Chapter 9: Making Trouble
To figure out the mechanics of her system inventory, Lu Yunxi spent three consecutive days harvesting the exact same variety of wild greens.
She quickly discovered that identical items could only stack up to ninety-nine times within a single inventory slot. Any additional pieces would automatically occupy a fresh grid.
Furthermore, while she was busy foraging, she unexpectedly unlocked a brand-new life skill.
[Ding! Congratulations on mastering the Gathering Technique!]
So I can actually trigger and learn skills on my own!
Yunxi’s interest was instantly piqued. Following that breakthrough, she spent all her time outside of physical training throwing herself into various hobbies—sewing, weaving, fishing, and anything else she could think of. Within just a few days, she amassed a staggering array of life skills, even if they were all stuck at the novice level. She even managed to grind one specific skill up to the beginner rank!
The skill she successfully upgraded was Appraisal, a handy tool that allowed her to inspect the basic status of any object. For example, focusing on the wild greens in her hand would display:
[Intact Dandelion]: Edible. Clears heat, detoxifies the body, reduces swelling, dispels lumps, and acts as a natural diuretic.
She could even inspect ordinary household items like tables, chairs, and benches:
[Broken Table]: A standard wooden table missing one corner.
Yunxi found this incredibly entertaining. Once she unlocked Appraisal, she used it relentlessly wherever she went, sometimes activating it hundreds of times a day.
After experimenting with all her new skills, she returned to hunting field mice to grind her level. To her dismay, upon leveling up, her strength, agility, and spirit stats only increased by a single point each.
[Name]: Lu Yunxi
[Identity]: Mushroom Village Villager
[Level]: 2 (Apprentice)
[Age]: 5
[Appearance]: 90
[Strength]: 40
[Agility]: 37
[Spirit]: 101
[Title]: None
Seeing the measly increase, she was completely speechless. This stat growth was pathetic!
During her regular physical training with her father—doing archery drills and holding horse stances—her strength naturally grew over time. In fact, it had jumped by eight points just from pure exercise, which was vastly superior to the single point granted by a system level-up.
After testing the system’s limits over and over again, Yunxi’s initial fascination faded significantly. She happily returned to her lazy, carefree lifestyle.
That afternoon, she was lying on the grass, enjoying a deep, peaceful nap.
“Ahhhhh—”
A piercing shriek shattered the silence.
Yunxi, who had only just drifted off, bolted upright and scanned her surroundings anxiously. What’s going on? Where did that scream come from?
She looked around for a good while, but the afternoon remained warm, sunny, and completely peaceful. She began to doubt herself. Had it just been a realistic nightmare?
Just then, a commotion echoed from the center of the village. She immediately stood up, brushed the stray blades of grass off her clothes, and marched toward the noise.
As she neared the village square, she spotted a woman aggressively dragging the village doctor by his sleeve from a distance, screaming obscenities.
Yunxi blinked in disbelief. What is this? A medical malpractice dispute? Did people seriously have public medical disputes in ancient times?
While she stood there frozen, a crowd of curious villagers quickly swarmed the area, peeking over each other’s shoulders to enjoy the drama.
“You absolute quack! My daughter is practically on her deathbed, and you still refuse to treat her?!” the woman jeered, her tone dripping with venom. “You’re just holding out for money, aren’t you? Fine! Name your price! How much do you want to save my daughter?!”
Taking a closer look at the raging woman, Yunxi gasped.
Wasn’t that Liu Baozhu’s mother? The very same woman who, just a few days ago, had confidently claimed her daughter had left the village to explore the world!
The doctor looked at Aunt Liu, a massive headache clearly brewing, and let out a helpless sigh. “Auntie, it’s not that I’m refusing to treat her. It’s just… sigh! I genuinely cannot cure her illness!”
Doctor Sun glanced nervously at the gossiping onlookers, then back at Aunt Liu, feeling incredibly embarrassed. “Auntie, this matter… why don’t we step inside my clinic and discuss it quietly?”
