Summoning Charm

She really couldn't think of a way to make money right now. These days, there wasn't even any trash in the countryside that she could pick up and sell.

If she sold things in town, her family would know by tomorrow, and where would she get the money to buy stock?

The most valuable thing she had right now was magic, but she couldn't bring herself to use it to cheat, steal, or rob.

Picking up peanuts was a last resort.

The peanuts left in the fields after the vines had been gathered were considered unwanted, and anyone could come and pick them up.

Lin Er, however, had a cheat: she could use magic.

The Summoning Charm.

She didn't know how far her magic could reach, but like her previous spells, it followed her will. She wasn't asking for much: she wanted all the peanuts in sight to fly to her.

The sight would be a little unscientific, and she couldn't let anyone see it, so she had deliberately come out just after lunch, when the sun was at its fiercest.

Even the most hardworking people would take a short break at this time.

It was simply too hot. Even if they didn't rest, they would stay at home or under a tree to pick peanuts off the vines, not come out to the fields.

She found a steep bank, sat down in its shade, and only drew her wand after making sure there was no one in sight.

"Accio peanuts!"

After a patter like rain hitting the ground, Lin Er closed her schoolbag and hefted it, her eyes a little unfocused.

It hardly weighed anything, but she had seen it with her own eyes: at least a whole sack of peanuts had just flown over!

Other people had always managed to gather a basket or two. She had even darkly suspected that they had secretly picked peanuts from other people's ungathered vines, because she herself struggled to fill even half a basket.

But then she thought of the peanut sprouts that grew in the fields after it rained, and it no longer seemed so strange that there were this many.

Lin Er grabbed some peanuts and put them in her basket, her eyes lighting up as she looked at the peanut fields in the other directions.

But she didn't plan to take the risk right now. Having confirmed that her method worked, she carried the basket home to do her homework.

Making money was important, but she couldn't slack off on her studies either. She would be delighted if she could replace her junior college diploma, which was like a criminal record, with a bachelor's degree.

At lunch, Lin Er sent her pen pal a serving of fish soup and tofu.

She had heard that people from other places weren't used to eating little fish, so he could have the soup and tofu instead. She had kept watch by the stove and filled the container while her grandma was away.

That evening, she sent him a bowl of noodles. There was no shortage of bowls at home, so she didn't waste a spell. At the same time, she discussed borrowing his magic a few more times that day.

They had talked about this at school. She didn't necessarily need to borrow magic every day while she was there, but she had never missed sending him at least one meal a day.

So when she said she might use it a few extra times today, he didn't refuse.

That night, Lin Er used going to her younger female cousin's house to watch TV as an excuse. Grandma Lin had already taken her bowl over to Second Grandma's house to chat.

When it got dark in the countryside, it was so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, especially on a moonless night.

But none of that posed a problem for Lin Er. Once she was out the door, she only had to fly a meter or two up, and the way was clear.

After crossing the river, she cast Lumos to light the way ahead.

Pheasants took off from the fields with a flutter, while owls and other birds gave startled cries.

The broom landed on a hillside where the ancestors of five or six nearby villages were buried.

Lin Er walked to the edge of her family's field, took a deep breath, and opened her schoolbag.

What's there to be afraid of? Don't be scared. My own ancestors are here too!

"Accio peanuts!"

Whoosh!

A rain of peanuts came down with even more commotion than it had during the day, finally flying into the schoolbag under the control of her magic. Lin Er's schoolbag held at least a dozen cubic meters, and the amount from the daytime was nothing compared to this. She reckoned there were at least three or four sacks.

At the sight, Lin Er felt a restless urge.

She still had one spell left today, plus the extra uses her pen pal was willing to give her. She could gather all the peanuts left behind in the surrounding villages.

Her wand took flight, but the faint lights of the village made her pause in midair. No, she had confirmed that her village's peanuts had all been harvested, but if she went to another village in the dark, someone might have piled their peanuts in a field to pick them off the vines.

With one spell, she would end up "stealing" all the peanuts someone had spent a year growing.

At that thought, Lin Er stopped. After considering it, she turned around and headed back to the village's paddy fields.

With one "Accio rice," a rustling rain of rice grains came rushing at her. It looked like a lot, but by the time it reached her, it filled only a small bag. A tiny corner of her schoolbag was enough to hold it.

There were no harvesting machines yet, and harvesting by hand resulted in almost no loss. Not many grains would fall, and any whole heads would be picked up. Even this much surprised her.

She had originally planned to go home. Peanuts and rice were the only crops in season, and it wasn't time for her to pick up discarded cotton yet.

As she passed Second Grandma's house, she suddenly remembered that crops weren't the only valuable things in the fields that she could summon.

As a child, she and the other village children had often found copper coins and other little trinkets in the fields.

She hadn't known any better then. She had given all the copper coins to Uncle Bingbing at Second Grandma's house to string into pendants, and she didn't know where the other little trinkets had ended up.

Thinking of this, Lin Er flew over the fields. After confirming her range, she cast another spell: "Accio copper coins."

Because she hadn't been sure what would happen this time, she hadn't opened her bag in time, and the copper coins rained down on her head.

Some still had dirt on them, while others looked very new. Judging by where the latter had been, they didn't seem to have come from the soil.

Lin Er took a scrap of cloth from her backpack that she had planned to throw away somewhere far off on her way to school. Wrapping it around her hand, she picked up every coin, filling the cloth bundle.

She suddenly felt that she still hadn't packed enough bags in her backpack.

After packing away the copper coins, she used the Summoning Charm twice more, then returned home in a daze.

"Where did that broom come from? Why are you back so late? Come wash up!"

Grandma Lin glanced at the broom in her hand, which she had forgotten to put away in her daze. It clearly wasn't the kind used to sweep floors; it was more like the ones bundled together at New Year to sweep dust and cobwebs off the roof. She took it for a child's plaything.

Lin Er tightened her grip on the broom. Eventually, while her family wasn't paying attention, she put it in her backpack.

By Sunday, she had nearly finished her homework. Her grandma had seen that she could cook reasonably well and had already let her take over the cooking. She was going back to school for evening self-study that afternoon, so it wasn't strange for her to stir-fry extra dishes to take with her.

Lin Er had only just realized that while cooked food was hard to come by, there was plenty of raw food.

In their village, almost every household had vegetables to spare, especially cucumbers. They all came in at once, and sometimes after a rain, they had to be gathered in buckets.

There was no way the family could eat them all, so many were chopped up and fed to the chickens.

Lin Er sent her pen pal five cucumbers and three tomatoes. The other vegetables weren't good to eat raw, so she packed them in her schoolbag. In any case, she had picked quite a lot from the vegetable garden.

She could already imagine what her grandma might stand on the pond embankment and curse about in a couple of days, when the family ran out of vegetables and she went to pick more.

There was also a small chance that her grandma would misjudge how much the garden had produced and fail to notice how much she had picked.

As before, she had two apples for the week, along with two bottles of stir-fried pickled greens and ten bottles of well water.

This time she had an old schoolbag, so carrying extra water wouldn't weigh her down. She had considered just buying water to drink, since it was only fifty cents a bottle, but after looking at the fifty yuan she had for living expenses, she filled another five bottles.

She couldn't afford it, she really couldn't. Well water tasted pretty good too. There were no farms on the mountain behind the village yet, and the village wells all had sweet water that tasted quite good.