When the potato was carried back into the house, Grandfather Liu, Liu Mancang, and the others all gathered around, and everyone was startled.
Is this a potato?
Is it not a pumpkin that grew a potato skin?
How could it be this big!
Liu Sishu asked, “This potato must weigh four or five jin, right?”
“I’d say more, at least five jin.” Had a potato and a sweet potato cross-bred? How could it grow so massive?
Liu Mancang was thoroughly baffled.
Grandfather Liu set his tobacco pouch aside, cradled the potato in both hands, and tossed it slightly to feel the weight. “I estimate it weighs at least over 6 jin.”
They brought out the scale to weigh it, and sure enough, it was 6 jin and 3 liang!
This was matching the weight of a baby!
Some children weren’t even this heavy when they were newborn!
Everyone looked at one another, then back at the colossal potato, completely speechless.
Was this normal?
One had to understand that a normal potato usually weighed only three or four liang.
A larger one would be around half a jin.
The ones from their family… were a bit too exaggerated!
A while ago, the potatoes weren’t this large yet. Grandfather Liu had even thought about asking some friends with good relationships to use their family’s potatoes for next year’s seeds!
At this moment, he also fell silent.
Reaching out as a reflex to grab his tobacco pouch, he remembered his granddaughter’s rule that he could only smoke four times a day. He had already smoked twice this morning; if he smoked again now, he would suffer in the afternoon.
Consequently, he lowered his hand.
He picked up a tea mug and drank some water.
Pondering for a moment, he instructed, “No one is allowed to speak a word about this to the outside.”
He couldn’t say for sure whether such a massive potato was a good thing or a bad thing.
The situation over the past two years had grown increasingly incomprehensible. Previously, the eldest son had written a letter to obscurely advise them.
He told them to speak carefully, not to stick out, not to attract attention, and to eat their meat behind closed doors.
Everyone nodded one after another, all knowing the gravity of the matter.
Liu Sitian, in particular, nodded her head like a chicken pecking at grain.
Who could blame her when she had a guilty conscience?
She had also been thinking just now; it was probably because this particular potato plant had been watered too much with the space water. It had to be.
Fortunately, apart from yielding in high numbers, the cucumbers and eggplants were all normal in size.
Even after giving the warning, Grandfather Liu still felt uneasy. The super-sized potato had to be destroyed immediately. Resolving his gaze, he said, “We will use this to stew the fish for lunch today.”
Li Sufen immediately carried the potato into the kitchen, cutting it open first before peeling it.
For lunch, there was a large basin of small river fish stewed with potatoes, and a large basin of cold tossed cucumber.
With few ingredients available, the cucumber was simply prepared using their own homemade soybean paste, mixed with a little cilantro, a splash of vinegar essence, and chili oil.
Needless to say, the flavor was quite good.
Liu Sitian took a bite of floury potato, followed by a bite of cucumber, and also ate half a white-flour steamed bun dipped in white sugar, eating until her belly was completely round.
The white-flour steamed bun was specially steamed for her by Grandma Liu. She was still small, so eating coarse grains would cause indigestion and scratch her throat.
Everyone else had cornmeal cakes and coarse sorghum porridge.
After lunch, Liu Sitian began to feel drowsy. Her upper eyelids met her lower eyelids, and she couldn’t keep her eyes open, her little head nodding off little by little.
Seeing this, Grandma Liu carried her to the west room and tucked her in with a small quilt.
In less than a minute, hearing her granddaughter’s steady breathing, she crept out quietly.
The moment Grandma Liu closed the door, Tiantian opened her eyes, flashed into the space, and took a nap there first.
Upon waking up, she ate a bunch of grapes, after which she rinsed her mouth and washed her face.
She then went to the warehouse to find an alarm clock, set the time, and only then walked over to the medicinal field with peace of mind.
Sitting cross-legged on the ground with her hands placed on her knees, she cleared her consciousness and persisted in cultivating according to the technique she had scavenged inside the space.
It was very unsuccessful at the beginning. Although she could see the multi-colored spiritual energy all around her, she couldn’t catch it.
Finally, under Tiantian’s repeated efforts, a wisp of yellow and green entered her body.
It circulated continuously along her meridians.
At this moment, Liu Sitian felt a “poof,” as if fireworks were blooming before her eyes, or as if she were soaking in a spiritual spring; her entire body felt light and airy, as though she could fly.
Even her mind seemed able to perceive further.
