Chapter 1

Chapter 1

In Daba Village, inside the Feng family’s earthen house, a dying girl lay on a wooden plank bed. Suddenly, her body stiffened, then went limp, twitched twice, and she fainted.

Half an hour later, the frail girl abruptly opened her eyes. Her pupils were pitch-black, sending chills down anyone’s spine. Her gaze was cold and mechanical, not human—like a wolf.

Only Feng Xia herself knew: she had returned.

To be precise, her heavenly soul and human soul had come back.

Humans have three souls and seven spirits. The three souls are the heavenly, earthly, and human souls. The heavenly soul governs consciousness; if flawed, a person becomes dazed. The earthly soul governs good, evil, shame, and honor; if flawed, a person goes mad, their nerves scatter, and they lose all sense of shame. The human soul governs thought and promotes reasoning.

By a twist of fate, Feng Xia’s heavenly and earthly souls had been swallowed by a time rift, sent 3,000 years into the future to the Doomsday Era. There, they entered a radiation-mutated, broken body and lived for forty years.

With only her heavenly and human souls, Feng Xia had no sense of ethics, morality, good, evil, or right and wrong. She awakened the most common superpower—superhuman strength. But she pushed it to its limits, eventually becoming a top-tier superpowered individual, with the strength of thirty oxen. Here, an ox referred to the war oxen of the apocalypse, each weighing 500 jin. Thirty oxen’s strength equaled 15,000 jin (7.5 tons). She had pushed her power to the extreme, causing every piece of flesh and every bone to undergo a qualitative change, capable of bearing 7.5 tons of force—stronger than steel. This strength could also be converted into speed. One could imagine what kind of beast she was.

In the apocalypse, Feng Xia had no shame and risked her life without hesitation. Simply put, if she was unhappy, she fought. Her one absolute rule: never, ever touch her food. Once, someone didn’t believe it and stole her steamed bun. That person wasn’t low-ranking—he was the brother-in-law of the base commander. Feng Xia didn’t give a damn about such rules. Her only thought was to fill her stomach; her only boundary was food. To the world, she was a complete madwoman.

She caught that man and crushed every one of his 207 bones, one by one, while eating the stolen bun. Yes, she was a madwoman, hehe.

Later, Feng Xia stumbled upon a book and found it very interesting: instead of draining yourself mentally, go mad and drain others. So, this madwoman grew even crazier. Among the apocalypse’s superpowered individuals, she was the only one who always acted alone. Until the last natural fruit tree mutated in the apocalypse, leaving no more fruit to eat, Feng Xia self-destructed, taking the zombie king out with her.

He wouldn’t let her eat well, so he didn’t deserve to live. Yes, that’s how mad she was.

Forty years passed in a flash. Feng Xia felt no nostalgia. As her three souls merged, memories of the past ten years surfaced in her mind. She didn’t focus on the abuse and beatings she had suffered but instead zeroed in on the food in those memories.

White steamed buns, fragrant chicken, sweet pastries—Feng Xia’s eyes lit up just thinking about them. In her past life, the best she’d eaten was moldy buns and sour canned food. There was no helping it; Feng Xia’s stomach was like a bottomless pit. If allowed to eat freely, she could drain an entire base’s food supply in a day. The base could only make do with waste, feeding her scraps to fill her belly. Luckily, she wasn’t picky, which meant that despite eating so much, she had never truly tasted anything delicious.

Today, one of Feng Xia’s distant uncles was getting married. Most of the village had gone to his house for the wedding feast. It was in the neighboring village, an hour’s round trip, but they had only given three cents as a gift. The Feng family wasn’t about to take a loss. Feng Xia’s grandfather, Feng Shizhu, decided that the whole family—except Feng Xia—would go to the distant relative’s feast. They took a day off from work to eat their fill, which was far more worthwhile than working.

Except for Feng Xia. Someone had to feed the chickens, ducks, geese, and pigs at home, so she was naturally left behind to tend the livestock.

The little girl wore patched clothes, a large, purple-black bruise on her forehead from being pushed down a mountain, and shoes with two toes poking out. Feng Xia didn’t care about any of that. Her messy, yellowed hair hung unevenly as she fixed her gaze on the two old hens outside.

The hens, locked onto by a top-tier predator, didn’t dare cluck. One even collapsed to the ground. Feng Xia walked over and picked it up—it weighed over four jin. She drooled. The water boiling in the pot was originally meant for pig slop, but now it came in handy. With a swift chop, she severed the chicken’s head, catching the blood in a porcelain bowl without wasting a drop. She set the bowl on the table, planning to drink the blood after eating the meat.

