I survived the famine by scavenging and supported my family.

"Aunt Qian, Aunt He was just acting rashly..."

The villagers advised that kowtowing was no small matter, and since they were all from the same village, they should try to resolve the issue peacefully and didn't want to make a big fuss.

"Ha! You were just agreeing so readily!" Granny Qian, having gained the upper hand, glanced sideways at Madam He and complained, "He Yan, you're a mother of your age, yet you can't tell the difference between king and princess and are just wasting everyone's time! And you even threw dirty water on me!"

"You took a perfectly good basket of firewood out and now you want to put it back in..." Sun muttered to herself as she grabbed thin twigs from the ground and put them into the basket.

"Looking for someone up the mountain is tiring enough, and it's even hotter in this weather..."

Condemnations came from all directions, and Mrs. He felt dizzy.

--wrong.

Looking at the firewood in Sun's hand, something seemed to flash through He's dizzy mind.

--wrong!

He realized something, and the confusion in her mind instantly dissipated, her eyes lighting up.

These soft branches are clearly the same as the branches that have fallen near this flat area! He looked up and glanced around at the ground. There were several wild peach trees here, long past the fruiting season, and some of the peach leaves on the branches were scorched and lying on the ground.

Among the firewood that Mrs. Sun put into the basket were peach leaves!

My granddaughter must still be nearby!

Seeing that Madam He remained silent and only looked around, Granny Qian became wary and urged, "Hurry up and kneel down and kowtow! Or are you trying to renege on your debt!"

"Don't worry!" Mrs. He said, "Wuya is nearby!"

Upon hearing this, both Granny Qian and Madam Sun paused.

The woods fell silent, with only the rustling of the wind through the leaves.

"Grandma——"

"Grandma, save me—"

The rustling of leaves, mixed with Zhao Ningning's soft voice, came from nearby.

Granny Qian's face turned ashen instantly. This was it!

Sun's legs went weak and she knelt on the ground.

Upon hearing Wu Ya's voice, everyone hurriedly searched around. In the end, it was He Shi who pulled Zhao Ningning out from a pile of withered grass and leaves in a slightly recessed spot under a tree.

Zhao Ningning's clothes were soaked with sweat. When she saw He Shi and the villagers standing behind her, Zhao Ningning put on an act: "Grandma—you've finally come!"

"They took advantage of my uncle's absence and tied me up! They even gagged me so I couldn't speak!" Zhao Ningning cried.

She thought her uncle would find her easily in the basket, but she never expected that something unexpected would happen—Grandma Qian put her in a ditch and buried her with leaves!

With her hands and feet bound, Zhao Ningning heard voices in the distance and struggled to rub her mouth against the ground. She finally managed to tear off the rag that was gagging her mouth!

Her granddaughter's face was covered in dirt, and He was heartbroken. The more anxious she became, the more flustered she became. Her hands trembled several times, and she was unable to untie the rope for Wuya. It was the woman next to her who took over the task.

Once untied, Zhao Ningning threw herself into He Shi's arms and cried, "Grandma! They're going to kidnap me and sell me! Waaah..."

"What are you doing!" The man turned around angrily, only to find that the two people who had been there just moments before had vanished.

"They ran away!"

"Fourth brother, go and inform the other team. The rest of you come with me and give chase!"

Two women stayed behind to stay with He Shi, while the rest of the villagers chased after her. Granny Qian ran and cursed as she went, while Sun Shi, carrying a basket on her back, swayed and trailed behind. Seeing that she was about to be caught, she had no choice but to reluctantly throw away the basket.

Even so, they were chased away as soon as they arrived in the village.

Since it was difficult to make a move on the man, two women in the group stepped forward, each grabbing one of them, and dragged them directly to the village head's house.

Before dusk, when Ning's mother rushed back from the county town, she learned that her daughter had done something extraordinary that day.

Zhao Ningning had already been taken home by her loving grandmother to take a hot bath and changed into new clothes that had just been made yesterday.

The woman who went to find her felt sorry for her and secretly slipped a piece of candy into her hand for her to lick. Zhao Ningning smiled at the woman, nestled in her grandmother's arms, and quietly waited for the village head to "take the court."

"Ningning! Ning..." Ning's mother rushed in, and seeing that Ningning was alright, she still held her and checked her over thoroughly to make sure she wasn't missing any limbs before putting her down, scolding, "You think you're so capable!"

"Mother..." Zhao Ningning held her hand with her own small hand, "Now it's your turn to shine."

Ning's mother put away her pleasant expression and looked at the two people standing in the corner of the yard.

There's no way you can guard against thieves for a thousand days if you're a thief yourself. Ningning suffered so much today before she handed this knife to her; there's no reason not to take this opportunity to ruthlessly chop off a piece of their flesh!

Upon receiving the news, Old Man Zhao rushed over, and all the members of the eldest and third branches of the Zhao family arrived.

When the adults started arguing, Zhao Ningning didn't want to get involved. Her uncle and brother escorted her home. The village head also sent two women to stay with her at her house. Seeing that it was getting late, the women thoughtfully brought her some soup noodles from their home. The three children squatted together with their bowls, slurping the noodles down like little pigs. Then they huddled together to chop firewood.

