Right now Liu Xiuyu was a truly pitiful and ugly sight. Her face was so swollen you couldn’t make out her original features, her right eye was a patch of black and blue, the corner of her mouth had split open, and her cheeks were swollen up high. Ugliest of all, a good deal of her hair had been torn out, leaving bald patches here and there. Even with a headscarf on, she couldn’t hide the scars on her scalp.
Her whole family was badly hurt. All of them had lost blood and damaged their health. They needed good food to recover, and she really had come to buy meat.
She hadn’t expected to run into Shen Yuntan here.
Seeing her buy so much meat, Liu Xiuyu was so jealous her eyes went red. She glared at her with a stare that could eat her alive. “You’re the ugly freak. You’ll come to a bad end.”
“Believe it or not, I’ll right now make you…”
The corner of Shen Yuntan’s lips curved slightly into an extremely contemptuous smile.
She extended her right hand, thumb and forefinger pressed together, pointed toward Liu Xiuyu, and slowly tightened them bit by bit in a choking gesture.
The rest of the words weren’t spoken, but Liu Xiuyu understood.
Her face went pale in an instant, as if an invisible hand had gripped her throat. She panicked and backed away, stumbling and nearly falling to the ground.
The scene of Shen Yuntan beating her whole family yesterday was still vivid in her mind, the memory burned in clear. That ruthlessness wasn’t something she could withstand. She was too scared to get close, afraid Shen Yuntan would go mad again and grab her to beat her.
Earlier, her third brother had come to the clinic covered in wounds, also beaten by this ugly freak. She even dared beat a xiucai. She had gone completely insane.
The whole family couldn’t beat her. Liu Xiuyu, however stupid, wouldn’t charge at her. She turned and fled in disgrace.
Seeing her direction was Jisheng Tang, the county’s largest clinic, whose resident doctor’s skill was at least passable, it seemed the Liu family nest had all come here for treatment.
After leaving the pork stall, Shen Yuntan headed back the way she came, planning to take the ox cart home.
Old Wang’s family ox cart came to the county town once a day. Two coppers to ride, extra for cargo. She figured she’d spend two coppers to experience the ox cart for herself.
She had only eaten three eggs that morning and was a bit hungry. She had just bought steamed buns and put them in her space. She took two out without being noticed and ate them.
The pork and cabbage buns had thin skin and generous filling. One bite and her mouth was full of rich juice, fragrant and delicious.
Her split soul from her past life hadn’t eaten anything this good in many years. Most food in the apocalypse was compressed biscuits and canned goods. A hot meal was a luxury.
Two meat buns in her stomach and her energy surged, her footsteps growing lighter.
The weather was good today, and the county town was lively. Street stalls lined up one after another, selling mountain goods and vegetables, candied hawthorns, rouge and powder, sugar-roasted chestnuts. The calls of vendors rose and fell without pause.
Shen Yuntan strolled at an unhurried pace, quietly extending her psychic power to catch every scrap of information around her.
Soon, that furtive figure followed again, trailing her all the way from Renji Tang’s entrance.
It was a man in his thirties, wearing a gray short jacket. His face was thin, cheekbones jutting high, eyes darting about, sneaky and shifty, scanning everywhere.
The man walked without a sound, always slipping into crowds. Two long chopsticks were hidden in his sleeve. Several times he tried to get close to her basket, and each time she deliberately or unconsciously avoided him.
A pickpocket.
Shen Yuntan had seen more petty thieves like this in the apocalypse bases of her past life than she could count. These people all shared one trait. They picked on those who looked easy to bully.
A sixteen-year-old girl with a basket on her back, wearing rough old clothes. In their eyes, she was a fat sheep delivered to their door.
Unfortunately, today’s fat sheep had grown horns.
Shen Yuntan deliberately slowed her pace and left the basket lid slightly open, revealing the pork wrapped in lotus leaves inside. When the pickpocket’s eyes landed on that big package of meat, they visibly lit up.
At the narrow alley ahead, she suddenly turned in.
The alley twisted and turned. A few turns and she was gone from sight.
The pickpocket chased through two alleys. Forget a person, he didn’t even see a ghost of her shadow. He was scratching his head and cursing in frustration when a filthy burlap sack fell from the sky.
Bang! Bang! Bang…
Dull thuds echoed in the pitch-black alley, along with muffled cries of pain and calls for help. But by the time he recovered and scrambled up, whoever had done it was long gone.
These pickpockets had stolen plenty in their time. A beating today would keep him in bed for ten days to half a month, a deep enough lesson.
Home, then the mountains.
Past the city gate was the official road. Two li east along it was an intersection where Old Wang’s ox cart waited to take passengers back to the village.
The old yellow ox was tied under a big willow by the roadside. Old Wang squatted on a stone beside the cart, smoking his pipe. Seeing someone approach, he glanced up, recognized her, and nodded in greeting.
A few people were already on the cart, all wives and old women from Qingshan Village and nearby villages. They had come to town for needles and thread, baskets on their arms and bundles in their laps, crowded together chattering away.
Shen Yuntan paid her two coppers and put her basket in the corner at the back of the cart, then sat down beside it.
Where there are people, there is comparison.
The moment she got on, the women’s chatter paused. Several gazes swept over her, deliberately or not, and finally landed on her basket.
A fat, sturdy old woman leaned over and tried to lift her basket lid. “Chouya, what did you buy in town? Let me see—”
Shen Yuntan gave her a bland look.
The look wasn’t fierce or harsh. It could even be called calm. But the fat old woman’s outstretched hand recoiled as if stung by a bee. She smiled awkwardly and immediately turned to talk to the person beside her, not daring to glance her way again.
Yesterday, when she beat the Liu family, this fat old woman had been there and witnessed it. She didn’t dare provoke this goddess of death now.
From the county town to Qingshan Village, the ox cart took over half an hour on the main road. During that time, the women on the cart gossiped about everything within ten li.
Whose wife cheated, whose mother-in-law abused her daughter-in-law, whose boy passed the elementary exam, whose girl had her engagement broken…
Every last detail, all poured out.
Shen Yuntan leaned against her basket, eyes half-closed, ears listening to the gossip while her mind ran the psychic cultivation method.
This psychic cultivation didn’t require sitting cross-legged in meditation. Walking, riding, even lying down, it could be trained, only with varying efficiency. The ox cart’s swaying rhythm actually helped her focus her intent. By the end of the ride, the psychic power in her sea of consciousness had grown a bit fuller.