2: Sun Zhaodi
Was this system poisonous?
Having read the entire novel, she knew exactly what kind of person the male lead was!
Thinking about the sleeveless undershirt the original owner had stolen but not yet returned, and now the system wanting her to steal the male lead’s pants, Lu Guoguo rolled her eyes heavily.
She wouldn’t go!
She’d rather die than go!
With great determination, Lu Guoguo punched the panel in front of her with her hand. The panel instantly disappeared. She was slightly taken aback, then silently chanted View Task Panel in her mind, and the panel reappeared.
Next, she silently thought Close Panel, and the panel vanished again.
After repeating this a few times, Lu Guoguo finally understood how to close and summon this thing.
Muttering to herself, she picked up a broom and swept the main hall and courtyard of the house. There wasn’t much actual garbage—mostly dust, mud, and wood shavings.
But after sweeping everything clean, Lu Guoguo immediately regretted it. Because the original owner was a girl so lazy she wouldn’t even bother to cook a snake if she caught one. Wouldn’t her being this diligent make people suspicious?
But it was already clean.
Lu Guoguo glared at the clearly much cleaner earthen floor. Could she just dirty it again?
After hesitating for two seconds, Lu Guoguo decided to leave it as it was.
It wasn’t yet time to prepare lunch. Having truly nothing else to do, Lu Guoguo went back to her room and flopped down.
To be fair, there was quite a lot of dry straw spread out. Lying on it was quite comfortable.
Lost in thought, Lu Guoguo reached a hand under herself to feel the dry straw. As she touched it, her mood soured again. What was she going to do when her period came?
Sure, she had a Check-in System, but this thing was pitting her against the male lead. Would she end up with anything good?
Lu Guoguo placed her hand over her eyelids. If the system could reward her with sanitary pads or something, then maybe stealing the male lead’s pants wasn’t out of the question…
Lost in these wild thoughts, Lu Guoguo yawned several times in succession and fell asleep.
Lu Zaiyang carried back and stacked another three bundles of firewood. When he set down the last bundle, he glanced into the courtyard. Aside from the clothes drying on the bamboo poles, there was nothing else.
He slightly furrowed his brows. To be honest, in his twenty years, this was the first time he had encountered such a lazy girl.
And this lazy girl had ended up becoming his sister.
Lu Zaiyang glanced at the sky, thinking there was still time to go back to the mountain for one more load of firewood. So, he tucked the firewood hatchet into his belt behind him and turned back toward the rear mountain.
Sun Zhaodi had helped with the work all morning. Feeling it was about time, she approached Lu Laoba and said quietly, “I’m heading back.”
“Alright. I’ll come back as soon as I finish this bit,” replied Lu Laoba, a tall, burly man with a dark complexion. At forty, he looked more robust than some young fellows.
Taking advantage of no one looking their way, Sun Zhaodi pinched her sleeve and wiped the fine sweat from Lu Laoba’s forehead. When Lu Laoba smiled at her, Sun Zhaodi withdrew her hand and walked away quickly.
Although they had come to help build the house, this family had many mouths to feed, and their own grain was scarce. Naturally, they wouldn’t stay for a meal, even though the hosts were very insistent.
As Sun Zhaodi walked home, she felt troubled. Even though Lu Laoba and Lu Zaiyang hadn’t said anything about her daughter being lazy, Sun Zhaodi herself couldn’t let it go.
But her daughter just wouldn’t listen, no matter how much she scolded or beat her—she simply wouldn’t change!
When she arrived home, Sun Zhaodi entered the courtyard and immediately started looking for the broom. She had made up her mind: if she didn’t discipline this lazy girl properly, the girl wouldn’t listen. If she remained this lazy, how would she ever find a good marriage match? Today, she absolutely had to take action!
However, before she could even get the broom in her hands, Sun Zhaodi heard the crackling sound of firewood burning coming from the kitchen.
