Su Nuo had been woken up by Madam Zhao early in the morning, then he spent some time tossing around inside a basket in the river, and finally he had to go through an adoption and a funeral both. So not long after arriving at their new home, Su Nuo was already very sleepy. Su Tang helped him wash up and then sent him to go to sleep first. Meanwhile, Su Tang herself forced herself to stay awake so she could check the things around the house.
Although Su Laochuan had been poor there were still some valuable things in his house. Su Tang looked around and found that there was a complete set of bowls and chopsticks. There was also an iron pot, a near-empty jar of lard, and a little bit of sauce in a sauce jar, and about two scoops of brown rice in the rice jar.
These were the only things left to Su Tang and her brother, there was no money at all. After she finished checking everything, it was already dark outside. Su Tang took advantage of the fact that Su Nuo was asleep and entered her space again.
The orange cat was lazily lying on its cat tree and didn’t move at all when Su Tang appeared. She ignored the cat and picked up a bucket to fetch some of the water from the spring, then took out the clothes she and Su Nuo had worn today and washed them in the bucket before hanging them up outside the cabin. Inside the space the sun was always shining so the clothes would soon dry.
After that, she took a bath using the spring water. It was quite magical in how it worked very well to clean her even though she had no soap, shampoo, or shower gel. It washed her clean just by rinsing.
Once she finished washing herself she took a robe from the cabin and wrapped it around herself before going out into the yard to bask in the sun. While she was out there she harvested all the things produced by the space.
When she glanced at the progress bar she saw that the farm was about to rise to level four from all the things she had harvested. And when she opened the warehouse, she saw that there were carp, herring, honey, milk, wool, cabbage, corn, rice and wheat, apples, and radishes all piling up inside.
Su Tang felt hungry so she took out two apples, one for the orange cat and the other for herself. “So I can take something from outside and sell it to the farm, but the price will be halved, right? Unless it is something that the space doesn’t have, then it will be worth a lot of points, right? And at level five I can unlock the processing plant?” Su Tang questioned the orange cat.
The orange cat nibbled on the apple she gave it before responding. “Yes, as the space’s farm grows higher level more new functions will be unlocked and you will be able to grow more magical things. At level five the processing plant can be unlocked and then you can use the points to activate the different processors inside. At level 30 the supermarket can be unlocked. And beyond that, there will be many new features you can continue to unlock as you develop. You are welcome to explore!”
Why did it sound like a sleazy salesman?
Su Tang narrowed her eyes and stared at the orange cat. But, eventually, she realized that for now the farm would make it easier for her to improve her life, so Su Tang just nodded. Then she took the freshly washed clothes and left the space.
It was still dark out when she came outside of the space so she wanted to lay down and go to sleep. But when Su Tang lay down and smelled the quilt her nose wrinkled in displeasure, so she pushed all the bedding to Su Nuo’s side of the bed and fell asleep while wearing her still-damp clothes.
As she fell asleep, Su Tang had only one thought in mind. She had to make some money quickly and improve her life.
The next day Su Tang got up early. Her clothes had dried while she slept and Su Nuo was still asleep. She took a bucket of milk from the space, washed the eight red dates that Su Yongqiang had given them yesterday, and deftly removed the pits. Then she put them in the pot and boiled them with milk and brown rice.
When Su Nuo opened his eyes, Su Tang’s red date milk porridge was ready, and the room was filled with the sweet scent of porridge. When Su Nuo caught a whiff of such a good smell he hurriedly put on his newly washed clothes and rushed out to find Su Tang.
He came out just in time to see Su Tang fill a large bowl with milky white porridge that was dotted with red date meat and emitting a strong scent. Su Nuo’s stomach growled and he said, “Sister, it smells so fragrant! What is that?”
It looked like the little glutton liked it, when Su Tang saw that she said with a smile, “This is red date milk porridge.”
After she finished speaking she could practically see the question marks over the little guy’s head. Since when did they have milk at home? Why didn’t he remember Brother Yongqiang delivering any milk yesterday?
While he was wondering, Su Nuo saw his sister walk to one corner of the house and set down the bowl porridge in a corner in front of a small bamboo basket. Then she clasped her hands together and said. “Praise the River God!”
Su Nuo looked at his sister and felt very confused. He had no idea what his sister was doing. But then he saw that the bowl of porridge in the corner vanished like magic! He pointed at the corner and stuttered “Sister… sister… porridge… the porridge…”
Out of Su Nuo’s sight, the orange cat, who was carrying the pot for the River God, picked up the bowl of porridge and quickly licked it clean, then it shot a contemptuous glance at Su Nuo before disappearing into the space.
Su Tang thought it was all very funny but she still pulled Su Nuo aside and put a finger over her lips and said. “Shh, don’t tell anyone.”
When Su Nuo saw his sister do this, his small hands also covered his own mouth in shock and his big eyes stared widely at Su Tang. He did not dare to speak.
Su Tang nodded solemnly, “The River God saw that we were pitiful and he didn’t just leave us with nothing, so he taught me how to cook. In the future, he wants me to cook for him like this and in exchange he will give us some benefits and show us the path to prosperity. Xiao Nuo you must not tell anyone else. The River God knows all. So now it’s time for us really to serve him.”
Su Tang had made up this reason after some thought. Now that she lived with her brother alone, soon she would be taking new things out of the space one after another. This was part of the reason why she wanted to be ‘sacrificed’ at the Qing River. In the future, even if she had some inexplicable things or acted in strange ways, as long as she used the River God as an excuse, no one would suspect anything. After all, all the people nearby really believed in the River God.
That was why she had the orange cat put on such a scene in front of Su Nuo this morning. That way Su Nuo would not be surprised when new things appeared at home.
Sure enough, when Su Nuo heard his sister say this, he nodded immediately. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
After that Su Nuo’s curiosity about the milk naturally disappeared. He assumed that it must have been given to them by the River God. He even thought that maybe the River God didn’t like the food in the river, so he sent it to his sister for her to cook.
Once that little scene was over Su Tang served up two bowls of porridge and ate them with Su Nuo. The porridge that was made mainly from ingredients produced by the space smelled very fragrant and also tasted very good. Su Nuo even felt a little afraid while he ate and from time to time he would glance nervously at the bamboo basket in the corner of the room.
Su Tang saw that and said, “Don’t look so much. If the River God is satisfied with the food, of course he will reward us.”
When Su Nuo heard her say that he didn’t dare look in the corner again. He just concentrated on eating the red date milk porridge in front of him. Before he had been eating carefully so he hadn’t noticed, but he quickly found that this porridge was just too delicious, “Sister, it’s so good!”
The little guy quickly began shoveling his food into his mouth so fast that he probably couldn’t even taste it and Su Tang couldn’t help but laugh.
The brother and sister ate the two bowls of porridge, then went outside to wash the bowls and chopsticks. When they went back into the house they saw that the bowl that had just disappeared had magically reappeared, but the porridge inside had been eaten clean. Su Nuo immediately called out to Su Tang, “Sister, look, the bowl is back!”
Su Tang saw the stuffed orange cat lying lazily to one side with contempt in his eyes. A conversation bubble popped up over his head. ‘Your brother is really ignorant!’
‘Since when did a great quadruped divine beast like yourself quibble so much about the IQ of a biped? What is the world coming to?’
When the orange cat understood Su Tang’s meaning it turned its head away angrily and showed off it’s furry butt. Su Tang just smiled and pulled Su Nuo over to open up the bamboo basket. Inside the bamboo basket were many apples and radishes. When Su Nuo saw that, he just stared in surprise.
*‘carrying the pot’ as in ‘taking the blame’.
The cat is good fun