Yun Qing hurried into the Space, stripped off his clothes, and drank a cup of Spirit Spring Water. That familiar pain soon struck him, making him groan in a low voice. This sensation was truly damn exquisite. Could this happen in every world from now on?
What a terrible fate!
After washing away the filth expelled from his body in the Space’s bathroom, he looked at the thin youth in the mirror, who resembled nothing more than a skeleton, and sighed. Sigh! Surviving three years of famine without starving to death was already a blessing. He still had not recovered yet.
The Original Host’s complexion had already been pale. After Marrow Cleansing and Tendon Tempering, there was no need to hide it, which saved him a great deal of trouble.
Productivity was low in this era. Even in a year of plenty, people could not eat their fill at every meal. Everything required ration coupons, and going anywhere required an introduction letter. Everyone lived by tightening their belts.
He put on his clothes, cooked a pot of rice porridge and a pot of eggs, and kept them there to eat slowly. The Space was not lacking in such things anyway.
He might be thin, but he had to build muscle beneath those bones. Besides, he still had to practice martial arts, so he could not afford to gain weight.
After eating his fill, he called the System over and began searching for martial arts suitable for this body. The Zhou Family was an ordinary household and had never come into contact with martial arts.
After choosing for a long while, he selected three techniques from martial arts worlds: an internal energy manual, 《Primordial Qi Formula》; a Palm Technique, 《Eight Trigram Palm》; and a Lightness Skill, 《Snow Without Trace》.
After Marrow Cleansing and Tendon Tempering had opened his Governing and Conception Vessels, practicing the internal energy manual came naturally. In the span of one night, he was already able to circulate one complete cycle.
As for the Palm Technique and Lightness Skill, those would require time. However, for the sake of his life, Yun Qing ate another Strength Pill. With overwhelming strength, one could subdue all tricks. Xiao Liu had collected quite a few of these things. Once he went to the cultivation world, he would learn alchemy himself.
Before dawn, Yun Qing left the Space and pretended that nothing had happened, closing his eyes and pretending to sleep.
His divine sense could now inspect an area within a radius of 500 meters. He extended his divine sense and began searching the two rooms. Before Chu Ying died, she had told Zhou Hongjun where the gold bars were buried: in a dilapidated residence in the capital city.
Once the situation stabilized, Zhou Hongjun had planned to dig up the gold bars and bring them back. That was why he had entered the city. As luck would have it, he encountered the machinery factory recruiting workers, so he applied and became a worker. Naturally, he never dug up the gold bars.
That year happened to be 1953.
They were only dug up after moving here, and had been hidden in this very household.
It had to be said that this old bastard had some kind of turtle’s luck.
Underground beneath the bed in the room next door, Yun Qing found a wooden chest. Inside, ten gold bars were arranged in perfect order, along with a jade thumb ring wrapped in silk cloth.
The wooden chest was also made of excellent material. Although he did not understand timber, the fact that it had not been eroded after being buried for so many years meant that the material was certainly uncommon.
Yun Qing controlled his divine sense and used ordinary wood in the Space to duplicate an identical chest, then replaced the original with it.
A single gold bar weighed 375 grams. At the current gold price, it was worth approximately 1,100 yuan. Of course, that was the bank’s buyback price; the black market price was even higher.
In an era when the average wage was twenty yuan, a chest full of gold was an enormous fortune. Zhou Hongjun had not told the Original Host a single word about it, clearly never intending to give him any share. He was not afraid of choking on his own greed!
Once he had finished, he heard movement in the courtyard. These were the people who had risen early to cook. The workers had to go to work, and the women always got up early to prepare breakfast.
Zhao Hongmei in the room next door also rustled awake. Zhou Hongjun had to go to work, and she needed to get up early to cook. Before long, he heard Zhou Yunlan in the inner room getting out of bed as well.
This younger sister was quite diligent. The Zhou Family favored sons over daughters, and girls had no status. Zhou Hongjun was like that, and so was Zhao Hongmei. As for Grandma Zhou and the others, there was even less need to mention them. Zhou Yunlan was practically invisible in this household. Giving her a bite to eat was treated as an immense favor, and she had even less standing than the Original Host, her older brother.
