Miao Qing had assumed that after a snowfall, the roads would be covered in a thick, even layer of snow—one footprint at a time.
But she had no idea how cold it really was here. The snow on the road had been trampled by people, melted in some spots, and quickly refroze, leaving a hard, slippery layer beneath the soft top snow.
Inexperienced and not knowing how to read the road, Miao Qing strode along quickly and carelessly stepped onto a slippery patch. She slid and tumbled straight into a ditch beside the path.
Fortunately, the snow in the ditch was deep, so she wasn’t hurt.
By the time she climbed out and took a different route into the mountains, Tietui was still running around looking for her.
What they called mountains here, to Miao Qing, just looked like bigger, taller dirt mounds.
Maybe they were called mountains because there were a lot of rocks on these mounds. The name was plain too—Bald Mountain.
Walking up the small path from the village entrance, it took about an hour to reach the foot of Bald Mountain.
Up close, the mountain was much larger than she’d imagined. Covered in snow, Miao Qing had no idea where the path up even was—maybe there wasn’t one at all.
But she could use her ability to sense where the vegetation was most lush. After all, animals had to eat even in the snow. If she couldn’t catch a pheasant, she could at least accelerate some fruit.
In any case, she wasn’t going to come all this way for nothing.
She walked and walked, unknowingly reaching halfway up the mountain.
Miao Qing spotted a tree not far away, laden with bright red persimmons, and was overjoyed.
But when she got closer—oh, for crying out loud—the persimmon tree was growing on a protruding cliff face, completely out of reach.
No wonder no one had picked them.
But this didn’t stop Miao Qing. She condensed her energy into a whip, wrapped it around a persimmon, and gave a gentle tug—the persimmon wobbled and fell right into her hand.
She took a bite—cold, sweet, and juicy. With a good suck, she could pull the flesh and seeds right into her mouth.
Ripe persimmons were truly delicious.
One wasn’t enough for Miao Qing—she pulled down another, and only after finishing that one did she start properly harvesting persimmons.
Before long, she’d filled her satchel. Then she got tired.
Using her energy to manipulate objects consumed more than accelerating or refining did. She needed to figure something out.
She brushed away the snow on the ground and took a vetch seed from her space to accelerate.
In an instant, a tender shoot emerged from the snow, growing at breakneck speed. The vetch vines twisted and wove according to Miao Qing’s will, gradually forming a net bag over three meters long.
Miao Qing weighed it in her hand with satisfaction. Combining energy manipulation with acceleration really worked—now she could make any basket, box, or backpack she wanted.
Using a tool was much faster than using energy to pick persimmons. Soon, she’d gathered a pile.
She controlled the vines to weave a backpack, layering persimmons and dry grass inside. She tested the weight—a bit heavy, but manageable enough to carry.
She’d store it in her space for now, then take it out and carry it on her back once she reached a populated area.
After all that work, Miao Qing was tired, hungry, and cold.
As good as persimmons were, they weren’t a meal. She needed to go back and eat something warm.
Brushing the snow off her clothes, she was about to turn and leave when she heard a strange noise behind her.
She whipped around—and startled a pheasant that had been peeking out timidly. It flapped its wings and tried to fly away.
Miao Qing’s eyes lit up. Here was some meat, delivered right to her doorstep. No way she was letting it go.
She raised her hand and flicked an energy whip toward it. The pheasant couldn’t see the whip, but it could sense danger and flapped even harder.
The energy whip only grazed its claw and couldn’t wrap around it before the bird flew off.
Miao Qing wasn’t discouraged. Where there was one, there would be more. If she couldn’t catch it the first time, she’d try again.
First, she needed to figure out what had attracted the pheasant in the first place.
After thinking it over, Miao Qing concluded it was probably grass seeds.
To keep the persimmons from getting crushed, she’d accelerated some dry grass, and seeds had scattered all over the ground.
In this icy, snowy wasteland, pheasants probably had a hard time finding food too. Grass seeds would be very appealing to them—otherwise, that pheasant wouldn’t have risked coming so close.
