Lin Xiyun knew exactly what Li Zhaodi was up to. A weasel paying New Year’s respects to a chicken—she definitely had ulterior motives.
“We’ve already split the family. I wouldn’t dare trouble Second Sister-in-law.”
Right in front of Li Zhaodi, Lin Xiyun turned toward the house and called loudly,
“Mom, come on out! Your daughter is taking you to eat at the state-run restaurant!”
Her voice carried across the entire courtyard.
Even Zhao Jinlan, who was inside the main room counting her savings, heard it clearly. She rolled her eyes hard.
“She just got her share of the money and she’s already wasting it. A dog kennel can’t hold onto dried grain.”
“You—”
Li Zhaodi’s eyes widened. She had been about to criticize Lin Xiyun for being so extravagant, but then remembered that this was simply how Lin Xiyun normally lived. Embarrassed and irritated, she rubbed her sore back and headed into the kitchen to cook.
Inside the room, Liu Xia froze. She had no idea how the conversation had suddenly turned into eating at a state-run restaurant. But she had always listened to her daughter, so she quickly answered,
“Coming!”
She instinctively pressed a cloth pouch against her chest, then hurriedly began packing away the things she’d brought. When Lin Xiyun entered, she found her mother still bustling around.
Knowing Liu Xia was afraid someone might steal the gifts, Lin Xiyun gently pushed her toward the door.
“Mom, I’ll lock everything in the cabinet. Just wait outside for me.”
As soon as Liu Xia stepped out, Lin Xiyun quickly stored everything on the table inside her dimensional space. It was the safest place possible.
Standing before the large sign reading State-Run Restaurant, Liu Xia nervously rubbed her hands against her clothes. Her palms were damp with sweat.
This was her first time eating at a state-run restaurant.
She had always heard the food was delicious—but also terribly expensive. Ordinary people could never afford such a luxury.
There were still a few diners eating at this hour. The waitress leaned lazily against the serving window. Seeing customers arrive, she casually pointed toward the menu hanging on the wall.
“The menu’s over there. Order whatever you want.”
Her attitude wasn’t rude, but it certainly wasn’t warm either.
Lin Xiyun knew that having a job at a state-run restaurant in this era was considered an excellent position. The waitress was doing her job, so she didn’t mind.
Looking over the menu, she asked the silent Liu Xia beside her,
“Mom, is there anything you’d like to eat?”
Instead of looking at the dishes, Liu Xia’s eyes immediately went to the prices.
Good heavens.
A serving of braised pork cost eighty cents.
Who could possibly afford that?
She tugged anxiously at her daughter’s sleeve.
“How about… we go home and cook instead?”
Her voice was barely above a whisper. She even glanced nervously at the waitress, afraid of being looked down upon. Fortunately, the waitress paid them no attention.
“We’re already here, and you’re not the one paying.”
Lin Xiyun patted her shoulder reassuringly before ordering decisively.
“Two orders of braised pork, two orders of fish-fragrant shredded pork, two bowls of rice, one tomato and egg soup, and seven meat buns. We’ll eat two here and take the other five home.”
“Why order so much?”
Hearing her daughter rattle off dish after dish, Liu Xia desperately tugged at her sleeve.
Lin Xiyun turned around and deliberately smiled.
“What? Mom, you don’t think that’s enough?”
Liu Xia: “…”
Was that what she’d meant?
She didn’t dare say another word, afraid her daughter would order even more.
The waitress quickly finished calculating.
“That’ll be three yuan, eighty-eight cents.”
“Okay.”
Lin Xiyun calmly handed over the money and ration coupons.
Behind her, Liu Xia’s mind went blank.
How much?
Three yuan and eighty-eight cents?
One meal cost as much as seven or eight days’ wages for a strong laborer earning full work points!
Her heart ached. She slumped into a chair to wait for the food, looking at her daughter absentmindedly resting her chin in her hands.
She wanted to scold her.
But the money wasn’t hers.
Besides, her daughter had even ordered meat buns for the whole family.
If she didn’t say anything, her heart still hurt.
She suddenly wasn’t sure whether she should give her daughter what she’d brought.
Lin Xiyun found her mother’s sighing rather amusing.
Old people were all like this.
Not just Liu Xia—even her mother from the 21st century had been the same. Every time she offered to take her to a movie, her mother would fuss endlessly over spending a few dozen yuan on tickets.
