I survived the famine by scavenging and supported my family.

"What?" Zhao Ningning was stunned when she saw the prompt panel in front of her.

The system prompted again:

[System: Congratulations to host Zhao Ningning for activating the "Scrap Collection System"! We hope you will grow your system to become the King of Scraps in the Great Zhou Dynasty!]

"Aaaaaah! What?! The King of Junk Collectors?!" Zhao Ningning covered her face. "What's going on?! What is a junk-collecting system?!"

She quickly stuffed everything on the ground back into the black garbage bag, picked it up, and slipped out of the space.

"Quickly!" Ning's father excitedly came over and took his daughter's hand. "Ningning, after you went in, a few of us tried to trigger it, and we have that kind of cheat code too!"

"That's right! Ningning, we're all set now!" Ningning's mother exclaimed happily. Seeing the familiar bag her daughter was carrying, she pointed at it and asked, "Is this...?"

"The trash you threw away yesterday?" Ning's father asked in surprise.

"Yes!" Zhao Ningning gave an affirmative answer, opened it and showed it to them. Thinking of the name of her cheat system, Zhao Ningning said helplessly, "My cheat system is the 'Scrap Collection System.' Sigh, I don't like collecting scraps at all, why did they install this system on me..."

"That's not normal." Ning's mother said as she looked through the red beans and lilies, pouring them into the small earthenware pot and picking out any spoiled parts.

"Didn't you go and ask the neighbor downstairs for their big cardboard boxes the other day? The scrap collectors were all amazed," Ning's mother said.

"That's what I was doing!" Zhao Ningning couldn't refute it. "I was learning how to remodel rooms online..."

The new house has huge rooms. There was an empty corner in Zhao Ningning's room. She had been itching to make a castle out of cardboard boxes after seeing a video online a while ago. Unfortunately, she had lost all the cardboard boxes from the new refrigerator and washing machine when she moved. Just then, she saw someone moving downstairs, so she mustered up the courage to ask.

"Stop talking about me, what kind of cheat codes do you guys have?" Zhao Ningning changed the subject.

"I have the skill 'The Fisherman Never Goes Home Empty-Handed,' which means I can catch anything from any fishing spot, and I can't specify what to catch." Ning's father made a casting motion with both hands. "I just caught a penny at Zhao's fishing spot."

"I'm just a regular space." Ning's mother flipped her hand, and a copper coin immediately appeared in her palm. She explained, "It's called 'Squeezable Enough to Fit,' and it can be upgraded. Right now, it only has 0.1 cubic meters inside."

Ning's father quickly added, "Mine is the same. It can be upgraded, but now we can only fish once every three days."

When it was Zhao Qi's turn, he stood up and showed off the rickety stool he had just repaired: "Mine is 'Repair and it's still usable,' it can be upgraded every three days, and it can repair things."

Upon hearing this news, Zhao Ningning's eyes lit up. "Mom! Mom! Hurry up and bring that out!"

Who could understand what her daughter was saying? But Ning's mother not only understood what her daughter was saying, but she also took the vase out of her old thermal underwear and put it on the ground.

Zhao Ningning grabbed her brother, extremely excited, "You give it a try."

Zhao Qi reached out and tapped the vase, and a panel popped up in front of him:

[System notification: Skill cooldown is being repaired. Please try again later.]

"It should be repairable. The skill is on cooldown, but we'll have to wait three days before we can try," Zhao Qi replied.

"Ah—" Zhao Ningning was disappointed. The vase that her family lost was a porcelain vase, but they bought it in a shop when they went to Jingdezhen for tourism. If they could repair it and sell it, they would have money to treat her father's leg.

Seemingly sensing what his daughter was thinking, Ning's father comforted her, "It's okay, Ningning, it will be repaired in three days, we can wait."

"Besides, we can think of other ways to make money!" Ning's mother comforted Zhao Ningning. "All four of us have a knack for making money, so making money will be a breeze, right? Come on, give Mom a smile."

Zhao Ningning smiled at her mother, then, remembering she hadn't used her skill yet, said, "I haven't used my skill yet!"

"My skill is collecting scraps... probably the most useless skill in our family." Thinking of this, Zhao Ningning felt a little down.

The three relatives beside him fell silent. After a moment, Zhao Qi's expression turned solemn, and he solemnly promised, "It's alright, I'll take care of my little sister from now on."

"What do you mean 'you support me' or 'I support you'?" Ning's father sighed, patting his son's head. "It's alright. The fact that the four of us are healthy and able to stand here together is already the luckiest thing. We all have hands and brains, so we'll definitely be able to live here smoothly."

Ning's mother didn't say anything, but patted Zhao Ningning's shoulder to comfort her.

