Night had fully fallen.
Scattered lights flickered on across the military compound.
In the end, Bai Luoluo still couldn’t manage to move those large pieces of furniture into the house.
After exhausting every ounce of strength she had, she only managed to drag in some lightweight suitcases and a few expensive silk quilts.
As for the dead-heavy Simmons mattress and the genuine leather sofa…
They could only be wronged for now and left to spend the night outdoors in the courtyard.
Fortunately, it wasn’t raining tonight.
Otherwise, items worth over a hundred thousand dollars would have been ruined beyond repair.
Bai Luoluo collapsed onto the old wooden bed—three legs were stable, while the fourth was propped up with a brick.
There was no light in the room.
She fumbled around for quite a while before finally finding a pull-cord switch on the wall.
Click.
The dim bulb flickered twice before lighting up.
Only fifteen watts.
The light was so weak it made one drowsy.
By that faint glow, Bai Luoluo surveyed this so-called “wedding room.”
The west wall was painted white, but years of neglect had caused the paint to peel like diseased skin.
The cement floor was uneven and pitted, with coal briquettes and random junk left behind by the previous occupant piled in the corners.
The air was heavy with dampness and mold.
“Achoo!”
Bai Luoluo covered her nose and sneezed.
Too dirty.
For someone with a cleanliness obsession like her, this place was practically hell.
She wanted to find some water to wipe her face, only to discover that the water jar was empty.
She thought about boiling some water to drink, but staring at the pitch-black coal stove, she had no idea where to even begin.
Worse still—
Gurgle…
Her stomach let out a thunderous protest.
From the moment she got off the plane until now—ten full hours—she hadn’t eaten or drunk a thing.
The hunger felt like a hand clawing wildly at her stomach, burning and unsettling.
“No, I need to find something to eat.”
Bai Luoluo stood up, her vision darkening slightly.
She rummaged through her suitcase.
Clothes. Jewelry. Cosmetics.
She had left in too much of a hurry and had actually forgotten to pack biscuits or chocolate—any kind of dry food!
“System, do you have any food?”
She called out in her mind.
【System shop not yet unlocked. Please solve survival issues on your own.】
【Tip: The military compound has a public canteen. Meals are provided with ration tickets.】
The system replied coldly.
Bai Luoluo clenched her teeth.
The canteen?
That kind of mass-produced food?
Back abroad, she wouldn’t even eat a steak from a Michelin restaurant if it was slightly overcooked—and now she had fallen so low as to eat at a communal canteen?
But…
She really was starving.
So hungry her stomach was spasming.
“Fine. A tiger fallen to the plains is bullied by dogs.”
Bai Luoluo comforted herself.
She dug through her bag and found the stack of ration tickets Lei Li had tossed her earlier.
Among them were several colorful slips of paper with the words “Meal Ticket” printed on them.
“I’ll just eat a little. Just to fill my stomach.”
She tidied her messy hair in front of the mirror and wiped the dust from her face with a wet tissue.
Even in this situation, the bearing of a young lady could not be lost.
She picked up a delicate enamel lunch box—the only item in her luggage that could be used as tableware—and pushed the door open, walking out.
…
The canteen was on the east side of the compound.
It was peak dinner time.
The spacious hall was deafening with noise, filled with a mixed smell of cooking oil fumes, sweat, and cheap detergent.
To Bai Luoluo’s sensitive nose, the stench was practically a biological weapon.
The moment she stepped inside, she couldn’t help frowning deeply, raising a hand to cover her mouth and nose.
The once-noisy canteen fell into a strange moment of silence because of her arrival.
She stood out far too much.
Even under the dim lights, Bai Luoluo’s purple dress, her soft cascading waves of hair, and her luminous fair skin looked completely out of place here.
Countless eyes fixed on her.
Some were filled with amazement, some with curiosity—but most with rejection and scrutiny.
“So that’s the capitalist young lady Chief Lei brought back?”
“Dressed like a seductress—what’s she doing in the canteen?”
“I heard she can’t even roll up her bedding and needs Chief Lei to serve her.”
The whispers surged toward her like a tide.
Bai Luoluo forced herself to remain calm, straightened her back, and walked toward the serving window.
A long line stretched out in front of it.
She obediently took her place at the very end.
The soldiers and military wives ahead of her subtly distanced themselves, as if she carried some kind of contagious disease.
At last, it was her turn.
The server was a chubby cook wearing a greasy white coat.
He shot Bai Luoluo a glance, banging the metal ladle against the food container with a deafening clatter.
“What do you want? Hurry up! There are people waiting behind you!”
His attitude was extremely rude.
Bai Luoluo stood on her tiptoes and glanced into the massive iron barrels.
Just one look made her stomach churn.
The first barrel held napa cabbage stewed with glass noodles.
They called it cabbage, but it was all tough stalks—the leaves had completely fallen apart. The broth was a murky gray-white, with a few suspicious oil droplets floating on top.
The second barrel held chunks of potatoes, blackened as if they’d been tossed straight into the pot without being washed.
