After that, Yuan Si didn't ask for anyone's help. She took the small half-bowl of white flour Li Yuan'ai had given her, went to the main room, and started a fire to boil water and make dough drop soup.
As she bustled about, the aroma of cooking filled the entire house. The scent lured Li Aijun from the other room. His eyes gleamed as he stared at the dough drops in the pot, squatting in front of the stove with his tongue hanging out like a husky, waiting to be fed.
"I want some too!" Li Aijun whined, unable to stand it any longer.
Yuan Si pretended not to hear him. After a few more stirs, she removed the fire from under the stove. Moving quickly, she grabbed an empty bowl with her left hand and a large ladle with her right. In just a few scoops, she had scraped the iron pot clean. Then, to escape her nephew's fiery gaze, she carried her bowl to the side and squatted down to eat.
"Mom, I want some too!" Seeing there was none for him, Li Aijun resentfully went into the other room to find his mother and demand some.
Li Yuan'ai had seen the whole thing clearly and was fuming inside. 'When did Little Si become so selfish? How could she have something good to eat and not even share a bite with her own nephew?' Seeing her son was still so clueless, she slapped him in a fit of anger. "Eat, eat, eat, that's all you know how to do! Why don't you just eat yourself to death?"
"WAAH! Why did you hit me? Auntie got some, so why can't I? Am I even your son anymore?" Li Aijun burst into tears after being smacked by his mom.
"Why did you hit the boy? If he wants to eat, then just make a bowl for him." Li Baoceng's brow furrowed deeply when he heard his son wailing at the top of his lungs. 'Is this ever going to end?'
"Easy for you to say! A bowl for each person, how much flour do you think that is? Don't you know how little flour you actually earned?" Li Yuan'ai retorted, feeling upset as well.
Meanwhile, Yuan Si was in the main room, happily savoring her meal to the soundtrack of arguing and crying from the other room. When it came to food, nothing else mattered.
After finishing her bowl of dough drop soup, she cheerfully started washing the bowl and pot. 'See? I'm still a good kid who never causes trouble for anyone.' After cleaning the kitchen spotlessly, Yuan Si ignored everyone's stares and, with her little short legs, walked back to her room to lie down contentedly on the kang. She still wasn't full, but at least her stomach had stopped growling.
With the problem of her stomach temporarily solved, Yuan Si finally had the presence of mind to consider how she was going to live from now on.
As a second-generation survivor of the apocalypse, Yuan Si didn't understand this current society very well. She had been born into a world where it was the law of the jungle, and her ingrained survival principle was that might makes right.
No matter how eloquent you were, a strong fist was what really counted. From a young age, her mother had told her that if she wanted to earn respect and fair treatment from others, she had to possess formidable strength herself. She had taken this to heart, believing it to be an eternal, unchanging truth. 'So,' she thought, 'even though the world is different now, this truth should still be universal.'
Judging from the original owner's six years of memories, this world wasn't much easier to get by in than her own apocalyptic one. She needed to start training her superpower as soon as possible and return to her peak condition. That should be enough to establish a foothold in this new world.
At this thought, Yuan Si immediately focused her mind and calmed her breathing to assess her body. 'It's not bad,' she concluded. 'Just a little bit weaker than my body in the apocalypse.'
Moreover, she could still connect to the Brain Space she had developed with her spiritual power back in the apocalypse. This was an unexpected and wonderful surprise.
When Spiritual Power Users reached Level 6, they could use their spiritual power to connect to a two-dimensional space. The Brain Space of a Spiritual Power User was one such two-dimensional gray area. It was exclusive to that user; only they could connect to it, acting as the key to that space. If the Spiritual Power User died, the two-dimensional space they had created would close with them, and no one would ever be able to find it again. This was the conclusion reached by researchers, which was why no one ever bothered trying to seize a Spiritual Power User's space anymore—it was simply impossible.
But Yuan Si had transmigrated. Her spiritual power was still with her, and though it was weaker, she could still connect to her space.
And because she had once been a Level 9 Superpower User, the space she had created was enormous, roughly 50 meters by 50 meters by 50 meters, and its size hadn't changed.
Depending on their innate talent and ability, the space each Spiritual Power User developed upon reaching Level 6 would differ. As far as Yuan Si knew, a Brain Space of her specifications was one of a kind.
After connecting to the space, she checked her inventory and felt a little worried.
Back when she was an Advanced Superpower User, she had never been short on food. Although the apocalypse was dangerous, for those with power, food could be obtained anywhere—the meat of mutated animals, the roots of mutated plants, and so on. As a result, she hadn't stored any grain in her space at all. Instead, it was filled with mission-essential equipment or gear she thought might come in handy.
Given her current situation, none of it was useful for now.
*Sigh.* Yuan Si never thought that a dignified Advanced Superpower User like herself would actually be stumped by the problem of food.
If she had her apocalyptic-era strength, even with no supplies in her space, she could have scoured the mountains and seas for food. At worst, she could even rob the rich to help the poor. Her new memories indicated that the people of this era were simple and honest, but there were still quite a few bad apples.
But right now, her spiritual power hadn't even reached Level 1. Her body hadn't been tempered, and her various physical stats hadn't been enhanced. In other words, she was currently just an ordinary girl with slightly stronger senses.
'In summary,' she concluded, 'the most important thing for me to do now is increase my strength. I need to train hard and raise my spiritual power to Level 3 as soon as possible. At that point, my stamina, strength, and agility will all take a quantum leap. While I wouldn't be the number one person in Hua Country, it would be more than enough to go hunting in the mountains.'
Filling her stomach would be no problem at all then.
But that brought her back to the original problem. If she couldn't even fill her stomach now, how could she train in peace? Besides, the higher her cultivation level, the more her food intake would multiply, since she needed sufficient nutritional intake to support her body's consumption. Given her current situation, she would probably starve to death long before she became powerful enough to do as she pleased.
After thinking it over and over, she decided her top priority was to fill her stomach. You had to be alive to do anything else, right? Of course, for long-term development, she needed to train her superpower whenever she could while figuring out how to get food. She had to strive to break through to the Level 3 threshold as soon as possible. Then, she wouldn't have to worry about food anymore.
Having made her decision, her stomach didn't even feel that hungry anymore. Yuan Si adjusted her position on the kang and prepared to begin her training.
Spiritual power could be cultivated through meditation. In other words, as long as you had a superpower and knew the correct training method, you could continue to cultivate it in any time or space.
Of course, meditation wasn't the only way to enhance one's superpower. In the apocalypse, the unique environment had produced some unique items, such as the Crystal Cores in zombies' brains and the Spiritual Pearls found inside mutated plants and animals. A year after the apocalypse began, experts had proven through research that Spiritual Pearls could be absorbed by superpower users without any negative side effects.
As an Advanced Spiritual Power User, Yuan Si naturally had a chest full of supplies in her space. It contained over three thousand Spiritual Pearls, most of which were Level 6 or higher.
Spiritual Pearls were also graded by level; the higher the level, the more energy they contained. In Yuan Si's current condition, cultivating directly with a high-level Spiritual Pearl would most likely cause her body to overload and explode. Therefore, she could only find Spiritual Pearls close to her own level to train with.
Inside her space, she rummaged through the entire chest, sorting the Spiritual Pearls by level. But because her own level had been so high, she had very few low-level Spiritual Pearls in stock—fewer than a hundred in total below Level 3. This was definitely not good news for the current Yuan Si. However, these were the circumstances, and she could only do her best to adapt.