Once she figured out the key, Miao Qing immediately accelerated more growth. In the blink of an eye, a patch of tender green grass appeared on the vast white snow.
Though it had been scared off, the pheasant hadn’t gone far and couldn’t resist coming back.
Miao Qing pretended not to notice and continued slowly channeling energy into the grass.
The patch she’d accelerated was long and narrow, stretching three or four meters away from her at the farthest point—specifically designed to lure the pheasant in.
The pheasant crept closer step by step. Miao Qing crouched low, head down, motionless, as if completely unaware.
But a rope of condensed energy had already formed at her fingertips, ready. When the pheasant happily started pecking at the grass, the invisible rope swiftly wrapped around its leg.
She tightened it suddenly and gave a sharp tug. Before the pheasant knew what hit it, it was in Miao Qing’s grasp.
“Try flying away now. Go on, try it! Messing with me, huh? Hmph—I’m taking you back and eating you for dinner!”
Miao Qing quickly bound the pheasant with a grass rope she’d woven in advance and headed down the mountain.
Just before the last bend before the village entrance, Miao Qing looked around carefully. Seeing no one, she took out her backpack.
With the pheasant in one hand and the backpack full of persimmons on her back, trudging through snow that buried her calves, Miao Qing walked with great difficulty.
She felt she’d been overly cautious and had ended up making things harder for herself.
She decided to find a place to stash her things, then go back and get Tietui to help carry them.
She’d just reached the corn stack by the threshing ground and set down her backpack, about to stuff it away, when a man climbed out of a ditch not far away.
“Damn it! Which son of a bitch took a piss here? Made me fall right into the ditch—froze my ass off!”
The man’s face still had fading bruises, his hair was a mess, his cotton jacket hung open, and he walked unsteadily—looked like he’d been drinking and had just woken up.
What rotten luck—running into this good-for-nothing?
Miao Qing frowned. She’d heard Yang Xiaomei talk about him—his name was Wang Laohai. From his grandfather’s generation down, not a single man in his family had been any good.
Lazy, thieving, drinking, gambling, beating his wife—he never did an honest thing.
But his mother had been killed by bandits while protecting the grain storehouse, and the villagers remembered her kindness. No matter how much they despised him, they wouldn’t completely destroy him.
“Oh, little educated youth!”
Wang Laohai spotted Miao Qing, grinned, and staggered over.
Miao Qing nearly gagged. The stench of an old man’s body odor mixed with alcohol and a whiff of urine—up close, it was absolutely suffocating.
“I heard you’re Sanluzi’s wife’s niece. That means by seniority, you should call me Old Uncle. Go on, let me hear it.”
The good-for-nothing let out a drunken burp, squinting as he sized up Miao Qing without a trace of shame, his gaze lingering on her reddened, wind-chapped face.
Miao Qing’s face turned cold from the greasy, sticky look in his eyes. She hoisted her backpack again and walked around him.
The good-for-nothing was taken aback for a moment, then quickly caught up and blocked her path.
“Hey now, little girl, why won’t you talk to me? What, looking down on your Old Uncle?”
Miao Qing ignored him. He blocked her way.
She went left, he went left. She went right, he went right.
He kept grinning and spouting nonsense. Miao Qing had had enough. She stopped walking and quietly condensed a brick of energy at her fingertips.
This bastard was asking for it. She wouldn’t hold back.
The good-for-nothing had no idea Miao Qing was ready to kill. He swaggered on, still flirting.
“It’s freezing out here—what’s a young girl like you doing out all alone?
Off to meet your sweetheart, are you?
What’s in the backpack? Where’d you get that pheasant?”
He reached for the pheasant in Miao Qing’s hand. She sidestepped and coldly warned him.
The good-for-nothing wasn’t scared at all. He pointed at what she was holding, looking completely confident.
“Everything on the mountain belongs to the collective! Taking it home for yourself—that’s harming collective interests! You know that?”
Seeing Miao Qing stay silent, he thought he’d scared her and puffed up with pride.
“Since we’re practically relatives, how about this—you give me all your stuff, and I won’t report you.”