Wen Nannan quickly stored the rough rice and bean cakes next to her in her space. After a moment of thought, she took out another bean cake and, following the route she remembered, went to the rice field and gave it to Aunt Zhang.
The sun gradually set, and the first day of the game passed peacefully.
As the night grew quiet, Wen Nannan lay tossing and turning on the hard wooden bed, unable to sleep. Her stomach rumbled from time to time.
With a complex expression, she climbed off the wooden bed and stared at the broken bowl for a long time, unable to resist taking out the bean cake from her space.
The bean cake made from husks didn't taste very good, but she couldn't resist her hunger. Wen Nannan pinched her nose, chewed the bean cake into pieces, and swallowed it with her eyes closed.
The taste of bean crumbs in her mouth almost made her vomit, which reinforced her determination to stock up on supplies as soon as possible.
The next day, as dawn broke, Wen Nannan got out of bed, filled the broken bowl by her bed with water, and went to the rice field.
"Nannan, why are you so late today?"
Aunt Zhang, having received a bean cake yesterday, seemed unusually friendly towards Wen Nannan today.
Wen Nannan rubbed her eyes and chuckled, "I accidentally overslept today."
"Oh, what are you using that bowl for?"
Aunt Zhang looked at the chipped bowl in Wen Nannan's hand with a puzzled expression.
Wen Nannan shook the bowl, which was half-filled with water, in front of Aunt Zhang, and said timidly, "I don't have a big kettle at home, so I can only use this broken bowl to hold water."
As the words fell, Aunt Zhang's expression towards Wen Nannan became even more sympathetic. After comforting her a few words, she turned to continue chatting with Auntie Li, who was next door.
"The crops this year are better than last year. It should be a good harvest."
"I'm afraid there will be locusts."
Auntie Li bent down to pull weeds in the field, her tone filled with emotion.
"I remember when I was a child, there was a year when locusts came, swarms of them, they covered the sun.
They flew over and devoured everything, not just crops, but even leaves and weeds. People starved, some even... exchange children to eat."
"That was so many years ago. Don't scare Nannan."
Aunt Zhang chuckled and scolded, then continued her work. Wen Nannan, however, stared at the endless green paddy fields, lost in thought.
The sun rose higher, and despite wearing thin clothes, Wen Nannan was sweating profusely. However, she was full of energy.
If anyone were standing beside Wen Nannan, they would find that every time she bent down, the amount of rice in her hand would decrease.
But Wen Nannan controlled the amount, only stealing a handful of rice into her space with every step forward.
The amount of rice in her family's paddy field was evenly distributed, so no one noticed anything unusual.
After she left, Aunt Zhang looked at the weeds in the nearby paddy field and shook her head.
"This child probably got burned out by the fever a while ago, she can't even pull weeds properly."
…
Wen Nannan went home, cooked a small bowl of porridge with the rough rice from her space, ate her fill, took a nap, and then picked up the worn-out hoe and went towards the back mountain.
Fuguo Town sits at the foot of the mountain. The mountain is rich in resources, but few women in the town go up there, unless they have a man at home who is equipped with a hunting knife to go hunting.
The mountain path was quiet, with weeds everywhere. Wen Nannan looked around all the way, until she reached the middle of the mountain and her eyes lit up. She stopped in her tracks.
There was a bamboo grove ahead!
Wen Nannan ran lightly towards it. As expected, she found a patch of bamboo shoots in the bamboo grove.
She took out the hoe she carried with her and carefully dug out the bamboo shoots. After wiping the dirt off them, she tossed them into her space.
Only after digging up all the bamboo shoots in this area did Wen Nannan get up and prepare to leave.
At that moment, a rustling sound came from not far away. Wen Nannan immediately looked around vigilantly, then made a quick decision and lay flat on the ground among the bamboo.
Her old clothes, the color faded beyond recognition, were now covered in dust, blending in with the soil, making it hard to spot her.
After a while, a female player came to the bamboo grove, looking around anxiously on the ground, but only saw some patches of land that had been dug up.
"Sister Xu, I clearly saw a patch of bamboo shoots here the other day, why is it gone?"
Xu Fang looked around, confirming there was nothing unusual, and then said, "It must have been dug up by someone else. Try not to get too close to Fuguo Town in the future and stay within the scope of activities allowed by the game."
As the words fell, the female player beside Xu Fang nodded in agreement, looking a little scared.
"The last time the game had a famine, I almost got eaten by an NPC."
After confirming that there were no resources in this area, the two of them gradually left. Only when the surrounding sounds disappeared did Wen Nannan cautiously raise her head.