(ps: 【An alternate-history seventies】, and it is a transmigration into a novel, so there are discrepancies with reality. Please don’t compare them.)
That dainty little look, as if the next second little pearls would fall from her eyes.
The fourth brother’s heart clenched hard. That was right, how could he suspect his little sister?
Little sister had a twisted ankle and a cold and went up the mountain in the dead of night to dig wild greens and catch grass carp for them, and he, as her brother, couldn’t help in the slightest and even suspected her. He deserved a beating!
Looking at that pitiful little face, his heart was about to be crushed. “I’m sorry, little sister, it’s my fault. Don’t be upset. Your brother doesn’t suspect you, and won’t suspect you in the future either…”
Although he couldn’t explain how little sister had suddenly learned to weave grass cord, and learned to catch and string fish too.
Never mind, none of that was important…
The most urgent thing now was to coax his little sister into a good mood.
The fourth brother coaxed her at length, apologizing and pouring her wash water, and finally got his sister cheerful again.
“Little sister, you wash up first, I’ll go out and help.”
Shen Jiaqi nodded, and once he had turned away she quietly let out a breath.
That was close!
She’d nearly been exposed.
With the fourth brother’s cleverness, he’d spotted at a glance that there was something wrong with that grass cord.
If she hadn’t had a flash of wit in the crisis and played pitiful to muddle through, the fourth brother would probably have seen right through her.
In the dead of night, a lone man and woman pushing through the woods on the back mountain, if that got out, what would be left of her, Shen Jiaqi’s, reputation?
Fortunately, shrewd as the fourth brother was, he had one fatal weakness, he doted on his sister!
“Sorry, fourth brother…” Shen Jiaqi put her palms together and apologized silently to his back.
“Ding! The system has detected the host’s favorability +70.”
Seventy!
One second Shen Jiaqi had been upset about deceiving her fourth brother, and the next she was jumping up with joy.
Seventy, that much, this must be… the Shen family’s favorability toward her!
She didn’t expect that one fish and a basket of wild ginger and wild greens could make her family happy and, along with it, raise her favorability by so much.
This double-layered happiness was simply too wonderful!
In a fine mood, Shen Jiaqi hummed “Tian Mi Mi” softly to herself as she finished a simple wash.
In the seventies there was no face wash, no toner or lotion or cream.
Even with just clear water splashed on and a towel wiped over it, her skin was as tender as a peeled egg.
Shen Jiaqi propped up a red vanity mirror with a lace edge and looked at the face in it, exactly the same as in her previous life.
An oval face, willow-leaf brows, a pair of big watery eyes, a naturally crimson cinnabar mole at the outer corner of one eye, and a pair of shallow dimples at the corners of her mouth. Her smile was captivating, three parts more alluring even than in her previous life.
Rubbing on snow cream, she marveled at the mirror. “The seventies really are different. Everything you eat and drink is pure and natural without pollution, no staying up late working overtime in front of a computer, so the skin is just dewy…”
Before Shen Jiaqi died, she often stayed up late working overtime.
She’d worn herself to a sallow little face with coarse pores, as if her vital energy had been sucked dry, and nothing she did went well.
The seventies really did nourish a person!
She rubbed herself down until she smelled sweet, and with a red polka-dot hair ribbon she plaited a fluffy braid and let it hang slanting across her chest.
That small touch of bright red set off her red lips and white teeth and her peach-blossom face, making her all the more radiant and lovely.
“Little sister, come and eat breakfast…”
The third brother shouted from the yard, and was just about to knock when the wooden door creaked open.
The early morning sunlight fell right on the person who came out.
Shen Jiaqi was in a light gray checked skirt, her fair, translucent skin gleaming in the sunlight.
The third brother’s eyes went wide and fixed. So beautiful… more beautiful than the actresses on the posters.
Dressed up so brilliantly, she must be going to find Jiang Shiyan!
At the thought of that kept pretty boy, the chopsticks in the third brother’s hand were nearly bent.
“Qiqi!”
Forcing down his anger, the third brother walked up to her with a darkened face. “Little sister, who are you dressed up like that for?”
“Tell third brother the truth, are you going to see that certain someone?”
That certain someone?
Jiang Shiyan?
The corner of Shen Jiaqi’s mouth twitched. What rotten luck first thing in the morning!
Knowing the third brother had certainly misunderstood, Shen Jiaqi pressed a hand to her aching forehead. “Third brother, do you think I tidy myself up and dress up only for a man, for that ungrateful wolf?”
