Li Yonggang saw that Li Wenjing had made up her mind and wouldn’t let him see her off, so he stopped insisting.
“Jingjing, be careful on the train by yourself. Don’t talk to people you don’t know. Once you get there, if you run into anything you can’t handle, call me, all right? Anything your Big Brother can do, I’ll do for you!”
In her previous life, she’d had the phone number for her Big Brother’s military unit, but she had never called it—not once.
At first she hadn’t wanted to call. Later, she hadn’t even had the chance.
She was afraid her Big Brother would treat her the way everyone else in the family did.
Li Wenjing’s voice was hoarse as she replied, “I know, Big Brother. You’re getting more and more long-winded.”
She watched Li Yonggang’s back grow smaller and smaller, then picked up her luggage and headed into the station.
As she walked, she couldn’t help wiping away the tears that had betrayed her.
She found an empty corner and took some food that was available in this era out of her Portable Space. After all, the train ride from Kyoto to the Northeast would take four days.
She couldn’t go four days on the train without eating anything. She was human, not a god.
Li Jianguo and Wang Jinju knew perfectly well how long it would take her to travel alone to the countryside in the Northeast, yet they hadn’t prepared so much as a bite for her. They hadn’t even thought about how a sixteen-year-old girl was supposed to get through the next few days without food.
Maybe that was the difference between caring and not caring.
If it had been Li Yuerong, they would have asked if she’d eaten and reminded her to be careful—even if she were only going to the Supply Cooperative, let alone all the way to the Northeast.
Even her train ticket had been bought by her Big Brother. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have had the money to buy one.
When they drove her out of the house, they hadn’t given a thought to whether she’d live or die.
It was too late for her to go buy anything at the Supply Cooperative now. Besides, she barely had any money or ration coupons in her pockets.
In this era, you needed not only money to buy things, but coupons too.
She had neither money nor coupons. She was flat broke.
Once she’d gotten everything ready, all that remained was to wait for the train.
The trains these days were truly old—and slow.
There were also plenty of thieves on board. This was the first time Li Wenjing had ever taken a train in either of her two lives.
But she’d ridden trains plenty of times in her mission worlds. She’d even flown on planes.
She boarded the green train without any trouble. It was packed with people, luggage was everywhere, and the smell throughout the carriage was indescribable. Let’s just say it was pretty pungent.
The young people in the carriage all looked miserable. Some of the women were even sobbing.
The men and women in this carriage were probably all educated youths being sent to the countryside. None of them wanted to go, but they had no choice.
In this era, every family had plenty of children. Those sent to the countryside were either the ones their families favored least or the ones they had no choice but to send.
Carrying her luggage, Li Wenjing found her seat. She had to hand it to Li Yonggang—he’d managed to get her registered as an educated youth and secured her a train ticket in such a short time.
Thinking of that, the corners of her mouth lifted.
The girl across from her, whose eyes were red from crying, noticed and asked curiously, “Why aren’t you sad at all?”
Li Wenjing looked up at the girl opposite her. She wore clothes washed so often they had faded white, and her yellowish hair looked malnourished. Her face was narrow, and her eyes were long and thin.
“I’m not sad.”
Why should she be? She’d already been sad enough in her previous life, hadn’t she?
The girl gave Li Wenjing a strange look, then went back to wiping her tears with a handkerchief.
She thought Li Wenjing was so pretty. How could she be so cold-hearted?
Just then, a young man and woman walked over.
The young woman wore a goose-yellow Bragi dress, a black wool coat over it, and a pair of little black leather shoes.
She wasn’t particularly pretty, but she wasn’t ugly either.
Still, she gave off the air of someone who thought, I’m a young lady.
The man beside her was about 1.7 meters tall. He wore a military-green jacket and had an unremarkable face.
Li Wenjing took one look at him, and two words popped into her mind: “bootlicker!”
Her guess was confirmed almost immediately. The man pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the seat, then said ingratiatingly, “Lili, I’ve cleaned it. You can sit down now.”
The young woman only frowned before sitting down beside Li Wenjing.
The man glanced at Li Wenjing, a flicker of surprise in his eyes.
But he knew perfectly well who he was after, and quickly hid his surprise.
“Comrade, could I switch seats with you? I want to sit with my friend.”
Li Wenjing gave him a sidelong glance. “No.”
Wu Tong had been absolutely sure she’d agree, but the next second she had shot him down. Even the smile on his face froze.
While Wu Tong stood there awkwardly, a young girl came over with a faded cloth bag on her back.
She looked thin and frail, about thirteen or fourteen. Her clothes were patched, and her shoes had holes at the toes. At a glance, she looked like someone from a poor family.
“Excuse me. Could you let me through?”
Her voice was so quiet it was like a mosquito’s; unless you listened carefully, you couldn’t hear her.
When Wu Tong saw her, he instinctively frowned and moved aside. His expression made it clear he was disgusted.
Even Yao Lili, sitting beside him, instinctively covered her nose and mouth.
The girl’s face was dark, and at the sight of this she looked embarrassed and hurt.
Still, she didn’t say a word. Gritting her teeth, she put her luggage on the rack and sat down in her seat.
Wu Tong’s eyes shifted again, as though he’d come up with a good idea. He turned to the girl who had just sat down.
“Comrade, could I switch seats with you?”
The girl sat with her head bowed and didn’t answer Wu Tong, as if she hadn’t heard him at all.
Now Wu Tong felt even more awkward. Everyone around them was looking at him, and he was so embarrassed he wanted the ground to swallow him up.
Just then, the round-faced girl who had spoken to Li Wenjing earlier spoke up.
“Comrade, I’ll switch with you. We’re all educated youths heading to the countryside, so we’ll be one big family from now on. We should help each other.”
Wu Tong immediately felt himself recover. He no longer felt embarrassed, and the smile on his face grew much more genuine.
“Thank you, Comrade. My name is Wu Tong!”
“Hello, Comrade Wu. I’m Dong Xia!”
Li Wenjing couldn’t be bothered with the two of them.
She grumbled to herself, “Why didn’t Big Brother get me a sleeper berth? Then I wouldn’t have had to deal with these oddballs!”
She didn’t want to deal with other people, but someone seemed to have a screw loose and was determined to cause trouble!