Witty Wife, Better L Chapter 3 - 3 3 Convalescence

??Chapter 3: Chapter 3 Convalescence

Chapter 3: Chapter 3 Convalescence

Shen Feiyang couldn’t tell if her rebirth had anything to do with it, but even though she hadn’t taken any dicine, when she awoke early the next morning she felt her body had improved considerably, at the very least she no longer had a fever.

She tried getting out of bed and, despite feeling weak, the girl’s constitution was not bad, which allowed her to slowly but surely rise.

The first thing she wanted to do was cook a al for herself; she was starving. Yesterday’s clear porridge barely sufficed, so much so that hunger had woken her up in the middle of the night. But she had been too weak to do anything about it and just pushed through until she fell asleep again. Now, finally feeling a bit better, her stomach protested even more vigorously. She felt she could eat an entire cow.

Shen Feiyang, weak in the arms and legs, pushed open the door of her room, and indeed, it led to the main room, which was also the kitchen. At the center stood a stove, on top of which sat a big iron pot marked with “eight seals.” In front of the stove was a small stool, and next to the wall leaned a bundle of firewood.

The layout of the main room in northern rural hos was pretty much the sa. Although Shen Feiyang had been born in the eighties in her previous life and grew up in the countryside, she wasn’t unfamiliar with this kind of traditional stove.

She took so matches lying on the ground and shoved them into the stove, then found so pine kindling and, feeling for a matchbox on the stove, lit the fire inside.

Next, she quickly scooped water out of a nearby water vat, poured it into the pot, rinsed the pot quickly, and scooped another ladle of water to prepare porridge.

Considering her current bodily condition and the twinges of hunger in her stomach, drinking so porridge would be best.

After these tasks were completed, she relied on her mory and lifted the door to the cellar in the middle of the main room’s floor.

Shen Feiyang exerted so effort before she managed to drag the grain sack out of the cellar; she was still quite weak.

Actually, the family was so poor it almost clinked when you shook it. There really wasn’t any need to hide the little grain they had left, but perhaps it was habit. Shen Yunfang always stashed the not-even-half-a-bag of cornal in the pitch-dark cellar.

She scooped out two handfuls of cornal, mixed it with water in the ladle, and just as the water in the iron pot began to boil, she stirred the al and poured it into the pot.

She also checked the chicken nest and found two freshly laid eggs, which she rinsed with water and put into the pot to boil.

She then sat down on the small stool, adding twigs to the fire, while she pondered her own thoughts.

In reality, her family should not have been this poor, not in terms of money, but rather in terms of grain. Shen Feiyang glanced at the sack of cornal near her feet, which was barely more than twenty pounds.

A month ago, the production brigade had harvested its rice and corn. Although she was now alone, her family still had its annual allotnt of four hundred eighty pounds of grain.

This year for the grain distribution, Shen Yunfang received one hundred twenty pounds of paddy rice, thirty pounds of wheat, two hundred pounds of corn, thirty pounds of soybeans, thirty pounds of millet, fifty pounds of proso millet, ten pounds of al beans, and ten pounds of mung beans, totaling four hundred eighty pounds.

Four hundred eighty pounds of grain might sound like a lot, but for people in the seventies, this amount for a year wasn’t really sufficient. All this grain was unhusked, and once the hulls were removed, you’d be lucky to have three hundred sixty pounds left. That would be equivalent to one pound of grain per person per day. For soone who worked hard all year round with no fat in their diet, one pound of grain a day simply wasn’t enough. Moreover, not many families were like Shen Yunfang’s with only one person; most had several children of various ages. If these kids worked in the production brigade, they earned work points, which helped during the grain distribution; even kids could manage to get two or three hundred pounds. But for the younger children who couldn’t work, the village would allocate grain based on age, and this grain would also count towards the adults’ work points. They say teenagers can eat their parents out of house and ho; when they’re growing, they consu as much as adults, if not more. So when an entire family pooled their grain together and were careful, they could just about make it through the year, but if anyone had a big appetite, by the end of the year, they’d be facing hunger.

Under normal circumstances, the grain distributed by the production brigade wasn’t exactly plentiful, but it was enough to scrape by as long as they didn’t eat dry als every day. Besides, each family in Gaijiatun also had their own allotted private plots where they could grow more corn and other crops, so although the villagers didn’t earn much each year, no one went hungry as long as they were willing to work.

As a young girl, Shen Yunfang, regardless of the circumstances, received over four hundred pounds of grain a year, which certainly should have been sufficient. Yet now, the Shen family had only this ager twenty-plus pounds of cornal left.

Where had the rest gone?

Shen Feiyang sighed; it seed the young girl had so issues with her thinking.

