Lu Yujun was extremely irritated, watching Lu Yuping continue crying while carefully trying to search through the already crushed pile of wild plums for any that were still good.
He raised a hand and scratched his head, his tone softening.
“Alright, alright, it was my fault. I’ll go pick a new batch with you right now, okay?”
Lu Yuping pouted and sniffled.
“Then you’re not allowed to tell Grandma.”
If Grandma found out, the wild plums she picked would definitely be divided up among her cousins again.
Lu Yujun: …
Fine then.
“Alright, I won’t tell Grandma. We’ll leave them all for you to eat alone, okay?”
Only then did Lu Yuping break into a smile through her tears.
Lu Yujun secretly let out a sigh of relief. Holding Lu Yuping’s hand, he led her down the mountain. They first went back to where they had been cutting pig grass, picked up their bamboo baskets, and then took Lu Yuping back to the place where they had picked wild plums earlier to gather more.
As for Lu Yuning, after saying goodbye to Lu Yuping, she went with Lu Yuting to carry the pig grass home.
On the way, Lu Yuting said with great relief,
“Good thing Little Sister, you’re not as much of a crybaby as Sister Pingping.”
Otherwise, he’d really be worried to death.
Lu Yuning burst out laughing.
“Third Brother, what do you mean by that? Are you saying I’m not like a girl?”
Lu Yuting hurriedly shook his head.
“Of course not! Little Sister, you’re the best—even better than Fubao. Actually, when Mom gave birth to you, we also wanted to call you Fubao as your childhood nickname, but Grandma Jiu beat us to it.”
This was the first time Lu Yuning had heard about this.
Her heart skipped a beat, and a rather outrageous guess formed in her mind!
Could it be that the original host’s fate hadn’t actually been that miserable to begin with—but that someone had stolen her good fortune?
At that thought, a chill ran through Lu Yuning.
If that was true, then she really needed to stay far away from the female lead, Lu Yuxin, in the future.
As for the original host’s original fate, it was the classic cannon fodder supporting female routine.
Since childhood, she had seemed to grow used to envying Fubao.
Because of that envy, she followed behind Fubao like a little follower from a young age, and at the same time became the comparison character beside Fubao, the female lead.
The more others liked Fubao, the more they looked down on the original host, always saying things like she was only benefiting from Fubao’s light.
However, the truth was that the original host had never actually gained the slightest benefit from Fubao.
Whenever Fubao gave her food, if it was something valuable, the original host would refuse it. If it wasn’t valuable, she would always find a chance to return the favor later.
At the end of the day, the original host was just an ordinary little girl.
Just like Lu Yuping, she simply envied how Fubao never had to work, could grow up fair and chubby, and was so dearly loved and spoiled by her family.
As for anything beyond that, she was too young to even think about it.
When she grew a little older, under Grandma Lu’s teaching and discipline, the original host actually spent much less time playing with Fubao. Instead, she focused more on studying hard, hoping to get into university and fulfill her dream.
But on the day of the college entrance exam, she suddenly came down with severe diarrhea, vomiting and running to the toilet, and missed that year’s exam entirely.
After that, she repeated a year of school, but during the next college entrance exam, she fell sick again…
And just like that, despite having grades in high school that were far better than the female lead Fubao’s, the original host became an ordinary person who failed to get into university.
She could only follow her family and go work in another city, and when she reached marriageable age, she married an honest and simple man from the same village, living an ordinary and tiring life for the rest of her days.
If things had ended there, perhaps the original host wouldn’t have felt much regret.
But before her death, she saw Fubao’s family returning to the village in glory and success.
Looking back on her own life, she kept feeling that she shouldn’t have ended up like this.
She shouldn’t have been a supporting character in someone else’s life.
She should have been the protagonist of her own life!
Unfortunately, she understood that far too late.
And in the main storyline, the original host’s fate was fixed at marrying someone from the same village and living a mediocre and ordinary life.
But now, Lu Yuning felt that this so-called main storyline was probably just the author’s own assumptions.