“Watching it on TV or your phone is the same. Why waste money?”
But how could a blockbuster with theater special effects possibly be the same?
Looking carefully, Liu Xia actually resembled her modern-day mother in several ways.
Yet when Lin Xiyun remembered how, later in the original novel, the parents who had once doted on the original owner gradually became cold toward her, instinctively favoring the heroine, Lin Xuanyuan, until the family turned against each other…
Her heart couldn’t help aching.
Looking at the loving mother sitting before her—who had walked all this way carrying food just to visit her daughter—it was hard to imagine this woman would one day utter such heartless words.
Changing the subject, she asked,
“Mom, what were you saying about that meat earlier?”
“Oh, right.”
Liu Xia remembered being interrupted back at the Lu house. After glancing around to make sure no one was nearby, she leaned closer and whispered,
“That’s wild boar meat. Xuanyuan ran into one while she was up in the mountains a few days ago.”
There was unmistakable pride in her voice.
Xuanyuan…
Lin Xuanyuan?
Lin Xiyun froze.
She remembered this scene from the novel.
The heroine’s very first fortune came after her Luck System appeared. She’d stumbled upon wild ginseng and a wild boar while in the mountains.
No wonder she was the lucky-koi heroine.
Something as rare as wild ginseng? She conveniently found an entire patch of it.
A wild boar that several grown men couldn’t subdue? She happened upon one that had conveniently died by crashing into something.
She secretly sold everything on the black market—and somehow never got caught.
It was honestly impressive.
At least Lin Xiyun, despite coming from the modern world and receiving nine years of compulsory education, wouldn’t dare touch the black market during such a politically sensitive era.
“No one else in the village noticed such a huge wild boar?”
She couldn’t believe everyone else had been blind.
The novel had glossed over this part, focusing mainly on how the heroine became wealthy and later moved to live with her husband in the army.
The mountain belonged to the collective. Anything found there was supposed to be turned over to the commune. Otherwise, it was considered stealing socialist property.
Yet according to the novel, Lin Xuanyuan had sold it privately on the black market, meaning it clearly hadn’t been handed over.
“Your dad and your eldest brother took turns… handling it. Nobody saw them.”
Liu Xia spoke vaguely.
Lin Xiyun’s expression immediately turned serious.
“Mom, how could you all get involved in something like that?”
Such a huge risk—and what did they get in return?
She didn’t even have to think.
Probably only a few pounds of old, tough boar meat.
Everything else went to Lin Xuanyuan, who took none of the risk.
Liu Xia looked at her daughter disapprovingly.
“But nothing happened, did it? Besides, Xuanyuan has always been lucky. She stayed with us the whole time, so nothing could go wrong. She even gave our family five pounds of pork.”
She looked genuinely delighted.
Lin Xiyun: “…”
Risking the entire family being denounced and publicly criticized…
…for five pounds of wild boar meat.
She rubbed her forehead with a cold laugh.
She couldn’t understand it.
Was the heroine’s plot armor really that overwhelming?
As far as she remembered, the original owner’s father had actually been a smart man.
“Xuanyuan stayed with us the whole time.”
Of course she had.
She also needed to secretly move the wild ginseng without raising suspicion.
“Mom, stay away from her from now on.”
The changes in the original owner’s fate made Lin Xiyun uneasy.
Luck was such an unpredictable thing.
What if one day it stopped working?
Then her family would have taken all the risks while becoming nothing more than stepping stones for someone else.
In the novel, after Lin Xuanyuan and the male lead, Chu Xu, rose to prominence and moved to Beijing, they barely ever returned to visit Liu Xia’s family in Chengdu.
Hearing her daughter’s unusually firm tone, Liu Xia assumed she was simply jealous of her niece again, just as she’d always been.
She looked at Lin Xiyun the way one would look at an immature child.
“Xuanyuan lost her mother the day she was born. After your second uncle remarried, his new wife was domineering. Every good thing in that house went to her own son and her younger brother. Xuanyuan’s just a poor girl.”
“You’re her older sister.”
“Can’t you be a little more accommodating toward her?”
Liu Xia spoke earnestly.
“You’ve been married for years now. It’s time you grew up.”
Forced to hear yet another speech about how pitiful Lin Xuanyuan was, Lin Xiyun was left speechless.