C17 Chapter 17

Liu Mingde watched Huang Guihua, who went from zero to sixty in a heartbeat, took a drag of his cigarette, and smiled without a word.

Over there, Gu Jianjun returned to the Sent-down Youth dormitory. He ignored the looks the others threw his way and went straight into his room.

After a quick wash-up, Gu Jianjun lay back on the heated brick bed, staring at the ceiling, and started replaying the taste of dinner. It was the fullest he’d eaten in years.

Before the revolution, his grandfather had been a businessman, and meals at home were always small portions spread throughout the day. Afterward, his grandfather donated everything, and from then on it was his mother who cooked. She’d grown up in a sheltered, well-off household and had never learned her way around a kitchen, so her food was always strange and unpredictable. To keep from hurting her feelings, he forced himself to eat anyway. After that, he noticed he ate less and less, until eventually the sight of food made him nauseous.

Later, when the political winds shifted, his grandfather got word early and arranged for all of them to be placed with a rural work assignment.

Out in the countryside, the food was simpler, and his condition eased up a bit. During the years of famine, when people were scraping by on roots and tree bark, he nearly starved to death. After things improved, his condition somehow got a little better, but he still couldn’t stand eating at the same table with others.

Even now in the Sent-down Youth dormitory, he’d get his portion and eat alone. That made him the odd one out. If Liu Wenguang and Liu Wenkai hadn’t practically dragged him along today, he never would’ve known he could sit and eat with the Liu family—and not feel even the slightest urge to throw up.

And if meals were always like that, he thought, he could eat like this for the rest of his life. Savoring the lingering aroma, Gu Jianjun smiled, satisfied.

Today, Liu Wenmei had a whole new appreciation for the food of this era. It was unbelievably good—fresh, clean, and straight from the land.

She regretted not bringing back more from the mountain.

After pacing around the room a couple of times to help digest, Liu Wenmei started practicing the Body Refining Technique. She’d noticed that after absorbing the energy from a Crystal Core, the technique came more easily.

As for the Crystal Core, Liu Wenmei suspected the changes in her space were connected to it. Back in the apocalypse, absorbing Crystal Cores could strengthen abilities. Here, she found that after absorption, the energy still circulated through her meridians once before gathering in her space—but the space showed no sign of leveling up.

Today, she accidentally discovered that a cotton bollworm could survive in her pocket dimension for five minutes. She had a hunch that if she absorbed the energy from these crates of Crystal Cores, the time it could hold living creatures would get even longer.

After running through the Body Refining Technique twice, Liu Wenmei sat cross-legged and began absorbing the Crystal Cores. Once the energy started circulating through her body, the exhaustion vanished. She quickly washed up.

From something she’d overheard earlier between her grandparents, she knew Liu Mingde would take her into town tomorrow.

Liu Wenmei straightened up the items in her pocket dimension, planning to look for the black market once she got into town. She didn’t know whether Liu Wenguang was still hanging around there, and she couldn’t just go looking for her anyway—there was no clean way to explain where her goods came from. If she was going to the black market tomorrow, she’d need a disguise.

What she needed most right now was food. But the grain she had stored was all the good, refined stuff—bringing that out would draw too much attention. After thinking it over, the only things she could safely sell were the dozen or so wild chickens and rabbits she’d hunted today, along with the fruit. The wild goat wasn’t butchered, so it wouldn’t be easy to pass off.

Even in a world like this, Liu Wenmei understood that scarcity drives value. If the fruit fetched a good price, she’d sell it. If not, she’d hold onto it and sell it in winter—her pocket dimension could keep it fresh.

With everything put in order, Liu Wenmei finally went to sleep, at ease.