"No way. What if you catch a cold?" When Zhengyang and Xiuxiu tried to argue, Bai Jiu stopped them. "You two stay home and keep an eye on the fire. Don’t let it go out before I get back, or we’ll be left with nothing but wet firewood and freezing cold tonight."
Hearing their mother assign them the task of watching the fire, the two children stopped insisting on tagging along.
"Okay, Xiuxiu and I will definitely keep the fire going and wait for you to come back."
"Good kids."
Bai Jiu originally wanted to kiss them, but their faces were simply too dirty to kiss. She decided to let it go and give them a proper bath tomorrow once she had all their daily necessities sorted.
On her way to the back mountain, Bai Jiu bumped into some villagers, all of whom asked her about the household division. She certainly had no time to dilly-dally and chat right now, so after exchanging a few perfunctory words, she headed straight up the mountain.
Chopping firewood was a must, but she wondered if she would be lucky enough to come across some wild game. If not, it wasn’t a big deal. She had plenty of chickens and ducks in her spatial dimension. Taking one out wouldn’t be an issue.
After gathering enough firewood, Bai Jiu saw that it was still early, so she decided to try her luck. Unfortunately, she found absolutely nothing. It made sense when she thought about it. The villagers weren’t stupid. If wild game were that easy to find, they wouldn’t have left any behind for her. Since she couldn’t find anything, she had no choice but to take something from her dimension.
Having worked for an entire afternoon, Bai Jiu was already starving. She found a large tree and climbed it. She didn’t know what kind of tree it was, but it surprisingly provided a thick canopy of green leaves even in the dead of winter. Once she was completely hidden behind the leaves, she took out two large meat buns from her dimension, along with some braised meat snacks. It tasted absolutely divine.
On her way back, she wrapped a chicken in some leaves, hoisted her firewood, and hurried home. Their current place was a bit secluded, and the path she took skirted the mountain, so she didn’t run into any villagers on the return trip.
Upon arriving home, Zhengyang and Xiuxiu were instantly captivated by the chicken Bai Jiu had brought back. It was their very first time seeing a wild pheasant.
"Stop drooling, you two. Hurry up and help me build the fire up. I’ll roast the chicken for you in a bit," Bai Jiu teased with a smile, seeing their eager expressions.
"Okay!" The two didn’t mind their mother’s teasing at all; instead, they answered loudly and cheerfully.
What Bai Jiu didn’t know was that the people living in a nearby house were practically driven to tears by the mouthwatering aroma of her roasting chicken.
"Sigh. I wonder who just moved in. They’re actually eating meat. It’s been ages since we’ve even smelled roasting meat." The speaker was an elderly man who looked to be in his sixties. As he spoke, he gulped down his saliva.
"Stop craving it. No matter how much you want it, that meat isn’t ours. Old Li is still sick right now, so let’s not cause any trouble," an elderly woman chimed in. She was dressed in ragged but impeccably clean clothes. Given their status, did they even deserve to eat meat?
"Sigh, when do you think Old Li will recover from this illness? Just looking at him makes it hard for me to breathe," another emaciated elderly man said, gazing with heartache at the figure lying on a bed of straw, covered by nothing more than additional straw.
"Well, he’s still breathing, isn’t he? Unlike the last few who stopped breathing altogether. Alright, I’ll go up the mountain tomorrow and see if I can forage for some medicine," the sole woman among the four said. Her name was Zhou Lan. She had been sent down to the countryside along with her husband, who was the first elderly man to speak.
"I’ll go with you. I’m worried about you going alone," Zhou Lan’s husband, Zhang Weiguo, said in a low voice.
Zhou Lan shook her head. "No, it’s too inconvenient with more people. I’ll be fine on my own. Even if someone sees me, they’ll just think I’m looking for wild vegetables."
Though in this weather, where would one even find wild vegetables? Everything edible from the foot of the mountain up to the midpoint had already been picked clean by the villagers. Enduring the winter was never easy, and this year’s grain distribution hadn’t happened yet. Mr. Zhang was still uneasy, but he knew his wife was right.
"Sigh, who knows when this will all come to an end," Mr. Zhang sighed.
"No matter what, we have to survive. Only by staying alive is there hope." The other emaciated old man stoked the fire. His surname was Wu, and he was originally from Capital City. Being sent down to this area had been arranged by his family’s connections, but he never expected that everyone who came down with him would perish. They were the only ones left.
He had money, but money couldn’t buy anything here. People wouldn’t even sell goods to people of their status, and they weren’t even allowed to visit the county town. Every day, the village sent someone over to subject them to a re-education session before dragging them out to work. They did the dirtiest, most exhausting labor, yet received the poorest food—and not even enough to fill their stomachs.
Bai Jiu had no idea about any of this. Since they had absolutely nothing in their new home, she simply transferred the embers from the fire pit to the heated brick bed, and then took the two children to sleep.