Looking up, she saw wisps of smoke already rising from the kitchen chimney.
Sun Zhaodi thought for a moment but still picked up the broom, because she wasn’t sure whether the one busy in the kitchen was her lazy daughter or her diligent stepson.
She first pushed open Lu Guoguo’s room door. Finding it empty, she leaned the broom against the wall and walked toward the kitchen.
Lu Guoguo was cooking.
The scallions were already prepared as a cold dish. She just needed to cook the vegetable porridge and boil some greens. She had brought back four bunches of greens earlier—two were chopped up for the porridge, and the other two she planned to boil and then eat with a dipping sauce made from chili and minced garlic.
Last year during the chili harvest, Lu Laoba had exchanged some work points for chilies. Combined with the chilies grown at home, they had made three large jars of chopped chili paste.
“Mom, you’re back,” Lu Guoguo called out, following the original owner’s memories.
She looked somewhat nervously at the thin woman entering.
Sun Zhaodi was very thin. In this era, plump people were quite rare in the countryside. Her skin was slightly dark, but her facial features were delicate and pretty. She must have been a beauty when she was young.
Thinking about the hardships between her and Lu Laoba described in the original story, Lu Guoguo couldn’t help but steal curious glances at her.
Sun Zhaodi was a pitiable person. Just hearing her name made it clear. She was the second child in her family, with an older sister named Sun Laidi. When the Sun matriarch was pregnant with her second child, she dreamed it would be a boy. So, even before birth, she named her “Zhaodi” (“Beckon a Little Brother”), planning to change the name after the birth.
But a girl was born. Not only was the name not changed, but they believed that giving the unborn child a girl’s name had “scared away” the son they had been expecting.
But no matter what, after having Laidi, Zhaodi, Pandi, and Youdi, the Sun couple finally welcomed their Little Treasure.
Among the four girls, Youdi was the favorite of the Sun couple. They believed it was this daughter who had brought them their Little Treasure.
So, she was the only one whose marriage arrangement was genuinely chosen for her. The other three sisters were married off to whichever family offered the highest bride price.
Before she was married off, Sun Zhaodi and Lu Laoba had developed feelings for each other, as their two production teams were adjacent. During major collective work events, they had seen each other several times. But Lu Laoba himself was unloved by both his parents. Having lost them early, he was forced to divide the family property by his eldest brother at sixteen.
He was left with only two thatched huts and nothing else.
The Sun matriarch demanded a bride price of thirty-six yuan, plus two quilts and two pairs of cotton shoes.
Lu Laoba was desperately poor and couldn’t afford it.
So, Sun Zhaodi was married off to a sickly man who could meet these demands. The sickly man had a terrible temper and often beat and berated her, suspecting her of having affairs behind his back. Life for Sun Zhaodi became a little easier only after she became pregnant with the original owner, but then the sickly man died.
Her in-laws believed she and the child in her womb had “overcome” their son and treated the mother and daughter very poorly. By the time the original owner was sensible, the two old people had passed away one after another. Lu Laoba came to ask for her hand in marriage, but Sun Zhaodi felt she wasn’t worthy of him and stubbornly refused, raising her daughter alone.
It wasn’t until last year, when the Sun matriarch brought another man, wanting him to marry into Sun Zhaodi’s household, that Sun Zhaodi, utterly fed up, finally accepted when Lu Laoba came again. This time, he brought a bride price of fifty yuan, four quilts, and six pairs of cotton shoes, sincerely proposing to her. After a year of complications, they finally got together.
Having been through so much, Sun Zhaodi didn’t give a single cent of the bride price to her natal family; she brought it all back to the Lu household.
When she left, she sold her old house and brought her daughter to the Lu family.
If she didn’t sell the house, it would have reverted to the production team. Selling it was certainly more beneficial. That money, along with some left by her deceased in-laws, Sun Zhaodi didn’t touch a single cent. Even the bride price Lu Laoba insisted she keep, to be used as her daughter’s dowry. He, as the stepfather, also planned to add more to it later.
