Liu Ruonan's staple food was cold noodles, simmered in well water. Chen Jianmin and Gao Shu had been working in the fields all afternoon, their skin already sunburned, and eating cold noodles was the perfect way to cool down.
Liu Ruonan still served the food, brought it in to Zhuang Sheng, and ate with him in the room.
Throughout the meal, Gao Shanshan kept praising Liu Ruonan's cooking skills. This made Chen Jianmin a little embarrassed. After being a housewife for so many years, she still had no such good cooking skills.
In fact, only Liu Ruonan knows the sadness behind her excellent cooking skills.
At that time, after Liu Dazhuang and Liu Ergou died one after another, only Mei Hong was left. Liu Ruonan finally took the opportunity to escape. In order to prevent Mei Hong from taking her back, she walked to the city.
At that time, she was tired and hungry and fainted. She was rescued by a chef from a nearby restaurant. The chef took pity on Liu Ruonan and asked her to work in the kitchen.
Later, the head chef saw that Liu Ruonan was efficient and quick in her work, so he asked her to be his kitchen helper and taught her some cooking skills. In fact, Liu Ruonan was very grateful at the time. If there was no head chef, Liu Ruonan didn't know what her fate would be like.
All the kitchen staff had physical examination reports. At that time, Liu Ruonan was just slightly anemic and it didn't have any impact, so they kept her.
The annual physical exam came around again, and Liu Ruonan was found to have calcifications on her chest. Calcifications on the chest are usually caused by past tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is contagious, so it's impossible to keep an employee like that during lunch.
Even though the master was helpless, Liu Ruonan was eventually kicked out of the hotel.
She never remembered when she had tuberculosis. She only remembered that Liu Dazhuang had pushed her into a water tank and she nearly drowned. After she was rescued, Mei Hong still forced her to work.
During that time, she had a cold and fever and had been coughing for a long time.
Could that be tuberculosis?
Liu Ruonan didn't know it, but word of her condition quickly spread throughout the city. Many places wouldn't hire her, and some even looked down on her and drove her away. That was a very dark period in her life.
Liu Ruonan took a deep breath and put these sad memories behind her. She was no longer the Liu Ruonan she used to be, and she would never let herself end up in that situation again.
Zhuang Sheng seemed to see the subtle sadness deep in Liu Ruonan's eyes, and he also felt that everyone's praise for her cooking skills might have brought back her sad memories over the years.
"Everything will be fine in the future," Zhuang Sheng consoled her. "Have you sent the letter?"
In order to stop her from thinking too much, Zhuang Sheng changed the subject.
"I've sent it." Zhuang Sheng smiled lightly. Actually, he wasn't sending it to any military unit, but rather to someone he knew. He simply hoped that Liu Ruonan wouldn't have to go through too much trouble on her way to treating him. However, that person was able to provide Liu Ruonan with some help.
After dinner, Liu Ruonan began to prepare the ointment. Before she had the two medicines, she could only treat Zhuang Sheng as she pleased.
The courtyard was filled with the strong aroma of Chinese herbal medicine, but unlike other Chinese medicine brews that smell bitter and pungent, the Chinese medicine brewed by Liu Ruonan exudes a light fragrance.
At this time, Gao Shanshan had finished her homework. She walked to Liu Ruonan, squatted down, looked at Liu Ruonan and asked, "Sister Ruonan, what are you doing?"
"Boil Chinese medicine."
"Don't Chinese medicines all smell bad? Why does yours smell so good?" Gao Shanshan displayed her spirit of asking questions without hesitation and asked Liu Ruonan questions whenever she didn't understand something.
"Because the ingredients are different!" Liu Ruonan explained simply. Traditional Chinese Medicine is so extensive and profound that even if Gao Shanshan explained it in detail, she wouldn't be able to understand it immediately.
"But why is it so black? It looks so disgusting!" Gao Shanshan then noticed that the large pot of Chinese medicine had been boiled into a sticky consistency, and it was as black as coal. Gao Shanshan avoided it with some disgust.
Liu Ruonan smiled, touched Gao Shanshan's head, and said gently: "Don't look at it like this, but it can cure diseases!"
Gao Shanshan took a sticker and gave it to Gao Shanshan, then handed her a popsicle stick and said to Gao Shanshan: "Come, I will teach you how to make a plaster!"
Liu Ruonan picked up the sticky plaster, pressed it onto the sticker, then spread it evenly bit by bit, and finally covered it with a piece of non-adhesive paper.
Although Gao Shanshan felt disgusted, she still did it. When she made a plaster according to Liu Ruonan's appearance, she couldn't help laughing.
"Is that all?"
"It worked, Shanshan is awesome!"
"Sister Ruonan, don't tell me, although this medicine looks disgusting, it smells quite good."
"What are you two talking about? You look so happy." Chen Jianmin had just been mending Gao Shanshan's shoes. She had physical education class the next day, but there was a hole in the toe of her sneakers. Unwilling to pay a cobbler to fix it, Chen Jianmin found a piece of thick, sturdy cloth and patched it himself.
"Mom, are my sneakers repaired?" Gao Shanshan asked excitedly when she saw Chen Jianmin.
"It's fixed." Chen Jianmin's kind smile always infects people and warms their hearts.
Gao Shanshan skipped to her room and changed into her sneakers. She excitedly said to Liu Ruonan, "Sister Ruonan, look at my mom's craftsmanship. She's almost as good as a shoe repairman."
Liu Ruonan felt a little sad. Gao Shanshan was indeed a sensible child. Because of her family's financial difficulties, she never asked her mother for anything. Even a pair of mended sneakers could make her so happy. Liu Ruonan even felt a little guilty. Why didn't she think of buying Gao Shanshan a pair of sneakers when she went to the city today?
In this life, she was fortunate. Before she encountered the fate of Liu Ergou's family, she met Zhuang Sheng. Then, she and Zhuang Sheng moved in with her in Chen Jianmin's home. Although their family lived in poverty, they were happy and healthy. Their family was a perfect example of a harmonious union of husband and wife, a loving father and filial son.
Not only that, their family also showed extraordinary tolerance and selflessness towards her and Zhuang Sheng, which made Liu Ruonan extremely grateful!
It seems that God is fair after all, allowing her to live again and change her tragic fate.
Perhaps, it also changed Zhuang Sheng's fate.
Although in the days that followed, Zhuang Sheng was not very willing to mention how he severed his father-son relationship with Zhuang Qiang, Liu Ruonan vaguely felt from his words that he was also living an extremely miserable life at that time, and had endured too much torture and pain in order to treat his illness.
Now, Liu Ruonan must rely on her own hands and abilities to change her and Zhuang Sheng's fate and prevent those tragedies from happening again.
Chen Jianmin's kind smile and Gao Shanshan's innocent smile deeply touched her. Connecting this family, she vowed to make sure they live a good life.
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