In the previous life, this younger sister had also met a tragic end. She died even earlier than the Original Host. At only seventeen, she was introduced by Zhou Yunxue to the machinery factory’s GWH director as his second wife, all so Zhou Yunxue could secure a position for himself.
That director was a domestic abuser. His previous wife had been beaten to death by him. He was also very old, only two years younger than Zhou Hongjun, and old enough to be Zhou Yunlan’s father.
His son was even a year older than Zhou Yunlan. Less than half a year after the marriage, Zhou Yunlan threw herself into the city moat and died.
If anyone said Zhou Hongjun had not known about this, Yun Qing would not believe a single word of it. The reason he had failed to intervene was simply that he benefited from it too. She was only a daughter—sacrificing her was no great loss. It would give the family another worker, and he could become related to a leader by marriage. He might even get promoted. Why would he refuse?
Yun Qing had not the slightest regard for someone like Zhou Hongjun. He had worked at the factory for ten years and was still only a second-grade worker, which was enough to reveal his abilities. What a useless man!
All his good luck had probably been used up when he was recruited. If he did not hurry to raise his worker grade, after 1966, he would no longer have any chance to advance.
As Yun Qing thought about this family, he heard Zhou Hongjun get up and rose as well. He did not forget to jab the pain points of the two brothers, waking them up. He was already out of bed, so why should they continue sleeping soundly? They certainly had beautiful dreams!
“Ow! That hurts! Who pinched me?” Zhou Yunxue cried out in pain, fully awake now, and looked at Yun Qing with ill intent.
“Ah! It hurts for me too!” Zhou Yunxi cried out as well, whimpering as his gaze swept toward Yun Qing.
Yun Qing did not even spare them a glance. He certainly would not admit it. Zhou Yunxue’s suspicion had some basis, after all, since the two of them had slept beside each other. Zhou Yunxi had another person between them. Even if he suspected Yun Qing, he had no evidence whatsoever.
“Second Brother, was this your doing?” Zhou Yunxue asked fiercely.
“Do you have evidence? Which eye saw me pinch you?” Yun Qing replied indifferently. The Original Host had never been polite to Zhou Yunxue either. They were not exactly at each other’s throats, but they were close.
“Hmph!” Zhou Yunxue was silenced by the retort. He snorted and began getting dressed as well.
The Original Host and Zhou Yunxue often fought in the hutong, and the outcome was always evenly matched. They were only a year apart, and strictly speaking, only a few months apart. Their height and weight were nearly identical, making them evenly matched opponents.
Zhou Yunxi, meanwhile, was cunning. He never took either side. In his view, the Original Host shared the same father as him, making their blood relationship closer, while Zhou Yunxue was a stepchild burden.
Yet as the youngest son, he was also the most doted on in the family. Both his biological father and mother treated him well, so he looked down on the Original Host, his older brother. When Zhao Hongmei subjected the Original Host to cold violence, he followed her example.
Zhao Hongmei did not dare openly mistreat the Original Host. After all, he carried the Zhou Family bloodline, while she herself had brought along a stepchild burden. If she failed to treat everyone equally, Grandma Zhou would be the first to make her pay.
As a typical vicious mother-in-law, Grandma Zhou disliked all her daughters-in-law. She not only tormented Chu Ying but also tormented Zhao Hongmei. After all, Chu Ying had still been an unmarried maiden when she married into the family, while Zhao Hongmei was a widow and was naturally a level lower.
It was only after moving here that Zhao Hongmei’s life became easier. But by then, the Original Host was already five or six years old and had begun to understand things. Back in the countryside, he often heard people say that stepmothers bullied the children of their husbands’ former wives, so he had always guarded himself against her.
When it came to the Original Host, Zhao Hongmei’s principle was to ignore him, ask nothing about him, and care nothing for him. He could do whatever he wanted. Whenever the Original Host made a mistake, she would only have Zhou Hongjun deal with it. Since he was not her own child, she refused to involve herself at all—a textbook case of cold violence.
That was why the Original Host and Zhou Yunxue never fought at home. They always went outside to fight and returned only after they were done.