Perhaps reality wasn’t like that at all.
Of course, this small world had only formed because the story became wildly popular and readers loved it, so as the female lead, Fubao Lu Yuxin did indeed possess some protagonist halo.
But as long as Lu Yuning stayed away from her, quietly watched from the sidelines, and didn’t get involved, it wasn’t impossible to avoid being affected by that protagonist halo.
Having made up her mind, Lu Yuning let it go and chatted and laughed with Lu Yuting as they walked home.
As soon as they arrived, they saw Grandma Lu washing rice in the courtyard, preparing to steam dinner.
Lu Yuning quickly stepped forward, took some sweet potatoes from the small bamboo basket nearby, and began washing them by the well.
The terrain around Hong’an Brigade was actually quite good, and groundwater was easy to find, so every household had its own well.
The brigade even had a special well-digging machine, assigned by the state after the founding of the country.
For all these years, the people of the brigade had treasured it greatly.
If it hadn’t been for that well-digging machine during the past two years, no one knew whether their brigade could have survived.
Now that this year’s harvest was looking promising, everyone in the brigade was working extra hard, determined to do their best—
at the very least, they wanted their families to be able to eat their fill!
The feeling of going hungry these past two years had been far too miserable.
Their greatest wish now was simply to be full!
However, since the summer harvest wasn’t over yet, every household was still eating sweet potatoes and mixed grains together with the blended grain ration from the supply and marketing cooperative.
When Grandma Lu saw Lu Yuting returning with the basket on his back, she raised an eyebrow.
“What happened? Why did Yuting come back with Yuning?”
Lu Yuting said irritably,
“Wasn’t it because of Yukun? He came shouting nonsense about Little Sister getting beaten up, so of course I rushed over to check. But when I got there, it turned out it was Fubao and Yuchun who got beaten.”
Grandma Lu frowned and carefully looked over Lu Yuning beside her.
“What exactly happened? Yuning, you really didn’t get hit?”
She knew very well that this little granddaughter of hers loved sticking close to the Fubao from next door.
If you asked her, that child had something strange about her.
Whoever stayed around her ended up unlucky.
People kept talking about her having koi luck, being some blessed child—
Grandma Lu scoffed at that.
Lu Yuning quickly said,
“I’m fine, Grandma. I was with Pingping, not with Fubao.”
Only then did Grandma Lu nod in satisfaction.
She then turned to Lu Yuting.
“Do you know what happened?”
Lu Yuting shook his head.
“How would I know? Who would bother asking? By the time I got there, they were already fighting in a pile, and when I took Little Sister away, they still hadn’t stopped.”
Lu Yuning smiled.
“I know why. They said Fubao’s biscuits were sent back by her eldest cousin from the army, and they were especially delicious. Then Brother Yushan wanted to trade something with Fubao for them, but Fubao’s little cousin didn’t agree, so the two of them started arguing.”
Although she hadn’t personally seen how it started, she had arrived a little earlier than Lu Yuting and had heard the other children talking, so she quickly figured out what happened.
Grandma Lu’s brows immediately furrowed.
“Again with that Fubao. Stay away from her from now on. You absolutely must not keep hanging around her.”
Honestly, it was ridiculous.
The eldest grandson of Ninth Brother’s family had finally managed to make something of himself in the army, yet the whole family was clinging to him and draining him dry.
She really didn’t know what that Ninth Sister-in-law was thinking—actually ignoring her eldest grandson’s hardships just for the sake of her granddaughter, always sending letters asking for this and that.
Shameless beyond belief!
If it were her family, she’d be the first to beat them with a broom!
Hmph!
The eldest grandson was risking his life in the army. Even if the family couldn’t help or support him, at the very least, they shouldn’t be dragging him down.
Anyway, Grandma Lu despised people like that the most.
In just half a day, Lu Yuning had already figured out Grandma Lu’s temperament clearly. She quickly nodded.
“Mm, Grandma, I understand. I won’t play with Fubao anymore.”
Grandma Lu looked very gratified.
“You’ve finally become sensible.”
