Yu Qinghuan brushed the dust from her hands and turned her gaze away from the cellar in the backyard, its stone entrance now firmly shut.
What was emptying one cellar, anyway?
If she was going to go on a rampage, she might as well go all the way.
By tomorrow morning, when the Li family opened their eyes, she wanted them to wonder whether they were still dreaming.
Keeping her body low, Yu Qinghuan crept silently into the large kitchen, moving through the familiar surroundings with ease.
In a rural household in the 1970s, the kitchen was where all the family’s best food and cooking fats were kept.
As soon as she entered, the beam of her flashlight swept across the pitch-black room.
First of all, the most conspicuous item was the enormous, gleaming black cast-iron pot sitting on the earthen stove.
In an era when iron goods were state-controlled commodities, buying an iron pot cost several dozen yuan and required special industrial coupons.
Miao Cuihua polished this pot until it shone, even using hair oil to keep its surface gleaming. She treasured it as though it were some priceless family heirloom.
“Nice pot. It’s mine now.”
Yu Qinghuan walked up to the stove.
The iron pot had been firmly cemented into the earthen stove with yellow clay mixed with plant ash.
Under normal circumstances, digging it out without damaging it would take at least half an hour of banging and chiseling.
But Yu Qinghuan had her dimensional space.
She gently pressed her fair palm against the cold edge of the pot and sank her consciousness into the space.
“Collect!”
With a soft whoosh, several cracks instantly spread through the clay surrounding the stove.
The enormous, heavy iron pot disappeared into thin air in an instant, together with its lid and spatula!
All that remained on the stove was a large, pitch-black hole leading straight down into the firebox.
Yu Qinghuan curled her lips into a smile and glanced to the side.
The wooden cupboard beside the stove wouldn’t be spared, either.
She walked over and opened its doors.
Inside were more than a dozen large, coarse porcelain bowls neatly stacked beside a pile of plates.
Next to them lay a pair of bamboo chopsticks with chipped ends and a heavy cast-iron kitchen knife used for chopping vegetables.
Even the solid jujube-wood rolling pin Miao Cuihua used to roll out noodles rested quietly inside.
“Collect!”
Yu Qinghuan waved her hand.
The cupboard instantly became completely empty. She didn’t even leave behind a single bamboo chopstick.
Next came the bottles and jars on the stove.
Half a jar of coarse salt, a small bottle of soy sauce, and a vinegar jar that was half full.
But the most valuable item was a small jar containing a little less than half its volume of solidified, milky-white pork fat.
Mixed into it was more than half a jar of golden-brown, fragrant pork cracklings.
This was Miao Cuihua’s most prized possession. Whenever she cooked, she would only dare to scoop out the tiniest amount with the tip of her chopsticks.
“Collect!”
All the bottles and jars, together with the oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar inside them, instantly appeared on the storage shelves in Yu Qinghuan’s dimensional space.
Yu Qinghuan lowered her head and looked into the firebox beneath the earthen stove.
Inside was a small bundle of neatly split, dry pine firewood.
There was even half a piece of charcoal left over from the previous night’s fire, now completely extinguished.
“If I’m going to clean this place out, then I’ll clean it out completely.”
Yu Qinghuan let out a cold laugh.
With a slight movement of her consciousness, the dry firewood, the half-burned charcoal, and even the small pile of pine needles used for kindling beneath the stove were all sucked into her dimensional space.
The kitchen, which had once been packed with everything needed for daily life and filled with the warmth of cooking, was transformed in an instant.
It looked like an abandoned house that bandits had ransacked ten times over.
The stove was bare. The cupboard was empty. Not even a grain of salt or a sliver of wood remained.
Yu Qinghuan turned around with satisfaction and strode out of the kitchen.
Her next target was the chicken coop in the corner of the courtyard, which reeked of chicken droppings.
To Miao Cuihua, it was a living money pouch that she checked three times every day.
