Around noon, Sister Wang came over: “Comrade Chen, I heard Liu Han’s family has some good stuff lately. Let’s go over and have a look. I heard yesterday Wang Fan’s mom found a lot of good things at Liu’s house.”

The families in the base, like the wife of Engineer Wang or the family of Qian Jinyi, are generally wealthier and always seem to find some good items.

Chen Zili, the team leader of the vehicle fleet, had a decent salary, but most of his extra income came from repairing cars for places like the Mulan Farm, so his family was also fairly well-off.

As for Sister Wang, she was like Chen Lina from her past life, a person born with an innate desire for shopping.

Living on the border, good goods from the Soviet Union were beyond the reach of the people on the military farms, and the city was tense and guarded.

Only the families of the oil field base could afford to buy them.

That’s why Chen Tiantian had little dresses to wear, with especially beautiful floral scarves, and as long as the children didn’t leave the oil base, no one would say anything.

For little girls, it was all about having a bit of color, a bit of cuteness.

Nie Weimin and his brothers liked to follow around this little “flower butterfly.”

A few children gathered together, and Chen Tiantian was immediately surrounded in the center.

However, today, everyone’s focus was on Liu Xiaohong.

She was wearing a pair of red leather shoes with a soft lining that looked really nice.

However, her clothes were the same as before—worn-out cotton clothes with no covering cloth at all.

It was like a very expensive flowerpot had a weed growing in it.

It wasn’t that Chen Lina thought Liu Xiaohong wasn’t pretty or wasn’t lovable.

In her previous life, she had lived to her fifties without children, naturally infertile, and had treated dogs like children, showering them with affection.

She loved children and always wanted to make them laugh, but Liu Xiaohong’s situation was a bit odd.

The Liu family didn’t seem like an ordinary family in the base.

They didn’t have the good conditions that the leaders enjoyed.

They shared a courtyard with another family, the kitchen and fire were shared, with a large bedroom for one family and a smaller one for another.

However, Liu Han lived with Xiao Chen, who was still single, so they didn’t take up much space.

Sun Xia Ai, it was said, had once been the wife of a border officer, but no one really knew how she came back from the Tashen Border.

She had been widowed for over a year before marrying Liu Han.

This was all what Chen Lina had heard from Sister Wang.

When she saw Chen Lina, Sun Xia Ai was especially enthusiastic: “Oh, Xiao Chen, come in and have a look, see if there’s anything you like!”

“Isn’t the base very strict? How did you get all this stuff?” Chen Lina asked as she flipped through the items.

To her surprise, there was even a small fur jacket made from Soviet-produced rabbit fur, with thick fur on the inside.

The leather was dark green, and it was really beautiful.

“Ah, during these hard times, the leaders understand that the workers are struggling, and these things are all open secrets at the border. My previous husband was at the Tashen border, and when he met the Soviet soldiers, they saluted each other, and then one of them turned and farted. But if our soldiers threw money, they’d toss things back. The Soviets are rich now, so all this stuff came from them.”

Before its collapse, the Soviet Union had been the world’s strongest country, indeed rich, but it was also because they were so rich that they couldn’t maintain it and fell apart soon after.

Chen Lina stroked the rabbit fur jacket, reluctant to put it down: “How much is this?”

Sun Xia Ai said, “It’s not expensive, just one hundred yuan.”

“That’s already pretty expensive,” Chen Lina said, pulling her hand back.

Not just expensive—it was a sky-high price.

Prices in the border area were already higher than in inland China.

In an era when one jin (half a kilogram) of meat only cost one yuan, a fur jacket costing 100 yuan was like a luxury item from a later time.

“Xiao Chen, look, this jacket has a layer of windproof cotton on the outside. When you wear it, no one can see what you’re wearing underneath. It’s really warm. In this cold weather, I wear one and start sweating while walking.” As she spoke, Liu Xia Ai was about to drape the jacket over Chen Lina, saying, “Your skin is so delicate, we rarely see anyone with skin as fair as yours here in the border.”

Chen Lina quickly pushed her away: “Comrade Xia Ai, I have a naturally warm body, I can’t wear this kind of thing. Don’t put it on me.”

Sun Xia Ai awkwardly withdrew her hand.

Sister Wang looked around and noticed the small leather shoes that Liu Xiaohong was wearing. “How much are these shoes? I want to buy a pair for my daughter.”

“They’re not expensive, just eight yuan.”

Eight yuan for a pair of small leather shoes, and the child’s feet were small, so they’d probably only last for two seasons.

Of course, Sister Wang was reluctant to buy them.

However, Chen Lina didn’t even raise an eyebrow.

She bought a pair of cotton shoes for each of her three children, totaling twenty-four yuan.

You should know that cloth-covered cotton shoes wouldn’t withstand the extreme cold of the border, where temperatures often dropped to minus twenty or thirty degrees.

San Dan was in Chen Lina’s arms, and Nie Weimin and Er Dan, who had each been carrying a stick, immediately threw down their sticks and rushed to try on the shoes.

