Chapter 73: Enjoying a Room Alone

On this day, Jiang Fubao finally had a room of her own.

It wasn’t large.

The room could barely fit a bed, a cabinet, and a table.

But the bedding on the bed had been sewn personally by her mother and grandma. The brand-new quilt and sheets had been sun-dried until fragrant.

Lying on it, she felt an overwhelming sense of happiness.

“Fubao, are you really going to sleep alone from now on? Aren’t you scared at night? Maybe your mother should stay with you tonight.”

Although her daughter insisted on sleeping alone, Zhang Yanzi was still worried. She planned to stay tonight to accompany her.

“I’m not scared. I’m already three years old. Mother, you can go. Fubao can sleep alone.”

Jiang Fubao kicked her little legs and rolled on the bed.

“All right, all right, stop rolling. Get into bed. It’s starting to get warm, but nights are still a bit cool. Remember not to kick off the quilt, okay? And don’t toss and turn—if you fall off the bed, you’ll get a bump on your head…”

Zhang Yanzi lectured her like a Buddhist monk reciting scriptures.

She went on for a full fifteen minutes.

Fubao’s expression became one of utter despair.

Finally, Zhang Yanzi left the room.

After her mother closed the door, Jiang Fubao rubbed her little ears and let out a sigh.

Since her sister-in-law had moved in, there wasn’t enough space, and she had been sleeping with her parents.

Adults’ sleep was not as deep as children’s, so she hadn’t dared sneak out at night, fearing she’d wake them.

With Grandma’s instructions, she hadn’t collected eggs for many days.

So much had been wasted.

Fubao felt guilty. On her first night sleeping alone, she planned to get back to her “old business”—putting eggs in the chicken coop.

After lying on the bed for half an hour, she estimated everyone in the house was asleep.

She quietly opened the door and slipped into the backyard.

In the chicken coop, the number of chickens had grown from eight to twelve.

The extra four chicks were hatched by the hens themselves.

Two had died, or there would have been fourteen.

After placing over a hundred eggs in the coop, Fubao went to the kitchen.

She hadn’t replenished the rice or flour containers in days.

With an extra mouth to feed, they were nearly empty.

Fubao didn’t skimp.

She refilled both containers.

To prevent Grandma from selling off the polished rice, she mixed in plenty of millet.

The mixed rice would sell for much less, so Grandma would have to keep it for home use.

Fubao beamed with pride.

She was practically a genius.

At dinner, she deliberately mentioned wanting meat, just so she could openly take some from the space tonight.

The meat was frozen, so it wouldn’t spoil overnight.

The freezer drawer held five pieces: the largest under three pounds, the smallest nearly two.

She took them all out, filling the wooden basin perfectly.

Each piece was wrapped in plastic, and just unwrapping them took ten minutes.

Worried about mice, Fubao placed the full basin back into the space, then climbed onto a chair to retrieve it and set it on the stove.

This was a new function she had discovered.

From now on, any heavy object she couldn’t move could be “cheated” using the space.

Before leaving the kitchen, she glanced at a basket of partially dried mushrooms in the corner.

These had been collected from the inner mountains.

Outside, almost no mushrooms grew.

Not just mushrooms—the tender greens had gone out of season.

Other wild vegetables couldn’t grow due to drought.

As a result, nearly half the villagers of Jiang Village went hungry, risking their lives to forage in the inner mountains.

The last time she went with Grandma, they had encountered over ten groups of people collecting mushrooms.

At this rate, the wild vegetables and mushrooms in the inner mountains would soon be gone.

Since then, she had never found ginseng.

As expected, the novels were false.

The protagonists always stumbled upon lingzhi mushrooms or thousand-year ginseng.

Ginseng is not cabbage—you can’t just let it grow anywhere.

Fubao abandoned any hopes of making a fortune from ginseng.

Back in her room, she lay on the bed staring at the ceiling.

She couldn’t sleep, thinking over things.

The Jiang family currently had almost no income. She couldn’t collect eggs, and the coop produced at most two per day, sometimes none.

Grandma was disappointed.

Without eggs to sell, the family’s meals were no longer as lavish.

The once-thick rice porridge now had at least two extra bowls of water added.

It had been over a month since they last ate meat.

No. She had to find a way to bring in more income for the family.

Fubao wracked her brains but couldn’t figure out how to help.

Polished rice was valuable.

She could take out fifty pounds daily.

Converting to current measurement units, that’s about four dou (斗).

Her eldest uncle said grain prices had risen; one dou could sell for nearly 200 wen.

Four dou could net at least 700 wen.

Selling fifty pounds of rice daily could bring considerable income long-term.

But the problem: drought in Ruling Prefecture meant no one had planted rice in the past two years.

The market rice came from the southernmost regions or was old rice from previous years.

It was naturally expensive.

For a farming family to sell four dou daily would arouse suspicion.

This was not modern times.

If the family were wiped out, the killers could go unpunished.

Fubao had no means of self-protection. If the family were targeted, it would be disastrous.

Daily risking her life for 700 wen was not worth it.

Other food was even harder to sell.

Eating it at home was fine, but selling large amounts daily without a clear channel would be dangerous.

Fubao scratched her head in frustration.

The “auto-replenishing” space was tricky—she had to use it cautiously.

She finally dove into the space to search.

First, she opened the fridge.

The fruits and vegetables were immediately discarded—they were rare in this world, small in quantity, and unsafe for sale.

Next, the quail eggs were discarded.

Only thirty a day, selling five wen each—a mere 150 wen.

Too little to bother, and they couldn’t be sold continuously.

Her family didn’t raise quails.

In the mountains, quail eggs weren’t constantly available.

Selling them repeatedly would arouse suspicion.

If villagers saw her selling eggs several times, they’d question why she always had them while others didn’t.

Moreover, quail eggs are expensive due to scarcity; even in a large town, only the wealthy could afford them.