“You think so too, right? I knew it! Lin Yingxue and Gu Linchuan’s relationship is definitely not simple! I’ve seen Lin Yingxue sneaking off into the woods before. She said she was going to the outhouse, but I always felt something was off… maybe… she was secretly meeting Gu Linchuan in the woods!”
“Comrade Shen, don’t worry. I’ll definitely expose this scumbag couple and give you justice!”
Liu Yun said this with absolute certainty, though her eyes couldn’t hide a hint of gloating.
In her previous life, Shen Qinghe had heard Gu Linchuan say that at the “educated youth settlement” there was a boy surnamed Zhang who liked Lin Yingxue, and a girl surnamed Liu liked that boy Zhang. So she constantly targeted Lin Yingxue. Coupled with Lin Yingxue being a capitalist heiress, she was ostracized and lived a miserable life at the settlement.
At the time, Lin Yingxue had deliberately tried to befriend her. So initially, Shen Qinghe and Lin Yingxue had a decent relationship. Even later, when Gu Linchuan helped Lin Yingxue get a job in the arts troupe, Shen Qinghe felt uncomfortable but didn’t say anything.
She had truly been so foolish in her past life!
“Really… no way…”
Liu Yun couldn’t hide her excitement. “It’s real! I’ll be keeping an eye on them both the whole time! Just wait and see!”
Zhang Nan looked at Shen Qinghe a little awkwardly. She didn’t like Lin Yingxue either—not only because of her heiress status, but also because her words always rubbed people the wrong way. But what Liu Yun was saying…
“Comrade Shen, we were thinking of going to the river to wash our faces. Maybe you should head back first?”
“Okay.”
Zhang Nan took Liu Yun, who still wanted to talk, and they walked toward the river. Shen Qinghe curled her lips into a small smile, hummed a tune, and headed home.
A few aunties who had just returned from the fields preparing to cook looked at her strangely. Could this child be crazy? She had just barely escaped death, lost her chastity, and her fiancé had rejected her… and she could still smile…
…
When the Shen family returned home, exhausted, Shen Qinghe had already prepared the meal and laid it out on the table.
Stir-fried green beans with chili, sugar-seasoned tomatoes, cucumber salad, stir-fried green squash with chili, and tomato-egg soup. The variety wasn’t much, but the portions were generous—after all, the Shen family was a large household. The staple was mixed-grain rice, and she had also made a few corn buns. For Shenjiawan, this was already considered a very good meal.
Zhou Chunfeng looked at the dishes with a mix of worry and exasperation. “Nannan, why did you use so much oil in the stir-fry? And why add sugar to the tomatoes? Sugar’s so expensive! And the squash—it’s not even fully grown yet. Eating it now is a waste. If we let it grow for another month until it turns yellow, steaming it would feed the whole family!”
Young green squash is delicious when tender, but tender also means small. If left to grow, it could become a large yellow squash, enough to feed the whole family in one meal.
Shen Qinghe chuckled. “Mom, you, Dad, and the brothers and sisters-in-law work so hard in the fields. How can your bodies handle it without a little extra oil? And the sugar was a gift from Lin Yingxue—why not use it? As for the squash, I just wanted to eat it. I was craving it!”
Zhou Chunfeng had no choice—when her daughter wanted something, what could she do but spoil her?
Shen Qingsong also chuckled. “It’s better when little sister cooks. I feel like I have more energy in the fields these past few days.”
“You little brat, are you saying Mom’s cooking isn’t good?” Zhou Chunfeng smacked Shen Qingsong on the back of his head.
“No, no. I just mean little sister uses more oil, but your cooking is still the best!”
“You’re such a smart aleck!”
The Shen family laughed. Shen Erbao was still munching on the sorghum grains that Shen Qinghe had picked—sour and sweet, and she adored them.
Shen Qingsong noticed. “Erbao, where did you get those sorghum grains? Did you go into the mountains?”
Everyone’s expressions turned serious. Liu Lanying went pale. “Erbao, you didn’t really go into the mountains, did you? Didn’t I tell you not to? There are tigers in the mountains! Child…”
Shen Qinghe hurried to explain, “I picked these. Erbao didn’t go up the mountain.”
Now Zhou Chunfeng was worried. “Nannan, did you go up the mountain? You just fell in the water, and now you went to the mountains again?”
“Mom, don’t worry. I just wandered around the foot of the mountain, didn’t go deep.”
Shen Qingshan said, “Mom, a lot of people go near the foot of the mountain. It’s not dangerous. Little sister knows what she’s doing.”
“Yeah, Mom. And I was especially lucky today. Look at this!” Shen Qinghe said as she pulled three snow fungus (tremella) and a stunned wild rabbit from her side basket.
“A rabbit!”
“What’s this?” Liu Lanying had never seen snow fungus before. “It looks like some kind of ear… but it’s white?”
“This is snow fungus! Wow, real snow fungus!” Shen Qingsong, being knowledgeable, explained. In the Shen household, when they sometimes lacked food or oil and had no ration coupons, he would go to the black market to buy it. Over time, he had become somewhat familiar there.
At first, Shen Xingqing firmly opposed Shen Qingsong going to the black market. As the village team leader, he was somewhat of an official. He should follow the national call, not let his son do illegal things. But Shen Qingsong went behind his back anyway.
Once, when the entire Liaoning province faced a drought, many families in Shenjiawan had no food, digging for wild vegetables and roots. Shen Qingsong, however, brought several bags of grain from the black market, helping the family survive that difficult period. After that, Shen Xingqing no longer interfered with him, only warning him not to get caught.
“Snow fungus? Is it expensive?”
“More expensive than meat?” Liu Lanying looked at the plump rabbit and swallowed hard.
“Much more expensive than meat!” Shen Qingsong said. “In the previous dynasty, this was a royal tonic. You’d need over twenty taels of silver to buy a small amount!”
“Really that valuable?” Liu Lanying was stunned.
“Yes! In the black market, it’s basically priceless—you can’t buy it! I heard the south has started cultivating it, but the yield is too low to transport here. I guarantee, this kind of wild snow fungus here would sell for at least three or four yuan per piece!”
“Three or four yuan? My goodness!”
At this time, rice only cost 0.13 yuan per pound. Three or four yuan was a huge sum.
“Second brother, can you sell it for me? And maybe buy some rice, flour, oil, and meat to improve our meals.”
“Sure! Consider it done! All three pieces?”
“Let’s leave one for home. We haven’t tried it yet.”
“Eat it? Three or four yuan per piece—I can’t eat that!” Zhou Chunfeng quickly stopped her. This was just a tiny amount, and with the whole family, it would be gone in one bite each. Since it was her daughter who found it in the mountains, they should keep it as a kind of bridal treasure.
Shen Qinghe knew her mother wouldn’t part with it. “Okay, then you sell the two. We’ll keep the rabbit for ourselves.”
Shen Xingqing was a little suspicious. “Nannan, you found all these things at the foot of the mountain? No way… be honest. Did you go into the deep mountains?”