The Klein Bottle, forged from the interstellar era's greatest power and resources, used An Ning's spiritual power as its foundation to merge the two.
As long as the bottle existed, she could send seeds back to the interstellar era. Although the Klein Bottle had temporarily lost its fundamental infinite capacity, it could still hold a few small seeds.
Once she confirmed the bottle was all right, An Ning climbed off the heated brick bed. She curiously touched its surface. 'So this is the legendary 'kang,' where a fire burns below while people sleep on top.'
Coming from the interstellar era, she had once thought "sleeping on a kang" was a form of torture.
But now she understood it was just a large implement for sleeping and staying warm.
An Ning observed it curiously, resisting the urge to take the bed apart to study it. She pushed open the door and wandered into the kitchen. She was hungry.
One of the side effects of expending spiritual power was hunger. But she found nothing in the kitchen, so she went out to the backyard. The moment she stepped outside, An Ning froze in place.
The An family's front yard consisted of the house and some sheds, while the backyard was entirely dedicated to growing vegetables.
An Ning, having grown up in the interstellar era, had never seen crops before. Her mission was to come to Ancient Earth and find seeds.
Her eyes sparkling, she ran out into the garden, carefully avoiding the young vegetable shoots. She slowly crouched down and reached out a hand, feeling excited, scared, and nervous all at once. Her palm hovered, wanting to touch but hesitating, opening and closing several times.
In the end, An Ning only used a single finger to brush against the leaf of a tiny seedling. Though it was just for a moment, the realness of the sensation made her heart pound as if she had found her soulmate.
'This era is amazing,' she thought. 'I have to become a good farmer, find the best seeds, and send them back to the interstellar era so they can have this much food too.'
An Ning squatted on the dirt path between the vegetable beds, her excitement taking a long while to subside. An increasingly intense hunger finally forced her to her feet to search for something to eat.
Searching her memories, An Ning knew the only crop she could eat raw right now was green onions. She stood up, found the patch of green onions, and pulled one out. Peeling away the outer layer, she looked at the crisp white stalk and took a bite.
"What a... strange flavor."
An Ning had never eaten the food of this era, so every flavor was a novelty. She took a bite, and another, and another.
Before she knew it, she had eaten several green onions. An Ning finally just sat down on the ground, slowly munching on them while admiring the surrounding crops. To her, it was the most beautiful scenery in the world.
However, that huge mug of water she'd drunk earlier sent her running to the toilet several times, forcing her to get used to the outhouse ahead of schedule.
'For the sake of the seeds, I can endure anything!'
A little after four in the afternoon, people began heading home from the fields to make dinner.
"An Ning—An Ning—"
Lin Cuihua's voice suddenly cut through the air. When she came out the back door, she saw her daughter with a green onion in each hand, taking a bite from the one on the left, then the one on the right, eating with great relish.
"What are you doing?"
An Ning, still in the middle of her snack, held up the green onions and answered honestly, "I'm eating green onions."
Lin Cuihua looked like she wanted to say something but held her tongue. Instead, she just called out, "Hurry up and come inside. Light the stove for Mom, I'm going to make dinner."
'Dinner?'
An Ning immediately finished off the green onions in her hands with a few large bites, not wasting a single scrap, and ran into the house.
Once inside, she watched Lin Cuihua ladle out something she didn't recognize and rinse it in water several times.
"What are you staring at? Hurry and light the fire. Aren't you hungry?"
"I'm starving!"
An Ning carried over a small stool and sat bolt upright in front of the stove's fire pit. Her expression was so serious, anyone who didn't know better would have thought she was about to light a pack of dynamite.
Luckily, the task the original owner had performed most often was lighting the stove. An Ning cheated by supplementing the effort with her spiritual power and succeeded on the first try. Then she began to tend the fire in earnest.
Before long, the large iron wok—about the size of her bathtub back in the interstellar era—began to give off steam. The whole kitchen filled with moist air, making it feel even more like her bathroom.
'I kind of want to jump in... What should I do?'
'No, I'd get cooked.'
Not long after, the members of the An family who had been working in the fields returned. They all washed up and got ready for dinner.
"Dinner's ready! Time to eat!"
The moment Lin Cuihua called out, An Ning sat down on a stool with astonishing speed, waiting for dinner to be served.
The An family's main house had a central kitchen flanked by a room on the east and west. The west room housed An Ning's parents and her younger brother, An Guoping, who was one of a pair of fraternal twins. She lived in the east room by herself.
In the courtyard, there was another small, three-room building, also with east and west rooms. One was for her eldest brother and his wife, and the other was for her second brother.
The family wasn't wealthy, but they weren't so poor that they couldn't afford to eat. In this era, most people were in a similar situation.
Dinner was served in the main house's kitchen. On the square table sat a bowl of soybean paste, a bunch of green onions, a large basin of watery corn grits, and a small dish of some unidentifiable pickled vegetable.
"Go on and eat," said Lin Cuihua. "I've saved a portion for Lao San."
Her younger brother, An Guoping, was taking the college entrance exam this year, which was just over a month away. If it hadn't been for An Ning's wedding, he wouldn't have been able to take time off. With nothing else to do that afternoon, he had gone to the school and hadn't returned yet.
Everyone served themselves from the basin. An Ning waited for them to finish before she moved, as she wasn't familiar with the process and wanted to quietly observe and learn.
The original owner's memories were a bit hazy, likely because she hadn't been able to do much and was unable to speak, so she rarely participated in family activities.
After filling her bowl, An Ning held the corn grits with an almost reverent air and took her first bite.
It was chewy and had a delicate, unidentifiable aroma. It tasted infinitely better than nutrient solution.
An Ning loved it. She finished the bowl in no time and immediately went to get another.
Two bowls down, An Ning still wasn't full, so she got a third.
Seeing An Ning eat three consecutive bowls, Lin Cuihua watched her with concern. 'She's not going to eat till she bursts, is she?' She normally only ate one bowl.
"Honey, are you full yet?"
An Ning had just finished the last bite of her third bowl. She held up the empty bowl for Lin Cuihua to see.
"Not full."
An Ning, who had just been telling the truth, suddenly sensed that the atmosphere was off. Why was everyone staring at her?
'Oh no, did I do something wrong again?'
She looked around at everyone cautiously and said, "I'm... I'm... full?"
Her pitiful expression, combined with the questioning tone, made her second older brother, An Guoming, burst out laughing.
"Little sis, you're killing me. I can't finish mine, here, you can have it."
An Guoming poured the corn grits from his bowl into An Ning's and urged her contentedly, "Go on, eat!"
An Ning wasn't sure how to read everyone's emotions, but once she picked up her bowl again, none of that mattered. 'So good. So delicious.'
"Make some more tomorrow," An Sancheng said to his wife.
"You think I need you to tell me that?" Lin Cuihua shot a glance at An Sancheng, then looked back at An Ning, still a little worried. 'Is she really okay?'
An Sancheng was worried too. He turned to his second son. "Guoming, first thing tomorrow, you and your mother take An Ning to the hospital in the city to get checked out."
An Sancheng attributed An Ning's behavior to her head injury. There was someone in their village who had also hurt their head and had suddenly lost the ability to speak.
No one in the An family suspected a thing, partly because none of them really knew the disposition of the An Ning who never used to speak.
Hearing this, An Ning immediately put down her bowl. "I'm not going to the hospital. I want to farm."