A corner at the bottom of the main hall’s wooden door had broken away, allowing the cold wind to whistle through the gap and make the coals in the brazier flicker.
Xu Qinghe shifted to a different spot, settling diagonally opposite the door where the draft was weakest.
She swallowed repeatedly.
The two simple dishes before her—a bowl of steamed egg custard and a bowl of wontons—now seemed like the finest delicacies in the world.
It was her malnourished body’s instinctive response.
Cradling the bowl of steamed eggs in her hands, she felt the warmth seep into her chilled fingers. The fragrance grew even richer.
Unable to wait any longer, she scooped up a spoonful of the silky custard and put it into her mouth.
It was no exaggeration to say that fireworks exploded in her mind at that moment.
Delicious.
Absolutely delicious.
It felt as if her tongue was about to melt away with her saliva.
At first, considering that this body had suffered from long-term malnutrition and likely had a fragile stomach, she had deliberately chosen foods that were mild, nutritious, and easy to digest.
She hadn’t expected that these two ordinary dishes would taste so incredible to this body.
Spoonful after spoonful disappeared into her mouth, and yet the hunger in her stomach only intensified.
She was starving.
In fact, she felt even hungrier than before.
She could eat ten bowls.
The small bowl of egg custard was gone in just a few bites. Licking her lips, she could still taste the fragrance of eggs and the rich aroma of soy sauce.
She picked up the bowl of wontons and took a sip of the broth first.
The seaweed and egg-drop soup had been seasoned with nothing more than a little salt and dried shrimp, yet it tasted wonderfully fresh and savory.
As the hot broth slid down her throat, warmth and contentment spread through her entire body.
Xu Qinghe’s tense shoulders gradually relaxed.
After finishing both the wontons and the egg custard, she felt only half full.
She rubbed her stomach, which felt much better than before, and decided to suppress her cravings for now.
Her stomach wasn’t ready for overeating.
After eating, her body warmed up further. She left the brazier burning in the main hall to provide some heat for the drafty house and took a hot water bottle filled with steaming water from her storage space, hugging it to her chest.
Following the original owner’s memories, she climbed onto the heated brick bed in the room to the left and dug through the straw, finding ten taels of silver and the household registration documents issued by the local authorities.
These were the assets left behind after the original owner’s parents died.
The house and ten mu of poor farmland had also been inherited when she was allowed to establish her own household.
Xu Qinghe stored everything safely away in her space.
Then she turned her attention to the house itself.
Though dilapidated, she was already luckier than those who had no home at all.
Even so, there were many problems.
Drafty windows.
A leaking roof.
A broken front door.
Lice hidden in the straw bedding and hemp clothing.
Dust coating every surface.
And rats lurking who knew where.
Xu Qinghe didn’t consider herself a picky person, but these were things she simply couldn’t tolerate.
Besides, if they remained unresolved, they would be harmful to her health.
The New Year had just passed, and the busy farming season had yet to begin.
She planned to use this period to solve the house’s problems.
She climbed onto the brick bed and pressed the reed mat down more firmly to ensure no one could see inside from outside.
Then she turned around and stored all the straw bedding and paper quilts into her space.
She had no intention of using the straw again.
There were probably too many lice in it to count. Even if she cleaned it thoroughly, they would soon return.
It would be better to use it as firewood.
Besides, it didn’t matter if others saw her bare earthen bed.
Many people in this era couldn’t afford straw bedding either.
Others would simply think she was poor; they wouldn’t question why she wasn’t using straw.
After removing the straw, she swept away the loose dirt on the bed.
She didn’t bother cleaning it perfectly—it was made of packed earth, after all.
Next, she took out a small bag from her space.
Inside was powdered Stemona root.
The main ingredient in many modern anti-lice treatments was Stemona. Before commercial lice treatments existed, elderly people with some knowledge of traditional medicine would dry the root, grind it into powder, and use it to wash children’s hair.
She sprinkled the powder evenly over the bed, both to kill existing lice and to prevent more from crawling onto it.
After tidying the bed, she stored the two wicker baskets from the corner into her space.
The baskets contained reeds, woven hemp cloth, and several bloodstained menstrual cloths.
She kept only the hemp cloth.
The reeds and menstrual cloths were placed beside the brazier to be burned later.
After sweeping the dirt from the floor, she scattered another layer of Stemona powder over it, trying to kill as many lice as possible.
There wasn’t much in the left room, and she quickly finished cleaning it before moving into the main hall.
An old iron pot sat atop the earthen stove.
Three sets of bowls and chopsticks were stacked beside it, along with a small clay jar containing a few yellowed grains of salt.
Xu Qinghe stored them all in her space.
Then she took out a plastic bucket and collected all the wood ash from the stove.
After cleaning the dust from the stove, she scattered another layer of Stemona powder.
She also stored the water jar, old wooden table, and farming tools leaning against the door of the right room.
Once the main hall was emptied, she swept the dirt and spread more medicinal powder.
The right room received the same treatment.
The ramie fibers and grain sacks were stored away before she swept and sprinkled more powder.
After a thorough cleaning, the entire house suddenly felt much more spacious.
Sitting beside the brazier, Xu Qinghe tossed the menstrual cloths into the fire.
As she warmed herself, she organized the furniture she had stored in her space.
The furniture from the house was dirty and needed a good cleaning.
Even if she never used it, she didn’t like seeing filthy furniture lying around.
Just as she moved the furniture into the farming space, she froze.
Staring in shock at the space before her, she realized something had changed.
Since arriving here, she had been focused on retrieving items from the storage space and hadn’t paid much attention to the farming area.
She hadn’t noticed that it had grown by three mu.
The original six mu had expanded into a larger nine-grid layout.
Three new plots of bare black soil had appeared beside the existing fields.
Several cows and sheep had already wandered through the newly formed opening and were exploring the extra land.
Looking at the additional three mu, Xu Qinghe stamped her foot excitedly.
She had been worried that six mu wouldn’t be enough.
Now she no longer had to stretch every inch of land to its limit.
Countless ideas for how to use the new space flashed through her mind.
In the end, she decided to expand the livestock area by half a mu, add one mu for animal feed crops, expand the staple crop area by another mu, enlarge the medicinal herb section by four-tenths of a mu, and reserve the remaining one-tenth of a mu for the solar power equipment.
After settling on her plan, she first used fencing to enclose the expanded livestock area.
As for the rest of the newly added land, she left it untouched for the time being.