Early the next morning, Old Madam Lin roused the whole family and assigned everyone their work as usual.
“Yuxi, you go work with your parents. Yuwei and Yuzhu, you go cut grass.”
Ever since she was ten, this had been the arrangement. Yuxi worked alongside the adults, but didn’t earn her own work points—she was just a substitute laborer.
During the busy farming season, the work was exhausting. Whenever someone got tired, she would take over for them so they could rest. Others took turns resting, but she was like a spinning top, constantly moving from one task to another, never getting a break.
At the end of the day, she was always the most exhausted. Yet the old lady’s favorite line was, “What are you tired for? You don’t even earn a single work point. Yuwei and Yuzhu can earn several points every day.”
But this time, she refused to be the family’s fool again.
“I’ll go cut grass too. That way Grandma won’t keep saying I don’t earn work points.”
“How can that work?”
“No way!”
Her aunt and her mother objected in unison.
Her aunt thought: if this girl goes with them, they can at least rest a couple of times during the day. If she doesn’t, won’t it be even more tiring?
Her mother’s reasoning was simpler: if Yuxi goes, she ends up helping her the most anyway. Without her, slacking off would be much harder.
“Why not?” Yuxi smiled at her aunt. “How about this year, Cousin goes to work with you instead? Didn’t you always say working with you isn’t tiring? I’ll go earn work points for the family.”
Then she turned to her mother. “Mom, I must not be your biological daughter. Otherwise, why do you hate to see me doing well?”
Her aunt fell silent. Her mother fled in embarrassment, tossing out, “Do whatever you want. I don’t care.”
“Enough. Everyone go to work. All three girls will cut grass,” her grandfather finally said.
To Yuxi, her grandfather was even worse than her grandmother—calculating and rotten to the core. He never spoke up about the unfair treatment she received. If she hadn’t resisted her grandmother, he wouldn’t have said anything now either. Only when things became unavoidable would he step in, pretending to be fair.
She slung a basket over her back, grabbed a sickle, and headed toward the mountain.
“Cutting grass” sounded simple, but the grass wasn’t very tall yet. Filling one basket earned three work points. Later, when the grass grew taller, a full basket would only earn one point.
Most of the people cutting grass were half-grown kids from the village. They usually stayed near the foot of the mountain and didn’t venture too far in.
There weren’t tigers or wolves in the mountains, but wild boars did exist.
A few years ago, someone had gone in to pick wild fruit and got chased by a boar, breaking his leg.
So the adults always warned their children not to go deep into the mountains.
But Lin Yuxi now had her own “cheat device”—her space—so she wasn’t afraid.
At this time of year, there wasn’t much in the mountains anyway. Wild fruits wouldn’t appear until autumn. As for medicinal herbs, she wouldn’t recognize them even if they were there.
She didn’t dare hope to encounter a wild boar. The problem was, she didn’t know how to get one into her space. From her past life, she knew that once something entered her space, everything was under her control.
But how could she collect a boar without even touching it?
So for now, she only hoped to catch a few wild chickens or rabbits today—though that probably wouldn’t be easy either.
As she pondered how to hunt, she slowly walked deeper into the mountain.
Suddenly, a series of “cluck cluck” sounds reached her ears. Her eyes lit up. Following the sound, she spotted several plump wild chickens pecking in the grass.
Delighted, she carefully crept closer.
Just as she got within a few steps, one of the chickens sensed danger. With a loud cluck, it flapped its wings, ready to take off.
Yuxi reacted instantly, lunging forward. In the chaos, her hand brushed the chicken—
—and in that instant, it vanished. She had actually stored it in her space.
Overjoyed, she felt much more confident after this success.
Soon after, she spotted a wild rabbit near a clump of bushes.
Moving lightly, she approached. Seeing the rabbit pressed close to the shrub, she placed her hand on the bush, fixed her gaze on the rabbit, and thought of storing it.
The rabbit disappeared.
Since few people came this deep into the mountain, the grass was much thicker than at the base. Before long, her basket was full.
She dumped the grass into her space and continued cutting. While the grass was abundant here, she might as well gather more—then she could wander freely for the next couple of days.
Seeing that it was still early, she wandered around some more.
But wild chickens and rabbits weren’t so easy to come by. Even when she spotted them, catching them wasn’t simple.
Later, she encountered prey five more times. Using her space to hide, crawling on the ground, and outsmarting them through trial and error, she finally managed to catch one more chicken.
To her delight, she also found two nests of wild chicken eggs—eighteen in total. An unexpected bonus.
Looking at the two chickens, one rabbit, and all those eggs in her space, Lin Yuxi felt completely satisfied. Humming a tune, she headed down the mountain.
Today, she had earned work points and gained extra food. Life was finally starting to look up.
She delivered the grass to the production team, had her work points recorded, and then went home.
Her two sisters had just returned as well. They had stayed near the foot of the mountain and along the fields, so their work hadn’t been too tiring.
Yuxi, on the other hand, was exhausted—not only from cutting a lot of grass but also from chasing chickens and rabbits.
Old Madam Lin glanced at her dirty appearance, clicked her tongue, and ignored her.
After dinner, lying on the kang, Yuxi stretched her sore muscles and finally felt a bit better.
She thought about going to town tomorrow—selling the chickens and rabbit, and buying some meat buns…
Thinking of that, she drifted off to sleep.
Before dawn the next day, she set out early with her basket and sickle. But instead of heading to the mountain, she went toward town.
Private trade wasn’t allowed yet, so she needed to find the black market—and it was best to go early.
Fortunately, she had memories from her previous life. Back then, while she was still in school, she had heard people mention where the black market was, though she had never gone herself.
Following those memories, she searched—and sure enough, she found it.
People carrying baskets and backpacks came and went, and someone stood guard at the entrance of the alley.
Yuxi placed the tied-up chicken and rabbit into her basket, covered them with dry grass she had prepared the day before, and wrapped a worn scarf of Jiang Taohua’s around her head.
As she approached the alley, someone stopped her.
“Buying is five fen, selling is one mao.”
The black market was organized and managed. They charged a fee to provide a trading place and even helped people escape through other exits if inspections came. Yuxi found that quite fair.
She paid one mao and went in.
About thirty meters down the alley, after turning a corner, she saw a large square courtyard.
Vendors lined the perimeter, and there were plenty of buyers—but everyone kept their voices low, quietly asking prices and bargaining.