“Just an unrelated person?”
Su Hongxia looked at Lu Huaizhou’s deliberately calm expression, and the little fox tail in her heart started wagging.
He said she was unrelated, yet the book in his hands was upside down. That reaction couldn’t fool anyone.
It seemed the beautiful woman in the photograph was the “white moonlight” in his heart.
But what did that have to do with her?
Her goal was very clear: eat well and live a good life.
As for Captain Lu’s emotional history, as long as it didn’t affect her meals, she had no interest in it.
She tossed the small episode out of her mind and began taking stock of the household “assets.”
The result was depressing.
The rice jar was empty.The vegetable basket was empty.Aside from the jar of lard she had brought, there was nothing edible in the entire kitchen.
This place truly lived up to the phrase “a house with nothing but bare walls.”
Just as she was worrying about what to do for dinner, Lu Huaizhou took an envelope out of a drawer and handed it to her.
“There’s thirty yuan in here, along with this month’s cloth coupons, grain coupons, oil coupons, and meat coupons. Buy what the house needs. If anything’s missing, just get it.”
He spoke casually, but his eyes carried a trace of subtle testing.
He wanted to see whether this “foolish wife” was truly foolish—or just pretending.
Now that the money and coupons were in her hands, what would she do?
Would she waste it recklessly? Or get cheated out of it?
Su Hongxia took the envelope and opened it.
Inside was a stack of crisp bills and colorful ration coupons.
She pretended to look completely inexperienced. Her eyes widened into circles and her mouth formed a big “O.”
She poured the money and coupons onto the table and began “counting” them one by one with her fingers.
“One… two… five… ten?”
Her counting was completely mixed up. Sometimes she pointed at a five-yuan bill and called it “two,” other times she treated a grain coupon like cash.
She muttered to herself with a deeply furrowed brow, looking thoroughly confused by the complicated items.
Lu Huaizhou watched from the side, his own brow slowly knitting together.
Seeing her like this, she truly looked stupid—she couldn’t even count properly.
Was it really safe to give her money?
For the first time, he felt a trace of regret.
Just as he was about to take the money and coupons back, Su Hongxia suddenly stuffed everything back into the envelope in one go.
Then she tucked it into her chest like a treasure, patted it, and grinned at him.
“Brother, I… I go buy meat!”
Before he could respond, she grabbed a vegetable basket and ran out in a flash, as if afraid he might change his mind.
Lu Huaizhou watched her disappearing back and sighed helplessly.
Forget it.
Thirty yuan—he’d just treat it as paying for a lesson.
He was already mentally prepared to keep eating corn buns for dinner.
..
With the money and coupons tucked away, Su Hongxia asked around until she found the supply and marketing cooperative inside the military compound.
There were quite a few people there, mostly family members of soldiers.
The sales clerk was a woman in her thirties named Liu. She had a sharp, mean-looking face and was leaning on the counter chatting, barely paying attention to customers.
Su Hongxia squeezed to the counter and shouted in her usual silly tone:
“Auntie! Buy meat!”
Clerk Liu glanced sideways at her. When she saw the patched clothes, her impatience grew.
“What meat? Show me the meat coupon!”
Su Hongxia pulled out the envelope and dumped all the coupons onto the counter, pointing at the small meat ticket.
“This one! Buy meat!”
Seeing the situation, Clerk Liu’s eyes flickered.
Isn’t this the new fool wife of Captain Lu?Looks easy to bully.
She slowly picked up the meat coupon, grabbed a cleaver, and sliced off a big chunk of greasy white pork fat from the hanging half pig.
She tossed it onto the scale.
“One and a half jin. One yuan and five cents.”
Pork cost seven mao per jin, yet she was asking one yuan and five cents.
Some nearby family members wanted to warn Su Hongxia, but Clerk Liu shot them a sharp glare and no one dared interfere.
Su Hongxia tilted her head, staring at the nearly all-fat pork and the scale rod.
She began calculating aloud.
“One jin… seven mao.Half jin… three mao five.Together… is… one yuan… zero… five?”
She counted on her fingers for a long time.
Finally she reached the exact same conclusion as Clerk Liu and clapped happily.
“Yes! One yuan five cents!”
Clerk Liu smiled smugly.This fool really is easy to cheat.
Just as she reached out to collect the money, Su Hongxia pointed at another pile on the chopping board.
“Auntie, what’s… what’s that?”
She was pointing at a pile of unwanted pig offal—mostly intestines and liver. It smelled strong, and people in that era generally disliked eating it, thinking it dirty. Usually it was just thrown away or fed to dogs.
“That’s offal. Dirty stuff. Can’t eat it,” Clerk Liu said impatiently.
“Can’t eat?” Su Hongxia’s eyes lit up.
She pointed at the pig intestines.
“Then can I take it? My… my dog Da Huang likes it!”
She casually invented a dog.
Clerk Liu snorted.
“Take it if you want. It’s going to be thrown away anyway. But you still have to pay. Even if nobody wants it, I can’t just give it to you.”
Her eyes rolled again with mischief.
“How about this—give me fifty cents and you can take the whole pile.”
Fifty cents for a pile of garbage.
That was basically robbery.
But Su Hongxia looked delighted.
“Okay! Okay! Fifty cents!”
She counted out the money and handed it over.
Clerk Liu took it and curled her lips disdainfully. She wrapped the stinking intestines and liver in old newspaper and handed them over.
Su Hongxia left happily, carrying the pork fat in one hand and the big bundle of offal in the other.
..
As soon as she left, the cooperative exploded with chatter.
“Wow, Sister Liu, that’s too cruel. One yuan five for that fatty pork?”
“And those offal pieces—you usually throw them away! You even charged fifty cents!”
“That poor fool. Married to a cripple and still getting bullied like this.”
Clerk Liu stuffed the money into her pocket smugly.
“She wanted it. What could I do? If not a fool, who else would I cheat?”
What she didn’t see was that the moment Su Hongxia stepped out of the store, the silly smile vanished from her face.
In its place appeared a sly, cold grin.
Yes, one yuan five for one and a half jin of pork fat was expensive.
But that was exactly what she wanted—the perfect material for rendering lard.
And that fifty-cent offal?
In other people’s eyes it was trash.
But in the eyes of a state banquet chef, it was top-tier ingredients capable of transforming decay into magic.
Spending one yuan five to buy at least five jin of ingredients—and at the same time convincing everyone she was an easily fooled idiot.
This deal was a huge profit.
She carefully calculated the rest of her purchases, buying cheap coarse grains and some seasonings.
After everything, she had spent the thirty yuan very wisely and still had quite a bit left.
..
When Su Hongxia returned home carrying a pile of things, Lu Huaizhou was sitting in the yard reading.
When he saw the white chunk of pork fat in her basket, his brows immediately knitted together.
Then he noticed the other bundle wrapped in newspaper, dripping blood, and smelled the foul odor coming from it.
His face instantly darkened.
“What did you buy?” His voice was as cold as ice.
Su Hongxia proudly opened the newspaper, revealing a tangled pile of pig intestines giving off a strong stench.
“Meat! Meat for Da Huang!” she said with an innocent smile.
Lu Huaizhou stared at the pile, his stomach churning violently.
He had a cleanliness obsession and couldn’t stand filthy things like that.
Taking a deep breath, he pointed toward the yard gate and forced out a few words through clenched teeth:
“Throw that out. Now. Immediately.”
He was nearly losing control of his temper—almost ready to throw both the woman and the pile of garbage out of his house together.