“Meihua, guess who I saw?!”

In a room in the cow shed, Cai Qingzhu, who had been holding back his excitement all morning, finally released it completely after arriving here.

He tried to lower his voice as he excitedly spoke to the woman inside the room, who appeared pale and was coughing incessantly.

“Who?”

Zhou Meihua hadn’t seen her husband this excited and lively for a long time.

Though she curiously looked at him and asked, she suspected the person he met was likely someone like them, otherwise he wouldn’t be this excited.

“It’s Su Huaiyuan. I didn’t expect that after so many years, I would meet him here. And not just him—his son is here too.”

Cai Qingzhu felt a great joy at seeing his old friend.

After so many years without contact, he still recognized him.

“Old Su?! How is that possible?! Have they been sent here too?”

Zhou Meihua also knew Su Huaiyuan.

When they were studying abroad in the beautiful country, they were both alumni and came from the same country, so they often gathered together.

After returning to their homeland to serve, Cai Qingzhu and Zhou Meihua continued their work in the country, and Su Huaiyuan had also moved to the capital.

They had met a few times before, but hadn’t seen each other for years.

However, neither of them ever imagined that they would meet again here.

Cai Qingzhu’s excitement was interrupted by his wife’s words, reminding him of their situation.

He suddenly realized that meeting an old friend here was not necessarily a good thing.

…

There was a moment of silence.

Zhou Meihua looked at her husband’s expression, which had suddenly turned gloomy.

She sighed inwardly, knowing exactly what he was thinking.

“Qingzhu, you should actually be happy. Be happy that Su Huaiyuan is still alive, and that he made it here. We know that this village, Shuigou Village, isn’t so bad. At least no one beats us or forces us to do things. As long as we work hard and don’t leave the village, we’re really not much different from the other villagers.”

“Here, although we live in a place like this, it doesn’t leak, it’s not dirty or smelly, and we even have a heated bed in winter. There’s also a lot of mountain goods here—wild animals, wild vegetables, firewood. In winter, we don’t even need to go out to gather. Compared to other places, this is already much better.”

Zhou Meihua gently reassured her husband. She spoke a lot, then suddenly coughed heavily for a while.

Cai Qingzhu’s attention was immediately diverted by her coughing, and he started helping her catch her breath, filled with great concern.

“Meihua, why isn’t your illness getting any better? Should we go see Uncle Jiu again?”

Since the beginning of the twelfth month, his wife had accidentally caught a cold and developed a high fever for several days.

After the fever finally subsided, she remained weak and kept coughing, her complexion growing paler.

At the time, luckily, he had taken quick action and went secretly to seek help from the production team leader and Uncle Jiu, and thankfully, they didn’t turn a blind eye.

They gave her some medicine for fever and cough.

Moreover, the team leader had agreed that his weak wife didn’t need to go to work in the fields, which spared Cai Qingzhu from feeling so desperate and helpless.

“I’ve taken the medicine; I’m fine. Maybe it’s just because the weather is still cold. It will get better when it warms up.”

While coughing, Zhou Meihua waved her hand to reassure her husband, but deep down, she felt even more uncertain.

However, she didn’t want her husband to worry and quickly urged him to eat and rest, as they still needed to go to the fields in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, Su Huaiyuan, having applied some medicine to his hands with the ointment that Qiao Jiuru had taken from her space, decided to listen to her advice and eat first before coming back.

Just after walking a few meters, Su Huaiyuan suddenly seemed to remember something.

He abruptly turned around and hurried back to his wife.

“Arui, I think I saw an old acquaintance this morning.”