After returning to the Song household, the other branches of the family had already started eating, and Song Sibao and the others were still waiting for Lin Ruxia to cook. Lin Ruxia herself didn’t know what to make—there were too many restrictions, and very little food she could openly put on the table. In the end, she took out some rice to cook, made a steamed egg, and also brought out a few cans of meat.
Canned meat was considered a luxury in this village, but Lin Ruxia couldn’t eat eggs every single meal. It wasn’t that eggs tasted bad—she would just get tired of them after a while.
Sibao and the others had eaten canned meat before, but only when the original owner’s husband came home, and even then, each person could only have a tiny portion—just enough for a taste. So when they saw Lin Ruxia take out the cans, all their eyes were fixed on them.
In the end, Lin Ruxia only took a small portion for herself and gave the rest to the children. To Sibao and the others, it was a delicacy; to Lin Ruxia, it wasn’t even as good as vegetables.
She felt that she should go up the mountain again and bring back those chickens and vegetables. Eating only rice and eggs every day wasn’t nutritionally balanced. Right now, she didn’t dare drip the spiritual spring water into the kitchen’s large water jar—she was afraid everyone would change noticeably, which would make the Song family the focus of the village. Besides, she had no intention of helping anyone other than the original owner’s children improve their health.
So for now, Lin Ruxia planned to cook more food for the children and wait until they grew stronger before adjusting their health. That way, others would just think they had grown well from eating.
Eating rice and eggs alone wouldn’t make them strong—the key was still meat. So she planned to go up the mountain and bring back some chickens, passing them off as wild chickens.
After finishing the canned meat, Sibao and the others even licked the cans clean, savoring every last bit as if they were indulging in a great delicacy. Lin Ruxia didn’t stop them. Although she found it a bit unrefined, they were just children who loved food and had never tasted much before.
After eating, Lin Ruxia returned to her room to rest for a while, only coming out around the time everyone went back to work. She simply couldn’t find anything to talk about with her two sisters-in-law, and Sibao and the others were sleepy after eating, so they went to take a nap.
Lin Ruxia used to have the habit of taking naps, but usually after 1:30 p.m. Now she had to adjust to noon, which felt unfamiliar, though she still closed her eyes to rest.
Around one o’clock, everyone got up and went back to work, and the courtyard became lively again. Lin Ruxia hadn’t planned to sleep, but ended up falling asleep anyway, only to be woken by the noise of children playing. Already a bit irritable upon waking, she felt annoyed but didn’t shout—she simply pulled the blanket over her head and continued sleeping.
When she woke up again, the courtyard was quiet. She checked her watch—it was already 1:30. The watch had been part of the bride price from the original owner’s husband, and judging by how new it looked, the original owner had taken great care of it.
After getting up and washing her face, Lin Ruxia headed out to the estate. When she arrived, she found that the workers hired by Father Song were quite efficient. The grass outside had been cleared, and although the walls weren’t new, they were at least intact.
Inside, the land had also been cleared—the weeds were gone, and the soil had been turned over.
Looking at the plots, Lin Ruxia figured the production team wouldn’t allow her to plant vegetables on all of them. So she planned to ask the team leader later if she could reserve one plot for vegetables and use the rest to grow medicinal herbs. After all, she had many children to support, and as long as she didn’t sell the herbs, it should be acceptable.
The fruit trees around the area had also been cleared, making the whole space feel more open. The stone table and benches in front of the house looked cleaner too. Only the bamboo grove hadn’t been cleared yet—it was dark inside, probably because the bamboo was too dense and the ground was covered with fallen leaves.
Inside the house, the first floor hadn’t been cleaned yet, but the second floor looked fairly tidy—the cobwebs on the ceiling had already been removed. It seemed they had started cleaning from upstairs.
Although Lin Ruxia didn’t know much about house design, as a young lady from a wealthy family, she had some sense of aesthetics. After inspecting each room, she began planning how to arrange space for sixteen people: fourteen boys’ rooms, one for the original owner’s husband, and one for herself.
Yes—that’s right. She deliberately separated her room from her husband’s. She didn’t want to suddenly share a room with a stranger when he returned. Having never been in a relationship before, becoming a mother overnight was already enough—she couldn’t immediately accept sleeping with someone she didn’t know.
The eleven rooms upstairs wouldn’t need renovation. She planned to divide the four rooms downstairs into eight, making nineteen rooms in total. She also wanted to create a study, a storage room, and an extra room for researching beauty formulas.
