Unlocking the Supermarket cost ten taels of silver, but the Warehouse could be unlocked for just one tael. This was simply too cheap.
It would be a crime not to take advantage of such a bargain.
She struggled to feel the silver inside her swaddling clothes with her tiny hands; there were about six or seven taels left.
Unlock it!
You have to bait the hook to catch the fish. By unlocking the Warehouse, she could travel light during the upcoming journey of Fleeing Famine, ensuring they wouldn’t attract unwanted attention.
Her small hands trembled as she stored the silver into the Xitong and unlocked the Warehouse. She looked at the basic Warehouse, which had only twenty slots.
She really wanted to curse someone’s mother.
Give her back her silver!
Twenty slots were way too few.
With tears in her eyes, she placed the items into the Warehouse.
Refusing to give up, she checked the Warehouse again and discovered it could be upgraded. For another two taels of silver, she could unlock fifty slots, and for ten taels, a hundred slots.
Each slot had a storage limit of 99, and as it upgraded in the future, the limit would also increase.
To put it bluntly, cheap goods aren’t good, and good goods aren’t cheap.
Unlocking the Warehouse for one tael was just a bit of sweetness to entice her to top up again.
Evil capitalists!
Seeing the items suddenly vanish, the two brothers felt like crying.
“Waaaah, we must have done something wrong, so the Immortal Lady took the things back.”
Gan Huaibi, that simpleton, had clearly heard Gan Tian’s inner voice, but because he didn’t know about his sister’s Golden Finger, he didn’t associate it with her at all.
Gan Fanren and Hui Niang could only comfort the children.
“The Immortal Lady has only taken the things back temporarily. She will give them back to us when we need them.”
Only after hearing this did Gan Huaibi stop crying.
Gan Fanren looked at their neat, clean clothes and their radiant, slightly chubby faces from eating meat every day, and he frowned.
The villagers hadn’t had a decent meal in five days.
Weren’t they standing out too much like this?
Gan Fanren grabbed some dirt and smeared it on his face, then mixed some mud to rub onto the corners of his clothes. He messed up his hair until it was a tangled mess, making him look just like a refugee.
Hui Niang understood his intention and followed his lead, making herself look disheveled.
However, Hui Niang cared more about her image and couldn’t bring herself to be too harsh on herself. Even with the ash smeared on her, she still looked beautiful and striking.
Gan Fanren took the opportunity to smear ash all over Hui Niang’s face, making her so angry she chased him to hit him.
The two brothers thought it was fun and started playing with mud under the pretext of disguising themselves.
Gan Tian was just celebrating the fact that, as a small baby, she didn’t have to go through this, when a face full of ash was smeared on her.
By the time they headed down the mountain, there was no water left up there.
Hui Niang insisted on walking herself, but Gan Fanren refused no matter what.
“A woman who has just given birth should be resting. I have already caused my wife to suffer a life of displacement; how can I let you suffer more?”
He reinforced the wooden plank they had used to come up and insisted that Hui Niang lie on it.
Gan Tian didn’t want to lie on the plank staring at the sky; she wanted to be held in someone’s arms so she could see the scenery.
Being able to go up and down the mountain without walking was a child’s privilege, and she was certainly going to cherish it.
As soon as she was placed on the plank, she started wailing.
Gan Fanren had to pull Hui Niang, so he handed the heavy responsibility of carrying the baby to his eldest son, Gan Huaizhong.
【Hehe, being carried feels so good. I don’t want to keep lying down. If I lie down any longer, my limbs will atrophy.】
As Gan Huaizhong held his sister, a tender, babyish voice suddenly rang in his ears. He looked at the sister in his arms in astonishment.
This! This voice came from his sister?
He could actually hear his sister talking?
Gan Huaizhong held his sister, his mind in a daze, remaining silent the whole way.
He wasn’t much of a talker to begin with, so no one noticed his abnormality.
After descending the mountain, the Gan family ran into the villagers.
Seeing the villagers’ neat clothes, clean faces, and expressions that were only slightly lethargic due to hunger, Gan Fanren realized his family had overacted.
His family was clearly the one living the best, yet now they looked the most like refugees.
The villagers looked at them with pity.
“Where have you been these past few days? Why weren’t you staying in the cave?”
“Exactly. Even though we haven’t been very full these past few days, we weren’t as pathetic as you. With a few expert hunters in the village, we didn’t go hungry; we even got to eat meat!”
Wang Lishi, holding her grandson Wang Tianbao, spoke in a sarcastic tone.
“That’s right. Even though I was kicked out of the cave, I’ve had plenty of good things to eat. Every meal had meat.”
“Looking at you, I bet you haven’t even eaten wild vegetables, right? A pity. If you hadn’t kicked us out back then, I might have spared some meat for you to eat.”
Gan Tian felt speechless as she listened.
【This smelly old hag, taking advantage and then acting smug.】
【If it weren’t for my dad, you’d probably have been washed away by the flood.】
Gan Fanren felt it was a bit funny hearing his daughter angrily sticking up for him.
They were just a few sharp, bitter words; he didn’t take them to heart at all.
Gan Fanren usually focused only on his studies and didn’t interact much with the villagers, but Hui Niang dealt with them often.
She knew exactly what kind of people they were.
The Wang Lishi family, except for the daughter-in-law Yun Niang, were all lazy good-for-nothings. They didn’t seem like the type to be able to catch meat.
But seeing their ruddy faces, it didn’t seem like they were lying. This was strange.
Hui Niang looked at Wang Lishi and asked, “Where is Yun Niang? Why don’t I see her?”
Hearing this, Wang Lishi’s expression darkened, losing its previous arrogance.
Wang Tianbao sucked in his saliva.
Seeing this, Hui Niang was startled: “You didn’t… you didn’t eat Yun Niang, did you?”
Wang Lishi stammered, “Don’t… don’t talk nonsense. She went out hunting and was struck dead by a bear. It has nothing to do with me.”
“Since she’s already dead, leaving the corpse on the mountain would be a waste. Better to let it benefit everyone.”
“Report this to the officials! We can’t let this kind of person stay in our village.”
“No, no!” Hearing the mention of reporting to the officials, Wang Lishi grabbed the people around her and roared loudly, “You can’t report to the officials!”
“We didn’t kill Yun Niang. She died on her own. Dead is dead, and us eating her wasn’t a waste.”
Hearing this, Gan Tian felt completely sick.
She looked at Wang Lishi and felt as if the old woman had turned entirely pitch-black. Even Wang Tianbao’s originally somewhat cute face had become incredibly eerie.
【Even though Wang Lishi doesn’t have a god’s-eye view and didn’t know the flood would recede in five days, this is just too terrifying.】
【Cannibalism is something I’ve only heard about in stories. I never expected it to happen right beside me.】
To eat a person and still be so self-righteous—it was truly insane.
Gan Fanren was worried about tainting his children’s ears, so he hurried his family back home.
Although the flood had receded, the mud, sand, and stones brought by the water were everywhere. The doors of their house were also broken; it wasn’t safe to stay like this.
Gan Fanren found a carpenter to repair the doors, windows, tables, and chairs, and he led the children in cleaning the house. By the time they finished, it was almost dark.