She Only Cares About Cultivation

In the mountains, these are everywhere, but outside, they are things you have to buy with money.

The five brothers spent fifty silver coins to buy her, and there were only twenty silver coins left in the wall crevice. So poor, there was nothing of value left, just those twenty silver coins. To make money, you need something in hand that can be exchanged for cash. She looked at the surrounding lush green mountains and thought they were quite good. From June to November, there should be plenty of good things in the mountains. She had to wait until she saved enough money to leave.

Including firewood and the like, it’s everywhere. Store more, as you can’t do without hot water and food.

By the way, in this remote mountain valley, there are no matches. They still use fire sticks or flints.

She got a fire stick from the Zhang family. It was something they made themselves. Don’t underestimate the wisdom of the working people. The sweet potato vines were soaked in the rice fields until concentrated, taken out, and kneaded without tearing them apart, then soaked and kneaded again, dried, added with five cents of nitre, a couple of gram of sulfur, four cents of rosin, and one cent of camphor powder, twisted into a rope. At night, it seems like there’s no fire, but with a shake, it lights up.

A flint is a stone that can produce sparks, then gather some grass that easily catches fire. It sounds simple, but starting a fire every day isn’t easy.

Matches had reached our country by 1865. However, during the Republic, they were only available in big cities. In places like this remote valley with shared wives, they had no idea such magical things existed.

Looking at their traditional jackets, you could tell how retro they were. But they didn’t have long braids, or it would be even more exaggerated.

Deep in the mountains at Snake Ridge, where the Zhang brothers’ village was located, there were only five major surnames. Due to the abundance of snakes and insects in the mountains, it was named Snake Ridge, and every household soaked realgar wine.

Besides hunting, they also planted rice, sweet potatoes, and rapeseed for food. Since the village was isolated, they didn’t even have to pay taxes. Of course, their yields were very low, just enough to fill their stomachs.

The rice brought over from Yishui hadn’t been shelled yet. Sweet potatoes in the North are referred to as red potatoes, and rapeseed here is used for pressing oil. The village has an oil pressing workshop, and after harvesting, they store it there and collect it whenever they finish eating. Most of the villagers are illiterate, but they have their own bookkeeping methods.

She brought in quite a lot of rice, at least five hundred jins, over three hundred jins of sweet potatoes, but there was a bit too little oil, about less than five jin.

Her stealthy grab made the entire Zhang family chaotic, and everyone thought it was quite eerie.

How is it not eerie?

Before heading out in the morning, everything was fine. After looking for people, by noon when they returned home, everything had been looted?

However, the village wasn’t that big, and his house wasn’t without neighbors. Usually, the village women and elderly, leading children, sat under the locust tree stitching shoe soles. If there was a commotion at any house, they could see it. Hundreds of jin of rice and sweet potatoes vanished without a trace, how could it not be bizarre?

Even more outrageous was that the cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplants, and chilies planted in the courtyard that ripened, also disappeared. Such a large number of things disappearing into thin air, the five brothers were terrified, becoming increasingly convinced it had something to do with Ahua.

"It must be her. Was she playing tricks? That night, I noticed something frightening in her eyes, and overnight, we had nothing at home. The food was gone, the pots and pans were gone, even the money hidden in the backyard wall was gone. Eldest, Ahua looks so beautiful, could she be a ghost?"

"You slept with her, so she’s revenging against our family, isn’t she? To starve us to death. Brother, where on earth did you buy such a scary thing? Good thing I didn’t touch her, otherwise, who knows what misfortune might have befallen me!"

The remaining four brothers had some discontent, feeling that it wasn’t fair to Eldest. Why should he be the first one? But Eldest held authority in the family, so they couldn’t oppose him. After the incident, they all worried that Eldest might have some aftereffects or something.

Wasn’t Eldest scared?

Scared.

But what good is being scared?

Now that Ahua had disappeared without a trace, it was a fact that their household goods were gone, and it was a fact that they were hungry. But was being scared enough?

"Now, you all should think carefully about what we are going to eat before the second season’s crops come in. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll go hide in the mountains for a few days, hunt a big enough prey, drag it to the county to sell, exchange it for some grain. Otherwise, I’m afraid we won’t make it through this winter."