Discovering the Little Eight

She climbed up the ladder to the surface, took the wooden board out of her space to put it back in place, and casually covered it with yellow earth. Then, she restored the bedding and the kang cabinet to their original state. At least on the surface, nothing seemed to have changed. Satisfied, Hua Jinyin stepped into her space.

Hua Jinyin had entered the space twice before, but she only had time for a hurried glance before leaving. Entering again now, she was nearly stunned by the transformation. If it weren't for the over one hundred storage chests she had just brought in, still neatly stacked in a corner, she would have doubted if she had entered the wrong dimension.

The space, which was originally about one mu in size, had now expanded more than tenfold. Even the original yellow earth had turned into black soil, looking very suitable for farming at a glance. Suddenly remembering the space novels she had read in her past life and the requirements for upgrading them, Hua Jinyin's heart skipped a beat: Could it be that the items in her chests were used for the upgrade? Please, let it not be so! Those were her reliance for living a peaceful life for the rest of her days.

She hurriedly opened the large chests first. Seeing the large gold bars, dried fish, and jade pieces still intact, Hua Jinyin let out a long sigh of relief. It seemed her treasures hadn't been taken for the upgrade. Still uneasy, she checked all the chests once more. For now, there were no signs of anything being touched; in fact, the quality of the jade seemed even more translucent, and the gold shone significantly brighter.

It appeared the condition for upgrading the space was simply the requirement of placing items inside. These items wouldn't disappear after the upgrade; instead, their quality would improve. She just didn't know if the space had other functions she hadn't discovered yet.

As she was thinking, a screen very similar to a vending machine suddenly appeared before her, startling Hua Jinyin. She regained her composure and looked closely, seeing six large squares on the screen divided into two rows of three. The three squares on the left had a small "Sell" label, and the three on the right had a small "Buy" label. Behind each row of squares was a button labeled "Confirm."

However, at this moment, the squares and buttons were all grey. No matter how she touched them, there was no change. Could it be that she needed to place the items she wanted to sell in the square under "Sell," and the items appearing in the right square were what she needed to buy? She certainly wouldn't sell the items in her chests, so the only thing in the space she could take out to sell was her matured soybean sprouts.

After a day of accelerated growth, her ability had increased several times over. Now, the soybean sprouts in the space were a large bundle. Without hesitation, she lifted the bundle and placed it in the first square on the left. The sprouts vanished from her hand the moment they touched the screen, appearing on the display in the next second. Simultaneously, the square containing the soybeans lit up, and a caption appeared below: Mature Soybeans (Unshelled).

Hua Jinyin stared intently at the screen for a long time. Aside from the soybean square she had just filled, the screen remained unchanged. She didn't know if she needed to wait for someone else to be willing to trade with her. Unsure of the situation on the other side, Hua Jinyin didn't want to just wait, so she exited the space directly.

She had spent the last two days only sprouting soybeans and wanted to see if her wood-element ability could be used elsewhere. There was a pear tree in the yard with a dilapidated swing hanging from it. In the original owner's childhood, her parents would push her on the swing together, a happy family of three that others envied. Who could have guessed that after Hua Jianshe's sacrifice, the original owner's biological mother would gather all the family's assets and run away with another man?

She placed her hand on the tree trunk, slowly channeling spiritual energy, attempting to communicate with the great tree. The first and second attempts failed, but Hua Jinyin didn't lose heart. It wasn't until the fifth try that a "Boom" sounded in her head, as if a wondrous new world had opened up.

In that moment, without needing to open her eyes, she could sense everything around her. Magpies perched on the branches, insects hid under the bark, and a snake hibernated in a burrow beneath the roots... Within the range of the large pear tree, everything was so clear it was as if she were personally present there.

Following the flourishing roots of the pear tree as they extended, about five meters away and nearly ten meters underground, she discovered a small basement hidden there, slightly smaller than the one in her own house. Inside were stacked over a dozen large chests. On two of the stacked chests, wine and food were laid out, and three men were gathered around, eating and drinking heartily, gesturing wildly as they spoke.

In a corner, a man beaten until he was covered in wounds was tied up like a zongzi and thrown there. If his fingers hadn't occasionally twitched from the pain, Hua Jinyin would have doubted if he was still alive.

What kind of world-shaking secret had she just discovered? Hua Jinyin felt lucky that the basement was dug deep and didn't connect to her own, while she increased her ability's output, wanting to hear what those men were saying and if they were plotting some counter-revolutionary activity.

Suddenly, her head went numb as her ability was depleted. Hua Jinyin's face instantly turned pale, and cold sweat drenched her entire body. Since gaining the ability, this was the first time she had used it to the point of exhaustion; even her meridians felt a faint, stinging pain.

Just before the connection was abruptly severed, Hua Jinyin seemed to hear the phrase "Yaxi" amidst the somewhat despicable laughter of those men. Snapping her eyes open, Hua Jinyin clenched her fists.

As an outstanding child of Huaxia who had received a patriotic education from a young age and considered herself to have a clean background, she—whether in her past life or this one—had no good impression of those called "Little Eights." Especially in such a sensitive period, to hear "Yaxi" spoken on Huaxia soil meant they were either spies or traitors. Regardless of which, Hua Jinyin could not ignore it.

Thinking of the man beaten to the point of death in the corner, Hua Jinyin instinctively felt he must be a comrade. Since she had discovered it, how could she not save him? But what could a weak woman like her do? Report it? In this foreign place, who could guarantee the person she found wasn't one of their accomplices? Save him alone? Wouldn't that be like throwing a meat bun at a dog—gone with no return?

Hua Jinyin only hated that her ability was too weak; otherwise, she would have used it to bind each of those "Little Eights," forcing them to reveal their hidden plots on Huaxia soil, without needing to struggle here. A flash of inspiration struck her: she wondered if she could bring people other than herself into the space.

This time, having exhausted her ability, it took Hua Jinyin over an hour to recover seventy to eighty percent. Her heart was burning with anxiety, but she also felt that her ability was much stronger than before after recovering. Her current seventy to eighty percent was stronger than her previous full strength.

She channeled her ability into the tree trunk again, following the roots into that underground basement. Inside, of the three men drinking earlier, only one remained. Perhaps due to drinking too much, he was currently leaning against a chest, snoring loudly.