Seeing how sensible and adorable Zhao Ningning was, the woman couldn't help but feel disgusted: What was Qian Shi thinking! Trying to harm such a lovely child time and time again!

Zhao Ningning had no way of knowing what happened during the argument, but she was the first to know the result—her family was going to move!

I don't know how Grandma argued with the village head, but the IOU that Old Zhao's family had written before was simply invalidated. They even had to reluctantly take away the mud house and give their family an ounce of silver to make up for it.

The villagers chattered and helped Zhao Ningning's family choose a new place to live. It was because a couple of years ago, a family whose daughter had married out of the village had sold their property and moved to the neighboring county town because they were worried about their daughter.

It was a small courtyard with four rooms and a kitchen. The house was neither new nor old. The village head rented it to Zhao Ningning's family for 300 coins a month, and the villagers had no objections.

There was no need for overnight storage; the villagers came directly to Zhao Ningning's door and moved everything to her new home without leaving a single piece of firewood behind.

The new residence is also in the west of the village, quite close to Zhao Ningning's maternal grandmother's house. The half-brick house is much sturdier than the previous residence.

It had been two years since anyone had lived there, so the house was quite dusty. He Shi and her two sons helped clean the house inside and out. Meanwhile, Ning Ma carried two chickens, and Zhao Ningning carried her small bundle, and they moved in with just their bags.

The villagers didn't leave until 7 PM. After they left, Mrs. He sat by the bed and stuffed the extra pancakes she had made that morning into her daughter's hand.

"Don't let Wuya do that again next time." Madam He was still scared when she thought about it. What if Zhao Ningning had been kidnapped and sold to another place by these two black-hearted old women and they could never find her again?

Although Ning's mother knew that Zhao Ningning still possessed the powerful weapon of her spatial ability, she was still somewhat apprehensive. She smiled reassuringly and said, "Mom, I'll go beat her up later!"

"Then forget it." Mrs. He held the pancake in her hand. "She was frightened today, so keep a close eye on her tonight, lest she get a fever..."

After giving a long and detailed explanation, Mrs. He finally decided to keep Zhou Jian with her, so he could share a bed with his grandson.

The Zhao family was behaving so inhumanely, and her son-in-law wasn't home. She was worried about her safety at night, so she kept her son around so that she would have someone to help her if anything happened.

Ning's mother could only owe He's thoughtfulness for now, and wait until Ning's father returned so that the whole family could have a proper get-together.

After seeing Mrs. He off, Ning's mother went home and closed the door.

"Zhao Ningning! Come out here!"

Despite Zhao Ningning's best efforts to explain, her bottom was still spanked by her mother, and even her brother, who usually doted on her the most, couldn't stop her.

Clutching her aching back, Zhao Ningning sobbed to her uncle, "He really hit me hard! Do you know how hard it is for me to support this family...?"

Ning's mother pretended to hit her again, which frightened Zhao Ningning so much that she quickly ran into the yard.

Zhou Jian didn't stop her, and stammered to Zhao Ningning, who was hiding and dodging, "Little niece, next time something like this happens, don't come to your uncle."

Thank goodness I didn't go home today, otherwise his butt would have been as sore as his niece's.

Zhao Ningning dodged and weaved until she finally retreated to her new room, where she finally calmed down.

The bedding was brought by her grandmother. Zhao Ningning threw herself onto the bed, so happy she almost fainted.

Now she was completely separated from the Zhao family. Zhao Ningning got up, bolted the door, and opened the system panel.

While she was busy with important matters, today was her triennial day for collecting recyclables. Zhao Ningning returned to the elevator lobby, opened the community page, selected her own building, and clicked "explore."

A system notification popped up:

[System: Exploration complete! Found a bag of trash. Open it now? Yes/No]

Nervously rubbing her hands together, Zhao Ningning closed her eyes and prayed to all the gods before clicking "Yes".

A flash of white light appeared, and a black plastic bag appeared in front of Zhao Ningning.

The plastic bag was half the height of Zhao Ningning, and the contents inside were uneven and looked extremely irregular.

Zhao Ningning thought of the first bag of trash she had picked up, which was also bumpy and uneven, and prayed, "No! Please, please, please, it's not construction waste again..."

After putting her hands together in front of the bag, Zhao Ningning untied the knot and peered inside.

Inside were three plastic flower pots of different sizes. They didn't smell bad. Zhao Ningning reached out and took one out to examine it closely: the flower pot was green all over, and because it had been exposed to the sun for a while, there were chips of varying depths on the edges. It would break with a light touch.

There was still half a pot of substrate soil in the flowerpot, with the plant's roots entwined in the soil.

Zhao Ningning took them out one by one. In addition to the three flower pots, there was also half a bag of phosphorus and potassium fertilizer at the bottom of the bag. Seeing that the bag had faded a bit from the sun, Zhao Ningning guessed that the fertilizer must have been bought along with the flower pots.

It must have been thrown out by someone's plant killer.