Inside were three red-feathered laying hens and two large roosters.
The three hens could lay two eggs a day.
Miao Cuihua normally wouldn’t even spare the original Yu Qinghuan a bowl of egg-drop soup. Instead, she saved every egg and sold them at the market, using the money to buy floral fabric for Li Chunhua’s clothes.
Yu Qinghuan walked up to the chicken coop.
Its wooden gate was fastened with a piece of wire.
At that moment, the chickens seemed to sense the presence of a stranger. They began flapping about uneasily in their straw nests.
One of the roosters had already stretched out its neck, making the preliminary gurgling sounds of an impending crow.
If it started crowing, it might wake the neighbors in the middle of the night.
“Shut up, you.”
Yu Qinghuan’s gaze turned cold as she reached out and opened the wooden gate.
She pointed her palm toward the interior of the chicken coop.
The livestock storage function in her dimensional space activated instantly.
“Collect!”
An invisible force of suction enveloped the entire chicken coop.
The two roosters that had been preparing to crow and the three hens that were flapping about didn’t even get a chance to make a sound.
Their bodies turned into faint, ghostlike blurs in midair before disappearing into her dimensional space.
And that wasn’t all.
The feed trough on the ground and the shabby little bowl used to hold water vanished, too.
Even the two bundles of dry straw piled in the corner—and the chicken droppings scattered across the ground—were casually sucked into the space by Yu Qinghuan.
That was what she called being environmentally friendly. She wasn’t about to leave these awful people even a little fertilizer!
After finishing with the chicken coop, Yu Qinghuan swung her flashlight toward the corner of the wall.
There lay several battered woven plastic sacks used for storing grain, their surfaces caked with mud.
“These lousy sacks would be perfect for collecting their tears tomorrow.”
Yu Qinghuan curled her lips into a smile and casually collected those battered sacks, too.
And with that, the entire Li family courtyard had been thoroughly cleared out.
Yu Qinghuan stood in the middle of the yard and surveyed her surroundings.
The woodshed door had been smashed into splinters.
The wedding-gift table in the center of the courtyard had been reduced to a pile of rubble, with brown sugar and red paper mashed together in the muddy ground.
The kitchen had no pot, no bowls, and no firewood. It was so empty that a horse could gallop through it.
The chicken coop contained not a single feather or even a speck of chicken droppings.
The cellar was so spotless that even a mouse would have to leave in tears.
Now this was what it truly meant to leave behind not a single needle or thread!
If a thief broke in tomorrow, they would probably end up wiping away their tears and leaving the Li family two yuan in charity money out of pity.
Looking at her handiwork, Yu Qinghuan felt as though every single one of the hundred thousand pores on her body had opened up in sheer relief.
The resentment that had been festering deep in her heart finally dissipated completely.
She brushed the dust from her hands, quietly taking pride in her work without seeking any recognition.
After an entire night’s work, it was time to return to her room and get some proper sleep while waiting for tomorrow’s grand show to begin.
With light, carefree steps, Yu Qinghuan turned around and silently returned to her dilapidated woodshed.
Although the door was gone, she could simply take a brand-new military-grade down comforter from her dimensional space and cover herself with it. She would be far warmer sleeping there than on the earthen kang in the main house.
The night gradually deepened.
At the edge of the sky, a faint pale glow began to appear.
The winter morning arrived beneath a blanket of cold mist.
One by one, the neighboring households began to echo with the crisp crowing of roosters.
Their calls rose and fell, waking the sleeping Hongqi Production Brigade.
But the Li family’s courtyard remained as silent as an ancient temple abandoned for a hundred years.
“Haaaah—”
A long, heavy yawn suddenly came from the eastern room of the main house.
Miao Cuihua had woken up.
Immediately afterward, the rustling of blankets sounded from the earthen kang, followed by the movements of a woman turning over and getting out of bed.
The grand show was about to begin.