After Liang Hui left, Yu Yao shut the west room’s door, bolted it, and drew the curtains again.
Then she flashed into the space.
This time, she finally had the chance to carefully observe it.
The space looked very much like the old QQ Farm game she had once played: there was a wooden cabin, farmland, and a small river—except this version also contained a spiritual spring.
Having read the original novel, Yu Yao knew the spiritual spring was an incredible treasure.
It sat in a stone basin about the size of a large drinking cup.
The spring water seeped slowly from cracks in the rock above, dripping like tears into the basin below. By now, it had accumulated roughly a teacup’s worth of liquid.
Yu Yao entered the wooden cabin and found that although the furniture was simple in style, everything necessary was there.
The cabin consisted of three rooms: a kitchen, a living room, and a bedroom. The outhouse stood separately outside.
She found a teacup, scooped out the spiritual spring water from the stone basin, and used her thoughts to store it in the static storage space beyond the farm fence.
The static space had no concept of time. Anything placed inside would remain exactly as it was—warm and fresh forever.
After searching the cabin thoroughly, Yu Yao failed to find any crop seeds.
The farm contained about half an acre of barren yellow earth overgrown with weeds.
She needed to quickly figure out a way to buy seeds, along with some chicks and ducklings to raise.
When Yu Yao finally returned from the space to the west room, thunderous banging sounded outside the door.
“Laoxi’s wife! Are you deaf or dead in there?!”
“Open the door! Hurry up and open it!”
It sounded like Zhao Chunhua.
Yu Yao didn’t rush to answer. Instead, she removed the jade bracelet and stored it—along with the money Liang Hui had entrusted to her—inside the wooden cabin within the space.
“Why are you yelling and pounding like that? I don’t feel well. I’m sleeping!” she snapped back irritably.
Zhao Chunhua had pounded on the door for ages without any response and was so angry she nearly wanted to break the door down.
And hearing Yu Yao’s reply only infuriated her further.
“It’s broad daylight—what kind of sleep are you having?!”
“Lazy wife! All you do is eat and sleep. Raising you is worse than raising a pig!”
“In this blazing heat, you shut the doors and windows tight. Are you trying to rot in there?!”
“Hurry up and come cook!”
Yu Yao shouted back loudly,
“My husband isn’t home. What if you come steal my bracelet again?”
“Bah! Who wants your lousy bracelet? Open the door!”
Zhao Chunhua launched into another furious round of pounding.
Yu Yao immediately yelled,
“Everyone come look! Auntie’s trying to steal my mother-in-law’s bracelet again!”
Zhao Chunhua: “……”
Outside, Feng Xueqing softly advised,
“Auntie, forget it. People might misunderstand.”
The moment Yu Yao heard Feng Xueqing’s voice, she immediately guessed the woman had once again incited Zhao Chunhua into coming over and causing trouble.
Yu Yao couldn’t help sneering inwardly.
Heh. I’m absolutely not opening the door. Let you die from frustration.
After making a huge commotion for half the day without getting the door open, the two women only succeeded in attracting another wave of spectators.
Feng Xueqing cared too much about her image and couldn’t bear it anymore.
Eventually, Zhao Chunhua left while cursing under her breath, and Feng Xueqing could only leave resentfully as well.
Yu Yao felt thirsty, but the room didn’t even have a thermos, much less hot water.
So she slipped back into the space again, fetched water from the river, and boiled herself a kettle of hot water in the cabin kitchen.
After drinking, she also made a quick trip to the outhouse.
When Yu Yao returned once more to the west room, she heard another sound.
This time, it was only a faint knock—not Zhao Chunhua’s style at all.
Peeking through the crack in the door, Yu Yao saw Liang Hong.
Liang Hong was Zhao Chunhua’s youngest daughter, fifteen years old this year.
Having read the original plot, Yu Yao knew the girl was mute, though not born that way.
Because she couldn’t speak, Liang Hong had never attended school and had always stayed home helping with chores.
