“Where did you get these from?” Yang Dai asked suspiciously. There were too many ration coupons in the bag, and she didn’t believe the melon seeds she had given Han Lin could have been exchanged for so much.
“Let’s eat first. I’ll explain after,” Han Lin changed the subject and led Yang Dai to the commune’s state-owned restaurant.
Yang Dai glanced at him several more times but didn’t press further.
The restaurant’s cooking was certainly far better than Han Lin’s, and she didn’t want to miss this chance.
As they were eating, they happened to run into the accountant from Huangzhuang Brigade again.
Faced with him directly, they couldn’t pretend not to notice.
“Uncle Huang, here for a meal?” Han Lin greeted the accountant, Huang Ping, first.
When Huang Ping saw them, his expression flickered for a moment, but he quickly hid it and smiled. “Ah, the young couple came to the commune for a meal? Take your time eating. I still have brigade matters to attend to, so I’ll be off.”
After he left, Han Lin looked toward the table where Huang Ping had been sitting—two sets of dishes and chopsticks. He’d been dining with someone else, who had simply left earlier.
“You suspect him?” Yang Dai asked.
Han Lin neither nodded nor shook his head, but Yang Dai understood—he must have thought so.
Yet without evidence, it was nothing more than his suspicion.
The food in the state-run restaurant was leagues better than Han Lin’s cooking, and both ate to their fill.
Before leaving, Yang Dai decided on her own to buy a few steamed buns and dumplings, unwilling to part from the restaurant too quickly.
“Let’s go to the county,” Han Lin suggested. Having come out, he didn’t want to head home so soon.
Besides, with so many ration coupons in the bag, they should spend them before going back.
Yang Dai didn’t refuse—she wanted to see the county as well.
The commune under which Huangzhuang Brigade fell was one of the poorest in the county.
The county seat not only had a supply and marketing cooperative but also a newly built department store.
Yang Dai wanted to see this new thing of the times for herself.
After twenty minutes of cycling, they arrived at the department store.
It was a three-story building painted white, gleaming in the sunlight.
Yang Dai stepped inside. The decorations were ordinary by her standards, but the place was bustling with people.
The first floor was the most crowded. The second floor sold ready-made clothes, fabrics, rubber shoes, and various cigarettes, and was a little less crowded.
The third floor had the fewest people—selling home appliances, watches, sewing machines, televisions.
Yang Dai looked around but bought nothing.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to—it was that she couldn’t.
She didn’t even know what all the ration coupons Han Lin had brought back were for.
And big purchases would certainly invite questions she had no answers for.
In the end, they used a few industrial coupons to buy some inconspicuous items, and with grain and meat coupons, they bought flour and pork before finally preparing to head home.
“Do you know any way to earn ration coupons?” On the way back, Yang Dai looked troubled.
Relying solely on exchanging her storeroom goods for food, drink, and coupons clearly wasn’t wise.
Even though she had plenty stored, she couldn’t just sit and eat through it all—that wasn’t her style.
And with things as they were, she needed a stable source of income, so she wouldn’t have to sneak around when buying goods.
It was becoming clear she wouldn’t be getting the elementary school teaching post. After wandering the commune and county, her thoughts had shifted.
Being a teacher at Huangzhuang Brigade’s school mainly earned work points there, not ration coupons. That job wasn’t suitable.
As for the commune job her mother mentioned, Yang Dai no longer intended to take it.
That position was secured through her father’s connections. If she were still unmarried, it might have been fine. But now that she was married, taking it would certainly stir up conflict at home again.
She already had grievances with her elder sister-in-law and her second sister-in-law to-be. If she took that job, she herself wouldn’t feel at ease.
But if she tried to find work on her own, she had no connections, and with her rural household registration, no factory would take her.
She had learned as much earlier while waiting in line.
Factories prioritized urban household registrations and relatives of employees—she fit neither.
As for submitting essays to newspapers, Yang Dai didn’t see much hope there either.
After all, newspaper submissions didn’t come with pay or coupons. That one essay call had just been an exception.
The more she thought, the more her head ached.
