Chapter 10: The Storage Room

Under Wang Man’s pointed instructions, Wang San reluctantly swung the hoe and began digging.

The soil along the ridge was soft and easy to dig through, so it didn’t take much effort.

As he dug, he muttered to himself,
“I don’t know what’s gotten into Wang Man, making me dig up mouse holes.
Does she expect to catch mice to eat?
Mice are hard to catch—by the time I’ve dug this hole open, the mice will be long gone. What’s the point?”

Sure enough, even as Wang San neared the bottom, he hadn’t seen a single mouse and began to feel discouraged.
“Man Niang, should I keep digging? The mice are all gone. Digging more is just a waste of effort.”

Wang Man pulled back her gaze and looked at the spot he had dug.
“Are you at the bottom yet?
Look inside—what do you see?”

Wang San carefully scraped away the dirt and was surprised.
“There’s rice grains and corn inside.
Hah, there’s quite a lot!”

Wang Man tossed him a cloth bag.
“Put those things inside.”

“Huh?”
Wang San was a bit confused.
“Put them inside? For what?”

Wang Man rolled her eyes and said, a little impatient,
“Of course to take them home and eat! Are you stupid? Otherwise, why do you think I made you dig mouse holes?”

“Eat?”
Wang San suddenly understood and quickly stuffed the rice and corn into the cloth bag.

There was bound to be some dirt mixed in, but after washing it twice and drying it in the sun, it would be fine.

From just one mouse hole, they had dug out about two catties of grain, and Wang San immediately perked up.

Without waiting for Wang Man to say anything, Wang San began digging up other mouse holes.

By the time Wang Man and Wang San returned, it was nearly dark. Aunt Ma Liu was already peeking outside.
Though her eyesight wasn’t good, she could still hear sounds!

Wang San was covered head to toe in mud, but there was a smile on his face.
Seeing Aunt Ma Liu, he happily called out, “Mother!”

Aunt Ma Liu was caught off guard.
How long had it been since Wang San had called her so cheerfully?

Before she could ask, Wang San carefully helped Wang Man sit down on a nearby bench.
“Man Niang, you sit first. I’ll fetch some water for you to wash your face.”

Wang Man also smiled.
“Okay.”

She hadn’t expected such a big harvest today. From digging just five holes, they had gathered over ten jin (around 11 pounds) of grain.

Even after washing off the dirt, there would still be a good amount left—enough to last three days.

Since the grain they had brought back hadn’t been processed yet, their dinner consisted of wild vegetables Wang Man had found.

Wang San, after a day of being beaten and digging mouse holes, had reached his limit.

After eating, he lay down on the bed and quickly fell into a deep sleep.

His bed was a roughly made, simple frame—narrow, with just a few patched wooden boards on top and nothing else.

Lying on it was no different from lying on the cold floor, except it wasn’t quite as damp.

Luckily, it was still very warm at night, so no blanket was needed yet.

But in a few days, when the temperature dropped, they would have to deal with the problem of having no quilt.

And there was no sign of a quilt anywhere, nor money to buy one.

Wang San had never seen any quilt before—whether it was packed away or simply never existed, he didn’t know.

For the next two days, Wang San obediently carried Wang Man up the mountain to dig into the rat holes. Meanwhile, Wang Man searched nearby for fresh, tender wild vegetables. Aunt Ma Liu stayed at home, washing and drying the grains they had collected. She carefully picked out the visible corn to dry separately. A smile never left her face.

Since Wang Man came into their home, life had improved considerably, and even Wang San no longer ran off. When Madam Lu came to see the grain stores, she was puzzled and surprised to learn that the food was dug out from rat holes. Wang Man really knew how to think outside the box—this was the first time in her decades of life she had heard of people digging into rat nests.

Still, she felt relieved. As long as they had food, they wouldn’t have to worry. In these hard times, no family’s life was easy.

Feeling there was nothing more to do at her own home, Madam Lu helped Aunt Ma Liu sort out the weeds and corn from the grains. Only after everything was cleaned up did she leave.

Back home, she told Wang Yida about this, and for once, a rare smile spread across his face.

Two days passed, and Wang San lost patience. The rat holes near the rice fields had all been dug up, and the ones elsewhere had much less food, so his enthusiasm waned. Another thing was, Wang San hadn’t been to town for several days, and he felt increasingly uneasy.

That night, after Wang Man had fallen asleep, Wang San cautiously began to search around. He wanted to find the one or two taels of silver so he could take it to the gambling house.

But after searching everywhere, he didn’t find even a single copper coin.

He noticed Wang Man didn’t keep the silver on her. So where exactly had she hidden it?

Puzzled, he turned to look at Wang Man, only to see that the woman who had been deeply asleep was now sitting up, coldly staring at him.

Wang San…

Caught red-handed stealing silver—what an awkward situation!

Wang San scratched his head and asked sheepishly, “Wang Man, did I wake you up?”

Wang Man looked at him with a half-smile, “I thought you were going to ask where I hid the silver.”

“No, no, I just heard rats fighting, so I got up to catch them,” Wang San hurriedly tried to explain, though even he didn’t quite believe his own excuse.

Wang Man sneered, “Planning to go to town to meet your scoundrel friends? Fine, I won’t stop you—but remember this: if you go to town, you owe me ten copper coins every day.”

Wang San…?

“I’m not going to town! I’m just… just… going to sleep. Too much talking!” he stammered, unwilling to get out of bed, only able to grunt in response.

Wang Man ignored him. Her silver was hers alone—no one was going to find it.

A couple of nights ago, the very night Wang San returned, somehow she managed to get into a certain place…

And this place she was very familiar with—it was her modern storage room.

This storage room was in the basement of her villa.

Inside, it was spacious, housing her favorite red Ferrari.

There was also a secret room; the rest of the space was empty.

She had been thinking of filling it with other things, but this was where she ended up.

If she had known it was going to be this poor here, she would have stored more food inside, so she wouldn’t have come hungry.

The secret room contained some of her dangerous weapons, like two guns, ten cold-iron daggers, and several crossbows—too many to count, including repeating crossbows with five-shot and ten-shot capacities.

There was also a heavy old-fashioned crossbow. Its bolts were all made of cold iron, giving them impressive penetrating power.

She had put in a lot of effort to get that crossbow back then.

There were several Swiss Army knives and some smaller weapons like throwing darts and concealed weapons.

There was even a sniper rifle, though with only a few bullets left.

Inside the room were her three special safes.

One was filled entirely with gold bars—two hundred bars in total, each weighing two jin (about two pounds).

She had even specially custom-made the safe for those gold bars.

Another safe held cash—several tens of millions.

The last one contained various dossiers on people.

After all, back when she was involved in underground boxing, it was necessary to know information about the opponents before taking any fights.

She wasn’t foolish and never blindly accepted any challenges.

Besides, she wasn’t short of money; she just liked it.