That one yuan and twenty cents didn’t manage to plug Grandma Jiang’s mouth.
Outside the courtyard gate, Grandma Jiang’s voice, full of veiled insults, rang out again: “…Every one of you is a debt collector! Doing a little work is like it’s killing you! I still have to keep tightening the screws on you old bones… Don’t you hurry up and get out there to work? Whoever doesn’t earn enough work points today, don’t even think about sitting at the dinner table tonight!”
As these words drilled into the room through the door panel, Lin Wanting let out a soft sigh, and Jiang Jianguo took a deep breath. The couple then reluctantly prepared to head out to work to earn those pitiful work points.
“Tangtang,” he squatted down and instructed his daughter, “Mom and Dad are going to work; you play near the house and don’t run off. If… if someone comes into the room, you cry loudly, understand?” he said, still a bit uneasy.
Jiang Tangtang nodded vigorously: “Mm! Tangtang knows!”
Once her parents left, the house suddenly fell quiet. Jiang Tangtang squatted in the corner alone. On the surface, she was using a small stick to tease the earthworms on the ground, but in her heart, she was preoccupied with the pork belly and the bag of white sugar hidden under the ceramic pot.
Grandma Jiang would pace around the courtyard from time to time, and her sharp gaze made Tangtang’s hair stand on end.
“No, it’s not safe to leave it at home.”
She stood up, walked back into the room on her short legs, and laboriously moved the bricks blocking the kang (heated bed) vent. She took out the ceramic pot containing the pork belly and the bag of white sugar. Placing her hands over them, she concentrated and recited silently in her heart: “Store in the warehouse!”
In the next second, the items under her hands vanished instantly. In the system warehouse grid within her mind, these two treasures lay peacefully.
“With this, even if Grandma Jiang turns the house upside down, she won’t be able to find them!” Jiang Tangtang thought triumphantly.
She spent the rest of the morning pretending to poke at the mud in the yard—though in reality, she was completing system tasks in her mind to earn gold coins. By the end of the morning, she had earned over 1,000 more coins. She looked at her account with satisfaction.
Account Balance: 2,000 Gold Coins.
She was truly too young, and earning gold coins at such high intensity was indeed taxing on her mind.
As it neared noon, knowing her parents would be back soon, she snuck back into the room and retrieved the pot and sugar from the system warehouse, hiding them exactly as they were before.
Before long, Jiang Jianguo and Lin Wanting returned, dragging their exhausted bodies, their faces sallow. They truly were not cut out for farm work, and the thought that their “inventory” at home might be discovered made their moods even heavier.
Jiang Tangtang rushed into her mother’s arms. Then, as if remembering something, she whispered: “Mom, the meat… if we don’t eat it… if we leave it there, will it… be taken away by mice? Or… will it go bad?” She pretended to be worried, acting spoiled and picky toward her mother, Lin Wanting.
This remark reminded Jiang Jianguo. “That’s right! Although the weather isn’t scorching, this meat won’t last long! No matter how well we hide it, if it doesn’t end up in our stomachs, it’s a waste if it spoils!”
After a moment of thought, he made a decision: “Then let’s not keep it! We’ll finish it off tonight!”
“Tonight? At home?” Lin Wanting subconsciously looked toward the door; the risk was too high.
“No!” Jiang Jianguo lowered his voice, a glint flashing in his eyes, “The old place! Up the mountain!”
“After work this afternoon, we’ll say Tangtang isn’t feeling well again, and we’re taking her up the mountain to get some fresh air and look for some herbs!” Jiang Jianguo whispered to Lin Wanting. “That meat must be eaten as soon as possible! We’ll go to our ‘secret base’!”
After finishing work in the evening, Jiang Jianguo told Grandma Jiang, “Tangtang seems a bit listless again; we’re taking her out for some air and, incidentally, to see if there are any wild vegetables.” Grandma Jiang muttered something about them “having too much trouble,” but considering the third branch had at least turned in one yuan and twenty cents for the “collective” today, she didn’t try to stop them.
So, Jiang Jianguo took a hoe, strapped on a backpack he had pre-packed, and led his wife and daughter up the mountain again.