What she didn’t know was that at this time, the pores all over her body were continuously secreting dirty matter, which looked greyish.
Ring-a-ling, ring-a-ling… The alarm rang.
Liu Sitian opened her eyes and stood up after a brief moment. Wow, her legs weren’t numb at all, they were full of strength, and her eyesight seemed even better.
Hmm?
“What’s that smell? Why is it a bit stinky?”
That shouldn’t be. The air in the space was always very fresh, carrying the scent of green grass; how could there be a foul odor?
Moreover, this stinky smell was so close to her.
Relying on her more than ten years of experience reading novels, Liu Sitian quickly lifted her clothes.
Holy moly…
It frightened her so much that she immediately flashed and soaked herself into the hot spring. This was simply too dirty; the grey stuff was almost hardening into a thin crust.
She was only two years old and frequently drank spiritual spring water, so how could there still be so much filth inside her body?
Was it from her flesh and blood?
After washing herself thoroughly, she applied some fragrant lotion before stepping out of the space completely naked.
Her previous clothes were dirty too.
Patting her chest, she was glad no one was around as she quickly found a blue floral shirt and a pair of khaki trousers in the trunk on the kang to put on.
She tossed the dirty clothes into the basket on the floor, which she had specially asked Grandfather Liu for, specifically to hold dirty laundry.
Looking in the mirror, she found that apart from her face being whiter and her eyes being brighter and more spirited, there wasn’t any overly large change.
Thus, she walked out of the west room with peace of mind and shouted loudly, “Grandma, Mom, I’m awake. What are we eating tonight?”
She was a bit hungry after cultivating, especially wanting to eat meat and drink chicken soup.
When no one responded after a while, Liu Sitian pushed open the kitchen door and walked out. Huh? Where was everyone?
She ran patter-patter to the vegetable garden, and sure enough, they were all here. “Grandpa, Grandma, Dad, Mom, why have all the potatoes been dug up?”
They hadn’t grown to their full time yet!
It turned out that after finishing lunch, Grandfather Liu had been mulling over the matter and couldn’t take a afternoon nap, nor could he settle into his work; the more he thought about it, the less secure he felt.
So many potatoes were planted in the vegetable garden, covering several furrows; could there be more potatoes that size?
The more he thought about it, the more he couldn’t sit still, so he wanted to dig them up ahead of time. Clearing out the garden by digging the potatoes now would also allow them to plant more bok choy.
Marinating spicy cabbage or making sauerkraut was out of the question since it definitely wouldn’t grow in time, but it didn’t matter; bok choy stewed with potato chunks, cabbage stewed with tofu, and frozen cabbage were also exceptionally fresh and delicious.
No sooner said than done; Grandfather Liu called everyone up and started digging.
You wouldn’t know without digging, but digging brought quite a shock.
There weren’t any more that were that massive, but there were several dozen that weighed two or three jin, and a dozen or so that weighed one or two jin.
Each one of them was covered in sweat by the time Liu Sitian arrived, though whether it was from exhaustion or from fright was hard to tell.
“Tiantian, when you go outside, you absolutely must not say that our family’s potatoes grew this big, do you understand?” Grandma Liu instructed in a lowered voice.
Seeing her granddaughter nod, Grandma Liu was jubilant. She wasn’t worried at all; her granddaughter was incredibly smart!
“Grandma, I’ll go get some water for you all to drink.” Having said that, without waiting for Grandma Liu’s reply, she ran patter-patter back to the kitchen.
Helping out with whatever she could counted as sharing their “hardship.”
Shaking the thermos, nice, the water was quite full.
She then took the water ladle and the tea mug.
She ran very fast, yet steadily.
First, she handed the ladle to her brothers. “I’ll hold it for you, your hands are dirty.”
“Little Sister is truly wonderful, I just happened to be thirsty.”
The four brothers did her the honor of gulping it down completely, after which Liu Sitian poured another ladleful and handed it to her grandparents.
“It tastes so good, Tiantian is truly wonderful.”
Liu Mancang drank last and praised her sincerely.
He felt as though water was sloshing around inside his stomach, and if he tapped it, it would sound hollow. Before his daughter woke up, he had just returned to the house and drunk a ladle of cold water.
Now it was hard for him not to drink, since his precious daughter was holding the water ladle with her own hands to feed him water!
Seeing his parents’ eyes crinkled with laughter, if he dared not to drink, the old man would shoot daggers at him with his eyes.
“Burp…“