“I don’t want it. Auntie Liu, you should take it back and eat it yourself. I have everything I need at home.” Chen Xiaolin didn’t want Liu Aihong’s things. She knew life wasn’t easy for Liu Aihong’s family either.
“Take it. These are leftovers from when your Brother Jianguo got married. I brought them especially for you—to let you share a bit of the happy luck.” Liu Aihong felt this girl was really too polite. Lately she’d been busy with her son’s wedding and hadn’t had time to check on Xiaolin. With her good friends passing away just like that, who knew how long this child had cried.
“Alright then. Auntie Liu, I’ll head off now. Bye!” Chen Xiaolin thought that once she returned to her hometown, she’d mail more local specialties to Liu Aihong. She didn’t know what was in the bag, only that it felt quite heavy.
Back home, Chen Xiaolin opened the bag Liu Aihong had given her and discovered there was a pounds of White Rabbit milk candies and half a slab of cured pork inside. There were also some scattered wedding cakes and candies.
Liu Aihong’s family actually wasn’t well-off. Even though both she and her husband had jobs, they had many children. She had given birth to four sons and two daughters. The eldest was Zhou Jianguo, twenty this year and newly married. The second, Zhou Aiguo, was eighteen and already seeing someone. The third, Zhou Yunyun, was sixteen, the same age as Chen Xiaolin. The fourth, Zhou Jiandang, was twelve and in sixth grade. The fifth, Zhou Yunyue, and the sixth, Zhou Aidang, were dragon-and-phoenix twins, eight years old and just starting first grade.
They said half-grown boys could eat a family into poverty, and the boys in Liu Aihong’s household really could eat. Every month, she had to exchange food coupons with others.
Looking at the half slab of cured pork in front of her, Chen Xiaolin knew it had been saved from the Zhou family’s own mouths. Though she wasn’t short of meat, she accepted this kindness.
That evening, Chen Xiaolin decided to cook some noodles. She took out a pound of handmade noodles from her space and added the last two eggs from home. That was dinner.
Luckily, her house used a coal stove—otherwise she might not even have been able to start a fire.
After dinner, Chen Xiaolin felt a bit bored. She dazed off for a while, then suddenly remembered that her current combat power was zero. She decided to go into her space to find a martial arts manual to practice.
She went up to the second floor of the space villa and found a Chaos Fist Manual and a Lingbo Weibu footwork manual in the training room.
After two hours, she finally figured out the fist technique. In modern times, Chen Xiaolin had learned taekwondo, and the original owner had practiced military boxing well too, so she was confident she could master this set.
She practiced the moves once according to the manual and discovered a warm sensation in her lower abdomen. It felt as if a stream of energy circulated through her body before gathering in her dantian. Could this Chaos Fist really be that amazing—able to cultivate inner energy?
At midnight, Chen Xiaolin finally stopped practicing and came out of the space to sleep.
The next morning after breakfast, she began packing. She planned to mail back the harder-to-carry items to her hometown first. Otherwise, carrying several parcels back—how was she supposed to secretly smuggle things along the way?
She packed the two quilts from her room and her winter clothes into two large parcels. Then she placed the big iron pot and clay pot she’d bought yesterday, the newly purchased thermos, and the military canteen her dad had given her between the quilts so the clay pot and thermos wouldn’t break.
As for the original owner’s parents’ clothes, Chen Xiaolin put them all into a large trunk and stored it in the space.
After packing those clothes, she noticed a box in the wardrobe.
When she opened it, she found a stack of various ration coupons, three thousand yuan in cash, and at the bottom, two property deeds—one for the house she was currently living in and one for the house back in her hometown.
No wonder she hadn’t seen the deeds yesterday—they’d been hidden here.
There were also four quilts in the wardrobe, two of them newly made this year. Chen Xiaolin put all of them into the space.
After finishing the room, she suddenly remembered she hadn’t sorted out the kitchen or cellar yet and didn’t know what was still there.
In the kitchen, there were ten pounds of white flour, five pounds of cornmeal, and two pounds of rice. The pork and salt were almost gone, so she decided not to bother packing them and would leave them for Auntie Liu.
The cellar was under the storage room. If she hadn’t had the original owner’s memories, she wouldn’t have found the entrance at all.
There wasn’t much in the cellar—just two sacks of rice, two sacks of corn, and two jars of glutinous rice wine.
The rice wine had been brewed by the original owner’s mother last year, but she’d never gotten the chance to drink it.
Chen Xiaolin stored everything from the cellar into her space.
As for the vegetables in the garden, she was too lazy to harvest them. Many weren’t fully grown yet, and picking them now would be a waste. She decided to leave them for Auntie Liu.
By the time she finished packing, it was already noon. Chen Xiaolin took out a serving of braised pork trotters with rice from her space. She planned to eat, take a nap, and then go to the post office in the afternoon to mail the two parcels, and also send a telegram to her grandparents.
(From now on, the original owner’s relatives were Chen Xiaolin’s relatives.)
When she woke up, it was already 3:30 p.m. Seeing it was getting late, she quickly grabbed the parcels and hurried to the post office.
The post office was behind the supply and marketing cooperative, a small two-story building.
“Hello, I want to mail some parcels.” After finally hauling the two extremely heavy parcels into the post office, Chen Xiaolin was almost exhausted.
“Here. Fill in the address yourself.” The postal clerk rudely tossed her a pen and a parcel form to fill out.
Chen Xiaolin: “…” Sure enough, workers in the 1970s were something else. If someone in modern times dared to be this rude, she’d definitely leave a bad review.
After filling in the addresses, she handed the forms back to the aloof clerk.
“Heilongjiang Province, Harbin City, Yongping County, Hongqi Commune, Qingshan Production Team. Are you going there to be a sent-down youth?” The clerk thought the girl in front of her was really rich—mailing so much stuff such a long distance, with postage costing over ten yuan.
“No, that’s my hometown. I also need to send a telegram—same address.” Chen Xiaolin handed over the telegram text.
“Alright. Fifteen yuan and three cents total.”
After paying, Chen Xiaolin turned and left the post office. She planned to go to the supply and marketing cooperative next to buy some things and use up all the coupons she’d found that morning.
Luckily, there weren’t many people at the time, so she didn’t have to squeeze through a crowd.
“I want five pairs of cloth shoes, two pairs of rubber shoes, two pairs of rain boots, and ten pairs of work gloves.” She didn’t want canvas sneakers or leather shoes—she already had several pairs of both at home, including two pairs of small leather shoes she’d never even worn.