The warmth that had just risen in the room made Gu Zhouye feel a bit hot, but his heart was cold.
“I have something to do. I’m going out tonight.”
Gu Zhouye turned to leave, but Shen Qiuqiu helplessly grabbed his arm.
“If it makes you sad, why can’t you just beat him up yourself?”
“Didn’t you already hit him?”
“It wasn’t satisfying enough.”
Gu Zhouye turned around and took off his coat. Shen Qiuqiu looked at him — his expression had clearly improved a bit — and shook her head helplessly.
“Gu Zhouye, have you always been this awkward your whole life?”
Gu Zhouye let out a long sigh.
“I didn’t have a father growing up. No one ever talked to me about things like this.”
Shen Qiuqiu was taken aback. She remembered looking at the photo album — there was a man standing next to Gu Zhouye who looked a lot like him. How could he not have a father?
Gu Zhouye continued. “He left. Escaped abroad. My mother remarried. My grandparents raised me, but they didn’t acknowledge me, and I didn’t want to acknowledge them either. And then… you know what happened after that.”
The original book only said Gu Zhouye had a complicated background — it never explained exactly how complicated. Shen Qiuqiu narrowed her eyes slightly.
“Doesn’t that make you just like the male lead in that movie?”
Hearing this comparison, Gu Zhouye asked curiously, “What movie?”
Shen Qiuqiu felt a wave of awkwardness. That movie probably hadn’t even been released yet. She reached out and patted Gu Zhouye’s shoulder.
“All right, don’t overthink it. Hurry up and sleep.”
The moment Shen Qiuqiu said the word “sleep,” Gu Zhouye’s face flushed hot. Clearly, she had made him overly sensitive.
But this time, Shen Qiuqiu really did just blow out the lamp and go to sleep.
Gu Zhouye couldn’t help but look at his wife beside him. Strangely enough, he felt a little disappointed.
Early the next morning, the wind was howling like ghosts and wolves. Gu Zhouye got up early to fetch breakfast. When he came back, his expression wasn’t good.
Shen Qiuqiu asked with concern, “What’s wrong?”
Gu Zhouye sighed.
“The wind was too strong yesterday. The granary at the forestry station caught fire. We’re not going to have any food.”
Shen Qiuqiu was stunned.
In the dead of winter, just days away from the New Year — the food had been burned?
“Burned?”
Shen Qiuqiu jolted. She suddenly remembered this plot point. It had happened in the original book too. After Xiao Yi returned to the city, this incident occurred in Qingshantun. Bai Xueying, relying on her intelligence and the female lead’s buff, successfully found the spy who had set the granary on fire. She rendered meritorious service and was promoted by the organization to work in the county.
“It’s unlikely to have been a natural fire in this weather, right?”
Gu Zhouye shook his head.
“They’re investigating. The problem is, right now there’s no food.”
Gu Zhouye pulled out a bundle of steamed buns from inside his coat — the wotou that had been steamed in the canteen last night. Now they were as hard as rocks.
Shen Qiuqiu couldn’t eat. She said quietly, “Do you think it could be a spy?”
This place was relatively close to the border. Spies often slipped across.
Gu Zhouye sighed.
“Hard to say.”
Gu Zhouye reached out and touched Shen Qiuqiu’s head. His eyes held a tenderness he himself hadn’t even noticed.
“Don’t be afraid. We’ll hunt for some food. We won’t starve.”
Shen Qiuqiu clenched her fists.
“Then what about them? What about Ding Rui and the others? Are they supposed to just starve to death here?”
Shen Qiuqiu knew she was being a bit sanctimonious. But she came from an era where starvation was never even a concept. She couldn’t accept it.
She took Gu Zhouye’s hand.
“The organization will figure something out, won’t they? Aren’t we going hunting?”
Outside, the howling wind and snow were so fierce it sounded like the little cabin might be ripped apart.
“In this weather, even the small animals won’t come out.”
The mood in Qingshantun was grim.
Shen Qiuqiu had been extremely worried, but Gu Zhouye comforted her.
Food shortages in winter were common, he said. Going hungry was normal. Though Shen Qiuqiu had gone hungry plenty since arriving, it had only ever meant missing one meal.
Around noon, Ding Rui and a few other educated youths knocked on the door. Ding Rui’s face was full of worry as she said to Shen Qiuqiu, “Qiuqiu, I heard that even the county doesn’t have any grain right now. What are we going to do?”
Song Qiang spoke up. “Captain Lin has already reported it up the chain. They can’t just let people starve. If worst comes to worst, we’ll go into the forest and hunt deer. We’ll tough it out and make it through the winter.”
This had happened before. The northeast was relatively prosperous. The group wasn’t overly worried.
Ding Rui then shifted to gossip. She took Shen Qiuqiu’s hand and whispered, “Hey, you didn’t hear — the people from the county came yesterday. Xiao Yi completely burned bridges with his so-called connections. This morning, there was an announcement criticizing certain people for moral depravity. Xiao Yi’s been standing outside Bai Xueying’s door all day.”
Shen Qiuqiu was shocked.
“In this freezing weather? Standing outside her door?”
Gu Zhouye overheard and couldn’t help but glance over. Shen Qiuqiu quickly cleared her throat.
“Why doesn’t that bastard freeze to death?”
Ding Rui curiously opened the window and looked outside.
“Bai Xueying let him in. If it were me, I would have slapped his face raw.”
Another female educated youth couldn’t help but say, “She doesn’t have a choice, though. In times like these, she’s just a young girl and pregnant to boot. She has to swallow some bitterness.”
The group of educated youths chatted a while longer in Shen Qiuqiu’s room. That evening, Lin Dazhi sent someone with a message: the forestry station had issued an order.
Each production brigade was to organize its own self-rescue efforts.
The Qingshantun educated youth production brigade had just over twenty people. The villagers had at least a little stored grain, but the educated youths truly had nothing.
Now they were the ones in the most desperate situation. Lin Dazhi returned from the forestry station looking utterly dejected. Clearly, he hadn’t gotten any help.
Wang Lixia couldn’t help but ask, “Captain, what are we going to do? There are over twenty of us. Are we supposed to starve to death this winter?”
Fuel wasn’t a problem — this was a forestry station, after all. But people needed to eat.
Lin Dazhi sighed helplessly.
“I’ll write another letter to the organization.”
Everyone knew, really, that writing letters wouldn’t do much good. In times like these, people really did starve to death.
For a moment, the educated youth team fell into heavy silence.
For the first time, Gu Zhouye stepped forward in front of everyone. He glanced at Shen Qiuqiu, then spoke. “When the weather improves, the men come hunting with me. The women go with Shen Qiuqiu to dig for edible roots.”
Wang Lixia let out a cold snort.
“Hunting in this cold? You’ll freeze to death before you catch anything.”
A few other female educated youths who were close to Wang Lixia echoed her.
Wang Lixia looked coldly at Shen Qiuqiu and sneered, “Shen Qiuqiu, you’ve found a man no one else wanted, and you insist on singing his praises. You’re pathetic.”
Shen Qiuqiu was about to retort when Xiao Yi beat her to it.
“I’ll go to the county and see if I can borrow some grain.”
At these words, the crowd burst into applause. Shen Qiuqiu was furious. If Gu Zhouye only looked out for himself and went out to hunt for food, there was no way he’d starve. Yet this group was so ungrateful.
And they mocked him! Shen Qiuqiu decided she would claim some credit for herself. She was going to steal Bai Xueying’s thunder.