It was the helpless feeling of having money but being unable to spend it.
But no one could give her an answer to this worry.
“Is someone in that ditch ahead?” Yang Dai suddenly frowned. She thought she had faintly heard a child crying.
Han Lin’s ears were keener—he had already heard.
But after years of fighting in the palace, he had little compassion left.
Besides, the sun was setting. If they didn’t pedal faster, they would be traveling at night with no lights, which was dangerous.
He hadn’t intended to interfere, but since Yang Dai had spoken up, he didn’t object.
He knew well enough what she thought of him, and now that they were in this new era, he wanted to change that impression.
The road from the county back to Huangzhuang Brigade had been built only a few years ago. It wasn’t paved with cement, still a dirt road, but ditches had been dug on either side to smooth it and mark off the farmland.
It was still possible to fall into one.
They stopped their bicycles, and Yang Dai jumped down first. The first thing she saw wasn’t a person but an overturned tractor.
The faint cries came from beneath it.
It was the first time Yang Dai had ever seen such a thing, but she didn’t spare it a thought—she only wanted to see the people.
The tractor had rolled into the ditch. The driver lay unconscious nearby, while under the overturned trailer someone else was trapped—a child, judging by the cries.
Yang Dai was helpless against the heavy machine.
Luckily, Han Lin had jumped down too.
Unlike her, he had been gradually picking up his old martial skills again since arriving here.
Though heavy, the tractor could be pried up with a stick, and he managed to shift it enough.
The child’s cries grew louder, and Yang Dai crawled down to pull the trapped people free.
She finally saw it clearly—a toddler barely able to walk, clutched tightly in the arms of a woman who had fainted in the crash.
“Take them to the hospital,” Yang Dai urged, focused only on saving them.
Neither of them could drive a tractor, so they ferried them to the hospital by bicycle, making two exhausting trips.
At last, both mother and child were safe in hospital beds.
“Let’s find a doctor,” Han Lin said, seeing the scrapes on Yang Dai’s face. His heart twisted.
The tractor was far too heavy to flip back upright alone. After prying it up to make some space, it had been Yang Dai who crawled in and pulled the mother and child out bit by bit.
Her thin clothes had offered no protection. Her face and arms were scraped raw from the effort.
This was something the Yang Dai of before would never have endured.
The realization choked Han Lin.
From the very first day he awoke here, he believed Yang Dai’s arrival was because of him.
They had gone from betrothed to married, and here, it was his duty to protect her.
But half a month into this life, his sense of defeat had only grown.
Now, seeing her injured, he felt even more stifled.
Yang Dai hadn’t even noticed her wounds while rescuing people. It was only when Han Lin pointed them out that she realized how many scrapes she had.
Since they were at the hospital, she didn’t try to tough it out, letting the staff treat her injuries.
By then, the tractor driver had woken, his head wrapped in thick bandages.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he repeated when he saw them.
“That woman and child—are they all right?” he asked anxiously, not seeing them around.
“The child is with a nurse being fed. The woman is still in surgery,” Yang Dai explained. She had assumed they were a family, but from his words, perhaps not.
Soon after, the woman too was out of surgery, transferred to a regular ward with the baby safe in her arms, sleeping soundly.
Exchanging a look, Yang Dai and Han Lin decided to leave.
It was already dark, and traveling by night wasn’t wise.
But without an introduction letter, they couldn’t stay overnight in the county. Returning home was the only option.
The driver insisted on taking their names and address, and Yang Dai didn’t refuse.
The ride home was pitch black, and Han Lin cycled carefully. By the time they got back, it was already very late.
He wanted to urge Yang Dai to rest—after such a day, and with her injuries—but she wasn’t sleepy at all.
Her doubts remained unanswered.
If she didn’t get to the bottom of where those ration coupons had come from, she wouldn’t sleep soundly.
“The commune’s black market got raided. I happened to arrive then and picked these up,” Han Lin finally said, handing the melon seeds back to her.
“The two black markets had split, and now both were hit. In the chaos, I grabbed these.” He poured out the colorful pile of coupons as he spoke.
In the flickering candlelight, neither of them said a word.