The next morning, in order to catch the early bus, Bai Lu and Wen Nuan set off early without even eating breakfast.
After more than two hours of bumping along the road, they finally arrived at the town’s bus station. Stepping off the bus, Bai Lu looked at the familiar surroundings, her eyes becoming slightly misty.
In her past life, after the turn of the new century, she and Jin Qiu had lived in the town’s resettlement housing. She had continued working as a nurse at the hospital while Jin Qiu formed a decoration team with a few colleagues to renovate houses for the relocated residents. She hadn’t expected the accident to happen, nor had she expected to encounter such a scoundrelly family.
Wen Nuan took Bai Lu’s arm and asked, “Bai Lu, where do you plan to go first?”
“Let’s go to the post office to mail the letter first. After that, we can visit the Supply and Marketing Cooperative. How does that sound?” Bai Lu smiled.
“Sounds great!” Wen Nuan replied happily, pulling Bai Lu toward the post office.
At the post office, people were queuing up for telegrams, letters, packages, and phone calls. Bai Lu joined the back of the line for letters and waited her turn. When it was finally time for her to mail the letter, rows of shimmering gold characters jumped out before her eyes again.
They were the sale prices for various stamps. The prices varied by year; the “Universal Mall” offered the highest price for the 1980 year-book set—as high as 7,000 Mall Coins—while the 1981 set was only worth a little over a thousand.
Consequently, Bai Lu spent a few dozen yuan to buy a set of 1980 stamps. The moment she put them in her pocket, she sold them to the system. Although she had become a “10,000-coin holder” in the Universal Mall, these coins could only be converted into a maximum of 1,000 yuan in cash.
Still, Bai Lu was satisfied. After all, in an era where the average monthly salary was forty or fifty yuan, owning over a thousand yuan in just a few days was quite a lot.
Next, Bai Lu and Wen Nuan went to the Supply and Marketing Cooperative. Upon entering, the sight was overwhelming; Bai Lu’s vision was filled with golden text, as dense as bullet-chat comments on a video from the future.
One staggering number caught her eye: 200,000 Mall Coins. She looked closer and saw that the item valued at 200,000 was a bottle of liquor on the shelf.
Suppressing her inner excitement, Bai Lu hurried forward and asked, “Comrade, how much is this bottle of liquor?”
“Twenty yuan a bottle,” the staff member replied.
Bai Lu was slightly shocked by the price. She hadn’t expected a single bottle of liquor to cost more than most people’s monthly wages. However, the lure of “200,000 coins” was too great. Without hesitation, she pulled out twenty yuan. “I’ll take one.”
Wen Nuan teased from the side, “Bai Lu, you’re preparing the wedding liquor this early! You’re so thoughtful. No wonder Comrade Jin Jialiang values you so much. Not everyone gets to meet such an outstanding female comrade like you. But one bottle probably won’t be enough, right?”
Bai Lu acted shy. “Don’t we still have a few months? If I buy one bottle a month, it should be enough, right?”
She planned to go back and check if this bottle could truly be exchanged for 200,000 coins. If it could, she wouldn’t mind buying one every month. She would strike it rich without doing any hard labor at all!
After buying the liquor, Bai Lu carried the packaged bottle and accompanied Wen Nuan to look at dresses.
Bai Lu also took a fancy to a light green floral maxi dress. She asked the staff to bring it over and lowered her head to inspect it. At that moment, a discordant voice came from nearby: “Young people these days just don’t know how to live. Ready-made clothes are so expensive; the money spent on one could buy enough fabric to sustain a whole family. Your man is truly pitiful—working hard for a month, and the money he earns might not even be enough for you to buy two dresses.”
The speaker was Su Xueqing, the wife of one of Jin Jialiang’s colleagues. Her situation was actually quite tragic; her husband had passed away last year. He hadn’t died at the forest farm, but had fallen and died while catching fish under a waterfall with friends during his vacation, leaving behind a wife and two children.
However, this Su Xueqing had a sharp tongue and loved to pry into other people’s business. Whenever a family lived well, she would spread rumors and slander them. This caused everyone’s sympathy to turn into loathing—not just for her, but for her children as well.
In her previous life, whenever Bai Lu and Jin Jialiang argued, Su Xueqing would spread exaggerated versions of the news if she overheard. This led to many misunderstandings from outsiders, some of whom even went to the hospital to claim Bai Lu was unfit to be a nurse.
Fortunately, the hospital leadership knew Bai Lu’s abilities and character, so those people didn’t succeed.
Bai Lu hadn’t expected to run into her here, let alone have her fire directed at her.
Wen Nuan snatched the dress from Bai Lu’s hand and handed it to the staff. “Wrap it up for us. We’re paying.”
She then turned to Su Xueqing and said indignantly, “So what if we don’t know how to live? So what if ready-made clothes are expensive? Bai Lu’s fiancé dotes on her and treats her well. He hands over his salary every month so Bai Lu can buy whatever she wants. What? Are you jealous? If you’re jealous, go find a man who is that generous to you. Why come here to act sour with us? Aren’t you just asking for humiliation?”
Anyone who knew them wouldn’t dare offend them. After all, everyone gets sick eventually. They would inevitably have to go to the hospital and run into them. Even if people weren’t especially kind, couldn’t they at least be polite?
Bai Lu pulled at Wen Nuan, signaling her to stop. Otherwise, this woman would surely broadcast today’s events when she got back, and outsiders who didn’t know the truth would blame the two nurses for bullying a widow and her orphans.
Once the staff handed them their packaged dresses, the two of them held their bags high and walked out of the cooperative. Wen Nuan said as she walked, “Bai Lu, let me treat you to braised pork at the state-run restaurant!”
After speaking, she gave Su Xueqing a provocative look.
Hmph, that’ll show you!
Although Wen Nuan’s behavior was a bit childish, it was strangely satisfying. Su Xueqing had bullied everyone for decades in the previous life. As she got older, she became even more vicious, hitting other people’s children and spreading rumors that a young wife was having an affair, nearly driving the poor woman to jump into a river.
Bai Lu looked away. “Sure, but I’ll be the one treating you!”
“I know your fiancé dotes on you and gives you all his money to keep. Since you have the cash, I’ll take advantage of you today! But you must let me treat you next time,” Wen Nuan said with a giggle, hugging Bai Lu’s arm.
Bai Lu just smiled faintly and didn’t explain.
Everyone had already formed the preconceived notion that Jin Jialiang handed his salary over to her. If she tried to explain now, they would just think she was being modest. In reality, Jin Jialiang hadn’t given her a single cent. On the contrary, almost all the expenses from their hometown to settling down here had been paid by Jin Qiu. She had no idea how the rumor about Jin Jialiang handing over his salary before the wedding had started.
Let them misunderstand. For her, the misunderstanding was actually a good thing.