Yang Sizhu fell to the ground, scooting backward little by little on her butt: “You can’t kill me, you can’t kill me…”

She regretted it. She shouldn’t have come looking for Yu Xifeng.

She shouldn’t have spoken about her dream.

Even if she had come alone to find Yu Xifeng, that would have been better.

Why did she have to drag her own mother into this?

Tears streamed down Yang Sizhu’s face as she screamed in despair, “You’ll get your comeuppance, you white-eyed—”

Her voice suddenly cut off.

After confirming that both were lifeless, Yu Xifeng picked up the silver wig from the ground and put it on.

She didn’t dare waste any more time. After making sure there were no traces on her, she returned to the original place through her space.

The heating supply here was insufficient, and the temperature was low; hardly anyone would come this way easily.

After confirming that no one noticed anything unusual,

Yu Xifeng staggered out from behind a pillar.

Someone glanced over toward her.

Just now there seemed to be two people.

Maybe they left from another direction, or maybe he had seen wrong; that person didn’t pay it much attention.

Yu Xifeng avoided the surveillance on the main road and returned to the public restroom in District 2.

When she came out again, she had changed back to the outfit from the inner circle.

She went back to Old Cai’s place.

Old Cai’s cloudy eyes fixed on her: “You killed someone.”

Yu Xifeng looked up sharply and calmly met Old Cai’s gaze: “Old man, I’ve been here with you all afternoon. I never left.”

Old Cai nodded indifferently: “Zhang Qiu’s blood calamity, you’re the one who helped him break it, right?”

Zhang Qiu: “…”

He sensibly didn’t ask more and just took note of Yu Xifeng’s words.

Yu Xifeng stayed here all afternoon, never left.

For dinner, she ate steamed corn bread dipped in dried vegetables, and a small plate of soft glutinous rice cake.

The rice cake was fragrant and melted in the mouth.

It was sprinkled with golden osmanthus flowers.

“How is it made?” Yu Xifeng asked.

Zhang Qiu said, “Huh? The dried vegetables? Those were the ones we brought back last time together. There’s also a handful of tea tree mushrooms in there. I’m planning to chop them up to make sauce.”

“How about the rice cake?”

“I added flour, rock sugar, and yeast. The yeast is running low, but it doesn’t need much, less than 30 grams left. It’s enough for seven or eight batches if I’m careful.”

“Rock sugar?” Yu Xifeng repeated the word.

“That and the osmanthus are traditional Chinese medicine. I saw them in the herbs last time, so I took them all back,” Zhang Qiu explained.

Yu Xifeng pondered, “Does this rock sugar conflict with the medicine I’m taking?”

“No, adding a piece of rock sugar won’t affect it,” Zhang Qiu said quickly, then saw Yu Xifeng’s cold look.

Zhang Qiu rubbed his nose: “Okay, okay, I’ll add it, I’ll add it.”

Yu Xifeng pocketed a small bag of rock sugar and left around the usual time.

On her way back, she ran into Deng Feiyu.

Yu Xifeng was a bit surprised.

She hadn’t seen him for a while.

Deng Feiyu went out early and came back late every day. Although they lived very close, their schedules barely overlapped, so it was hard to meet by chance.

She had once overheard Deng Mifen’s sister-in-law mention something:

“Deng Feiyu spends so much time outside. The rescue team only works from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., so where does Deng Feiyu hang out the rest of the time?”

Yu Xifeng thought about it and looked at Deng Feiyu again.

Deng Feiyu had lost a lot of weight. Compared with his thin, wan expression, his eyes were exceptionally bright.

He also saw Yu Xifeng but did not avoid her as before. Instead, he stood still, staring straight back.

Their black pupils were deep as wells, as if swallowing all the light.

Deng Feiyu’s state was off.

That gaze reminded her of someone.

The old Ma Tian.

It was a kind of enlightenment beyond previous understanding, mixed with calm madness.

Yu Xifeng wasn’t sure where it came from.

But this man, his mother, and Big Sister Zhang—all had fallen into her hands.

Yu Xifeng kept this matter in mind, planning to find a chance to investigate.

At her doorstep, Yu Xifeng found many flyers.

She glanced through them—tea parties, exchange meetings, charity donation banquets, all sorts of invitations for Yu Xifeng to attend.

To Yu Xifeng, this kind of information exchange was nonsense.

As for charity, she didn’t have the time to rush to be a cash cow.

These were just trash in her eyes.

Yu Xifeng tossed them back casually.

Then she moved the two corpses from the space to the back of the barren mountain.

No particular reason—she just found them disgusting.

Her carefully maintained secluded paradise.

Two corpses lying on the ground made it look like a horror movie.

Yu Xifeng didn’t even plan to dig a grave there. She would wait until next time to throw the bodies out with the garbage.

When Yu Xifeng went to see Old Cai, she met He Yuan again.

The old saying about not speaking ill behind someone’s back had some truth.

Yu Xifeng happened to catch He Yuan talking about her behind her back.

This time, he said Yu Xifeng had recklessly spent thousands of money at an auction.

“If Yu Xifeng has that kind of money, and she’s so good to you guys, what does she want from you?”

Zhang Qiu was busy tending the fire and ignored him.

In He Yuan’s mouth, Yu Xifeng had become a scheming woman, loose in behavior, attracting men everywhere.

“I heard she’s involved with the patrol team leader, Wang Anmin. Without his protection, how could she hold onto so much?”

“Zhang Qiu, a woman like that—you can’t win against her. Don’t let her sell you out and still have you counting her money.”

Zhang Qiu swept the coal with fire tongs, sparks flying toward He Yuan’s head.

“What are you doing!” He Yuan scrambled to his feet and rushed out.

Just then Yu Xifeng was about to lift the curtain to enter.

Yu Xifeng smiled at him.

He Yuan blushed bright red, stiffened his neck, and walked away awkwardly.

Zhang Qiu said, “You’re not interested in that bastard, are you?”

Yu Xifeng ignored him.

“Does He Yuan know you bought a lot of medicine for your family?” Yu Xifeng asked.

Old Cai was silent for a moment: “Neighbors, familiar folks.”

Yu Xifeng said, “This batch of medicine can save Zhang Qiu but can also harm him.”

She said to Zhang Qiu, “No matter what excuse He Yuan uses, you can’t go out with him alone.”

Zhang Qiu was stunned.

Yu Xifeng emphasized, “Or you might die.”

Zhang Qiu nodded, his voice serious: “I understand.”

After returning from Old Cai’s, Yu Xifeng spent nearly a whole day placing an incubator in the flowerbed and rushing into her space to flip the eggs by the second.

The result was satisfying—she successfully hatched a batch of chicks.

The flowerbed’s strange time setup didn’t affect living creatures.

So there had never been a case where Xiao Ju went inside for two months and came out three years older.

Fertilized eggs were between life and death.

From the moment they hatched, the flowerbed no longer affected them.

It was like exploiting a bug.

The chicks crawled around wildly in the space.

Yu Xifeng saw that the fruit inside was almost ripe, and the crops outside as well.

She harvested some and filled several baskets.

The herb patch had already sprouted seedlings. Yu Xifeng looked over it, planning to find a chance to pick a couple of leaves for Zhang Qiu to identify.

After collecting the harvest, Yu Xifeng gathered some eggs, didn’t delay further in the space, and left immediately.