Chapter 26: Please Call Me Sister Hui

This era was truly one of scarcity. Although Leng Hui's lunch was a dry meal, it consisted of nothing more than sorghum pancakes with salted vegetable soup and a few slices of cold tossed lettuce.

Compared to the apocalypse, these coarse grains were already a fine meal, but one always strives to live better under limited circumstances.

Leng Hui also wanted herself and Tang Lin to have good food, warm clothes, and a comfortable place to live, so she still needed to work hard.

After eating, she fetched hot water to take a bath and changed out of the clothes she had spent half the day wearing while foraging on the mountain.

By the time she finished washing the clothes, hung them out to dry, and returned home, Leng Yongkang was already gone, and Tang Lin was sitting on a stool, having already peeled half a basin of bamboo shoots.

"Mom, this is enough to eat. The rest won't stay fresh for long, so I'll take them to the black market to trade for other things."

Leng Hui hadn't expected to find bamboo shoots during this trip up the mountain. These were early shoots, which could fetch a good price at the black market.

Old Lady Leng stopped her movement of gluing paper boxes and said disapprovingly, "Food is so precious in this era. Why go trade it? It's better to peel them all; if we can't finish them, we'll dry them to eat slowly later."

Tang Lin retorted, "It's enough that we have food to give you. Don't try to assert your presence when you don't need to; you can't make decisions for us anymore."

If she truly angered her, she would find a house outside, and once she found one, she would have her work unit take this house back and kick the whole Leng family out.

Old Lady Leng clutched her chest in anger again, her face looking grim.

Leng Hui retied the spring bamboo shoots tightly, told Tang Lin to go back and rest, and then headed out carrying the shoots.

The black market was, quite simply, a market organized spontaneously by citizens. It wasn't large, consisting of just one or two remote small alleys.

When Leng Hui arrived, there weren't many people, but it was still quite popular during this season when vegetables were scarce.

Even the bamboo shoot husks went for three cents per jin. She had about twenty-some jin, which she sold for seventy-five cents.

Clutching the seventy-five cents she had earned today, Leng Hui sighed inwardly; earning money through manual labor was too difficult.

It was only through this comparison that Leng Hui realized just how precious a job position was in this era.

Leng Hui glanced at the pile of bamboo shoots in her space; she decided not to sell these. They were too cheap; it was better to keep them to eat slowly later.

Leaving the black market, she passed by a waste recycling station on her way home and, with the mindset of a scavenger, stepped inside.

The recycling station was truly a recycling station; at a glance, the entire warehouse was filled with scrap.

The only distinction was that one area contained sorted scrap, while the other area was a chaotic mess of unsorted junk.

"Little girl, what are you looking for?" an old man sorting through the scrap asked.

Leng Hui was dazed; she didn't know what she was looking for either.

Furniture?

Not needed. They hadn't split from the family yet, and there would be no place to put anything in their tiny house.

Old books or newspapers?

No interest.

"Grandpa, do you have any old appliances that were bought back, like radios or something?"

Ultimately, Leng Hui thought of the radio she had seen at the Jiang family's house.

If she could scavenge a broken one here, she might have a chance to fix it.

"I have some, but these are all broken beyond repair—basically just scrap metal. There's no point in you going there."

"It's fine if they can't be repaired; I just like tinkering with things."

Leng Hui seemed not to notice the old man's hesitation and excitedly asked him to take her to take a look.

Five radios and two electric fans cost Leng Hui one yuan and eighty cents.

"Technology is backward, but anything with even a bit of technicality is ridiculously expensive. A few dozen jin of fresh, radiation-free bamboo shoots only sells for a few cents, yet broken appliances cost three or four times as much," Leng Hui mused to herself as she carried the sack toward home.

If she brought out those new energy vehicles from her space, would they sell for astronomical prices?

In that sense, she could be considered an invisible billionaire of this era.

"Leng Hui."

As she passed the Jiang family's courtyard, she was called again by Jiang Jingtao.

