At this moment, only Lin Qiuman and Shen Lingkang remained at the small school.
She tidied up the bedding in the dormitory, placed a large block of ice in a basin, and had Shen Lingkang wipe his body with a wet towel before urging him to lie down and sleep.
“When the ice melts, it absorbs heat, so the room will become much cooler. You’ll sleep more comfortably,” Lin Qiuman said, sitting on a stool beside the bed. Her eyes were filled with tenderness as she looked at Shen Lingkang, who lay there with happiness on his face but a faint trace of unease in his eyes.
This little guy must be wondering why she was treating him so well…
Even at such a young age, he had a heavy heart. He was probably afraid that warmth like this could appear in an instant—and disappear just as quickly.
“Mm.” Shen Lingkang scratched at his fingernails and nodded obediently. “Then… Teacher Lin, where will you sleep?”
This was originally a single bed. Now he had taken Teacher Lin’s place, and he couldn’t help feeling uneasy.
“You sleep. I’m going to visit someone,” Lin Qiuman said with a smile, shaking her head. “Don’t think too much. Sleep until it’s time for class. Sleeping more will help you grow taller.”
Shen Lingkang nodded obediently again.
He was the same age as Shen Zhichun, yet much shorter. Even Shen Zhichun’s younger brother, who was three years younger than him, looked about the same height.
He also wanted to grow taller…
Lin Qiuman took a bundle from under the wooden bed, gave him a few instructions, and hurried out.
She went to Gu Suzhen’s home first. After chatting for a while, she finally took out some money.
“Auntie, Suzhen, I just arrived in Xiwan Village. We’re not relatives, yet you were willing to lend me money. I feel really bad about it.
“These are brown sugar and toilet paper I brought back from the provincial capital. Please don’t refuse.”
Whether it was brown sugar, toilet paper, white sugar, or fine salt, all of these were precious items in this era.
When rural people went to the toilet, they often couldn’t bear to use paper at all. Most of the time, they used lumps of dirt instead.
Girls only used a little paper during their menstrual periods, and even the cloth pads they used had to be washed and reused.
So when Suzhen and her mother saw the brown sugar and toilet paper, they felt that the gifts were far too valuable.
“Manman, living alone isn’t easy for you. You should keep these good things. If you don’t need them, you can trade them for something else,” Suzhen’s mother said kindly.
“Auntie, please keep them. I know what I’m doing—I won’t let myself starve,” Lin Qiuman said warmly with a smile.
“Alright then, you two get some rest. I’ll go visit another house.”
This time, Lin Qiuman headed straight for the household in the village that raised the most chickens and ducks.
At first, they had only raised poultry for the production team. Whether because they were hardworking or simply lucky with the animals, they had gradually gone from one or two chickens to more than a dozen.
By selling eggs, they had managed to earn a decent amount of money. At least they could fill their stomachs, though they were still reluctant to buy expensive goods.
Using a bit of fine salt and brown sugar, Lin Qiuman traded for two chicks and two ducklings that had hatched about ten days earlier.
Then she went to another household known for growing vegetables and exchanged white sugar and toilet paper for seeds of more than a dozen kinds of vegetables.
Although she had told people these items were brought by relatives from the provincial capital, taking things out again and again would eventually make people suspicious.
So after trading for just these few items, she hurried back to the primary school.
She quietly sat beside Shen Lingkang and began cutting fabric to sew him a new set of clothes.
“Hehe…”
She tried her best to remain silent so she wouldn’t wake him, but Shen Lingkang suddenly let out a soft chuckle, startling her.
“What kind of sweet dream is this child having to make him smile so happily?” Lin Qiuman murmured with a smile.
After laughing in his sleep, Shen Lingkang soon drifted into deeper slumber, and the smile on Lin Qiuman’s face never faded.
That afternoon when classes resumed, besides Li Wenbin, several other villagers came to help mold bricks and build the new house.
However, Shen Linghua still hadn’t appeared, which made Lin Qiuman a little worried.
“Teacher Lin, what delicious thing are you making now?”
The old village chief had come to supervise the work. Seeing Lin Qiuman lighting a fire during class hours, he walked over curiously.
“It’s the midday period, and everyone feels sleepy, so lectures aren’t very effective. I’m making some lollipops for them.”
While checking the inventory system in the supermarket within her space, Lin Qiuman discovered that before her rebirth, the mall had prepared a large batch of discounted rock sugar for a promotional event.
There was so much rock sugar that even if she ate sugar her whole life, she wouldn’t be able to finish it.
Besides, when the rock sugar was melted and poured onto cool stones, it produced a treat that helped relieve internal heat.
“Candy?” The old village chief reminded her, “Sugar is very precious.”
“Good sugar is precious,” Lin Qiuman said. “But my relatives gave me some broken sugar bits. Since the weather is hot, they won’t store well anyway…”
As she spoke, she showed him the bag of rock sugar.
Inside were indeed crushed fragments of sugar, some even clumped together. They looked rather unattractive, almost like waste.
To crush the big chunks of rock sugar into little fragments, she had spent quite a bit of effort.
“These children are lucky to have a teacher like you,” the old village chief sighed, feeling even more convinced that Lin Qiuman was a dedicated and caring teacher.
“Village chief, why didn’t Kang Kang’s third brother come to mold bricks today?”
Lin Qiuman couldn’t help asking.
She knew that asking so directly might make the village chief think she liked Shen Linghua.
But she really did like him—there was no point hiding it.
The village chief chuckled and looked Lin Qiuman up and down with satisfaction.
“He went to the county agricultural machinery station to show off his skills.”
Hearing this, Lin Qiuman finally felt relieved.
She called the students to line up with their wooden sticks to collect their lollipops.
The cooling stone wasn’t very large, so each batch could only make about ten lollipops pointing in different directions.
In her rice container, rock sugar continued to melt over a small fire. She kept the heat low, since too much heat would make the sugar taste bitter.
The students who had been drowsy earlier instantly became wide awake after tasting the rare lollipops. They were practically energized.
To them now, Lin Qiuman was no longer just a teacher—she was like a fairy who could perform all sorts of magic.
Whatever she said, they remembered clearly.
Soon, thunderous reading voices filled the study room. Subjects like Nature and Moral Education required understanding before memorization.
After school, when the extended class ended, the students crowded around Shen Lingkang with admiration, asking him questions.
“Shen Lingkang, did you eat with Teacher Lin today?”
“I saw Shen Lingkang come out of Teacher Lin’s dormitory! Teacher Lin even gave him water. Did he sleep in her dormitory?”
Seeing everyone surrounding Shen Lingkang, Shen Zhichun felt even more upset.
He grabbed his schoolbag and ran home.
“Meng Xia! It’s all your fault! All your fault!”
This time, instead of kicking over the water basin like usual, he rushed straight at Meng Xia, who was hanging laundry, and pushed her to the ground.