After using the toilet, Xu Qinghe was so cold that she completely lost any desire to sleep.
She went into the left room and secured the grass mats over the window again.
Returning to the main room, she moved the brazier closer to her feet and sat down at the wooden table.
It was time for one of her favorite activities:
Eating.
She had already decided the night before what breakfast would be.
A bowl of tomato and egg drop dumpling soup, one braised egg, and a small serving of mixed vegetables.
Simple, balanced, nutritious, and easy to digest.
The dough-drop soup was thick and hearty.
One spoonful immediately made her feel wonderful.
She split the braised egg in half and crumbled the yolk into the soup.
Then she used the egg white like a little spoon, filling it with soup before eating it.
Delicious.
Comforting.
After finishing breakfast, warmth spread through her entire chest.
Xu Qinghe could almost feel this severely malnourished body slowly recovering.
After eating, she followed the same routine as the previous day.
She washed up.
Combed her hair with the lice comb.
This time, not a single louse appeared.
She applied chilblain ointment to her feet.
Finally, she filled another basin with hot water and washed herself.
Once she was clean, she felt vastly more comfortable.
She slipped into the bedding while it still retained some warmth, removed all her clothes, and changed into clean underwear.
The hot water had made the chilblains on her hands flare red again, so she quickly applied more ointment.
Once she got into bed, she immediately lost any desire to leave.
Curled beneath the blankets, Xu Qinghe spent some time reading novels she had downloaded before her transmigration.
Only when she estimated it was nearly noon did she suddenly snap back to reality.
How could I be slacking off like this?
Instinctively, she glanced at her phone for the time.
Then she remembered—
The phone’s clock no longer matched the world she lived in.
Putting the phone away, she dressed in her cotton-padded clothes and pulled on the hemp garments she had cleaned and altered.
She refused to coexist with even a single louse.
The previous night she had thoroughly soaked all her hemp clothing and the hemp fabric from the baskets in medicinal solution.
She had removed all the reed stuffing from the garments and piled it together with the straw, intending to burn it later.
After washing the hemp cloth, she cut it into scraps and used those scraps as stuffing inside the garments.
It was actually a common insulation method used by ordinary people in ancient times.
It was warmer than reeds or straw, but also more wasteful.
Of course, she herself was already wearing thick cotton clothing made with high-quality modern cotton.
She didn’t actually need the hemp garments for warmth.
The whole point was appearances.
Everyone else in the village dressed like bundled-up balls and still froze.
If she walked around wearing a nearly empty hemp coat while remaining perfectly healthy, it would attract attention.
Besides, cloth scraps were easier to clean and far less likely to harbor lice.
That was the truly important reason.
Once fully dressed, she stored away everything that didn’t belong in this era except the brazier.
Then she swept the house once more and scattered another layer of insect powder.
The powder had worked well yesterday.
Today she swept up numerous lice that had been incapacitated by it.
After carefully checking for anything suspicious, Xu Qinghe took a deep breath and opened the door.
She had been in this world for a day and a half.
Until now, she had stayed inside the house almost constantly.
This was her first real look at the world where she would be living.
Wow.
Actually, there wasn’t much to see.
To be honest—
it wasn’t nearly as beautiful as the modern world.
Nearby stood crude yellow-brown thatched houses.
Every door was tightly shut.
Only occasionally, when a grass curtain lifted in the wind, could she glimpse the dim interiors.
Most people were still curled up on their heated kang beds.
After freezing through the previous night, they hadn’t fully recovered.
The village was quiet.
Only the sound of tearing wind, occasional coughing, and the rhythmic clacking of weaving looms could be heard.
Farther away stretched barren farmland devoid of life.
A few dried weeds swayed in the wind.
The village fields lay at the foot of a mountain.
That mountain served as the village’s communal mountain.
The villagers gathered firewood there and hunted wild game or collected edible plants.
Back in modern times, Xu Qinghe had occasionally gone hiking during her days off.
But modern mountains and ancient mountains were entirely different.
Many people imagined ancient landscapes as lush forests and pristine wilderness.
Anyone who truly understood history knew otherwise.
The mountain before her was nearly bald.
The trees were so sparse that it resembled a head rapidly losing its hair.
This was a world lacking vitality.
A dead, exhausted world.
The village’s poverty wasn’t an exception.
For ordinary people, this was simply life.
Only nobles and officials lived differently.
Xu Qinghe felt neither disappointed nor saddened.
She had expected this.
She possessed an entire space full of modern supplies purchased with her own money.
She could live very well here.
As for feeling sympathy for the suffering people around her—
She honestly couldn’t.
Not because she lacked compassion.
She simply lacked the ability to help.
Besides, in her mind, the existence of this world wasn’t something she had created.
It was far bigger than any one person.
Shaking away those thoughts, she turned her attention to her own yard.
Every house in the village had a small courtyard enclosed by low earthen walls that reached roughly knee height.
The courtyard wasn’t large.
In the front stood a small vegetable patch.
To the left of the house was a crude woodshed.
At the moment it was completely empty.
Xu Qinghe tucked her hands into her sleeves, stamped her feet against the cold, and headed toward the backyard.
The backyard was even smaller.
On the eastern side stood a simple chicken coop.
On the western side was a tiny hut made from rammed earth walls.
It looked barely large enough for one person.
Xu Qinghe already suspected what it was.
Taking a deep breath, she lifted the grass curtain covering the entrance.
Even in winter, the smell hit her immediately.
A horrifying smell.
Xu Qinghe frowned as she looked inside.
The outhouse had three rammed-earth walls.
The entrance was covered only by a grass curtain.
A large pit had been dug into the ground.
Two flat stone slabs stretched across the opening, providing a place to squat.
The latrine had clearly been used for many years.
The walls and stone slabs were stained with years of accumulated grime.
The pit itself was a dark abyss.
She couldn’t see much.
And honestly, she didn’t want to.
Near the entrance sat a clay bucket filled with cloudy, half-frozen water.
At the bottom she could vaguely make out a smooth-sided stone.
Oh no.
Too late.
She understood immediately what it was for.
And now she couldn’t unthink it.
Xu Qinghe practically fled the latrine.
She stood outside gagging for a while before finally summoning enough courage to go back in.
Putting on gloves, she dumped the wood ash she had used that morning into the pit.
Then she grabbed her things and escaped as quickly as possible.
At that moment she felt deeply validated for having prepared a portable toilet before transmigrating.
Otherwise she might literally hold it forever rather than use this place.
Still, even if she used her portable toilet elsewhere, she would have to bring the waste ash here afterward.
Which meant she would still need to enter this latrine regularly.
And this was winter.
The smell was already muted by the cold.
Once summer arrived…
No.
Absolutely not.
She had reached a conclusion.
The outhouse needed a thorough renovation too.