Sure enough, in less than two minutes, her parents quietly pulled her into their room.
“Xixi, Mom knows you didn’t spend all that money. Hurry and hand it over,” Jiang Taohua said impatiently, already reaching out.
“I told you, it’s all gone.”
“You silly child. It’s one thing to fool your grandma, but how can you lie to us too? Hand it over.”
Her father stepped forward to persuade her as well—he had been craving the meat buns in town for a long time, and this money would be perfect for that.
“I said, it’s gone.” Lin Yuxi had no intention of giving them the money—not now, and not ever again. They wouldn’t get a single cent from her in the future either.
“You unfilial girl…” her father cursed, raising his hand as if to strike her.
“You want to hit me? Go ahead. As long as you lay a hand on me today, I’ll make sure everyone knows how you treat me.”
Lin Yuxi didn’t back down. She even lifted her chin, daring them to hit her.
“Grandma beat me like that and you didn’t care. My cousins don’t do any work, but I have to work every single day, and you act like you don’t see it.”
“How does Uncle treat his daughter? How does Third Uncle treat his? And how do you treat me? Am I even your biological child?”
She knew the Lin family would never let the truth—that she wasn’t their biological child—come out right now. They still wanted to squeeze benefits from their real daughter elsewhere.
“What nonsense are you talking about?” Her father lowered his hand.
“Of course you’re our biological child. Alright, your mother and I were just joking. If there’s any money left, you can keep it for yourself,” he said awkwardly with a forced smile.
Lin Yuxi walked out of the room and saw that food was already being laid out in her grandmother’s room. The whole family had gathered at the table.
Old Master Lin and his three sons sat on the heated kang, eating at a small separate table.
Old Madam Lin led the daughters-in-law and grandchildren at a larger table on the ground.
“What are you staring at? Come help!” Old Madam Lin shouted.
Every day, Lin Yuxi was always the last to sit down to eat.
This time, she pretended not to hear. She pulled over a stool, sat down directly, took the full bowl of porridge her eldest aunt had just served, grabbed a mixed-grain steamed bun, and started eating.
Her eldest aunt wanted to say, That wasn’t for you, but Lin Yuxi ignored her.
“You’ve really grown rebellious, you wretched girl, a money-losing burden! You didn’t cook today, spent so much money, and now you still want to eat? Put the food down—you’re not allowed to eat today!”
Old Madam Lin was furious. That thick, brimming bowl of porridge—how could she deserve it?
“They don’t have to cook to eat. Why can’t I?”
In this life, she would never be a punching bag again.
Lin Yuxi picked up a large piece of egg with her chopsticks and put it into her mouth. So fragrant! How long had it been since she’d eaten eggs?
Everyone at the table stared at her in shock. Those eggs were reserved for Old Madam Lin—only a few grandsons got a bite now and then. The granddaughters didn’t even dare reach for them.
Seeing Old Madam Lin about to explode, Lin Yuxi said:
“If you say I’m not part of this family, then I won’t eat this meal. I’ll leave right now and go find my real parents.”
“That’s enough. Stop making a scene. Eat,” Old Master Lin barked from the kang, giving Old Madam Lin a look—clearly telling her not to go too far and ruin bigger plans over something small.
After eating her fill, Lin Yuxi put down her bowl and chopsticks and went back to her room, ignoring her grandmother’s shouts to clean up and wash the dishes.
With such a large family living together, space was tight. Her whole family shared one room.
Her parents slept on the south kang, while she and her younger brother, Lin Jianhua, slept on the north kang.
At night, they lowered a curtain and went to sleep, with a small kang table standing between them. She would drape her clothes over it, creating a small private space.
People didn’t have much entertainment these days, so by seven or eight in the evening, everyone was already asleep.
Once the lights were out and everything quiet, Lin Yuxi immediately entered the space she had been longing for.
It was empty.
She felt a bit regretful that none of the things she had stored in her previous life had come with her.
But she quickly accepted it—if nothing came with her, she would just start over.
Her space was simply a storage space with five mu of farmland. There was a small river inside, but it could only be used for irrigation.
There were no magical springs, spiritual herbs, or cultivation manuals like in the novels of the future.
Fortunately, there was a preservation area where food wouldn’t spoil.
And crops planted on the five mu of land matured twice as fast as outside.
That meant corn that took five months to mature outside would only need two and a half months inside.
There was a small house in the space. When Lin Yuxi entered, it looked exactly the same as in her previous life—there was a bed to rest on, along with simple furniture like a table and chairs.
Beside the house was a large warehouse for storing grain and vegetables, fully stocked with farming tools.
In her past life, she hadn’t known she could plant and harvest with just her thoughts. She had foolishly used tools bit by bit, exhausting herself.
She had once thought of finding some kind of work to make money, but now there was no need.
She would farm—and then secretly sell the produce.
The problem now was that she didn’t have any seeds. She only had one yuan and twenty cents—nowhere near enough to buy anything.
Then it hit her—weren’t there seeds right at home?
The family had private plots of land. These past few days, aside from working for the production team, everyone had been preparing the private fields—leveling the soil and making ridges. Planting would begin soon, and the seeds had already been bought and stored in the warehouse.
Late at night, when everyone was fast asleep, Lin Yuxi quietly got up, carefully opened the door, and went to the warehouse.
As expected, the door was locked.
She went to the window. She remembered a corner of the glass was broken—and sure enough, she was right.
She found a bamboo pole nearby and stuck it through the broken part of the window, hooking it onto a sack of grain.
With a silent command—collect—the sack of seeds disappeared.
The sack probably weighed over twenty pounds. Since the Lin family hadn’t split up, all their private plots were combined.
Each person had three fen of land. With sixteen people, that totaled about 4.8 mu—almost the same as her space.
The seeds were just enough.
As for what they would do without the seeds she took—what did that have to do with her?
She didn’t take anything else. Valuable things like rice and white flour were locked away in her grandmother’s cabinet.
She quietly returned to her room, climbed onto the kang, lay down, and entered the space again—using her mind to plant the corn before coming out to sleep.
The next morning, whether it was Old Madam Lin or Jiang Taohua calling her, she pretended not to hear.
Only when it was about time did she get up, wash, and go eat.
Old Madam Lin cooked while grumbling angrily—a simple meal of corn porridge and vegetables from the garden with dipping sauce.
She kept nagging Lin Yuxi until Lin Yuxi shut her up with one sentence:
“What? Am I different from them? Not part of this family?”
Since they had to walk to town, they left early—before those working in the fields had returned.
Her cousin Lin Yuwei and cousin Lin Yuzhu walked ahead, whispering to each other.
She didn’t care.
All she was thinking about was—once she got to school, would she still be able to find her seat?
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