Chapter 2: New Life

When she opened her eyes again, she arrived in 1968.

When she came, the original owner was still running a fever, with dry and chapped lips. There was a wet towel on his head that had been heated by his own body temperature, and a bowl of water on the table beside the bed.

Xie Yun's eyes were blurred by burning, so he quickly released his mental power to feel around. Seeing that there was no one around, he immediately took out a cup of spring water from the space and drank it.

The spring in her space is probably the legendary spiritual spring of low quality that can strengthen the body.

After drinking the water and lying down for a while, Xie Yun felt that he was truly alive again, and the fever gradually subsided.

She did not get up immediately, but lay on the bed and received the original owner's memories.

The original owner, Xie Yun, was 18 years old. He was a family of three living in Liushutun Brigade, Taoyuan Commune, Qushui County, Rencheng District, Eastern Province. Seven years earlier, his father, Xie Tan, had died during the Great Famine, leaving Xie Yun, his mother, Zhang Ruifeng, and his younger brother, Xie Shen, to depend on each other.

Zhang Ruifeng was a strong person. She raised two children by herself. No matter how hard it was, she made sure Xie Yun insisted on going to school. It was not until 1966, when she was 16 years old and in the first year of high school, that she had to give up her studies and go home to farm due to the school strike.

The original owner's nickname was "Desperate Sanniang". She was a ruthless person who could get full work points like a first-class male laborer. Everyone who saw her would praise her for her ability!

Zhang Ruifeng was also quite capable, a second-class laborer earning eight work points. Considering she had already given birth to two children, experienced the loss of her husband, and had undergone foot binding and unbinding as a child, resulting in slightly deformed feet, while also managing the household and worrying about the children, she was actually even more capable than the original owner.

Xie Shen is now in the fourth grade of primary school. He helps the production team collect grass for pigs every morning and evening, and can earn three work points. Now that he is on vacation, he has nothing to do during the day, so he goes to the vegetable garden to pull weeds and can earn two more work points.

In their family, Zhang Ruifeng is both a strict mother and a strict father, and she has extremely high moral standards for herself. Things like Xie Shen secretly bringing food back to eat must not be known to Zhang Ruifeng, or she will give her a good beating if she finds out.

When the original owner first started learning how to fleece the production team, she brought back a handful of wheat to offer to her as a treasure. She was caught and beaten with a stick, and warned that if she did such dirty things again, she would report it selflessly and let the team put a dunce cap on her and parade her through the streets.

The original owner was terrified and from then on, she avoided him. Although parading was commonplace, and it was tense and intense at first, then became more of a joke, it was still embarrassing, truly embarrassing.

So, when Xie Shen mastered this skill, the original owner, as the eldest sister, warned him not to tell his mother. Xie Shen didn't believe it and picked a handful of beans to offer to his mother, but was still beaten with a stick.

Xie Shen defended himself, "I saw Second Grandpa taking corn home. Why can he take it but I can't?"

While beating him, Zhang Ruifeng said, "If someone else commits a crime, you commit it? If someone else kills someone, you kill them too? He's doing it secretly, which proves that he knows it's wrong!"

Of course, the original owner and his brother knew that this was wrong, but there was nothing they could do. They were so hungry! They could never get enough to eat!

In theory, the production team distributed the same amount of grain to everyone. After the wheat harvest and autumn harvest every year, after deducting the public grain, the collective share was left, and the rest was divided equally among people. No matter how much you worked, the amount of grain you received was the same.

But this food was not given to you for free. At the end of the year, the work points were counted and used to offset the deduction. Some families with more work points received not only the deduction of food but also some money. Some families with fewer work points did not even have enough to offset the deduction of food and even owed the brigade money.

In the latter case, the work was placed on account with the brigade and repaid later. Food was not reduced for fewer work points.

The Xie family owed money to the brigade. Back then, they borrowed money from the brigade to treat Xie Tan's illness, which led to a famine. For several years, Zhang Ruifeng was the only one in the family earning work points. The original owner earned a small amount by picking grass for the pigs, but the annual work points weren't enough to cover the food costs, and the debt kept growing. Things had gotten a little better in the past two years; they had stopped adding new debts and had started paying off old ones.

In the past few years, the family did not get any money. The original owner and Xie Shen wanted to go to school but could not afford the tuition. Zhang Ruifeng secretly sold some of the food he got and traded it in the village. If anyone in the village did not have enough food and had some extra money, they could exchange it privately.

After all this, I managed to raise enough money for tuition, but I didn't have enough food to eat. I could only eat half full instead of being able to eat until I was 80% full.

Therefore, no matter how strict Zhang Ruifeng was, she couldn't completely stop the original owner and Xie Shen from taking advantage of the situation. They would eat a little secretly and eat less at the table, leaving the food at home for Zhang Ruifeng to eat.

Xie Yun thought Zhang Ruifeng must have noticed something, but she also knew that everyone in the brigade did the same thing, including those from better-off families, not to mention her two hungry children.

After receiving the memory, Xie Yun checked her space again. The things she had stockpiled before were still there, and the hateful thing was that she could now enter the space herself.

If this function had been enabled earlier, she might have been able to hide in the space when facing the explosion. This was truly unlucky.

Xie Yun immediately went into the space and took a shower. The cleaning products she had stockpiled before were all fragrance-free, so no smell would be left after washing.

She did not lie to Xie Shen. After her fever subsided, she did sweat all over, and she felt sticky and uncomfortable.

The original owner had a very fair body and delicate skin. This was probably because she wore long trousers and long coats all year round and never got exposed to the sun. Her hands, face and neck were not dark, but just red from the sun. If she pays attention to sun protection in the future, she should be able to recover.

After taking a shower, she ate a sandwich in the space, drank a nutritious milkshake, rinsed her mouth, and then left the space. She found the original owner's clothes and put them on. She soaked yesterday's clothes in a basin and started washing them. Before she finished washing, Xie Shen was ordered to come back to see her.

After sending his brother away, Xie Yun washed and hung out his clothes, then took another tour of the house, witnessing firsthand the extent of their poverty. The three main rooms, facing south, were constructed of mud bricks. The middle room served as the kitchen and dining room, opening from north to south. To the east lay Zhang Ruifeng's room, and to the west was Xie Yun's.

The east wing where Xie Shen lived was originally a storage room, which was lower than the main house.

In the southwest corner of the yard was the toilet, a simple shed with a thatched roof and a stone wall that looked like it was about to collapse. The toilet was connected to the pigpen, and next to it was the chicken coop.

The rabbit cage is placed against the south wall.

In the northwest corner is another makeshift shed, housing a simple stove. Cooking is done here in spring, summer, and autumn, while the earthen stove in the main kitchen is only used in winter. Because the stove is connected to the kang (kang), it would be incredibly hot in the summer.

Although they were poor, the whole house was kept clean and tidy. The firewood in the stove was neatly stacked, and even the mud floor and mud walls did not look dirty at all.