Shen Linghua frowned and glanced at Lin Qiuman.
“You don’t even dare kill a chicken?”
So that was it—timid and prone to crying. Women like that were the most troublesome.
Shen Linghua clicked his tongue and turned to leave.
Lin Qiuman shook her head and asked carefully, “Tomorrow I’m going to visit relatives. When I come back the day after tomorrow… could I ask you to help me kill a chicken?”
“We’ll talk about it then.”
Watching Shen Linghua’s departing figure, Lin Qiuman smiled faintly, her heart feeling warm.
Whether it was the rabbit or the pheasant, they were both expressions of Shen Linghua’s undisguised goodwill…
At least now, Shen Linghua wasn’t as resistant or disgusted with her as before.
She returned to the room, picked up the two little wild rabbits, and stared at their private parts for quite a while. Finally she murmured happily,
“One male and one female… from now on you two must take care of each other.”
With a leap she entered her spatial storage. From the pet supplies section of the supermarket on the first floor, she took a small cage meant for raising toy poodles—just the right size for the two rabbits.
The cage had a tray underneath to catch droppings, making it easy to clean.
But it was summer now. Even though the underground garage was cool, the rabbits still had their own smell.
So she placed the cage near the entrance of the underground garage where there was ventilation, helping the odor dissipate.
“From now on you two must love each other and try to have lots and lots of baby rabbits,” Lin Qiuman said softly, putting some vegetable leaves inside and giving them a long, gentle lecture.
Then she plucked quite a bit of rabbit fur from them.
After that she took out a tablet. While listening to lessons from a famous teacher, she used a needle to turn the rabbit fur into small accessories.
Hair clips made this way wouldn’t feel too out of place for this era.
In one evening, she reviewed lessons for every grade and made several pairs of different hair clip styles.
Three fluffy balls fixed side by side on a straight clip.
Heart-shaped ones.
And little rabbit shapes made from two balls of different sizes.
Then she went to the home textile section and picked out some fabric suitable for this era. She also grabbed some yarn bundles, which were very popular items at the time.
Early the next morning, Lin Qiuman ate an egg and drank a packet of instant soy milk inside the space before hurriedly heading toward the township.
She had lived here for a long time in her previous life and was very familiar with everything. So after waiting a short while at the rural road entrance, she managed to catch the production team’s ox cart that was delivering meat to the county town.
“Little girl, sit over here. That side is very dirty,” the man driving the cart kindly said, pointing to the seat beside him.
After all, the cart was transporting pork. It was greasy and covered with flies and insects.
“Thank you, uncle,” Lin Qiuman said with a smile.
She couldn’t help but think of the driver’s seat of small cars in later generations.
Now she was sitting in the driver’s seat beside the uncle…
It actually felt rather cool.
During the ride they chatted a lot. Lin Qiuman learned that the slaughterhouse meat would be sent to the county’s supply and marketing cooperative for sale.
Besides meat, there were also offal and other parts.
But in this era, offal was usually thrown away as waste.
No one deliberately bought offal to eat, nor did they know how to cook it properly.
“Uncle, could I buy some pork offal?” Lin Qiuman asked.
Of course she knew pork offal was valuable—especially pork liver, which was great for replenishing blood.
“Little girl, I’m just delivering the meat. I can’t sell it to you. You should go buy it at the county supply cooperative,” the cart driver said, waving his hand nervously.
Lin Qiuman understood his concern.
He was afraid she might take advantage and then report him afterward.
“Uncle, I only have twenty cents. If you could sell me a little pork liver cheaply, I promise I won’t tell anyone,” Lin Qiuman said sincerely, taking out two jiao from her pocket.
“Little girl, it’s not that I don’t want to sell it to you. This job feeds my family. I really don’t dare,” he insisted.
“Uncle, I fled here from another place. The little money I have was borrowed from someone else. If I go to the supply cooperative to buy meat, I don’t even have meat coupons…”
Lin Qiuman sighed helplessly, putting the money back into her pocket.
“It’s alright, uncle. I won’t trouble you. When I save enough coupons later, I’ll buy meat then.”
Seeing her thin face and thinking about how she couldn’t afford meat coupons and could only eat the offal that others disliked, the driver softened.
“I won’t take your money. Just take this piece of offal. Just don’t tell anyone—you mustn’t get me into trouble.”
“Uncle…” Lin Qiuman was deeply moved.
Her voice choked as she stuffed the money into his pocket.
“I can’t take pork liver for free. Please keep the money.”
They parted when they arrived in front of the county supply cooperative.
Carrying the pork liver, Lin Qiuman found a quiet place and slipped into her space, placing the liver in the refrigerator to freeze.
Then she took out the things she had prepared yesterday and headed toward the county’s black market.
“Miss, want to take a look? I just got some new fabric. You’re so fair—white clothes would look especially good on you,” a cloth vendor eagerly approached as soon as Lin Qiuman came close.
“I’m not buying fabric,” Lin Qiuman said, shaking her head.
“I have a piece of fabric from Beijing. I can’t bear to use it myself, so I want to trade with you.”
She revealed a corner of the cloth from her bag.
Any random piece of fabric from her space would outperform fabrics of this era.
And the one she chose happened to be modal fabric.
It felt incredibly comfortable to wear.
The cloth vendor glanced at the fabric. Her expression shifted dramatically—from displeasure when she heard Lin Qiuman wasn’t buying, to excitement after seeing the material.
“Miss, what kind of fabric is this?” the vendor asked. She clearly recognized quality and didn’t want to miss out.
“Modal,” Lin Qiuman said slowly and clearly.
“Sister, I have three meters of this fabric. I want to trade it for four meters of black dacron and two meters of white.”
“Good heavens, you’ve got quite the imagination,” the vendor replied, waving her hands and stepping back.
“Even if your fabric is good, it’s not worth six meters of mine.”
“That’s too much of a difference.”
“Alright then, sorry to trouble you, sister. I’ll look around some more.”
Lin Qiuman knew very well that whoever spoke first in this kind of negotiation lost.
So she turned and walked away without looking back.
But she deliberately slowed her pace while adjusting the bag, waiting for the vendor to call her back.
“Miss! Six meters is too much. The most I can give you is four meters.”
The vendor called out, sighing as if she were taking a huge loss.