Seeing little sister eyeing the two steamed sweet potatoes in the iron pot and biting her finger, Liu Qingsong came to his senses, took them out, and handed them to her: "Hurry up and eat. When you're done, go feed the chickens."
"Mm, mm! Third Brother should eat too." Little sister only took one small sweet potato, and after blowing on it a few times, she bounced off out of the kitchen.
Liu Qingsong watched little sister disappear. After a long sigh, he ate the sweet potato as he walked toward the rear courtyard.
For now, he needed to take the woodcutter's knife and Hunting Rifle into the Back Mountain and find some Game Meat. Otherwise, he would have nothing to eat for lunch.
In 1978, most villager households in the Huajiao Production Brigade owned hunting rifles, and hunting was not banned. Liu Qingsong therefore had no reason to worry about hunting in the mountains.
However, when he pushed open the heavy Main Gate in the rear courtyard, the strange scene from before appeared again.
What came into view was an endless expanse of garbage. In the garbage heap not far away, he could even make out the severed limbs and remains of animals.
Liu Qingsong came to his senses and swallowed hard. He instinctively wanted to run, but seeing no danger nearby, he steeled himself and crept forward.
Whoosh~~!
The rear courtyard gate behind him slammed shut.
This gave Liu Qingsong a huge fright.
He spun around and ran back.
Fortunately, the rear courtyard gate opened again in time.
It did not trap him in this bizarre world of garbage.
Liu Qingsong let out a breath of relief. This time, he was no longer afraid.
After thinking it over, he picked up a rusted iron rod and cautiously approached the nearest garbage heap.
The garbage heap rose two stories high and consisted mostly of construction debris, such as scrap timber and scrap stone blocks.
Around the edges, he could also spot discarded saw blades and Axes, along with Woven Sacks of various colors.
The Woven Sacks came in different sizes, and most of them were bulging.
Out of curiosity, Liu Qingsong casually opened one.
It was filled with sawdust, so he kicked it aside.
He was about to check out the other garbage heaps when, the next second, he froze.
It turned out that beneath a plastic bag not far away, there was a "safe" half-exposed.
After coming back to his senses, Liu Qingsong walked straight over and used the iron rod in his hand to quickly clear away the garbage around the safe.
Soon, the safe's full shape was revealed.
It stood one and a half meters tall and was about fifty centimeters wide. Apart from the strange writing on top, it looked much like the safes Liu Qingsong had seen before his rebirth.
Unfortunately, the safe's door stood open.
Inside, there was nothing but a yellowed Diary.
Nothing else at all.
Out of curiosity—
Liu Qingsong picked up the diary, opened it, and started looking through it.
The sight nearly startled Liu Qingsong.
The diary's writing was crooked and ugly, like bean sprouts scrawled across the page. Even as a Reborn Person, he couldn't recognize a single character.
"Could it be…" Liu Qingsong considered one possibility but couldn't confirm it. After a moment's hesitation, he carefully climbed toward the highest point of the garbage heap.
Once he reached the top—
He stood up and glanced around.
Only then did he notice a pattern in the surrounding garbage heaps. Though they varied in size, they had all been piled in an orderly arrangement.
Narrow passages ran between the garbage heaps, and a Stone Stele stood in each one about every kilometer.
The Stone Steles were about five meters tall, most of them buried under garbage.
A few of them, however, stood fully exposed.
Liu Qingsong recognized the writing on them.
He looked closer.
It…
It read Myriad Realms Garbage Dump!
The moment he saw those words, Myriad Realms Garbage Dump—
Liu Qingsong understood at once why he couldn't recognize the diary's writing: it had come from another Plane World.
In other words, he was inside a plane space independent of every world, and garbage from the Myriad Realms filled it.
This garbage looked worthless.
But for someone reborn into this particular era of 1978, it was without a doubt an outrageous Golden Finger.
Whether scrap timber, scrap stone, or any other kind of garbage, all of it could become treasure if he put it to good use.
The moment this thought struck him, Liu Qingsong grew excited all over.
Earlier, he'd been planning to go hunting in the mountains to find something to fill his stomach. But now that he had this Myriad Realms Garbage Dump, he knew he wouldn't need to risk going to such a dangerous place at all.
If he searched through the garbage from the Myriad Realms,
his gains would surely exceed those from hunting a hundredfold, even a thousandfold.
No sooner thought than done.
After glancing once more at the rear courtyard gate not far off,
Liu Qingsong carefully climbed down from the garbage heap.
He picked up a Woven Sack and began digging through for anything useful.
The scrap timber could wait for now — he'd bring it out to burn as firewood come winter, saving on coal money.
As for the safe, it was heavy — at least several hundred jin — so it was better not to bother with it.
Even if he wanted to take it back, there was no way he could move it right now.
But the discarded Axes and scrap steel were worth collecting and selling to the blacksmith. A few dozen jin would easily fetch a sack of Sweet Potatoes.
This wasn't a joke — in 1978, the price of iron was at least higher than that of grain.
However, he'd need to be careful when selling it, since Reform and Opening-Up hadn't happened yet in 1978, and if questioned about it, things could get troublesome.
"Huh? What's that…" Liu Qingsong froze while collecting scrap steel. In a nearby garbage heap, he spotted a Worn Fishing Tackle Box.
Beside the fishing tackle box—
Several bottles of Bait lay scattered about.
"Could it be that people from other plane worlds also like fishing?" Liu Qingsong snapped back to his senses and walked over.
He picked up a bottle of bait and looked it over.
He still didn't recognize the writing on it.
But the fragrant scent wafting from the Bait made his eyes light up: "With Bait this fragrant, even a fish should take the hook."
"I wonder whether there's a Fishing Rod in the tackle box."
"If there is, I'll head to the river and give it a try later."
With that thought, Liu Qingsong opened the worn fishing tackle box.
This time, it did not disappoint him. Inside were three Fishing Rods of different lengths, along with other oddly shaped pieces of Fishing Gear.
However, the Fishing Rods were badly damaged and completely unusable.
The fishing line and hooks, however, were of good quality.
After hesitating for a moment,
Liu Qingsong removed the fishing line and hooks.
Then he tossed away the fishing rods and put the line and hooks into the worn fishing tackle box.
He tossed the rods instead of trying to reuse them because their strange shape and unknown material revealed that they came from another Plane World. He could not let them appear in the era where he lived.
If it were ever investigated, there'd be no way to explain it.
Having finished all this, he was about to go on searching for more valuable garbage.
Ripples appeared in the air above a garbage heap a hundred meters away, and a large amount of garbage poured down onto it.
Most of this garbage was branches and dead leaves, and as it fell, a lot of it tumbled down off the heap.
Liu Qingsong clearly saw a headless Wild Hare among the debris.
After a brief pause, Liu Qingsong hurried over.
To avoid being hit by falling debris, once he got close, he didn't immediately go looking for the hare's body — instead, he watched his surroundings.
Only once he was sure it was safe, sure nothing more would fall,
did Liu Qingsong go over and start searching for the wild hare.
He had already seen exactly where it landed,
He found the hare's body quickly.
It was a gray wild hare that had died not long before.
That much was clear from the lingering warmth still in its body and the bleeding wound on its neck.
The hare was large. Even without its head and one foreleg, it still weighed more than five jin.
Liu Qingsong ignored those details. After glancing around cautiously, he put the hare's body into the Worn Fishing Tackle Box. Then he carried the Woven Sack in one hand and the Fishing Tackle Box in the other as he hurried toward the rear courtyard's Main Gate.
His family was short on food, and now that he had found a headless hare, he needed to take it out and deal with it at once.
……