My dad loves fishing, so his "golden finger" (a magical ability) is related to fishing; my mom likes to hoard all sorts of things, and in our six-bedroom, two-living-room house, she's crammed every last bit of storage into the cabinets, even squeezing in a bag of toilet paper; my older brother likes to do crafts, and we have a full set of tools at home. He's even recently started welding, so we specially installed a ventilation system in his tool room for him, so it's understandable that his "golden finger" can still be used after some repairs.

Only herself... Sigh! Zhao Ningning sighed inwardly and resignedly summoned the system.

The system thoughtfully included a map function. Most of the other areas were gray, with only one bright spot marked by a glaring little red dot. Zhao Ningning tapped it, and the map opened, revealing an aerial view of the Xinyuan residential area.

Xinyuan Community is the name of the community where her modern home is located.

Zhao Ningning had just unlocked this area by picking up trash. Curious, she flipped through the map. Most of the Xinyuan residential area was grayed out, with only her own building lit up. Clicking on the building showed the words "[Explorable]".

Zhao Ningning described what she saw on the panel, and her mother encouraged her to click to explore.

Zhao Ningning moved her finger over the "Explore" section and pressed it. Immediately, a system notification popped up: "Exploration complete, trash collected: 0."

Zhao Ningning was speechless.

These days, you can't even find trash to pick up, how can you be the King of Scraps in Da Zhou?!

"Mom... I clicked on the exploration and found 0 pieces of trash! What's wrong with this system?!" Zhao Ningning complained to her mother.

"Don't worry, you forgot, our community has garbage sorting, and we only throw away garbage in the evening and morning. The garbage should have already been taken away by now," Ning's mother said. "Try again tonight."

"Okay..." Zhao Ningning closed the panel and then rushed back home to explore the front door.

Now, apart from a pile of shoes and the potted green ivy on the shoe rack, there was nothing else to be found.

Zhao Ningning didn't take out the pothos plant. She just told her parents and then tried to take each of her family members' hands into the space, but they were all blocked by the system prompt panel.

All of them lack the necessary permissions.

—Well, not having permission is better than being banned from entering. Who knows, maybe I'll get permission by picking up trash and leveling up in the future!

Zhao Ningning thought optimistically.

Ning's mother told Zhao Ningning to put the broken vase and thermal underwear on the shoe cabinet at the front door first.

They only managed to get enough water in the morning, and after arguing all morning and even getting beaten up, the two adults felt aches and pains all over their faces and bodies now that they had some free time. Ning's mother endured the pain and directed Ning's father to take some firewood to pen the two chickens up so they wouldn't run around the house. Then she took the small earthenware pot and went outside.

For lunch, I'll just have some red bean and lily porridge to tide me over.

Ning's mother took the earthenware pot to the kitchen to fetch water, but to her surprise, the kitchen door was locked with a large lock. Without a doubt, it was her sister-in-law who did it.

Now even clean water was unusable. Ning's mother carried the pot back to her room and called Ning's father to go to the river together.

When they arrived at the river, the two adults were stunned. They never expected that the river, which looked more than 100 meters wide, had dried up and was only half a meter wide in the middle. The riverbed was high, and the dried mud at the bottom of the river gave off a foul fishy smell.

Following the path worn by the villagers, Ning's mother went to check the bottom of the river. Fortunately, the water in the stream in the middle of the river was relatively clean. Ning's father squatted down to wash the dishes and chopsticks, then washed the pot, filled it with water, and carried it home.

After boiling the water, Ning's father said softly, "This drought is really bad."

Ning's mother recalled the farming novels she had read before, which included stories of people fleeing famine due to natural disasters. The stories often started like this: a continuous drought forced the entire family to migrate to find a place where they could survive and settle down.

To be honest, the Zhao family came from other places to escape famine. Their ancestors brought their whole families to fight, and when they arrived in Wangli Village, only four people remained. After a hundred years, it was not until Old Man Zhao's generation that they became slightly better off.

Unexpectedly, the year is starting to turn difficult again.

After she voiced her thoughts, Ning's mother said, "Now that we've traveled through time, it's definitely not that simple. We need to prepare in advance. In case we really have to flee famine, our whole family will work together to live peacefully in this Great Zhou Dynasty."

"Mmm!" Zhao Ningning grasped her mother's hand and pressed her face against it. "With Mom here, I'm not afraid of anything!"

"And what about Dad?" Ning's dad leaned closer, and Zhao Ningning happily took her father's hand. "Our whole family is together, I'm not afraid of anything!"

The water boiled, and Ning's mother started cooking the porridge. To make sure everyone was full, she added a bowl of whole grains. The whole grains included flour mixed with bran and brown rice. After cooking, the original aroma of the whole grains filled the entire house.

They divided it into four bowls, and the group carefully blew on them as they drank.

This body hadn't felt this comfortable in a long time. After drinking the porridge, even Ning's father felt that the pain on his face had lessened.