The staple food was a huge vat of coarse brown rice, yellowish in color, with black husks and even small stones visibly mixed in.
“This… this is something people eat?”
Bai Luoluo blurted out instinctively.
The sound wasn’t loud, but in front of the quiet serving window, it was especially clear.
The chubby cook’s face immediately darkened.
“Watch how you talk! Eat it if you want, don’t if you don’t! If you’re not eating, get lost!”
“This is the food of us working people! And you, a pampered young lady, have the nerve to be picky?”
Murmurs of dissatisfaction rose from the line behind her.
“Exactly. What’s she being so fussy about?”
“Having something to eat is already good enough. A few years ago, we didn’t even have tree bark to chew on.”
Bai Luoluo’s face flushed, then turned pale.
That wasn’t what she meant…
She really had never seen food like this before.
【Warning! Host’s vital signs detected to be dropping due to hypoglycemia. Immediate food intake is recommended to replenish energy.】
The system issued a red alert in her mind.
A wave of dizziness washed over Bai Luoluo.
There was no choice anymore.
If she wanted to stay alive…
With trembling hands, she handed over a meal ticket and that delicate enamel lunch box.
“I… I’ll have one serving of rice and one serving of cabbage.”
The chubby cook snorted coldly and took the lunch box.
Clang!
A heaping ladle of coarse brown rice was dumped into the box.
Then came another splash.
That scoop of cabbage—mixed with rotten leaves and murky broth—was poured directly over the rice.
The soup splashed out, dripping onto the back of Bai Luoluo’s fair hand.
Hot!
And more importantly—dirty!
Bai Luoluo almost threw the lunch box away.
Suppressing her nausea, she carried the heavy lunch box to an empty table in the corner and sat down.
She stared at the contents, which looked no different from pig slop.
She spent a full three minutes bracing herself mentally.
“Bai Luoluo, this is French-style stew… this is whole-grain risotto…”
She hypnotized herself, picked up the spoon, and shakily scooped a small bite of rice into her mouth.
Crunch!
A sharp cracking sound rang out.
Her teeth bit down on a rock-hard pebble.
Pain shot through her.
Immediately after, the musty smell of old rice mixed with the earthy stench of cabbage exploded in her mouth.
【Warning! Food detected to contain excessive bacteria and hard foreign objects. Host is advised to stop eating immediately!】
The system delivered its merciless follow-up.
“Urgh—”
Bai Luoluo couldn’t hold it in any longer.
Covering her mouth, she spat the bite she’d just eaten onto the floor beside the table.
Tears burst out instantly.
It was unbearable.
There was no way she could swallow this!
This scene happened to be witnessed by several military wives at the next table.
One of them, a woman in a floral blouse cracking sunflower seeds, was the very same one who had mocked her at the gate earlier that day.
Her name was Wang Cuihua, the wife of the Second Battalion Commander, notorious for loving gossip.
Wang Cuihua curled her lips and deliberately raised her voice:
“Well, well, look at this—so this is what a rich family’s young lady looks like.”
“The grain we treasure like gold—she takes one bite and spits it out.”
“So she’s saying our army’s food is dirty!”
“So delicate—why come to this poor backwater in the first place? She should just go back and be her rich madam.”
The people around them all cast scornful looks her way.
In this era of material scarcity, wasting food was the greatest sin of all.
Bai Luoluo’s act of spitting out her food had clearly angered everyone.
“I… I bit into a stone…”
Bai Luoluo tried to explain, her voice trembling with tears.
“Who hasn’t bitten into a stone while eating? You just spit it out—was there really a need to throw everything up?”
Wang Cuihua rolled her eyes.
“I say, Chief Lei really married himself an ancestor this time. He’s going to suffer plenty in the future.”
“Exactly. Aside from being a bit pretty, what can she do? She can’t lift anything or work at all.”
“A woman like this—back in our hometown, no one would want her.”
Those cutting words pierced Bai Luoluo’s heart like needles.
Humiliation.
An overwhelming wave of humiliation.
She had donated her family’s assets to the country and returned with everything she had to help build the nation.
And what did she get in return?
Thrown into this rundown house, forced to eat rice full of sand, and scolded by strangers pointing fingers at her.
Was this the result of her passion and devotion?
Bai Luoluo suddenly stood up.
She didn’t even take the lunch box, turned around, and ran straight out.
Tears brimmed in her eyes, yet she stubbornly refused to let them fall.
She rushed out of the canteen, heavy with the smell of grease, and into the cool night air.
Behind her, she could still hear the military wives’ laughter.
Back in that cold, pitch-dark single-story house,
Bai Luoluo leaned against the door and slowly slid down to the floor.
Her stomach was still growling.
It was empty, burning with pain.
But compared to the physical hunger, the chill in her heart was far more despairing.
“Lei Li…”
She whispered the name in the darkness.
The man who had left her here and paid her no heed.
If it weren’t for the system’s mission, if it weren’t for the Bai family…
She truly wanted to buy a plane ticket right now and fly back.