Cheng Wanwan was stunned.

As she was wondering, a semi-transparent virtual panel appeared in front of her.

The main image on the panel was of the rice field in front of her, with a wild plant on the field’s ridge highlighted in red, labeled as bitter lettuce.

[Natural, pollution-free bitter lettuce, one jin for 10 wen.]

Cheng Wanwan pulled out two wild plants from the ground, and a mechanical voice sounded in her mind again.

[Ding! Natural, pollution-free bitter lettuce, two liang, worth 2 wen. Do you want to sell it?]

[Yes!]

In that instant, the bitter lettuce in her hands disappeared, replaced by two copper coins.

Cheng Wanwan’s eyes widened in disbelief.

At that moment, the floating panel changed, and a marketplace appeared, resembling an online shopping platform.

The prices of the goods were listed in copper coins. Two copper coins could buy a meat bun or a bottle of mineral water.

She understood now.

This was a marketplace linking to another space-time dimension.

After clicking to buy, her two copper coins vanished and transformed into a meat bun.

Cheng Wanwan was really hungry, so she quickly devoured the bun in a few bites. With food in her stomach, she felt energized.

She decided to gather more wild plants to exchange for money because there were so many things she wanted to buy.

Bitter lettuce was a drought-resistant wild plant. Despite the long drought, when many other wild grasses had dried up, the bitter lettuce had grown in abundance, with plants covering the ridges of the fields.

As Cheng Wanwan crouched on the ridge collecting wild plants, a voice suddenly exploded in her ear.

“Which short-lived fool is stealing from my rice fields?!”

The wind blew, and the rice plants fell, revealing a figure.

“Heh, turns out it’s Zhao Dajie!”

Wang Ayi gritted her teeth.

The two were neighbors and constantly fought.

Wang Ayi had never been able to win an argument with Zhao Dajie, but today, she had finally caught Zhao’s little mistake.

“Everyone, come look! Zhao Dajie is stealing from our Wang family’s rice field!”

With that shout, many people turned their attention to them.

The rice field here belonged to the Wang family, and Cheng Wanwan had been crouched on the Wang family’s rice field ridge.

This morning, Zhao Dajie had returned home, bleeding from a head injury, causing much laughter in the village.

Now, the villagers began gossiping again.

“Yo, she’s stealing Wang family’s rice to send back to her family?”

“Zhao Dajie’s getting bolder, doing everything from stealing to sneaking around. What won’t she do?”

“Next, maybe she’ll even steal a person, she’s a widow after all. Hahaha…”

Cheng Wanwan’s face darkened.

This was the field right outside her door, and she had thought it was her own. Who would’ve thought it belonged to the Wang family?

She dusted off the straw from her clothes and slowly straightened her body.

She threw the wild plants in her hand and spoke coldly, “What, you can’t even recognize rice now?”

The villagers looked closely, and saw that it was Xiao E Cai (Little Goose Lettuce).

Bitter lettuce was also called Little Goose Lettuce. It tasted very bitter, and its roots were extremely tough, making it hard to cook. The villagers usually fed it to pigs and chickens. No one would think of eating it unless they were starving.

In modern times, people sought out such pollution-free wild plants, but in this era, bitter lettuce wasn’t popular.

Wang Ayi put her hands on her hips and cursed, “Your family doesn’t even have chickens or ducks left. What’s the point of digging up Little Goose Lettuce? I think you’re just making up excuses to steal our rice!”

Cheng Wanwan sighed and spoke softly, “Isn’t it because there’s no food at home? To make sure the children get enough to eat, I had no choice but to dig up some Little Goose Lettuce to add to their meal… You ladies may not like it, but I assume you must have plenty of leftover grains at home, so how about lending us some food?”

With a wound on her head and a pitiful expression, she seemed genuinely helpless.

The villagers were stunned.

Zhao Dajie, usually sharp-tongued and tough, was now showing weakness and asking for food!

In these times, borrowing anything was acceptable, but never food.

The onlookers quickly dispersed.

Wang Ayi spat, “Borrow food? Dream on!”

But she was still afraid of getting entangled with Zhao Dajie, so she turned and went back to the field to pull weeds.

Cheng Wanwan picked up the wild plants she had dug up earlier, took a few steps, and walked into her own rice field.

She crouched down to gather more plants, with the scorching sun beating down on her.

Sweat dripped from her forehead like beans, and her back was soaked.

She wasn’t sure how long she had been digging, but when the marketplace notified her that she had collected three jin, she stopped.

Standing up, she suddenly felt dizzy.

She remembered that her head injury hadn’t been treated yet, and she hadn’t taken any anti-inflammatory medicine.

If it became infected, it could be deadly in this era.

She sold the three jin of bitter lettuce for 30 wen and spent 20 wen in the marketplace to buy some disinfectant and anti-inflammatory medicine.

After all the hard work, she had only 10 wen left, and she didn’t dare to spend it recklessly.

She rubbed her aching back and started walking home.

Just as she reached the door, she heard lively voices coming from inside.

“Big brother, the wild vegetable porridge is so delicious!”

“My stomach is finally full!”

She walked into the yard and saw four people sitting at the table.

They were the original woman’s four sons.

The eldest son, Zhao Dashan, was 18 this year and had gotten married last year.

He was the pillar of the family.

The second son, Zhao Ergou, was 16 and the smartest among the sons.

The third son, Zhao Sanniu, was 14 and looked as strong as the second son.

The youngest, Zhao Sidan, was just 10 years old.

A small, malnourished boy, he was holding a chipped bowl and licking it clean, trying to get every last bit of porridge.

Cheng Wanwan didn’t expect that such a small amount of wild vegetable porridge would be shared among five people, and each of them looked satisfied.

She truly realized how poor this family was. Otherwise, the original woman wouldn’t have had to return to her family to beg for food.

When the sons saw her return, they stood up in unison.

Zhao Dashan: “Mom, you’re back.”

Zhao Ergou: “Mom, I brought two buckets of water.”

Zhao Sanniu: “Mom, I chopped some firewood.”

Zhao Sidan: “Mom, I dug up some wild vegetables.”

Cheng Wanwan pressed her lips together.

Even her eldest son, at 18, was likely just finishing high school in modern times, still a child pampered by his parents.

But in this era, her 10-year-old youngest son was already helping with the family’s chores.

[Ding! Found natural, pollution-free wild fern!]

Cheng Wanwan looked down and saw that the youngest had dug up wild ferns. The marketplace showed 30 wen per jin.

She had dug three jin of bitter lettuce, and it only equaled this tiny amount of ferns… She was mentally and physically exhausted!

She bent down to pick up the ferns and walked inside the house.

The four sons exchanged glances.

Normally, after finishing their chores, their mother would lecture them, especially today after she had been beaten at the Cheng family’s place.

Wouldn’t she scold them this time?

But she didn’t say anything. What did that mean?

Cheng Wanwan sold the wild ferns and spent 10 wen in the marketplace to buy five jin of rice, leaving her with a balance of 30 wen.

She was thankful that Dahu Village was located at the junction of the north and south, where the north mostly ate noodles and corn, while the south ate rice.

She was from the south and loved eating white rice.

She took three jin of rice and threw them on the table in the living room.

“This… is white rice!”

“Where did this white rice come from?”

Last year, Dahu Village suffered a locust plague, and the harvest was poor.

The villagers had to rely on government aid to survive this year.

No one in the village had any white rice left.

Even without natural disasters, after the autumn harvest, most villagers would trade their rice for corn or buckwheat in the town, as one jin of rice could be exchanged for two or three jin of corn…

There had to be enough food to feed the whole family, to survive until the next harvest.