In the afternoon, Ning's father had to go to the county town to handle the household registration. Ning's mother arranged for Zhao Qi to fetch a pot of water from the river and bring it back. Zhao Ningning then helped her clean the house.

As Zhao Qi walked, he looked around the village.

The continuous drought has caused the wild grass along the edges of the fields to wither and turn yellow, and the plowed land has cracked open after being exposed to the sun.

I don't know if anything was planted in the ground.

After fetching water, he went back home. The house had already been tidied up, with thin quilts folded at the foot of the bed and patched sheets neatly laid out.

The firewood that was divided up when the family split up was still scattered on the ground, and Zhao Ningning was stacking it one by one against the wall.

Zhao Qi moved the only two stools in the house and sat next to his sister to help her with the stacking.

Ning's mother told Ning to put the remaining red beans and lilies back into her space, opened the door, added firewood to the clay stove, and started boiling water.

The woman passing by glanced at the pot a few times, saw that there was nothing in it, snorted coldly, and carried the chicken feeder to the back of the house.

After the firewood was gathered, Zhao Ningning and Zhao Qi volunteered to go and get more firewood. Ningning's mother looked at the weather and saw that it was the hottest time of day, so she held the two children down until about three o'clock in the afternoon before letting them go out.

Reaching the foot of the mountain and finding no one around, Zhao Ningning picked up a long tree branch from the ground and used it to tap on the dry branches that had fallen in the woods. All the branches that touched the branch were stored in her spatial storage space—that is, in the open space in front of her house.

Zhao Qi was responsible for keeping an eye on the people for her and checking if there were any wild vegetables to dig up in the fields, as there were still two chickens to feed at home!

In the dry weather, everything was scarce except for firewood, which was plentiful all over the mountain. Zhao Ningning searched for more than two hours by the mountainside until her space was almost full before she stopped. She picked up some small, soft matches from the ground and carried them home with her brother.

The two had just returned home when the others who had gone to the county town also returned.

Ning's father took out the household registration and land deed stamped with the county government's official seal from his pocket, and handed them to Zhao Ningning along with the family division document and the letter of severance of kinship, telling her to put them in the shoe cabinet drawer at home first.

Zhao Ningning responded and went back to move all the firewood from the elevator entrance, carefully placing the documents into the shoe cabinet drawer.

Just as she finished putting it down, the elevator door rang with a "ding". Zhao Ningning was startled and looked towards the elevator door, but all she saw was a cold elevator door. However, there were several boxes on the ground in front of her house.

It's a delivery! My deliveries usually arrive around this time!

Zhao Ningning cheered and looked at the boxes on the ground. The recipients were all herself. Judging from the packaging, it was the hand-made ice jelly set that she had ordered from the shop window after seeing a popular blogger make ice jelly and eat it a while ago.

This huge box could easily yield hundreds of bowls of ice jelly. Zhao Ningning happily carried the package out to show it to her family.

"Oh my, so that means the paper I bought the other day..." Ning's mother covered her mouth in surprise, "and a new bag of rice and flour, as well as dish soap and laundry detergent, will be delivered to us soon?!"

Unexpectedly, Ningning's space can still connect to the outside world!

"It should be! If we just get through these few days, we'll be able to eat rice and noodles!" Zhao Ningning jumped up with joy, but after only a couple of jumps, she started panting weakly. "No, my body is still too weak."

"I also bought adult calcium supplements, which were originally meant for your dad and me to take as a precaution, but now it seems we'll all take them once the package arrives." Ning's mother patted her daughter's head; her dry, sparse hair was tied up in two pitiful little tufts.

Feeling the pain from the pinch, Zhao Ningning touched her head and, realizing how little hair she had, exclaimed in surprise, "My hair!"

Zhao Qi rarely spoke up to comfort his sister: "Anyway, we can make up for it slowly, we can always make up for it."

Ning's father sighed, "There's no time to slow down."

The three people looked at him.

Ning's father said, "This afternoon, I went to the county government office with the village head. After the village head and the others finished processing the documents, they still had other things to do. We waited for a while, and on the way home, the village head said that the grain tax would be increased this year."

"This matter will probably be communicated to the village tomorrow."

"It's a good thing we've separated the family; at least we can scrape together enough to pay the grain tax for the two mu of land." Ning's mother pouted. "I bet the eldest and third sons' families are going to start fighting."

That's right. The eldest son's family received the most land but the least money when the family divided the property. The third son received eight taels of silver but also received less land. When it came time to pay the grain tax, the third son's family had enough money to pay it, but the eldest son's family was in dire straits.

No matter how much trouble they cause, it has nothing to do with our poor family who have no land. Ning's mother told Ning Ning not to go out alone recently, fearing that the eldest son's family would kidnap Ning Ning and sell her to the Sun family.