When those two hands reached out, He Ze had already closed his eyes, bracing himself for a beating.
But the pain didn’t come as he had expected.
Carefully opening his eyes, he saw the two hands stopped in front of him, each palm holding three eggs.
He Ze looked at the six pale eggs and then at Lin Zhi’s gentle face, unable to understand her intention, and didn’t dare move.
“Eat!” Lin Zhi urged, pushing her hands forward again.
Unlike He Ze, He Run couldn’t resist the temptation of eggs. He reached out his little black hand to grab one, but He Ze blocked him.
Seeing his brother’s disappointed expression, He Ze looked at Lin Zhi, eyes full of caution. “What are you trying to do again?”
“You can beat me if you want, but don’t hit your brother,” she replied.
Lin Zhi paused, then remembered that in the past, the original owner had fed eggs to the twins but ended up accusing them of stealing the eggs and beat them. Thinking of what had been done before made her angry again.
Although she felt sorry for them, her mind was still in a fog, and she had no mood to coax children. She huffed, shoved the eggs into the twins’ arms, then crossed her arms and gave a cold smile.
“If there’s food, eat it quickly. You’re going to get beaten anyway, might as well get a few eggs while you can.”
After saying that, she didn’t care about their reaction and turned to leave.
Once Lin Zhi left, He Ze tilted his little head, thinking about it. What she said made sense—if they were going to get beaten anyway, they might as well eat first.
With that in mind, he didn’t hesitate, took the eggs out, and split three for He Run. He had only just started peeling them when he impatiently shoved one into his mouth.
He ate so quickly that he choked for a long time, stretching his neck and patting his chest repeatedly before he could finally swallow.
After finishing the three eggs, his previously empty stomach felt less painful. He glanced outside cautiously, saw that Lin Zhi wasn’t in the living room, and ran to fetch the teapot, sharing the water inside with He Run.
He Run licked his lips, watching He Ze pat his little belly, signaling that he wasn’t full yet.
He Ze hugged him and, listening carefully to the sounds outside, whispered, “Wait a bit. Once she goes back to sleep, we can go find more food.”
For hungry people, the temptation of food is irresistible—if it’s right in front of them, they can’t ignore it.
Knowing they would definitely eat the eggs, Lin Zhi didn’t care anymore. The sour smell emanating from their bodies made her extremely uncomfortable.
There was still half a tub of water left, and she didn’t care about the cold anymore, so she carried two buckets into the bathroom.
The bathroom was a small partitioned room behind the kitchen, less than two square meters, dark as pitch, impossible to see anything without a light.
In her current state, Lin Zhi couldn’t be picky.
She went to the cabinet to pick out clean clothes but found none.
With no other option, she could only pick two that looked less dirty and change into them.
Her body was too filthy; even with two buckets of water, she couldn’t get completely clean, but she had no choice—she had to make do for now.
The remaining water in the tub wasn’t even enough to fill a bucket, and what she scooped out was murky. She didn’t know if it was the water quality or because it had been sitting too long.
Thinking about the laziness of the original owner, Lin Zhi suspected the latter.
She went to the reservoir and fetched two buckets of water. The buckets were only half full, but even so, she was exhausted.
Although this body didn’t usually do heavy work, it still had to fetch water to survive. Just one trip today and she was so tired—it was mainly because she was hungry.
Using the water she fetched, she washed the pot again and cooked a pot of porridge. While waiting for it to cook, she didn’t idle and began washing a set of clothes.
The clothes she wore were still dirty.
When she had gone out earlier, several people recoiled and walked away before even approaching.
Without them saying a word, Lin Zhi knew it was the stench from her clothes that drove them away. If she had a choice, she wouldn’t have worn them.
Looking around, she couldn’t find any soap. Sitting on a small stool, staring at the filthy clothes in the basin, she desperately missed the highly effective, fragrant soap from home that only cost 2.5 yuan.
Just as she was thinking, her palm suddenly felt a weight. A small rectangular object appeared in her hand, and she jumped, instinctively throwing it away.
After patting her chest a couple of times to calm her heartbeat, she realized what she had just thrown—it was the soap she had been longing for!
Thinking of the “golden finger” in novels, her eyes lit up. Recalling the detail of how the soap appeared, she realized it had appeared when she was thinking about the soap in her shop.
Thinking of her recently opened grocery store, she couldn’t contain her excitement.
She closed her eyes, mentally repeated “grocery store” three times, and sure enough, she appeared inside her store.
In her previous life, she had worked hard for over ten years. After accumulating some assets, she returned to a small county, bought a car and a house, and didn’t want to work for anyone else, so she used her remaining money to open a grocery store.
The store was on an old street. To attract customers, she sold everything she could—food, drinks, daily necessities—everything except perishables like fresh fish or bulky furniture.
In the next few minutes, she tested various functions of the store.
In short, anything inside could be taken out and used; outside items could be stored inside, though her body couldn’t enter—she could only control it mentally.
Items in the store also refreshed automatically; ten minutes after taking something, an identical item would replace it.
She retrieved the soap she had thrown away and jumped for joy. Finally, it seemed the heavens had a shred of mercy and hadn’t completely forsaken her.
With the grocery store as her golden finger, even in this era of scarcity, her life was secured.
There was a small resting area at the back of the store, which she couldn’t access now. Luckily, she had previously pulled a pipe from it to carry water, and it still worked.
She used the pipe to clean the water tub and refill it, but it took some time. Her clothes were still unwashed, though the porridge was ready.
The store had various cured meats and dried goods, but Lin Zhi didn’t plan to take any out. The twins had been hungry for a long time, and she wasn’t sure if they could eat those foods. She decided to let them eat plain porridge first.
Fearing their stomachs couldn’t handle much, she barely added any oil.
The kitchen bowls were too dirty.
Luckily, her store had replacements, so she didn’t bother washing the old ones and just used the store’s bowls.
She ladled a few bowls of porridge onto the stove to cool, then went to the living room and cleaned the table, which was so dirty its original color was unrecognizable, using a steel wool scrubber.