possible, and figure out a reliable way to bring goods out into the open.
After breakfast, Su Jianguo left for work in the fields. Before heading out, he gave Li Xiulan strict instructions: “Don’t open the door for anyone. Let Qiuer stay inside and rest properly.”
Li Xiulan nodded repeatedly.
Sitting on the kang, Su Nianqiu took out a piece of scrap paper she’d found in the space’s bamboo building and jotted things down with the stub of a pencil.
She was making a list.
Current assets in the space: Half a bag of rice seeds, three ginseng rootlets currently soaking in spirit spring water, a jar of medicinal wine, a number of wild vegetable seeds (already planted), and an infinite supply of spirit spring water.
Urgent external problems to solve:
Nutrition. The first three months of pregnancy are critical; protein and vitamins are absolute musts.
Money. Everything required ration coupons in this era; having cash alone wasn’t enough, she needed grain tickets, fabric tickets, and meat tickets.
Social standing. Right now, she was weighed down by the label of “unwed pregnancy,” making her a target of public scorn the moment she stepped outside. She needed to find a way to stand her ground, or at least make the villagers too afraid to gossip.
The college entrance exams. There was a little over a year left before they resumed; she needed to track down textbooks and start studying.
Su Nianqiu read through her list three times and felt a sense of clarity settle over her.
Her top priority was to nurse the ginseng back to prime condition and then head to the township black market to exchange it for cash. Once she had her first pot of gold, the subsequent steps could be pushed forward one by one.
Just as she was calculating, a series of light, hurried footsteps suddenly sounded outside the courtyard gate, followed by a soft, sweet feminine voice with a Beijing accent:
“Is Auntie home? I heard Nianqiu-jie was sick, so I specifically came over to check on her.”
Su Nianqiu froze, her pencil hovering over the paper.
She recognized that voice.
No, to be exact, the original owner’s memories held onto that voice with crystal clarity.
Chen Xiaoman, an educated youth from the village.
In the original owner’s memories, this Chen Xiaoman played the part of a “best friend” on the surface while secretly fanning flames behind the scenes all the time. The reason Zhao Dazhang managed to “coincidentally run into” the original owner on the exact day she went to town to see a doctor was inseparable from this “good sister” leaking information.
And in the original novel’s plot, Chen Xiaoman was the classic “green tea” archetype among the educated youth—delicate in appearance, soft-spoken, and seemingly harmless, but harboring more twists and turns in her heart than a nine-linked puzzle ring.
Su Nianqiu laid down her pencil, a cold glint of amusement flashing in her eyes.
Talk about right on time. It’s time to settle some scores.