“Isn’t that so?”
“It seems you treated everything I said as wind past your ear!” Shen Jiaqi puffed out her cheeks in anger.
“I said I don’t like Jiang Shiyan anymore. My tidying up and dressing up has not a cent’s worth to do with him.”
“Loving beauty is human nature. Who says a woman can only make herself up for the one who pleases her? Can’t I appreciate it myself?”
“Besides, I haven’t dressed up much at all.” She touched her plain, unmade-up face.
“Really?” Something loosened in the third brother’s heart.
Yesterday little sister had given Jiang Shiyan a good hard kick right in front of him.
Perhaps little sister really wasn’t bluffing, she really didn’t like Jiang Shiyan anymore, and love had turned into hatred.
Ah… whatever the case, as long as little sister didn’t go pestering Jiang Shiyan, everything else was easy to discuss.
He switched to a grin. “I was wrong. My little sister is naturally beautiful, she looks good in anything…”
She’d look good even draped in a sack!
“From now on, wear whatever you like, your brother won’t nag anymore.”
Baring a mouthful of big white teeth, he ladled Shen Jiaqi a bowl of steaming mixed-grain porridge and picked out the biggest yellow cornmeal bun to put in her bowl as an apology.
Soon the whole family was at the table, picking up bowls and chopsticks.
It was exactly the same as what they ate every day, and yet everyone felt this porridge was especially fragrant and sweet today.
At the thought that when they came back from work at noon there’d be fragrant pickled-cabbage fish to eat, their hearts were as happy as could be, and everything tasted good.
After the meal, Shen Laogui and his four sons went off to work.
Peng Zhaodi had been going to work too, but Xiaobao was still ill, so Qiao Huilan asked for leave on her behalf.
Now the big yard held only her, Xiaobao and Shen Jiaqi.
Xiaobao had taken his medicine yesterday and hadn’t run a fever again in the night, but his hands and feet were still icy and he was coughing badly.
After drinking brown-sugar ginger water in the morning, there was finally some color in Xiaobao’s face, his hands and feet were warm, and his coughing had eased somewhat.
Peng Zhaodi saw it all and wanted to say thank you to Shen Jiaqi, but didn’t know how to begin.
“Sister-in-law, is Xiaobao a bit better?” Shen Jiaqi asked.
Peng Zhaodi nodded quickly. “Much better. Xiaobao, hurry and thank your auntie.”
Xiaobao was holding a spoon and drinking his porridge in small mouthfuls, and at the three words “your auntie” he nearly spat it out.
His face showed alarm, and he peeked at Shen Jiaqi from behind his earthenware bowl.
Urged on by his mother, he weakly squeezed out a line. “Thank you, Auntie…”
Look at that, the child was terrified…
Shen Jiaqi answered with a gentle smile, and even softened her voice. “Good boy. Rest and get well at home, and Auntie will buy you candy.”
Candy!
That word was full of temptation for four-year-old Xiaobao.
He looked at Shen Jiaqi’s pretty face. Auntie was smiling at him, and she was so pretty when she smiled…
Would she really… buy Xiaobao candy?
Xiaobao thought back to the fierce auntie of before, her face full of disdain.
Then he looked at this auntie in front of him, like a flower, and a barely noticeable trace of anticipation grew in his heart…
Breakfast over, Shen Jiaqi was ready to get down to real business.
She caught the village tractor into the county town, and after asking a good many people, finally found the hidden black market.
It was still early, not yet nine, but the black market was already bustling with people coming and going, crowded as a marketplace.
Looking at everyone’s low-key, plain clothes, Shen Jiaqi suddenly realized her own outfit seemed far too conspicuous.
It was her first time transmigrating into the seventies and she had no experience, and since the original owner never went out of doors, her memories of the black market were few and far between, hence this big blunder!
Since she was here anyway, she quickly found an empty alley and put on a headscarf, covering most of her face and leaving only her eyes showing.
That way, however eye-catching her clothes were, as long as strangers couldn’t see her face they wouldn’t recognize her.
Ready, Shen Jiaqi waved her palm lightly over the ground, and a sack of wild ginger appeared, along with a plump grass carp.
Last night she had gathered a great deal of wild ginger, and with what Lu Zheng had dug for her, her stock was more than enough.
Even if it wasn’t enough, she could go dig more tonight, there was plenty by the stream anyway.
Gritting her teeth, she dragged the sack slowly out of the alley, and had just claimed a stall spot when she saw two familiar figures.
It was them…