Chapter 8: Bathing in the Pigsty

The scrapyard was a great place.

Although it wasn’t like other eras where you could find treasures just by looking, it was still no problem to find a few catties of scrap iron.

Wen Jiajia even wanted to buy a scrap bicycle to take home. She had a hunch that the bicycle might bring her a good return after being synthesized.

But she looked at her legs, which were about to scream for a strike, and decided to give up. There was no way she could take it away, and the 28 bars at this time were much heavier than the bikes a few decades later.

“Do you really want that?” The comrades at the scrapyard were incredulous. “These are all collected by us from outside, and no one wants them. What are you buying them for?”

At this time, the scrap collection station didn’t wait for people to deliver items but had to pedal tricycles to walk the streets and alleys to collect scrap.

Iron products were often used until they couldn’t be used anymore, and people would sell them for money. The scrapyard wouldn’t repair them after acquisition because they were worthless. Instead, the scrap metal was sent to be melted and refined into something else.

It was a rarity. After working for so long, they had only collected iron here and never sold iron to takeaway!

Wen Jiajia smiled dryly and didn’t speak. She couldn’t find any reason to explain.

The comrade didn’t ask any more questions. Mainly, these scraps couldn’t do anything bad. Otherwise, such a strange comrade would definitely be reported to the Public Security Bureau to check if she was a spy.

Wen Jiajia dragged almost 10 catties of scrap iron away. All the iron she bought was so rusty that it was almost impossible to transform it into recycled iron, so the comrades at the scrap collection station happily gave her a low price, and she bought these things for less than a dollar.

Stopping frequently along the way, Wen Jiajia was sweating profusely. The sweat on her forehead was like water streaming down a mountain wall, with one drop falling before the previous one had even hit the ground, making her hair look like it had been washed.

When she finally got home before collapsing from exhaustion, she lay down for half an hour, breathing like bellows.

In the evening, Wen Chun and Wen Xuan would come back with the older children of the commune primary school, so she didn’t need to pick them up.

Wen Jiajia waited until everyone got off work, and then went to the village party secretary with the certificate of transfer for her household registration. She intercepted the village party secretary on the road, and he then took her to the brigade headquarters.

This was her first time back at the brigade headquarters, and indeed, there were electric lights and a radio.

However, their village did not often broadcast messages because the Fuyang Brigade was close to the commune and could catch the radio signals from the other side of the commune.

Just like now, they could hear the commune’s “The Sea Sails by the Helmsman” broadcast on their side.

The village party secretary took the certificate, signed his name, and said, “I’ll go to the commune to help you with the paperwork later, and you can start working tomorrow.”

Wen Jiajia was taken aback. 

“There’s no need to be in such a hurry.”

The village party secretary was actually looking out for her. After all, an extra day’s work meant an extra pound of grain, and the Wen family needed food the most.

Wen Jiajia left with a smile on her face, but when she returned home, her shoulders slumped, dreading that tomorrow would be even harder than today.

In summer, cicadas chirped, and the wind carried heat waves.

Thankfully, the day’s meals were prepared in the morning; otherwise, she would need to make a hot meal tonight.

But she still needed to make a fire. She bought soap and couldn’t wait to take a bath. Her entire body felt sticky, and she wouldn’t be able to sleep without washing.

Moreover, she had to stew the bones.

However, she didn’t plan to eat the pork bone soup tonight, intending instead to stew it before bed and eat it the next morning. She needed some nourishment to boost her strength for work the following day.

Wen Jiajia was efficient. She carried two buckets of warm water to the pigsty in the backyard… Yes, the pigsty.

The pigsty was the only place in the house with a cement floor.

Wen Jiajia was relieved, finding it somewhat amusing that she would bathe in a pigsty. 

Fortunately, the pigsty was very clean, probably because the Wen family cherished the only cement floor in the house, and there was no residue after breeding.

The key was that the location of the pigsty was secluded. Wen Jiajia only needed to cover the mouth of the pigsty with a straw curtain to feel a sense of security, and there would be no wind, even in winter.

The sound of splashing came from the pigsty, and about three minutes later, Wen Jiajia emerged, feeling refreshed. At that moment, she felt rejuvenated.

“Comfortable!” She let out a sigh of relief.

What a place to be, a pigsty.

A few minutes after Wen Jiajia took her bath, the sisters arrived home. She carefully observed their state and found them much more cheerful than in previous days, which made her relax slightly.

She tapped the rice bowl with chopsticks. “Eat, I’ll help you take a bath after dinner.”

Wen Xuan sucked her fingers, puzzled. “Auntie, didn’t we take a bath yesterday?” Auntie had scrubbed out a black loach from her, which she remembered clearly. Today, the teacher even praised her for not having a black loach on her neck, calling her a good child who loves cleanliness, and she had received beautiful flowers.

Hearing Jiajia’s “tsk,” she pulled her fingers out of her mouth. “Don’t suck your fingers again, or you’ll get worms in your stomach.”

“Worm?”

Wen Jiajia bluffed. “Yes, worms that look like earthworms. They will eat the sugar in your stomach!”

Wen Xuan was almost frightened to death. She touched her little belly, frowning in disbelief. “The worms are too bad.” Even the candy she hid in her stomach would be eaten.

Wen Jiajia wanted to laugh but held back. “I bought a piece of soap today, and after washing with it, you’ll smell nice. Do you still not want to wash?”

Wen Chun and Wen Xuan couldn’t wait to raise their hands. “Wash!” the two sisters said in unison. They loved anything fragrant.

Dinner was simple again: sweet potato porridge with stir-fried vegetables.