“Step inside for what?!” Aunt Liu barked, completely rejecting his plea. She aggressively slapped his hand away and slapped both hands onto her hips. “You are going to heal my daughter right this second, or I will block your clinic doors every single day! Let’s see how you run a business then!”
The surrounding villagers began whispering among themselves.
“Why is Doctor Sun refusing to help the Liu family’s girl? Is he really holding out for a bribe?”
“No way! Doctor Sun has never charged us a single copper over all these years. Didn’t you hear him? He said the Liu girl’s illness is simply incurable!”
…
Yunxi sank into deep thought. Aunt Liu only had one daughter. The family had explicitly claimed she had left the village to make a living, so why was she still here? And why was she critically ill?
“The village chief is here! Everyone, make way!” a villager shouted.
The crowd quickly parted, allowing the village chief to stride into the clearing. He cast a long, heavy look at Aunt Liu, then turned to the physician. “Doctor Sun, let us accompany Aunt Liu back to her house.”
Yunxi noticed that the moment the village chief arrived, Aunt Liu’s face drained of all color, and beads of cold sweat began rolling down her forehead.
An inexplicable, ominous premonition flared in Yunxi’s chest. Could it be that Liu Baozhu never actually left the village?
Remembering the secret the village chief had shared with her regarding the eighteen-year-old exile rule, Yunxi frowned deeply and quietly followed the group.
The small crowd arrived at the Liu residence.
The village chief initially intended to dismiss the nosy onlookers, but Aunt Liu, perhaps driven to a blind panic, suddenly screamed out for everyone to hear:
“Village Chief, are you going to force me to exile my daughter again?! I will never agree to it! Absolutely not!”
The moment the words left her mouth, every single villager whipped around to stare at the village chief in absolute shock.
Before the chief could even open his mouth to defuse the situation, Aunt Liu broke down into hysterical tears. “This is too much! You relentlessly pressured me to send Baozhu away before, but did you ever stop to consider our circumstances?! Our Baozhu is just a frail, delicate girl! If it weren’t for the fact that I fell during my pregnancy and gave birth prematurely, leaving her with a weak constitution, how could she possibly fail to hunt a common field mouse?!”
She collapsed onto the ground, burying her face in her hands as tears leaked through her fingers. “Baozhu is already so sick. If you cast her out of the village now, you are practically sentencing her to death!”
Yunxi glanced at the village chief, whose face had turned incredibly dark, but she remained silent.
The surrounding villagers began to murmur aggressively, their gazes toward the village chief turning thick with suspicion and distrust.
“Sigh!” The village chief let out a heavy, weary sigh. He looked at the deathly pale Liu Baozhu lying unconscious on the bed, and then exchanged a grim, meaningful glance with Doctor Sun. The doctor gave a solemn nod.
After a long period of tense silence, the village chief turned to face the restless crowd, his expression grim. “Everyone, quiet down!”
Once the whispers faded, he spoke slowly, his voice echoing in the small room. “I have hidden the truth from you all for generations. Today, I will finally explain exactly why these children are forced to leave our village.”
He proceeded to deliver the exact same explanation he had given Yunxi days prior.
Since she had already heard the story about the “mountain god’s blessing,” Yunxi didn’t pay attention to his speech. Instead, she stepped closer to the bed, focusing her gaze entirely on the unconscious Liu Baozhu.
She quietly activated her Appraisal technique.
[Target Status]: Currently afflicted by a heavy sedative and a localized geographic curse. The target can only restore her vitality and recover her health by permanently leaving the cursed village.
Yunxi froze, her mind reeling.
A curse?!
The village chief had explicitly claimed that failing to hunt a field mouse resulted in a loss of the mountain god’s protection. He hadn’t said a single word about a literal curse!
And as for the sedative… Don’t tell me Aunt Liu is intentionally drugging her own daughter just to keep her from being exiled?