After plucking the feathers, she put the chicken in the pot to boil. Free-range chicken raised on the farm had tender, flavorful meat. The soup turned golden. Feng Xia couldn’t be bothered to ladle it out; she sat on the stove and started eating, swallowing bones and all. She ate like a starving ghost, her cheeks stuffed round, her neck swelling slightly, her eyes bulging—she nearly choked. Then she downed a bowl of soup to clear her throat and kept stuffing herself.

At the wedding feast in Changshui Village, the Feng family, young and old, all showed up, having given only three cents as a gift. The distant uncle rolled his eyes in exasperation. Feng Shizhu (Feng Xia’s grandfather) shamelessly grabbed the seat of honor to mooch some drinks. Feng Aihua (Feng Xia’s eldest uncle) and Feng Aiguo (Feng Xia’s father) also sat down to eat heartily, polishing off plate after plate until their bellies were round. Zhang Ling (Feng Xia’s eldest aunt) and Li Meihua (Feng Xia’s mother) ate quickly too, shoveling food into their kids’ bowls. Back then, as long as you could eat your fill, who cared what others thought? Everyone was more or less the same, though the Fengs were especially shameless.

But his family had always been unruly. The uncle could only smile while cursing under his breath. Others resolved never to invite this family to a feast again. Tablemates sped up their eating, locked in a fierce battle with the Fengs.

Back home, Feng Xia kept gorging herself. Bowl after bowl of chicken soup and meat went down. The bruise on her forehead visibly shrank as energy flowed through her body. Though she had retained her superpower, she had to start cultivating from scratch. After the food passed through her stomach, her energy was restored to about one-fifth.

She finished the entire pot of chicken, soup and all, even using the steamed buns from the cupboard to wipe the pot clean. Yet only one-fifth of her ox-strength was restored. Her dark eyes gleamed as she set her sights on the cabinet locked by Old Lady Feng. She leaned in and caught a faint sweet scent. The girl’s skin was sallow, but her eyes shone brightly. Her superpower surged, focusing immense strength in her hands. Her bony, withered wrists suddenly felt like steel and iron. With a crack, the copper lock didn’t break, but the two wooden cabinet doors collapsed, crashing to the floor. Inside, neatly stacked pastries and dried fruits lay, so fragrant and sweet.

Her claw-like, dark, thin hand grabbed a large piece of cloud cake and shoved it into her mouth, ignoring how the dry pastry nearly tore up her throat. She scooped a ladle of water from the bucket and washed it down. Sugar restored energy fastest, and the same applied to her superpower. After finishing the entire cabinet of pastries, she even licked up the crumbs. Satisfied, Feng Xia gulped down another ladle of water. Her ox-strength was now about two-fifths full, meaning she could exert about two hundred jin of force.

Full and content, with some energy recovered, the skinny child squinted in satisfaction and lazily lay down in the straw pile under the eaves. It was March, neither hot nor cold—perfect for sleeping.

Old Lady Feng returned home with her daughters-in-law, granddaughters, and grandsons. The old man and her two sons had gone to work. It was just past noon; going to the fields could still earn a few work points. Li Meihua and Zhang Ling each brought their children. Feng Chun (Feng Xia’s older sister), Feng Jingui, and Feng Jinlian (Feng Xia’s cousins) had gone up the mountain to gather firewood. Only Feng Jinbao (Feng Xia’s nephew), Feng Qiu, and Feng Chengzong (Feng Xia’s younger brother) were left.

As soon as she entered, Old Lady Feng smelled something off—a fishy scent. Looking toward the kitchen door, she saw a pile of wet chicken feathers on the ground. Of the two hens that usually pecked around the yard, only one remained, cowering in the woodpile with its head drooping.

Fury erupted. Old Lady Feng planted her hands on her hips and began to wail: “You damn jinx, you little wretch! You killed and ate my hen! You’re gonna pay for this! Feng Xia, Feng Xia, you starving little brat, get the hell out here!”

Beside her, Feng Xia’s mother, Li Meihua, didn’t dare make a sound. She grabbed Feng Qiu and Feng Chengzong and slipped into her room. Glancing around and seeing Feng Xia wasn’t there, she shut the door tightly, as if planning to stay inside.

