Recently, after dinner, Qiao Mei would go to Auntie Dong’s house for a chat or follow Auntie Wang to the area under the tree at the village entrance to chat with the other women. After many experiments, she realized that she could indeed hide her sense of presence.
When she ran into Auntie Zhou on the way, Auntie Zhou seemed not to see her and she had to shout twice to get attention. She tested it a few times before confirming that it was effective and felt relieved.
Qiao Mei was playing with a watermelon seed in her courtyard when she suddenly realized that a sharp point had sprouted from the watermelon seed. Qiao Mei looked at the seed in her hand in surprise. She only knew that she could speed up the growth of seeds in the soil, but she did not expect that she was able to directly cause the seed to germinate and grow.
Qiao Mei went to the mountain behind her house and found some vine seeds. After some energy exchange, the vine seeds sprouted in Qiao Mei’s hands and grew larger. She could shape them and wave them around at will.
“It’s so magical!” Qiao Mei exclaimed.
The small vines could be made into all kinds of shapes in Qiao Mei’s hands, but she was not so proficient in it and it all felt very unfamiliar. She tried again and again, learning to communicate with the seeds and accurately controlling how much energy to be given. Then, Qiao Mei could turn the vine into a thick whip which freely followed her commands.
Qiao Mei was amazed by the ability of the pendant, but she also began to think about how many other functions there were that she did not know about. After repeated experiments, she realized that the vine whip could only be used once. After one use, she would have to use a new seed. This was probably the only drawback.
“I’m a person with magic now, hahaha.” Qiao Mei laughed and looked at the vine in her hand.
When Qiao Mei got home, she started experimenting with shaping the growth of the vines. After all, a small vine was useless and she needed many more vines.
During her free time, Qiao Mei would stay at home and sew clothes. She had not finished making the clothes and school bags that she promised the children the last time. In one day, Qiao Mei made four simple school bags. To put it bluntly, she just sewed up the opening of a cloth bag and attached a long rope and called it a school bag.
She sewed the children’s names on each of the bags. “Wei, Chao, Qin, Miao”, the words looked quite presentable. She did not buy a lot of fabric, so she made a dark blue top for each of the children. She then embroidered flowers on the girls’ clothes, and images of big trees on the boys’ clothes.
After Qiao Mei was done, she brought the things to Li Gui’s house. Given that she currently had the ability to hide her breath, Qiao Mei was afraid of scaring Li Gui and started shouting out from afar.
“Mom! Are you home!” Qiao Mei yelled.
“Aye! Mei Mei! What happened?” Li Gui ran out to welcome Qiao Mei.
“Are the children at home?” Qiao Mei looked at the empty courtyard. It did not seem like they were at home. If they were, Zhang Miao would have rushed out upon hearing Qiao Mei’s voice and called out to her elder sister with her baby voice.
“Oh them. They went to the village entrance to play with the other children. Looking at the time, they should be back soon,” Li Gui said as she looked at the sun.
In the past, people could not afford clocks and watches. They would go out at sunrise and return to rest at sunset, they ate and slept in accordance with the colors of the sky.
“Then I’ll wait for a while. I brought them gifts,” Qiao Mei said with a smile.
“They’re still so young and yet they have gifts. You’re spoiling them too much,” Li Gui said.
“It’s fine. The children are obedient anyway.” Qiao Mei crossed her legs and lay on the recliner to bask in the sun.
Qiao Mei had asked Uncle Chen from the village, who knew how to do carpentry work, to make the recliner. It was very leisurely to sit in it and rocked away. She had two recliners made, one was at her house and she left the other one with Li Gui so that they could use it if they wanted to lie in the sun.
Not long after, the sound of children playing around traveled into the courtyard. As soon as they entered the house, they saw Qiao Mei sleeping in the sun on the recliner. The children were energetic a while ago, but now they were like kittens, afraid that they would wake Qiao Mei up.
Actually, Qiao Mei was not sleeping at all. She just wanted to give the children a little scare and add more fun in life. Qiao Mei pretended to breathe steadily as she lay on the recliner.