After the Little One Escapes Famine, She Empties the City to Build It Up

[Adorable little one + refugee flight and exile + clearing out the whole family’s stores + farming and development + feel-good face-slapping + a fierce but kindhearted heroine] Jiang Suisui, a genius at an agricultural research institute in the apocalypse, opens her eyes to find herself a pitiful three-and-a-half-year-old farm girl in the midst of a devastating drought. Her own grandmother wants to sell her to an old widower as a good-luck bride. Her uncle wants to steal the medicine that could save her mother, and her aunt even wants to throw her little brother into the mountains in exchange for food. Jiang Suisui blinks. Well, would you look at that: a whole starter pack of terrible relatives from the start? The next moment, warmth spreads through her palm, and the “Space of Endless Growth” bound to her in her previous life comes with her. It can speed up the growth of crops, purify dirty water, copy farm tools, and even quietly clear out the storehouses of bad people. Sell her? In her baby voice, she presses her fingerprint onto the severance-of-relations agreement. “From today on, you’re not my relatives. You’re my poor, hated enemies.” Drought, locust plagues, epidemics, and warfare strike one after another. The whole village flees. While everyone else cries and wails along the way, Jiang Suisui’s family picks up strays, farms, digs canals, reclaims wasteland, and builds a city. When the rotten relatives come begging for food, emaciated with hunger, they see the little girl they once scorned sitting atop a mountain of grain, munching on candied hawthorns. Behind her lie thousands of acres of fertile fields, lights in every home, and armored cavalry guarding the city. Jiang Suisui tilts her head and smiles. “Want something to eat? Get in line first. You can earn your food with work, and no cutting!” Later, the realm falls into chaos, as warlords fight over cities, food, and people. Jiang Suisui climbs onto the city wall with a little wooden spade in her arms. “No fighting. We’re farming. Anyone who dares take my land, I’ll plant them in it.”