Leng Hui adjusted the sack she was carrying and turned around to see Jiang Jingtao leaning against the courtyard gatepost like a dandy, waving at her with a beaming smile.

Leng Hui stood her ground. "What is it?"

"Of course I have something to say to you. Come over here, quick."

Leng Hui was skeptical; she didn't think anything good would come from him calling her.

However, she still walked a few steps toward him.

Jiang Jingtao stepped forward and took the sack from her shoulder. "What's in this raggedy sack?"

After setting the sack against the courtyard gate, Jiang Jingtao ran back into the house and brought out a bowl a moment later.

"Here."

"What is it?"

The setting sun cast a slant of light, making the contents of the bowl look oily and glistening.

Leng Hui frowned slightly. The bowl contained food; a yellowish rice slurry floated with oil, mixed with plenty of chopped spring bamboo shoots, and small reddish specks that were likely chili.

Jiang Jingtao pressed the bowl into her hands and handed her chopsticks. "My mom made this before she went to work. She chopped the small shoots, sautéed them in oil until fragrant, then added water. Once the water boiled and was seasoned, she slowly stirred in the rice flour. Try it and see if you like the flavor."

Leng Hui hadn't known bamboo shoots could be eaten this way, but looking at the bowl of rice noodles, she could tell the ingredients were generous and the taste wouldn't be bad.

In this era, many families couldn't afford oil; when they cooked vegetables, they truly just boiled them, adding only a few drops of oil once cooked.

Since she had traveled through time many days ago, she always felt she got hungry quickly, largely because her stomach lacked fats and oils.

"Is this okay? I'm always coming to your house to eat. Is your family's monthly ration enough?"

"What's not okay about it? You brought us bamboo shoots at noon; this was specially saved for you. Hurry up and eat."

Leng Hui swallowed hard; her willpower was truly tested in the face of delicious food. She thought to herself that if she ate this now, she would just give them more other food next time.

Seeing that she finally picked up her chopsticks, Jiang Jingtao breathed a sigh of relief, finally finding time to pay attention to the sack she had carried.

"What good stuff is in that bag of yours?"

The seasoning was just right; Leng Hui was conquered by this delicacy from the very first bite. Thinking of what she had picked up from the recycling station, she said, "Scrap."

"Scrap? You went scavenging this afternoon?" Jiang Jingtao was surprised; he hadn't expected Leng Hui to go scavenging.

Leng Hui nodded; wasn't picking things up from a recycling station exactly scavenging?

"If you are really desperate for a job, I can ask my parents to keep an eye out for you and let you know when there's an opening."

Leng Hui shook her head. "Stop trying to fool me. If your parents could find jobs, would they let you stay idle at home every day?"

She didn't want to owe anyone favors regarding work for the time being.

"Little girl, you really don't know what's good for you," Jiang Jingtao teased with a laugh.

He didn't *want* to work; the jobs his parents arranged weren't the ones he liked, so naturally, he wasn't willing to have his freedom restricted.

"Since you know I don't know what's good for me, don't worry about my job. I have my own arrangements."

Seeing that Leng Hui truly didn't want his help, Jiang Jingtao didn't mention it again.

Mainly, he didn't know if his parents would even be willing to help.

"Is the bamboo shoot rice noodle tasty?"

"It's delicious," Leng Hui nodded.

Jiang Jingtao smiled proudly; the delicacies he liked were naturally delicious.

Master Jiang's personal selection was never wrong.

Once Leng Hui finished her last bite, he cheekily leaned in front of her and beckoned with his finger. "Come on, call me 'Brother' and let me hear it. Just call me 'Brother,' and next time the family makes this dish, I'll call you over to eat again."

Leng Hui's face darkened. She poked his forehead with her chopsticks to push his head away. "Don't try that trick on me. You can't corrupt me with sugar-coated bullets! I'm not falling for it! Even if you're only a day younger than me, you're still younger. Next time you see me, remember to call me 'Sister Hui'."

(End of Chapter)