New cotton coats, new cotton leather shoes… as soon as they put them on, the two kids immediately felt how warm their toes were, which had always been numb from the cold.

In such situations, it was a matter of who was poor and who was rich.

When Sun Xiaoi saw Chen Lina pulling out three big bundles of money, her eyes lit up. “I always say my brother-in-law has a high salary. Look at these big bundles of money that Xiao Chen just pulled out—new and crisp. You can even hear the sound of them flipping. My brother-in-law’s salary must be over two hundred a month, right?”

“I’m not sure,” Chen Lina laughed. “You’ll have to ask him yourself.”

She took the six yuan that Sun Xiaoi found for her and was about to head home to cook.

Sun Xiaoi caught up with her. “Xiao Chen, you want something good?”

“What’s something good?” Chen Lina sniffed.

This woman smelled nice, and she could tell it was men’s cologne—something that smelled like Old Spice.

It was odd that a woman would use men’s cologne.

“A sewing machine. I’ll sell it to you for sixty yuan,” Sun Xiaoi offered.

Chen Lina shook her head firmly. “We have plenty of clothes at home, no need to sew any new ones. I don’t need it, thanks.”

After walking for a while, she couldn’t see the two brothers.

Turning around, she saw the two kids jumping like fighting chickens in the street.

“Why aren’t you walking properly? Walk faster, I still need to cook when we get home!” Chen Lina said.

Nie Weimin tiptoed, jumping around, sweating all over. “The ground is dirty.”

“Then take off your shoes and carry them,” Chen Lina joked.

To her surprise, Er Dan started taking off his shoes.

Chen Lina quickly said, “Okay, okay, don’t freeze your feet! Walk properly.”

“What if my shoes get dirty?” Nie Weimin asked, ever so clean.

“Just clean them yourself,” Chen Lina replied.

Nie Weimin was not pleased. “Does San Dan’s shoes get cleaned by himself too?”

Those small shoes were eight yuan a pair, and if his grandmother knew, she would probably snatch them off San Dan’s feet right away and keep them as a treasure.

In fact, the kid’s grandmother was really lazy.

She never asked him to carry coal or firewood, and she always shouted for him to bring coal or firewood.

But if he did, wouldn’t those small leather shoes get dirty?

Chen Lina replied, “He doesn’t walk around much. If his shoes get dirty, I’ll clean them. But yours, you have to clean them yourselves. What, you want to be lazy?”

Nie Weimin tiptoed off in a huff.

Er Dan, caught up in the excitement, didn’t care if his shoes got dirty in the snow.

Like a windmill, he ran off as well.

When they got home, the smell of food filled the air.

Nie Bozhao rushed into the kitchen.

“Didn’t you say we were out of vegetable oil? But I still smell vegetable oil.”

Chen Lina was stewing a large lamb leg and replied, “I traded a box of unopened Snowflake Cream with Xiao Chen for some.”

“What? You saw Xiao Chen? Why didn’t you tell me?” Nie Bozhao still remembered that, when they first arrived, Xiao Chen had wanted to come into the house, but she didn’t let him.

Chen Lina said, “He’s a bachelor, and he doesn’t cook, so he keeps a lot of vegetable oil. He always tells me I smell nice, so I thought, since he likes Snowflake Cream, I’d trade him some for the oil. It was a fair deal.”

Nie Bozhao thought to himself that when Xiao Chen said she smelled good, he probably wasn’t referring to the cream.

But Xiao Chen was the type of person who acted kindly to everyone.

He probably felt annoyed getting a jar of Snowflake Cream he didn’t even use.

The lamb stew wasn’t anything special; meat was the staple food here.

But what was special were the little green onions and garlic chives that she had grown herself, unlike the old ones from the store that had a pungent, fishy smell.

She stir-fried some freshly grown bok choy with vinegar, which was sour and fragrant, and soft fluffy steamed buns just out of the pot.

Er Dan grabbed one and took a big bite.

These hot buns were so tempting that Erda6n could easily eat two.

When Nie Bozhao saw the older son squatting on the floor, diligently cleaning his small leather shoes, he was shocked. “Why did you buy them leather shoes? Didn’t your mother-in-law say boys have too much energy and can’t wear them?”

“Too much energy? Do you want him to get frostbite? Would you be happy then?” Chen Lina couldn’t believe how inexperienced he was.

“Chen Lina, can you stop mocking me? Can you speak without the sarcasm? Why do you talk like you’re a machine gun? Can’t you just speak to me properly?”

“I’m not mocking you. You just don’t have any life experience. Just look at the life you’re living.” As an engineer making three hundred yuan a month, he managed to live in a house so bare it was practically empty.

“I didn’t ask you to come, you insisted on coming. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have considered remarriage.” Nie Bozhao’s voice grew weaker.

“Dad has,” said Nie Weimin. “Didn’t Dad take me to see Aunt Xiaoi?”

Nie Bozhao stopped in his tracks. “Weimin, what are you saying?”