The He family currently lives in a small courtyard outside the outer city of the capital, one of those civilian residential areas. Once you step out of the alley, you reach the terminal stop for two bus lines, which already shows how remote this place is. Because it is so far out, most households here are single-family courtyards. However, the quality and size of these houses are far inferior to the siheyuan (traditional courtyard homes) inside the inner city. They are also not arranged as neatly in rows like those planned residential blocks inside the city; instead, they feel more like people built wherever they could find space.
From the memories of the original owner, it becomes clear why the He family’s meals are noticeably better than those of other households and yet never try to hide it. Aside from the fact that multiple members of the He family earn money and that He’s father left behind a sum of compensation money, which allowed them to live comfortably, another important reason is that several nearby families also eat quite well—some even on par with the He family.
At first, Shen Lanxiang worried that their good food would attract jealousy from others, so she kept a low profile while the children were still young. But in recent years, as the political climate became more unstable, some people began taking advantage of others to improve their own living conditions. So Shen Lanxiang stopped hiding it. Occasionally, she would even improve their meals openly and honestly, unlike others who did things in secret. She even said, “Well, it’s because we live in such a remote area, and there are many temporary workers living here from outside the city. Otherwise, people like them would have already been reported!”
The house the He family lives in was gradually built by the grandfather while he was still alive. In the original owner’s memory, there was almost no impression of her grandparents, except that the eldest sister remembered them more clearly.
On the south side are two rooms. Once you push open the door, you find two separate cooking stoves facing different directions. Inside is a coal stove and a table. Two inner doors connect to two rooms: one is the largest and best south-facing room, where the mother and two daughters live; the other door leads to a western side room, which is the second brother’s room.
There is also a small southern side room used for storage, and next to it is the toilet. What surprised He Qiutang was that their house actually had a toilet. She had assumed that in cities at this time, people still had to use public toilets. From memory, she recalled that not long after He’s father passed away, there were some hooligans appearing in the city, and the area also had many temporary workers, making it somewhat chaotic.
A neighbor woman once went out at night to use the toilet. Thinking she was just an ordinary married woman and nothing would happen, she never expected that a group of young troublemakers were hiding inside the women’s restroom, waiting for attractive girls to come in.
After this incident, many young women became afraid. Although most families had chamber pots, there were still times when they had to go out at night. Families with men were somewhat safer, but in households like theirs—where the adult male had passed away and the second brother was just a child—what could they do? So Shen Lanxiang went to the neighborhood office to plead for help.
In the end, the neighborhood office sent workers, and the He family paid for it, building a toilet and enclosing it with a wall. It looked like an extra corner of their courtyard. Other households in the area—especially widows or families whose men were often away—also followed this example.
He Qiutang looked at the toilet. It was simple, but at least it was functional. They no longer had to go outside. The only inconvenience was fetching water; every day they still had to go to the hand pump well to draw water. After scooping a basin of water from the bucket, she washed the dishes from breakfast while her mind wandered.
She had transmigrated—and she also had a golden finger. Last night she had already seen it. Based on years of reading web novels, He Qiutang guessed it was a storage space. The interface looked like a game inventory with many slots, and the first slot contained a box of anti-inflammatory medicine.
Now that no one was home, she tried to see if she could take it out. After some fiddling, she successfully retrieved it. But this medicine was unnecessary for her family at the moment, and if it suddenly appeared, it would definitely cause trouble. So she decided it was better to keep it in the storage space.
As soon as she thought of it, the item disappeared from her hand. It seemed to be controlled by thought alone.
Realizing this was essentially her personal storage space, she wondered if real-world objects could also be stored. She looked around, picked up a comb from the table, and thought about it. The comb vanished—and appeared in the second slot of the storage grid.
This is great. Although this golden finger seemed somewhat “useless” at times, the ability to store things was already very useful. After all, the current era was strict, and having this meant she could safely store valuable items. Even though the most valuable things she currently had were just a dozen yuan and two grain coupons, it was still enough to make her happy.
After finishing her chores, she took her money and tickets and prepared to take the bus into the city. Just a few more steps from here and she would already be outside the outer ring of the capital. It was quite far from the inner city, so she needed to leave early to make it back by noon.
He Qiutang slung her small bag over her shoulder and happily went out. In another part of the city, Zhao Huaian was stunned.
He sat cross-legged on the hospital bed, staring blankly into space—actually looking at a system interface that had just appeared in his mind. Last night, he had somehow traveled to 1970. The original owner of the body had been hit from behind with a wooden board during a fight and was sent to the hospital. The doctor said there was a swollen bump on the back of his head, but nothing serious.
Zhao Huaian had a headache, and a mechanical voice had appeared in his mind: the “daily check-in system.”
He wasn’t a fan of novels, but his wife was, and she often talked about them, so he knew this was likely a “golden finger” from a transmigration scenario.
Each day, checking in at a location would grant him an item. In the hospital, he immediately checked in and received a box of anti-inflammatory medicine.
He felt this was pretty good—getting medicine in a hospital made sense. If he checked in at a grain station or a state-owned restaurant later, wouldn’t he get even better rewards?
Everyone knew that living standards in the 1970s could not compare to those of the 21st century, so food was a major concern.
But soon, Zhao Huaian could no longer smile, because the medicine he received had no clear place in his possession. The system said it was stored in a storage space—but there was no storage space interface at all.