Just when it seemed these two had finally overcome their hardships and found happiness, the original owner, a troublemaker, stirred up chaos in the household, ultimately leading to her own demise. When Sun Zhaodi learned that her stepson had also been involved…
Even though she knew her daughter brought it upon herself, she was still her daughter. Sun Zhaodi simply couldn’t face him and eventually died of depression. On the day of her death, Lu Laoba personally dressed her in burial clothes, then took rat poison and lay down beside her.
When the male lead arranged their funeral, he was filled with deep regret. Even sending the original owner far away to marry would have been better than her dying…
Recalling all this content from the original novel, and thinking about the fate of the woman before her, Lu Guoguo felt nothing but intense sorrow. Her eyes reddened without her realizing it. Back when she read about the couple’s ending, Lu Guoguo had cried like a dog. Now, facing the person herself, she simply couldn’t hold back.
Sun Zhaodi was just about to praise her a couple of words when she saw her suddenly lower her head and wipe away tears with her hand.
Seeing this, Sun Zhaodi sighed. She stepped forward to check the pot, where vegetable porridge was simmering, then pulled Lu Guoguo to sit in front of the stove opening.
Suddenly being pulled, Lu Guoguo grew extremely nervous.
Sun Zhaodi gazed at the fire in the stove and suddenly spoke softly.
“Guoguo, I know you didn’t want me to marry your Uncle Lu. But I truly couldn’t bear to miss this chance with him. You don’t know about our past when we were young, you don’t understand how difficult things were for us. Mom doesn’t ask for much else. Just be a little more diligent. That way, when the time comes to find a husband, you can find a diligent family. They won’t look down on you, and you won’t look down on them. Life will always get better over time.”
Lu Guoguo listened quietly. Seeing Sun Zhaodi look at her with a pleading expression, Lu Guoguo instinctively tightened her grip on her hand and replied tentatively, “…Mom, I just didn’t see things clearly for a while. But over these past days, I’ve come to understand. Uncle Lu truly treats you well. I don’t have those old thoughts anymore.”
Hearing this, Sun Zhaodi was both startled and overjoyed. Ever since her daughter turned twelve and heard some gossips from the neighboring production team spouting nonsense, she had constantly opposed her, unwilling to share anything or listen to anything she said.
“You really think that?”
“Really,” Lu Guoguo nodded like a chicken pecking at rice. “When I was sleeping in this morning, I had a really scary dream. I dreamt you didn’t want me anymore. Mom, I’ll gradually become more diligent. I’ll learn what I don’t know how to do. I won’t be that lazy anymore.”
In this era, if you were lazy, word could spread to the neighboring county.
Lu Guoguo herself wasn’t a lazy person.
Sun Zhaodi cried and laughed, then covered her face, got up, and went outside. Lu Guoguo followed a few steps but heard her sob, “Guoguo, let Mom be alone for a while.”
Lu Guoguo obediently stopped.
She actually felt somewhat uneasy. As an orphan, even the orphanage matron couldn’t invest that much emotional care in every child. Sun Zhaodi’s loving gaze was something Lu Guoguo rarely experienced.
As Lu Guoguo ladled out the vegetable porridge and was boiling the greens, Sun Zhaodi returned, having washed her face and looking much more refreshed. She was all smiles as she entered. After washing her hands, she came over to help scoop out some of the chopped chili paste. Lu Guoguo didn’t idle either, turning to pull a few heads of garlic hanging on the wall and started peeling them.
“Guoguo, Mom is truly happy. Even happier than when I married your Uncle Lu,” Sun Zhaodi suddenly said.
Lu Guoguo’s hand peeling the garlic paused. She soothed her, “There will be even happier times than this in the future.”
Sun Zhaodi nodded with a beaming smile. “You’re right.”
**