They arrived at the familiar, hidden stone hollow. Jiang Jianguo skillfully started a fire, while Lin Wanting cut the salt-cured pork belly into thick slices. They didn’t have a pot, but that didn’t stump Jiang Jianguo. He found a few wide, clean tree leaves, wrapped the meat slices, and buried them into the hot stones and ashes.
“This is ‘Beggar’s Meat’! It’s going to be so fragrant!” He winked at his daughter triumphantly.
Just as they were waiting for the meat to cook, there was a rustle in the grass nearby. Jiang Jianguo immediately became alert, grabbed a firewood knife, and headed toward the spot. Jiang Tangtang, curious, followed a few steps, pointing with her small finger: “Dad, Dad, over there… there’s movement.”
Before she finished speaking, several grey, fluffy little things scurried out of the bushes in a panic. They were actually three or four half-grown wild rabbits!
“Rabbits!” Jiang Jianguo’s eyes lit up. He reacted extremely quickly and pounced, not even needing the firewood knife—he just threw his whole body on top of them! Unfortunately, the rabbits were too agile, and he only managed to pin down the very last one that ran slightly slower!
“Hahaha! Caught one!” Jiang Jianguo laughed proudly, grabbing the rabbit by its ears. The rabbit kicked frantically in his hands.
What was even more surprising was that Jiang Tangtang, relying on her small, agile frame, ran behind the bushes and actually dug out another, smaller rabbit that was trembling with fear from a small dirt burrow!
“Daddy! There’s a small one here too!” Jiang Tangtang cupped the little rabbit in her hands, her face flushed with excitement.
Lin Wanting looked at the rabbit in her daughter’s hands, then at the one in her husband’s, and finally at the meat sizzling and dripping oil over the fire. Her voice trembled with disbelief: “Father of her… this… Tangtang’s luck… it’s just too incredible…”
Jiang Jianguo looked at his daughter, his eyes burning with intensity: “It’s more than just luck! My daughter is protected by an old immortal! Everywhere she goes, there’s meat to eat!”
Now, they had a situation. They had originally intended to finish off some pork belly that was about to spoil, but ended up with two live rabbits—one big, one small.
Jiang Tangtang wore an innocent, angelic smile, silently giving her system a “like” in her heart.
“This rabbit… what should we do?” Lin Wanting looked at the two living creatures, feeling a bit troubled. Eat them all? Too extravagant. Raise them? They had nothing to feed them, and it could easily expose them.
Jiang Jianguo stared at the rabbits, and a clever idea struck him. He lowered his voice, his tone laced with the excitement of taking a risk: “Wanting, what do you think… about us taking these rabbits to town and giving it a try? I heard there are people who trade things on the sly… the prices are much higher than at the supply and marketing cooperatives or the purchasing stations…”
“Father of her, are you talking about… the black market?” Lin Wanting’s face turned pale, and she instinctively gripped her daughter’s arm. “That’s too dangerous! If we get caught, it’ll be terrible!”
“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.” Jiang Jianguo’s eyes grew brighter. “I’ll just go and take a look, I won’t stay long. How long will it take for us to earn enough to let our daughter eat meat every day if we just scratch a living from the fields? These rabbits are fat; we should be able to trade them for something. If I’m careful, it should be fine.”
In the end, Lin Wanting was persuaded. The family of three thoroughly cleared away the traces of their fire. They slaughtered the larger rabbit, skinned it, and prepared it, while the smaller one was kept to be taken home for Jiang Tangtang to play with.
Jiang Jianguo also cleaned the rabbit skin, removing the fat, and planned to have Lin Wanting treat it with coarse salt for preservation later. He hoped to catch a few more in the mountains later, gather them up, and tan them all together so he could make a rabbit-fur vest for Tangtang.
The family of three carried the dressed rabbit, tucked the small rabbit into a basket and covered it with grass, and headed home under the cover of darkness.
Upon arriving home, Jiang Tangtang placed the sleeping little rabbit into a broken basket lined with hay and covered it with another basket to prevent it from escaping.
“I’ll leave when the first rooster crows tomorrow,” he whispered to Lin Wanting. “If anyone asks, just say I went to help out at a neighboring village.”
Lin Wanting didn’t say anything, simply stuffing the remaining half of a cornmeal bun into his arms.