QTIMP -Chapter 4 Character Persona – Greedy (Part 4)

When it came to cooking for herself, she fell a little short. To others, it wasn’t inedible, but in this world, her character trait was gluttony.

She craved all kinds of delicious food, couldn’t stomach coarse grains that made her throat rough, and absolutely hated meals without any fat or oil. If she had to eat like that for two or three days, she would get irritable and agitated.

It was an uncontrollable emotion. In her previous life, her character was defined by jealousy—jealous of those with higher cultivation talent, jealous of people stronger than her, jealous of others with higher-level robes, jealous of anyone more beautiful than she was.

Her master always said she had a poor temperament and wasn’t cut out to be a doctor.

But who knew the struggles in her heart? She had truly exerted all her willpower just to prevent jealousy from controlling her and to carry out actions that contradicted the 20 years of education she had received.

This was also why she had never been able to establish a foundation in cultivation. She actually felt a bit regretful. The system had only provided the minimum guarantees based on the environment she lived in at the time.

In the cultivation world, she would get one Pigu Pill daily, a low-grade spirit stone every three days, and monthly rewards of various spiritual items—herbs, ore, spiritual fruits, and so on.

Every year, there were also high-grade spirit stones and magical artifacts of various levels. Her system space wasn’t small, and she had collected a lot of things.

Who could have predicted that, after this transmigration, everything she had collected would disappear? All that remained in her space were the system rewards—this was why she felt so precious every time she used them.

She placed today’s system rewards—1 jin of rice, 1 jin of cucumbers, two eggs, and 1 jin of meat—into the rice bag and baskets. She planned to boil the eggs tomorrow.

Looking at the nearly 200 jin of rice, over 100 jin of flour, more than 500 jin of cornmeal, over 500 jin of sorghum, various beans like soybeans and green beans, and sixteen baskets of fruit (though not full, as each type was separated), along with various eggs…

All kinds of seasonings were complete, in varying amounts. The most abundant were vegetables, followed by assorted meats. She ate a lot of pork, so there wasn’t much left; beef, lamb, and fish were more plentiful.

The main reason for this abundance was that these items were fragrant and scarce, so people were always curious about their source. Perhaps it matched her character trait, so this lifetime’s rewards were especially complete.

On another shelf were clothes, shoes, hats, gloves, bolts of fabric, and yarn. Another shelf held household items.

Most of these had come from weekly and monthly reward packages.

Another section held gold, silver, and delicate items—gold, jewels, and jewelry awarded over the years, along with items from the cultivation world she hadn’t used.

These items were too precious to look at—every glance brought a pang of guilt. At first, in the cultivation world, she hadn’t even realized that she couldn’t bring these collected items along.

So, over the hundreds of years in the cultivation world, she had consumed much of the space rewards and left little behind. Compared to this world, those items were far too precious, and she couldn’t bear to use them.

After all, spiritual energy in this world was scarce. Finding such items again would be nearly impossible. Even though she had cultivated for years, she hadn’t yet reached the beginner level.

Still, she had picked up some external skills, and her body was far stronger than an ordinary person’s.

Now, most of the items in her space were rewards collected over the past eight or nine years since her transmigration, arranged on several shelves—essentially like a small supermarket.

Opening this month’s reward package, she found it was all sweets: 5 jin of brown sugar, 5 jin of white sugar, 5 jin of fruit candy, 5 jin of Cuban sugar, and 5 jin of White Rabbit milk candy.

There were also five bolts of cotton cloth in various colors and two bolts of red-and-blue double-color silk.

She was slightly disappointed. Sugar was valuable, but she wanted fruit or cooked food.

After all, she couldn’t stomach her own cooking.

Si Qiu pushed open the window. She had partitioned the room with a two-sided cabinet—one side as a bedroom, the other as a living room and dining area, occasionally doubling as a kitchen.

The window was pushed open, and the smell of the steamed buns gradually drifted outside. Sunlight poured in, making the dust particles rise and fall with the light.

Si Qiu first went to the bedroom to change her clothes, then took a basin to the communal washroom to rinse the clothes she had taken off.

It was the busy time when everyone was off work, and both the washroom and the toilet were crowded. But whenever people saw Si Qiu, they would greet her and squeeze together to give her access to a tap.

“Qiu Qiu, girl, are you doing laundry? Have you eaten?”

“Yes, Auntie, I just finished. I’m alone, and it’s hot now—buns aren’t hard—so I can just nibble a bit.”

Water flowed into the basin, and she took out the smelly pancreas to start rinsing it.

Over at the Feng family, things weren’t going well. Although Feng Yu had run off first, Feng Rong was riding a bicycle and quickly caught up.

“Get on!”

Hearing the bicycle bell, Feng Yu’s crying sounded even more pitiful. She had thought that her second brother would feel sorry for her and comfort her.

But instead, there was only that cold, brief command. She knew she had miscalculated, didn’t dare to argue, and quietly hopped onto the back seat of the bicycle.

The bicycle was kicked off with a push, and its speed was much faster than before.

The Fengs lived in the west wing of a large shared courtyard. Two rooms of nearly 60 square meters had been subdivided, leaving the family reasonably comfortable.

Especially Feng Yu, who had her own small room.

As soon as they entered the courtyard, everyone greeted them.

“Oh! The Feng boy’s back! Weren’t you supposed to bring your little sister back for dinner? Why didn’t she come with you?”

The Feng family’s affairs were no secret. In fact, many people were curious to see what was happening. So when Liu Big Mouth, well-known in the courtyard, asked this, everyone paid attention.

A group of people, consciously or not, held bowls, spatulas, or even vegetables in their hands and peeked out to see.

“I heard that kid’s doing well—she got his graduation certificate early and went to work at the Beitiao Street neighborhood committee.”

Feng Rong, a 20-year-old young man concerned with appearances, felt embarrassed and flushed red, realizing he had been in the wrong. He hurriedly pushed the bicycle inside.

“Auntie Liu, Auntie Zhao, my mom is waiting for the two of us! We won’t hold up your meal—we’ll go first.”

He spoke quickly, his pace hastening, and finally they made it safely back home.

They were met by their mother, who came out to greet them. “Second son, why are you back so late? I’ve had the meal ready for a while now—luckily it’s warm, or it would’ve gotten cold. By the way, where’s your sister? Why didn’t she come back with you two?”

As she spoke, she looked outside. Not seeing anyone, her joy at her eldest son’s return faded significantly.

Feng Rong felt frustrated and spoke sharply. “How could I bring her? You know the bike can’t fit that many people!”

No sooner had he finished speaking than he felt a tap on the back of his head, followed by a steady voice: “Second son, you’re doing better and better, but how do you speak to Mom like that?”

Since their eldest brother had gone to the army, this was the first time Feng Rong had seen him return. Growing up as twins had made them especially close, so when his older brother said that, Feng Rong immediately realized his attitude had been wrong.

But he only muttered, “Sorry, Mom, I spoke improperly.”