Yu Yao knew she was a simple-hearted young girl, so she opened the door.
A pile of things sat outside.
Using gestures, Liang Hong explained that Grandma had sent her to buy them.
There was a pair of brand-new thermoses, an enamel washbasin, a new chamber pot, and two new towels.
Inside the basin were a soap box, two bars of soap, a jar of face cream, a small round mirror with a red plastic frame, a plastic comb, and half a pound of brown sugar.
These were all things Grandma Liang had paid for Liang Hong to purchase.
After all, tonight Liang Hui would consummate the marriage with his new wife, but the west room contained nothing except a tattered set of bedding.
Yu Yao helped carry everything inside.
Liang Hong placed the remaining money on the bedside and gestured again:
Fourth Sister-in-law, count the money.
Yu Yao smiled.
“No need.”
She trusted the little girl.
Picking up the money, she pulled out two yuan and handed it to Liang Hong.
“Here. Buy yourself something tasty.”
Liang Hong shyly waved her hands and quickly left.
Yu Yao had just finished arranging the items when Liang Hui returned.
He first stopped by the kitchen, then wheeled his bicycle into the west room.
Seeing the things Liang Hong had brought, he nodded.
His gaze landed on Yu Yao’s wrist.
“Where’s the bracelet?”
Yu Yao immediately took the opportunity to complain again about Zhao Chunhua and Feng Xueqing.
“After you left, those two women came to steal the bracelet again, so I hid both the money and the bracelet.”
“Where did you hide them?”
Liang Hui looked skeptically around the shabby room and couldn’t spot anywhere suitable for hiding valuables.
Fortunately, it was summer now, so the condition of the room wasn’t too unbearable.
In winter, though, wind probably leaked through everywhere.
Yu Yao blinked her watery eyes.
“I hid them somewhere very safe. Don’t tell me you don’t trust me?”
Liang Hui pulled a cloth bundle from the bicycle basket. Inside was a clean coarse-fabric bedsheet and two pillow towels.
“Tomorrow I’ll take you to the county town to get some new clothes made.”
At that moment, Zhao Chunhua came again.
“Laoxi’s wife! Hurry to the kitchen and cook dinner! Otherwise don’t expect to sit at the table tonight!”
Liang Hui said coolly,
“I brought back two jin of wild boar meat. If she’s not allowed at the table, then the two of us will keep all the meat for ourselves.”
Speechless, Zhao Chunhua left resentfully once more.
Liang Hui carried an old abandoned shoulder pole into the room and said to Yu Yao,
“When I’m not home, use this for self-defense.”
Yu Yao reminded him,
“Next time you go out, buy a sewing basket too. Preferably a pair of scissors.”
In her previous life, she had been a professional fashion designer and was especially skilled with sewing and cutting.
Scissors were much more flexible for self-defense than a carrying pole.
After thinking for a moment, Liang Hui said,
“Tomorrow I’ll take you into town with me. Whatever you need, we’ll buy it.”
At the dinner table sat two huge plates of wild boar meat, making the children drool greedily.
But the adults present all wore different expressions.
Because of her chronic phlegm and asthma, Grandma Liang normally never ate together with the family.
But tonight, Liang Hui insisted she sit at the table.
Second Brother Liang Dazhu, who worked at the forestry farm, had also returned.
Except for Third Brother Liang Haifeng, who worked in town as a lab technician, the entire family was present—including Liang Haifeng’s fiancée Feng Xueqing.
Liang Hui stood up, swept his gaze over everyone, and spoke to his second uncle Liang Mancang.
“My parents died early. It’s true that Second Uncle and Second Aunt raised me.”
“But I’ve already repaid what I owed.”
“To speak honestly—wasn’t it me who supported Third Brother through school and university?”
“You gave me food to eat, and I helped raise a college student for you. We’re even now.”
So using the money he himself had saved to marry a wife—
he had absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.