Lu Yuting smiled as he poured out the pig grass to wash it. At the same time, he washed that bundle of wild plums and placed them neatly in a large bowl.
Grandma Lu smiled when she saw the bowl of wild plums too.
“These plums are good. Later, when we eat, everyone can have a taste.”
Lu Yuning nodded.
“I picked these all by myself, Grandma. Aren’t my plums good?”
Grandma Lu laughed and nodded.
“They really are very good. You do know how to choose.”
She had picked all the large, round, plump ones—they looked delicious at a glance.
Seeing the smiles on both his little sister’s face and Grandma’s face, Lu Yuting smiled too, feeling relieved inside.
He had been worried that his little sister would be like Lu Yujun’s younger sister, Lu Yuping, unwilling to let the family eat the wild plums she picked herself.
After all, children this age were the most protective of their food.
If the original host were here, maybe she really would have been like Lu Yuting imagined.
But unfortunately, the one here now was Lu Yuning.
No matter what, Lu Yuning still had the soul of an adult, so she really didn’t care much about such a small thing.
Besides, after spending half a day here, she hadn’t felt that anyone in the family treated her especially badly.
Of course, no one treated her especially well either.
After all, in this era, parents simply didn’t have the idea of excessively doting on or spoiling children.
Even Grandpa Lu and Grandma Lu treated their grandchildren the same way—ordering them around when needed, teaching them when needed, scolding when needed, and hitting when needed.
Lu Dabo and Lu Father were even more like that.
In this era, throwing hands the moment there was disagreement was practically normal.
Fortunately, Grandma Lu preferred teaching first before using her hands.
Compared to other families who went straight to hitting, that was at least a little better.
Lu Yuning was already very satisfied.
She sat beside Grandma Lu, helping her wash the sweet potatoes, peel them, cut some into chunks, and wash a few more with the skins still on that didn’t need cutting, setting them aside for Grandma Lu to use later.
After that, she carried a small clay jar and went out to dig earthworms for feeding the chickens.
The pigs at home at least had pig grass to eat, mixed with some rice bran and the like.
The chickens didn’t get that kind of treatment. They mostly relied on Grandma Lu letting them out to find bugs in the fields themselves, or waited for Lu Yuning and Lu Yuting to dig some earthworms for them.
As for the ducks, in the mornings Grandpa Lu or Lu Dabo would casually drive them toward the river near the fields, where they could catch field snails or little fish on their own.
Then, together with one evening meal of rice bran, that counted as a full day’s food.
Sometimes if there wasn’t even rice bran, they could only use dry grass instead.
Anyway, as long as they stayed alive, that was enough.
This year, however, there had been a little more rain, and some floating water plants had appeared in the river. Those could be raked up with bamboo rakes, chopped up, and fed to the ducks—or to the geese.
The geese were much the same.
They were let out early in the morning and left by the field ridges or at the foot of the hills, where they would find food by themselves—eating grass or wild vegetables and the like.
Basically, in this era, as long as you could keep these animals alive and get some eggs from them, that was enough.
As for fattening them up for meat—that really wasn’t something people thought about.
Only at the end of the year, when one was slaughtered, did it count as adding an extra dish and finally getting a bite of meat.
If it weren’t for the fact that people in Hong’an Brigade liked eating goose, with how troublesome those animals were, people in the brigade might not even bother raising them.
Just as Lu Yuning carried the clay jar out the door, over at Jiu Yeye’s house, Lu Shier and Lu Shisan were returning while coaxing the still-sniffling Lu Yuxin and carrying her on their backs.
Looking at Lu Yuxin, still being carried by Lu Shisan, Lu Yuning: …
Did this person seriously not know how to walk?
Of course, she didn’t say it out loud.
She only glanced once before turning away, heading through the side alley to the small private plot behind the backyard to dig earthworms.
Grandma Lu had specially dug out a small patch of land there, filling it with mud, dry grass, rotting leaves, and the like, specifically for raising earthworms.
Otherwise, how could Lu Yuning possibly dig earthworms every day?