In her mory, of the hundred-plus pounds of paddy rice, she only kept a bit more than ten pounds for herself; the rest was taken by her future uncle to her soon-to-be mother-in-law’s house. The reason was that her future mother-in-law had been craving rice so badly she’d cried on the kang, the traditional Chinese heated bed. Although not yet married, as a future daughter-in-law, she felt it was her duty to contribute, so the rice should naturally be saved for the elder to eat first.

It’s worth ntioning that although Shen Yunfang was only fifteen, she was already engaged.

Another chapter in the story unfolded. Initially, Shen Yunfang’s father had sacrificed himself on the battlefield to save his comrade, who was to beco Shen Yunfang’s future father-in-law. With this, nothing more needed to be said; it was a tale straight out of a drama about repaying a father’s kindness. Yunfang’s mother, lured by the fifty RMB betrothal money offered by the family and also wanting to find a good ho for her only daughter, had agreed without hesitation.

In the old lady’s mind, “My husband died for your family’s old man; if you have any conscience, how could you possibly be bad to my daughter in the future?” Besides, the family lived decently, and those who could afford to give fifty RMB as betrothal money certainly couldn’t be leading too bad a life. Moreover, she, an old widow, could count on a al with her daughter in the future.

From this incident, it was clear that although Yunfang’s mother did love her daughter, she couldn’t conceal the innate selfishness and materialism that ca from being a mber of the Zhang Family.

Over the years, Shen Yunfang had only seen her fiancé, Li Hongjun, three tis – once at a matchmaking eting, once at the engagent, both when she was four years old. The other ti was a year ago, when her mother passed away, and Hongjun had taken leave from the military to see her; that could probably be considered their first real eting.

It was since that ti that Hongjun began to send her a letter each month, always enclosing a five RMB note.

The money Shen Feiyang had on hand was exactly what Shen Yunfang had saved up.

And so, Yunfang, although sowhat reluctant, considering all the money Hongjun had sent her and fearing to offend her future in-laws, felt compelled to give the one hundred-plus kilograms of rice she had just received to her eldest uncle, so he could take it back to honor her future mother-in-law.

And so, Yunfang, although sowhat reluctant and fearing to offend her future in-laws, again felt compelled to give the one hundred-plus kilograms of rice she had just received to her eldest uncle, so he could take it back to honor her future mother-in-law.

Then there was her aunt, who sneakily ca to her ho crying poor, clasping her hands and recounting all the ways she had helped her and her mother in the past, hinting that Yunfang must not be ungrateful.

The silly girl, not sure what she was thinking, wanting to maintain a good reputation, actually gave her aunt one hundred kilograms of sorghum.

In the end, she was left with only a few tens of kilograms of sorghum for herself.

Perhaps Yunfang still had so expectations to do such things; Feiyang recalled that the girl rarely cooked at her own ho, either before or after the grain distribution. Almost every day, she shalessly visited several uncles and aunts in the village, to mooch a al here and there.

Naturally, no one liked to see her like this and wouldn’t give her a warm reception, but she, so determined to save food, pretended not to notice and continued to show up at people’s tables at alti every day.

This was truly, not biting but still a nuisance.

And yet she wanted to maintain a good reputation. Feiyang guessed that in Gaijiatun, Yunfang’s reputation must have already hit rock bottom.

Feiyang couldn’t help but feel ashad for Yunfang and anxious about her intelligence. This was so sort of divine logic.

Giving away her very ans of survival to outsiders, all for the sake of a good reputation, and then creating trouble at her own doorstep. Did she think the people of Gaijiatun were dead? Didn’t reputation here count for anything?

Feiyang rubbed her temples; it was so frustrating. Others caused trouble and could just walk away, but she, the successor, had to live here and receive people’s disdain.

It didn’t take more than ten minutes for the porridge to cook. She hurriedly removed the firewood from the stove and took the only two big bowls in the house, one for the porridge and one for the peeled eggs.

She rummaged around the cookstove and couldn’t find any sugar, only a green liquor bottle containing so soy sauce-colored liquid. She sniffed the bottle near her nose and confird that it was indeed soy sauce. There was also a small, half-empty bag of coarse salt nearby.

There were pickled vegetables and bean paste at ho, but they were all hidden away in the cellar. Thinking about the hassle of going up and down, Feiyang gave up. She picked up the soy sauce bottle and carefully poured so over the eggs, then used chopsticks to break the eggs into smaller pieces so that every chunk was coated with a bit of soy sauce.

Then she began to eat, alternating between spoonfuls of porridge and bites of the soy sauce eggs. In no ti at all, she had gobbled up two and a half bowls of porridge and two eggs.

Feiyang patted her stomach, feeling she could have eaten another bowl if she had it. Sigh, she was still not full.

She stood up from the small stool and heard the sloshing of water in her belly. This must be what being “water full” felt like.

Without wallowing in self-pity, Feiyang swiftly washed the pot and bowls, then looked at the sky, unsure of the exact ti. She decided to feed her ho’s chickens first and then head out to work.