The next few days did get worse.

Her chickens were constantly being targeted. Twice she had woken up to find once again, the coop half-destroyed and feathers all over the crime scene. To counter this, Eunji had set up some high fences and built the chicken coop with brick—it had taken up an entire day but she was pleased with her work. She was sure that the assassinations of her chickens would cease.

Only it sort of didn't.

The next day when she counted them, another chicken had disappeared, but this time only the lock on her coop was broken, and there were no feathers or signs of a struggle, which convinced Eunji that she had two chicken thieves to look out for; one was the dog she had seen, and the other just a person who was sneaky and good at picking locks.

Eunji had a theory, that maybe the thief was the dog's owner—that would make so much sense! Like pet, like owner indeed.

Perhaps they were starving. Perhaps they were lost and homeless. Eunji would happily have given up some food to them if they had asked, but since they didn't, and they resorted to robbing instead—Eunji would not be so kind to those thieves if she ever saw them.

Sehun was no help in guarding her chickens. He seem aloof to everything that was happening, and didn't seem all that concerned that these thieves was driving his owner half crazy. And when she tried to explain that he was the defacto man of the house, and that it was his job to protect his family members (ie: the chickens), he just blankly stared at her, and then continued munching on his grapes without a care in the world.

To get to the coop, you have to past by the barn. Sehun had made no effort to subdue the thieves, and Eunji knew Hayoung was way too timid to try and be a guard pony.

Only her horse and pony in the barn was allowed to roam free, while her goat and bull was locked up—because Sehun and Baekhyun kept fighting and Chorong once chased Bomi around for hours, for no reason then just for the fun of it. Poor cat was so terrified that she had climbed up a tree and refused to come down. Eunji had kept the goat locked up ever since as punishment.

Even as Eunji grumbled at the lack of dependable animals on her farm; even so, she made sure to take extra care to prevent the thieves from getting to them. But now that wasn't her only concern, as now her crops...her precious crops that she had grown with sweat and tears (Her plants had died too many times to count. It was heartbreaking.) in the greenhouse had been disturbed too. It was probably that same damn chicken thief, Eunji thought vengefully, that broke into her greenhouse and stole her produce.

You might think, how did she notice a few tomatoes go missing? Well, it was probably because Eunji had an eye for these things...and also because the thief had preyed upon her watermelons as well, and now the floor of the greenhouse was littered with watermelon seeds and peels. Ants were crawling all over the place, drawn by the sticky juices of the fruit.

It had been more work for her, more stress and aggravation too.

At least Tao was left untouched after she dressed him and nailed him back to the post again. The thief had apparently stumbled upon her farm either or in rags, since he had found the need to steal clothing.

After installing a couple of traps (like trip wires), Eunji's job for the day—well, for the week actually, was to harvest her cornfield. Winter would arrive in less than a month, and she figured it wouldn't hurt to prepare early this year, especially since now she had to harvest the field all by herself, and that would certainly take quite awhile.

She took Baekhyun out and attached him with a cart, leading him around the field as she cut and collect the corn stalks until her muscles grew weary and her clothes and hair was sticking to her due to sweat. She nodded to herself in satisfaction when she saw that the cart was nearly b with the cornstalks. Her field wasn't so huge that she would need a machine to do the job, but it was still tiring work.

Tonight Eunji would have to stay up and cut the corn from the stalks, and the next morning she would have to go to the market and sell them, and then continue harvesting for the rest of the day. The cycle would continue until she cleared the field, and then she can finally move on to the crops in the greenhouse.

The money earned from the produce would be used to buy more rice and meat to preserve for the winter. It was the only thing that Eunji doesn't have on her farm; her family focused on plant