Shen Feiyang wasn't sure if it was due to her rebirth, but even though she didn't take any medicine, she woke up early the next day feeling some improvement in her health; at least the fever was gone.
She tried to get out of bed and, though she felt weak, the girl had a good constitution which allowed her to slowly rise.
The first thing she wanted to do was make a meal for herself; she was starving. The clear porridge from yesterday was hardly filling, and in the middle of the night, hunger had awakened her. However, she was too weak to do anything and somehow managed to fall back asleep. Now that she finally felt better, her stomach protested even more violently; she felt like she could eat an entire cow.
Shen Feiyang's arms and legs were weak as she pushed open the door to her room, and sure enough, there was the central room that also served as the kitchen. In the center, there was a stove with a large eight-patterned iron pot on it, a small stool in front of the stove, and firewood stacked against the wall.
In the rural areas of the north, most central rooms looked the same. Although Shen Feiyang was born in the 80s in her previous life and was also a country child who grew up in a rural area, she was not unfamiliar with this kind of earthen stove.
She stuck a match into the stove opening from the matches lying on the ground, found a pine torch, and then struck a match from the box on the stove to light the tinder inside.
Then, she hurriedly scooped a ladle of water from the nearby water vat, poured it into the pot to clean it, and then scooped another ladle of water to make porridge.
Considering her current physical state and her stomach that was cramping from hunger, porridge was the most suitable thing for her to drink.
After she had done all this, she opened the central room's cellar door from memory.
Shen Feiyang had some difficulty hauling the grain sack out of the cellar; she was still very weak.
Actually, the family was so poor it was almost comical; there was no need to hide the small amount of grain they had, but it was likely out of habit that Shen Yunfang had stashed the less-than-half sack of cornmeal in the pitch-dark cellar.
She scooped out two handfuls of cornmeal, mixed them with water from the ladle, and just as the water in the iron pot began to boil, she stirred the cornmeal into it.
On the side, she went to check the chicken nest, washed the two newly laid eggs, and put them in the big pot to cook as well.
She then sat on the small stool, adding twigs to the firebox while lost in her own thoughts.
Actually, this family shouldn't have been so poor, not in terms of money, but in terms of grain. Shen Feiyang looked at the twenty-plus pounds of cornmeal by her feet.
A month ago, the collective's rice and corn had been harvested. Though her family consisted of just her, they were still entitled to four hundred eighty pounds of grain each year.
This year, Shen Yunfang received one hundred twenty pounds of paddy, thirty pounds of wheat, two hundred pounds of corn, thirty pounds of soybeans, thirty pounds of millet, fifty pounds of sorghum, ten pounds of rice beans, and ten pounds of mung beans—a total of four hundred eighty pounds.
Four hundred eighty pounds of grain sounded ample, but for the people of the seventies, it was hardly sufficient for a year. The grains were unhusked, and once threshed, it would've been good to have three hundred sixty pounds left, which is roughly one pound of grain per person per day. For someone without any fat on their bones, working hard year-round, one pound of grain a day was woefully inadequate. Additionally, not every family was like Yunfang's, with only one person; most had several kids, some old enough to work and earn their share of grain during the year, maybe a couple hundred pounds. But the younger children couldn't contribute labor and received grain allocations based on their age, which still counted towards the adults' share. They say hungry teenagers can eat their parents out of house and home. Growth spurts mean they eat as much as adults, so when a family's grain is pooled together and carefully managed, they could just scrape by. But if the family had a few big eaters, they'd end up hungry by year's end.
Normally, the grain allocated by the collective, while not abundant, should have been enough to get by without eating only dry food every day. In addition, each household in Gaijiatun was allocated their own plot of land and could grow their own corn, so even though the villagers didn't earn much annually, as long as they were willing to work, they wouldn't go hungry.
Yunfang was a young girl, but even so, the four hundred plus pounds of grain she received each year should have been enough; yet now, the Shen family had only those twenty-plus pounds of cornmeal left.
Where had the rest gone?
Shen Feiyang sighed. The girl must have had some issues with her thinking.
In her memory, Yunfang had kept just over ten pounds of the hundred-plus pounds of harvested paddy for herself, sending the rest to her future mother-in-law's house with the help of her future uncle. The reason was that her future mother-in-law was at home, craving rice so much she was weeping by the stove. As someone who was going to be part of that family, even if she hadn't married in yet, she felt she had a duty to care first for the elderly woman's needs.
