After venting, Jiang Jianguo felt refreshed, as if the fatigue from yesterday had completely vanished.
Lin Wanting tidied up and prepared to head to work, while Jiang Jianguo was determined to stick to his word: as long as Jiang Yaozu didn’t go to work, he wouldn’t either.
The rest of the Jiang family saw that Jiang Jianguo, that “tough nut,” was really not going to show up. Since it was getting late, they couldn’t do much about him for the moment, so they suppressed their anger and headed off to the fields first.
Jiang Yaozu, who had taken a nap with Jiang Tangtang, finally got up. He had a sudden flash of inspiration: he grabbed the other herbs they had gathered yesterday and took Jiang Tangtang toward Mr. Qi’s house, thinking that he shouldn’t let others benefit from their labor—every single cent needed to end up in his own pocket.
At Mr. Qi’s, there was about three jin of bupleurum (Chinese thoroughwax). Mr. Qi rounded it up and gave them nine mao. Jiang Jianguo handed over the rest of the wild vegetables as well. With the new nine mao in hand, Jiang Jianguo decided to take Jiang Tangtang to town; she had never been out of the village in all her years.
Jiang Tangtang was quite excited to hear they were going to town—she could finally get out and look around!
Once in town, Jiang Tangtang immediately thought of the scrap collection station. It was the legendary holy ground for “treasure hunting” for all her predecessors who had transmigrated.
She said to Jiang Jianguo, “Papa, is there a place that buys scrap here? Er Zhuang next door has a comic book that’s really great; he said his dad bought it at the scrap collection station. Could we go and take a look?”
Jiang Tangtang tried her best to come up with an excuse. Naturally, Jiang Jianguo wouldn’t refuse his daughter’s request.
“Yes, there is a scrap station. If Tangtang wants to go, then we’ll go.”
What Jiang Tangtang didn’t know was that, after everything that had happened recently, Jiang Jianguo truly felt his daughter was a “lucky star” with great “destiny.” He trusted her intuition implicitly. Even if her requests seemed unreasonable, he would mentally justify them as the “old sage” giving his daughter a “hint” or “guidance.”
Hearing his daughter wanted to go to the scrap station, Jiang Jianguo carried her there.
The place was tidier than Jiang Tangtang had imagined, with different items sorted and piled into categories.
Jiang Jianguo gave the gatekeeper an “entry fee” of two mao and said, “Sir, my daughter wants to buy some comic books, and I want to buy some old newspapers to paste on our walls. Could you do us a favor?”
The old man accepted the fee, gestured for them to go in and look, and warned, “Don’t make a mess of things, be careful now.” He then ignored them and went back to swaying in his recliner, drinking tea.
The father and daughter walked into the station and did a quick lap. They went to the books and newspapers section first. Jiang Tangtang made a show of rummaging around as if looking for comics, while actually using her system to scan for anything valuable.
Most of what was there were ordinary old books, and comic books were rare; she had to look carefully.
Suddenly, her system shop reacted: 【Detected: One artistic gold bookmark, value 15,000 gold coins. Recycle?】
“Hmm?” Her internal radar lit up. She quickly flipped open a book, and sure enough, tucked between the pages was a gold bookmark carved with intricate designs. Although it wasn’t heavy, it was exquisite.
Jiang Tangtang wasn’t in a rush to recycle it; she used her mental energy to store it in the system warehouse first, then continued searching. Eventually, she found two “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” comic books.
There didn’t seem to be anything else there, so Jiang Tangtang decided to check other areas. She said to Jiang Jianguo, “Papa, I want to look around other places, is that okay?” She handed him the comics she’d found and added, “Can you buy these for me?”
Jiang Jianguo took the books, flipped through them, and said, “Of course. Go ahead and take a look, Tangtang, just be careful not to fall.”
Jiang Tangtang continued wandering through the scrap station. She arrived at the section for ceramics, scanned it, and found that most were broken. It seemed unlikely she’d find a hidden gem there. She then went to the old furniture, which was mostly missing legs or arms, though there might be good wood hidden somewhere.
She searched carefully. 【Detected: 125 grams of gold, value 3,000,000 gold coins. Recycle?】 The system pinged again.
Jiang Tangtang touched the small, broken stool she was standing by and pondered. There must be something inside the legs.
She tried to pry it apart, but she didn’t have enough strength to pull the leg off. She decided to use her mental energy to see if she could store it directly into the system warehouse. She whispered “Recycle” in her heart.
The system warehouse screen displayed four gold bar icons—success!
It turned out that each of the four legs of the stool contained a small gold bar (xiao huang yu). Because they were so greasy and dilapidated, no one had ever noticed. Since each gold bar was only 31.25 grams, the stool’s weight hadn’t felt noticeably odd. This allowed Jiang Tangtang, who was “cheating” with her system detection, to score a massive windfall.
Jiang Tangtang had also touched most of the remaining items, but no more system notifications sounded.
Still, this was already enough to make her very happy. If she were to exchange everything for gold coins, it would grant her “gold coin freedom” for quite a long time. However, she didn’t intend to exchange them right now. Currently, the family hadn’t split up yet, so she couldn’t buy anything anyway, and the daily tasks alone were enough to save up a considerable amount of gold coins.
While digging through a pile of scrap metal, she discovered a small, battered iron pot with handles. She pulled it out, showed it to Jiang Jianguo, and whispered, “Dad, look at this. Can we take this to the secret base to cook meat?”
Jiang Jianguo glanced at the small pot and agreed it was indeed quite useful, so he put it aside. Gathering a bundle of old newspapers, Jiang Tangtang’s comic books, and the small iron pot, he took Jiang Tangtang’s hand and walked toward the gatekeeper.
“Uncle, I’d like these. About how much would that be?” The old man glanced at the items and said, “For the newspapers and comic books, give me 50 cents. This small iron pot is a bit worn, but it’s still usable, so just give me 2 yuan.”
Jiang Jianguo efficiently pulled out the small-denomination bills, counted out 2 yuan and 50 cents, and left the salvage station.
On the way back, Jiang Tangtang couldn’t stop grinning at the thought of today’s unexpected gains. Seeing his daughter so happy, Jiang Jianguo was infected by her joy, assuming she was just delighted because she bought things she liked. “Are you this happy just because you bought comic books?”
“Mm-hmm! I’m super happy today! I’m happy to be in town, and I’m happy to have bought the comic books,” Jiang Tangtang replied cheerfully.
“There’s something that will make you even happier. How about Daddy takes you to the State-run Restaurant?” Jiang Jianguo asked.
When Jiang Tangtang heard that—the legendary State-run Restaurant!—she absolutely wanted to go and taste the food. She happily hugged Jiang Jianguo’s leg and acted coquettishly: “I want to go! Thank you, Dad! I’m so happy, I love you so much!”
With a burst of sweet-talking and acting adorable, she easily had her current “old man” grinning from ear to ear.