What kind of dish is bad for vegetables?

It is a dish pickled in red wine sauce. The locals pickle several jars of dried vegetables every winter and set them aside for the next year, usually enough to last a year.

Wen Jiajia found the taste quite good after trying it. She had also deliberately added chopped green peppers and onions to stir-fry, adding a layer of flavor.

The best part was that fried vegetables could last two or three days, even in such hot weather, which she liked as it saved her trouble.

After eating, the two children helped wipe the table. Although they didn’t do a perfect job and left water marks on the table, Wen Jiajia didn’t stop them. Instead, she encouraged them.

She needed the two children to unlock the skill of doing housework as soon as possible. Otherwise, she felt that the future would be bleak, and she would have no energy left.

Wen Chun and Wen Xuan really loved the soap.

They were still bathing in a wooden barrel, and when Wen Jiajia took out the soap and smeared it on them, creating bubbles, the two girls were stunned, their eyes round with amazement.

“Auntie, it smells so good!” Wen Chun’s face flushed with excitement as she played with the bubbles. “It smells better than sugar!”

Although Wen Jiajia didn’t understand the connection between sugar and fragrance, she still took the instruction very seriously. “Soap can’t be eaten, bubbles can’t be eaten, and the water can’t be swallowed!”

Wen Xuan put down her hand, which was about to put bubbles in her mouth. “Really, I can’t eat it?” Can’t she just lick and taste everything?

“Really! If you eat it, you’ll get diarrhea, and if you have diarrhea, you can’t eat sugar or meat.”

The two children wilted.

They had forgotten what meat tasted like, but they remembered the taste of sugar. Not being able to eat sugar was a severe blow to them.

This time the bath was thorough, and Wen Jiajia scrubbed off all the old dirt from their bodies.

To put it bluntly, the water was covered with dirt.

Wen Jiajia couldn’t bear to see it, so she took them out of the wooden barrel, poured out the dirty water, cleaned the wooden barrel again, and then refilled it with fresh water to continue washing.

She scrubbed them until their bodies were clean, with not a spot left untouched.

In the dead of night, the moon disappeared intermittently.

The kitchen was quietly burning, and someone was busy in front of the stove.

With no casserole available, the stew could only be made in a pot.

After some thought, Wen Jiajia stuffed thick and hard firewood into the stove.

In her previous life, she had copied recipes from famous books for video shoots, and one particularly memorable one was a roasted pig’s head cooked with firewood. The result was a soft, glutinous, fragrant but not greasy dish that brought her more than 300,000 likes.

After lighting the firewood with great effort, and making sure the flames penetrated deeply enough to stay lit, Wen Jiajia put the cleaned pork bones into the pot to boil.

She had wanted to steam them for better flavor, but there wasn’t even an iron basin at home. Not only was there no iron basin, but she also couldn’t find a larger clay pot, so she had to give up.

Back in the room, as the night deepened, so did the temperature.

This was the advantage of wooden houses: warm in winter and cool in summer. With no greenhouse effect, staying in a wooden room was almost like sleeping in an air-conditioned room.

It would be even better if there were no rats on the roof.

Wen Jiajia turned over and fell into a deep sleep.

The following morning, with something on her mind, Wen Jiajia woke up early. Looking at the inner panel of her brain, she saw that the synthesis function was ready to use again.

Suddenly alert, she rushed to the kitchen, took out a small amphora from the cupboard, and then ran to the firewood room to get scrap iron.

Most of the scrap metal was from broken pots and stoves, and there were even a few items she couldn’t identify.

Wen Jiajia didn’t dare get too close to one piece, fearing it might be a urinal.

She handed over a few pieces of scrap metal, and sure enough, three options appeared in her mind again:

Mini wheelbarrow, amphora pot, kettle.

Wen Jiajia didn’t hesitate to choose the amphora pot and kettle, feeling it was a waste to delay even a second.

This time, the amphora was a normal-sized pot, similar to the iron pot used in her previous life’s kitchen. If well-maintained, it could even be used on an induction cooker or natural gas stove decades later.

Of course, it was still small compared to the current kitchen pot.

The Wen family’s pot was an eight-person pot, bought after much deliberation by Wen Dad and Wen Niang because of their large family. They tightened their belts for half a year before purchasing it. The pot had been passed down for three generations and was still in use, a testament to its value in this era.

Today, an iron pot was a valuable item for the family. Anyone with an eight-person pot was envied by the neighbors.

Wen Jiajia instantly felt hopeful about making money. She could earn dozens of yuan by selling an iron pot, the profits so rich that even capitalists would cry.

For a moment, she was short of breath, her cheeks flushed.

But…

You can’t underestimate people in these times. How stupid could people be who had gone through the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation? After the founding of the country, many spies were caught by the masses. If she ate meat for a few days without income, the public security would be at her door.

Believe it or not, there were spies caught because they ate too well.

This was true for meat, let alone pots.

There were only a few supply and marketing cooperatives in the entire county, and everyone knew which ones had new pots. If you really checked, supply orders and shipments were carefully tracked.

If you claimed to have bought the pot from someone from outside?

That’s impossible. With restricted movement, you needed a letter of introduction wherever you went. Who would vouch for you? Who would vouch for a high school graduate with no connections?

So, selling pots to make money was like going to the black market. It sounded feasible, like you could make tens of thousands in a few years, buy a courtyard house in the capital, and embark on a bright life…

In reality, it was impossible. You’d end up carrying a silver bracelet, eating state-provided meals, and being sent to farms in remote areas to open up wasteland. If you were lucky, you might come out; if not… you’d die on the farm!