I forgot to mention that, despite Yunfang being only fifteen, she was already spoken for.
And there lies another story. Yunfang's father had died on the battlefield saving a comrade, who happened to be her future father-in-law. After that, everything was set; it played out like a drama of filial piety. Initially, Yunfang's mother, lured by the fifty RMB given as a betrothal gift, and wishing to secure a good family for her only daughter, didn't hesitate to agree.
In her elder's mind, "My son-in-law died for your family's old man, so if you have any conscience, how could you possibly be unkind to your own daughter in the future?" Moreover, the family was quite well-off, able to produce fifty RMB as a betrothal gift at once; their lives definitely couldn't be too bad. In the future, as an old woman, she would have a bowl of rice to eat by following her daughter.
From this incident, it was evident that although Shen Yunfang's old mother also loved her daughter dearly, she couldn't hide the selfishness and snobbishness ingrained in her as a member of the Zhang Family.
Over the years, Shen Yunfang had only seen her fiancé Li Hongjun three times: once for a matchmaking meeting, once for the engagement, and that was when she was four years old. There was also a year ago when her mother passed away, and Li Hongjun got leave from the military to come and see her. That should actually count as their first meeting.
It was also since then that Li Hongjun would send her a letter every month, always enclosing a five RMB note.
The money Shen Feiyang had in his hands was saved up just like that by Shen Yunfang.
So, Shen Yunfang, although reluctant at heart, saw that Li Hongjun sent her so much money, and fearing to offend her future in-laws, simply gave her recently allocated share of over a hundred pounds of rice to her eldest uncle, so he could take it back to pay respects to his future mother-in-law.
So, Shen Yunfang, although reluctant at heart, again fearing to offend her future in-laws, had no choice but to give the more than a hundred pounds of rice she had just received to her eldest uncle, letting him take it back to pay respects to his future mother-in-law.
Then there was the aunt who sneaked over to the house crying poor, clutching her hand and reminding her of all the past help she had given to her and her mother, hinting that she should not be ungrateful.
This foolish girl, for the sake of having a good reputation, actually gave the aunt a hundred pounds of corn.
So, in the end, she was left with just a few dozen pounds of corn.
Perhaps Shen Yunfang, this foolish girl, still had some hope to do what she did. Shen Feiyang recalled that whether before or after the food distribution, the girl rarely lit the stove at her own house and would almost thick-facedly go to several uncles' and aunts' homes in the village, scrounging a meal here, mooching a meal there every day.
Of course, no one would give her a happy face when they saw her like this, but she would stubbornly ignore it just to save food, shamelessly joining others at their tables during mealtime every day.
That's truly annoying without actually biting anyone.
Despite that, she still hoped for a good reputation. It was likely that in Gaijiatun, her reputation had already turned sour.
Shen Feiyang felt embarrassed for Shen Yunfang and anxious for her intelligence just thinking about it. What kind of logic was this?
She had given away the very food she relied on for survival to others, just for the sake of a good reputation, and then had brought trouble upon her own doorstep. Were the people of Gaijiatun dead? Wasn't the reputation here also a reputation?
Shen Feiyang rubbed his temples, feeling troubled. Other people cause trouble and then just walk away, but he, the successor, still had to live here under the disapproving stares of others.
Less than ten minutes had passed, and the porridge was ready. She quickly removed the firewood from the stove, took the only two big bowls in the house, one for the porridge and the other for the peeled eggs.
She rummaged on the stove and couldn't find any sugar, just a green bottle containing some soy sauce-colored liquid. She sniffed it next to her nose, confirming that it was soy sauce. There was also a small half-bag of coarse salt sitting precariously beside it.
The house did have pickles and soybean paste, but they were hidden in the cellar. Thinking about the hassle of going up and down, Shen Feiyang gave up. She picked up the bottle of soy sauce and carefully poured a little on top of the eggs, then used chopsticks to gently break the eggs so that each piece got a bit of soy sauce.
Then she began eating, alternating between a sip of porridge and a bite of the soy sauce egg. In no time, she had wolfed down two and a half bowls of porridge and both eggs.
Shen Feiyang patted her stomach, feeling that she could have eaten another bowl if there had been one. Alas, she was still not full.
She got up from the small stool, and with her movements, the sound of liquid swished in her belly. Isn't this what they call water fullness?
Not wallowing in self-pity, Shen Feiyang quickly washed the pot and bowls, then looked up at the sky, uncertain of the time. She decided to feed her chickens first, and then go out to work.