Zhang Ling also hid with her son, Feng Jinbao, watching the commotion. Feng Xia was from the second branch, not hers—why should she care? Old Lady Feng’s voice went hoarse from cursing, but Feng Xia still didn’t appear. Seeing the pile of feathers, her heart ached. She went inside, grabbed a teacup, took a sip of water, and continued her tirade in the yard.

When Feng Xia woke up from her nap, Old Lady Feng had been cursing for over an hour. The pigs in the sty were squealing with hunger. Old Lady Feng ordered Zhang Ling to cook pig feed. As soon as Zhang Ling entered the kitchen and saw the empty cabinet and broken doors, she called for Old Lady Feng. The old woman came in, took one look, and nearly fainted from rage. That damned ingrate! Not a single piece of those precious pastries remained, and even the bag of white sugar had been mixed with water and drunk dry.

This was too much. Old Lady Feng went berserk, pounding on the second branch’s door. Li Meihua didn’t dare open it, cowering inside like a quail. The two little ones were so scared they cried. Old Lady Feng yelled through the door: “You raised an ingrate! She eats everything in sight and killed my hen! Hand her over! Let that damned wretch out! Rotten, festering thing—pah!”

The door didn’t open, but the straw pile stirred. Zhang Ling, hiding behind the kitchen door, saw everything clearly. A skinny girl, less than 1.2 meters tall, covered in straw, stood up boldly and smiled eerily at Old Lady Feng.

Her small face was sallow and gaunt, her clothes tattered. Only her eyes were startlingly bright, pitch-black, with a faint smile. Her sharp little canine teeth gleamed. She seemed to notice Zhang Ling and turned to look at her, making her shiver. Then Old Lady Feng raised a wrist-thick piece of firewood and swung it at Feng Xia.

The old woman, accustomed to hard labor and eating the best among the Fengs, was stout despite her wrinkled, sallow skin. Her arm strength was immense, rivaling younger folks. Old Lady Feng, named Zhao Yuee, had given the Fengs three sons, and after they grew up, she hadn’t suffered such humiliation. Now, she truly wanted to beat this girl to death. This bitch dared to eat her chicken.

Three steps, two steps, one. Before she reached her, the stick came first. Feng Xia bent nimbly, dodging the blow. Then her superpower surged, concentrating in her right foot. In an instant, she kicked out with two hundred jin of force. How could a fifty-year-old woman withstand that? She felt a sharp pain in her left leg, her knee buckled, and she fell to the ground, clutching her calf and whimpering in pain.

Zhang Ling’s eyes widened in shock. She didn’t expect this turn of events. The water ladle in her hand clattered to the floor. Then she heard the eerie little girl speak, her voice no longer mumbled but crisp and clear. Smiling, Feng Xia said to the sprawled old woman: “Old Lady Feng, I accept your bow.”

With a laugh, she walked out the door.

Old Lady Feng had never suffered such a blow. Zhang Ling hurried to help her, barely managing to get her onto a stool. Zhao Yuee told her to go to the fields and call the men back. This girl was about to turn the world upside down. Zhang Ling nodded repeatedly, then went to tell Li Meihua to open the door. Li Meihua, hearing the commotion outside had calmed, opened the door tremblingly. Seeing the old woman on the stool, wailing, her jaw nearly dropped.

Zhang Ling told her to call the men. Her daughter, Feng Xia, had beaten Old Lady Feng. Li Meihua stumbled out in a daze. Her ten-year-old, less-than-1.2-meter-tall girl had beaten Old Lady Feng? Who would believe that? But Zhang Ling’s certain expression left no room for doubt. She ran unsteadily to the fields and said Old Lady Feng had been beaten. By whom, she didn’t say. The three men immediately dropped their hoes and headed home. Halfway there, Li Meihua stammered: “Mom said... it was Feng Xia who broke her leg.”

Hearing this, even Old Master Feng wanted to pry open Li Meihua’s head to see if it was filled with water.

But they were already at the doorstep, so they might as well go in. Inside, Old Lady Feng was still wailing. Seeing Feng Shizhu, she cried miserably: “That damned ingrate! She hit me, her old grandmother! And ate my hen! That heartless bitch! My leg—she kicked it and broke it!”

The old woman did look bad, cold sweat streaming down her sallow face. Old Man Feng and Feng Aihua found a board to carry her to the health station to check if her leg was broken. As for Feng Aiguo, his face dark, he picked up the firewood his mother had dropped and stormed out without a word to find that girl. When he did, he would break her leg.