She took a nightdress from the rack. Without even bothering to wash the new clothes first, she went straight into the fitting room and stripped completely.
After bundling up her dirty clothes and carrying them out, she walked around the mall in a lace nightdress, the sound of her steps echoing loudly in the empty space.
As for those fashionable clothes, she didn’t dare wear them outside. The old clothes needed to be washed and saved for tomorrow.
Thinking of this, she took the elevator to the fourth floor appliance section and chose a washing machine and a dryer.
The display area had power outlets, so the dryer could be used right there.
But the washing machine could only be powered on—there was no water pipe or drain.
She found a small cart and, after struggling with all her strength, finally pushed a semi-automatic washing machine into the women’s restroom.
There was a faucet in the restroom. After connecting the hose, she let the washing machine run.
While it worked, Lin Qiuman ran down to the supermarket on basement level one and picked out an electric water heater bucket, a bathtub, bath towels, shampoo, toothbrushes, and other necessities.
From now on, this women’s restroom would be her bathroom.
Soaking in the tub, she comfortably began planning what to do next.
The supermarket downstairs had dried fungus, enoki mushrooms, king oyster mushrooms, and even some vegetables that didn’t exist in this era. Those could be explained away as wild vegetables gathered from the mountains.
But the future was long. The excuse of “wild vegetables” wouldn’t work forever. She would have to find another way to live eventually.
For Lin Qiuman, the most urgent matter now was tomorrow’s class. She had no experience being a teacher, so naturally she felt nervous.
She went to a training center storefront on the fourth floor and took one of the students’ tablets, watching lessons taught by top instructors.
Their teaching wasn’t stiff. On top of the textbook material, they also introduced a lot of additional knowledge.
Lin Qiuman completely agreed with that.
After all, if learning relied solely on textbooks, knowledge would be confined.
For the children in this small mountain village, their only source of knowledge was their teacher.
She studied carefully and took plenty of notes. Afraid that she might become nervous and fail to teach well, she turned on the tablet’s recording function and practiced giving a lecture alone in front of it.
“Not bad… I look like a real teacher.”
Watching the video of herself speaking calmly and clearly, Lin Qiuman felt very satisfied.
She had always been quick to learn. When she first got out of prison in her previous life, her first job had been at a leather goods factory.
Even after decades, she could still clearly explain every step of making a leather bag…
Now that she was learning from top instructors, she was confident she could teach her forty-four students well.
After spending the entire day busy with preparations and then soaking in a hot bath, her body felt pleasantly tired. After washing up, she went straight to sleep.
She slept dreamlessly until six the next morning, waking naturally with her internal clock.
After entering the space to wash up, she originally planned to simply eat two pieces of bread and drink a bag of milk.
But remembering the stomach illness that had tormented her terribly in her previous life, she reluctantly took out a small electric cooker and a bag of millet and brought them into the main hall.
Cooking in the hall meant she could enter the space anytime to check on it. So she took two three-meter extension cords from a nearby jewelry shop and connected them to the hall entrance to start cooking.
Making millet porridge was a delicate process—it couldn’t be rushed. Since it was only six o’clock and class wouldn’t start for another two hours, Lin Qiuman carried a bucket and walked toward the foot of the mountain.
In her previous life, she had developed the habit of morning exercise. Now she didn’t need to run specially—walking around the mountain foot every day counted as exercise.
“Teacher Lin, are you going to gather wild vegetables?”
From far away, Gu Suzhen’s mother saw her and greeted her warmly.
“Our vegetable garden has some spinach growing. I’ll send you some later.”
“Thank you, Auntie.” Lin Qiuman was grateful, but she didn’t want mature vegetables, so she said, “Suzhen told me yesterday that your family has many mouths to feed. You should keep the spinach. If you have any seedlings you’re thinning out, you can give me a few—if not, that’s fine too.”
In this era, every household made full use of their yard. The bigger the yard, the more vegetables they planted.
If they couldn’t finish eating them, they could even bring the leafy greens to the city and sell them for a few cents.
“We actually do. Our bean plants need thinning soon. I’ll bring you some later,” Gu’s mother replied.
Seeing how thoughtful Lin Qiuman was, she figured the young woman would likely stay in the village. If her daughter studied under her—even if she didn’t get into university—having more education would make it easier to arrange a job through relatives.
After saying goodbye to Gu’s mother, Lin Qiuman continued walking along the mountain path.
Whenever she saw small stones, she put them into her bucket, planning to use them to pave a small path in the primary school courtyard.
Otherwise, once the rainy season came, stepping outside would mean stepping straight into mud…
After about twenty minutes outside, Lin Qiuman entered the space while no one was around. The millet porridge had cooked perfectly.
She took a salted duck egg with rich, oily yolk from the supermarket and enjoyed a satisfying breakfast with the porridge.
Behind a patch of thorn bushes halfway up the mountain, several gourds were growing.
The vines climbed along a nearby tree trunk, producing quite a few gourds.
It was such a hidden place that people gathering wild vegetables usually wouldn’t come here—unless they had other shady reasons.
In her previous life, she had often met Wu Jianxun halfway up the mountain, so she was familiar with every plant and tree there.
“Luckily, there are a few old gourds.”
Following the vine, she found several dried gourds hanging from a tree trunk.
“You look like the fat man inside a gourd—mine now.”
She picked one with a large belly. From a distance, it was about the size of a pomelo commonly eaten in later years.
Cut in half, it would make two perfect water ladles.
“You few look decent enough. I’ll take you too.”
Lin Qiuman picked the rest of the gourds as well.
The larger ones could be traded with villagers for needles and thread.
The smaller ones could be used as bowls or cups.
When she walked down the mountain, she tied the gourds together with willow branches. The bucket was filled with small stones, and on top of them she placed shepherd’s purse and dandelion greens taken from her space.
“Teacher Lin, did you find those gourds on the mountain?”
“Wow, Teacher Lin, you’re lucky. All the shepherd’s purse and dandelions around here have been picked clean. I didn’t expect you’d still find some.”
Lin Qiuman smiled slightly. “When I came along the mountain ridge yesterday, I noticed these wild vegetables and came back to gather them. There really aren’t many left in the mountains.”
“Teacher Lin, let me give you a tip. City people love these wild vegetables. If you can’t finish them, take them to the city and trade them,” a villager kindly advised.
Seeing that Lin Qiuman’s clothes were torn but she didn’t even have needle and thread to mend them made people feel sympathetic.
Lin Qiuman thanked them and returned to the small primary school, putting her things down. Then she carried the bucket to the well and drew a bucket of water.
She set up a simple stove and boiled some water in a metal lunch tin to drink later.
After tidying her clothes and hair, she stood there looking neat and energetic, waiting for the students to arrive for class. 📚