As for the former prayer hall, she planned to place a sewing machine there to make clothes. The kitchen would remain unchanged. Still, after looking around, she felt something was missing.
After thinking for a while and failing to figure it out, she went outside to check the back. The back door couldn’t be accessed from inside the house, so she had to walk around the bamboo grove.
The path around the bamboo grove was damp. Just as she was about to exit it, she found a small hut. When she opened the door, a foul stench hit her.
She quickly ran away and suddenly realized—the house lacked a bathroom and a proper toilet. The toilet was located far at the back, which would be inconvenient at night.
Then she remembered that she had been using the toilet inside the room these past few days—there were probably chamber pots in each room before.
But where was the bathing area? Could it be there wasn’t one? Or was it inside the rooms? She pondered. In fact, back then, wealthy households had servants who carried water into the rooms, so bathing was done indoors. All maids shared one room, and all male servants another.
No one knew why the house had been designed this way—it was quite inconvenient. Most houses were courtyard-style, or at least had rows of side rooms. Even the educated youth housing was built like a courtyard.
Lin Ruxia noted down everything that needed improvement, observed each area carefully, and planned how to arrange everything.
Once she had a general layout in mind, she decided to go to the back mountain. Taking the same path as yesterday, she found that climbing today wasn’t as tiring—probably thanks to the spiritual spring.
On the mountain, she saw Sibao and Wubao cutting pig grass. They were surprised to see their mother.
“Mom, why are you here?” Wubao ran over to ask.
“I came to see if there’s anything edible nearby,” Lin Ruxia said.
“Mom! Do we not have food at home anymore?” Sibao asked anxiously. They had been eating so well these past few days that he thought the food had run out.
Wubao also began to worry, regretting not finishing all the eggs before. What if they couldn’t eat like this anymore? Maybe their aunt was right—they would eat the family into poverty sooner or later.
Seeing their reddened eyes, Lin Ruxia quickly reassured them, “No, we still have plenty of rice! I just wanted to see if I could catch a wild chicken.”
“There’s still rice?” Wubao sighed in relief.
“Mom, wild chickens are hard to catch. Even hunters need to set traps near the deep mountains,” Sibao said urgently.
“I know,” Lin Ruxia replied. Yesterday, the chicken had been right in front of her, and she still couldn’t catch it. “If not chickens, we can at least pick some wild vegetables. Eating only eggs isn’t balanced nutrition.”
“Balanced nutrition?” Wubao didn’t understand the term.
“It means food that helps you grow taller and stronger,” Lin Ruxia explained simply.
They understood that much, though they still didn’t get why eggs weren’t enough.
“You continue cutting grass—I’ll look for vegetables,” she said.
After finding nothing nearby, she went deeper into the mountain, took out a chicken and some greens from her space, and returned.
When Sibao and Wubao saw her carrying a chicken, they were stunned and excited, running over to touch it.
“I’ll head down first,” she said, worried others might see.
She returned home around four. Since she didn’t know how to kill a chicken, she didn’t start cooking right away. After flipping the herbs she had dried, she went back to her room and entered the space to take a relaxing bath.
After bathing, changing clothes, doing skincare, and putting on makeup, she came out. By then, she could hear Dabao and the others—it was around five. They had finished school at four and walked home for an hour.
As soon as she stepped out, she heard Sibao bragging to Dabao about the canned meat. Dabao and the others couldn’t help but feel envious.
“Dabao, you’re back? No homework today?” she asked.
“We’ve already finished it,” Sanbao replied.
“That’s good. Do you know how to kill a chicken?”
“I do!” Dabao said confidently.
Thinking he had experience, she handed him the chicken. But soon, he came out covered in blood.
“What happened? Are you hurt?” she asked in alarm.
“I’m fine—it’s the chicken’s blood. It struggled too much,” he explained.
Before she could comfort him, her sisters-in-law came out.
“You shouldn’t let a child handle a chicken like that—look at all that wasted blood!” Second Sister-in-law scolded.
“And this chicken—did you steal it from Father and Mother?” Eldest Sister-in-law accused.
“No! Mom caught it in the mountains!” Dabao defended.
“You expect me to believe that?” she scoffed and went to check.
Lin Ruxia turned to the second sister-in-law. “I didn’t know it was his first time. Could you teach him? I’ll give you a bowl of chicken later.”
“Sure!” she agreed happily.
As they went inside, Lin Ruxia sighed. No one in her household knew how to handle meat—what would they do when they had fish or ducks in the future?