Thinking that her brother still had one more chance to fix it today, Zhao Ningning put down the flowerpot, opened the door, and went to find Zhao Qi.

Zhao Qi was also about to go find Ning Ma when Zhao Ningning followed him directly to Ning Ma's west side room. Ning Ma's door was open, and looking in from the outside, she was bending over and busily making the quilt.

"Mom~" Zhao Ningning called out, closing the door behind her.

"I just found three flower pots while scavenging. Should I ask my brother to try fixing them?"

Before entering the house, she asked her brother. He still had the skills. She thought she would go back to the house to discuss it together during the day, but as soon as she got home, she was called to the village head's house. The three of them have been busy until now and only now have they had time to talk.

"Xiao Qi, what do you think?" Ning's mother looked at Zhao Qi. "Mom supports your own idea."

Zhao Ningning also looked over.

"Then of course it's fixing the flowerpots." Zhao Qi scratched the back of his head with one finger. "Anyway, there's not much else to fix."

"Hehe~" Zhao Ningning laughed like a little mouse that had stolen lamp oil. She took the flowerpot out of her spatial storage and placed it on the ground.

"Thank you, bro!"

Zhao Qi didn't stand on ceremony with his sister. Seeing the flowerpot taken out, he reached out to summon the panel, confirmed the item, and selected "Repair".

A notification appeared that only he could see.

[System: Congratulations, host, for triggering a critical repair! The flowerpot's quality has been improved!]

Zhao Qi stared wide-eyed at the panel in disbelief, saying, "The system says I... triggered a critical hit? A quality upgrade?"

At the same time, Zhao Ningning and her mother both noticed a button that looked like a button in a game had appeared on the flowerpot.

Zhao Ningning simply reached out and tapped, and the exclamation mark expanded to show the details of the flowerpot.

Flowerpot: Initial planting capacity: 1; Growth rate increased by 20%.

This is a flowerpot where you can grow anything! Diligent humans, quickly feed it with seeds!

The three of them admired the flowerpot for a while before Zhao Ningning put it back into her spatial storage.

New home, new bed, new mattress. Zhao Ningning slept soundly until seven o'clock.

With the new kitchen, I can just put the iron pot on the grill and boil two pots of water in the morning, which will be enough for the whole day.

Just as Ning's mother lit the fire, Zhou Jian came over after hearing the noise.

"Why didn't you sleep a little longer?" Ning's mother clapped her hands and scooped water into the pot. This water was carried back by a kind villager last night.

"Get up as soon as you wake up, sis. I'll start the fire for you." Zhou Jian calmly walked behind the stove, sat on a small stool, and skillfully put firewood into the stove.

"Okay, you keep cooking, I'll go make the dough. I'll make pancakes for you guys this morning!" Ning's mother added water, put the lid on the pot, and went to the main room to bring back a small bag of flour.

Seeing that his sister was scooping out wheat flour, Zhou Jian jumped up to stop her: "Sis! Anything will do in the morning, why are you eating wheat flour?!"

Ning's mother smiled, "Just eat. You're a boy, growing up. You, Xiao Qi, and Ning Ning are all skinny as sticks. Eat more, I can afford to feed you!"

Such bold words! Zhou Jian touched his nose and sat back down silently.

—Never mind, I'll do more chores for my sister's family when it's time to harvest the grain.

The two stopped talking. Ning's mother scooped flour into the earthenware pot, added water and yeast to form dough flakes, and finally kneaded it into a smooth dough. She covered it with the pot lid and set it aside to rest.

The water in the iron pot boiled, and Ning's mother used a gourd ladle to scoop water into a bucket. She was extremely satisfied with the iron pot.

Unlike the past few days when she had to toil away by the small clay stove boiling water, and without worrying that the Zhao family would suddenly knock on the door, Ning Ma worked with ease. After boiling two pots of water, she cooked a pot of porridge in the new iron pot.

There are three stove holes, and Ning's mother is thinking of buying two more pots so that she can cook porridge and stir-fry vegetables at the same time.

The third hole connects to the stove holes on both sides. Hot smoke passing under the pot can sometimes boil the water, and there is also a place to put the water for daily drinking at home.

When Zhao Ningning got up, the water her mother had boiled had cooled down enough to be used. She yawned as she went to wash up, and after getting ready, she went back to her room, closed the door, went into her spatial storage, took out ten packets of ice jelly seeds, divided them into two portions, poured them into a gauze bag, and started soaking them.

In no time, Ning's mother had made more than a dozen pancakes in an iron pan. Zhao Ningning, with clean hands, helped pick up the pancakes and put them on the cutting board to dry.

"We're out of vegetables at home, so I'll just stir-fry some bok choy this morning." Ning's mother worked quickly and efficiently. As she spoke, she had already washed the wok, added a spoonful of lard, and the kitchen instantly became incredibly fragrant.

The fire had burned enough, so Zhou Jian helped carry the food to the east side room, which was the main room of Zhao Ningning's house.

The loud noise of stir-frying woke Zhao Qi, who had been sound asleep.

The four of them sat in the main room and ate very comfortably.

Zhao Ningning pinched the soft pancake and exclaimed: Moving is so great!