Just as the cleaning was finished, Wang Tiezhu arrived with two villagers to deliver the food rations for the educated youth.

Each male and female received a small bag of rice and white flour, roughly ten pounds each. The coarse grain looked more substantial, with every educated youth getting nearly half a sack.

Knowing that these provisions needed to last until the autumn harvest, everyone was cautious, carefully storing the food in the half-worn cabinets in their respective kitchens. The female educated youth even went as far as locking the cabinets to ensure safety.

After spending days and nights on a train, enduring a bumpy bus ride, and finally a bone-jarring trip on a bullock cart, everyone was physically and mentally drained. They ate something simple, washed up, and went straight to bed.

At the dinner table, Xiao Weidong gnawed on leftover braised chicken from lunch.

“Third Sister, seven educated youth just arrived at the production team and moved into the youth residence. Xiao Pang said the dresses those female educated youth were wearing looked so pretty.”

After tossing the bone aside, Xiao Weidong licked the oil off his fingers. “Third Sister, when I start earning money, I’ll buy you a beautiful new dress, too.”

“Alright! I’ll wait for that dress from you,” Shen Zhihuan replied with a smile, adding a ladle of bone soup from lunch into his bowl.

“Mm!” Xiao Weidong nodded vigorously.

He dreamed of earning lots of work points and making lots of money to hire the best doctor for Third Sister and buy her the most beautiful dress.

Li Qiuhua, their mother, watched her children’s interaction with satisfaction, smiling as she added a piece of pork rib into each of their bowls.

“Mom, you eat too!” Shen Zhihuan and Xiao simultaneously picked up a rib with their chopsticks and placed it in their mother’s bowl. Their chopsticks clinked, and the two burst into laughter.

The remaining bone soup and a small plate of braised chicken from lunch were quickly devoured in the family’s laughter.

After clearing the table, Li Qiuhua threw the gnawed bones into the stove, where embers still smoldered… burning the evidence.

After her bath, Shen Zhihuan lay on her cot, watching the moonlight spill in through the window cracks.

When the moonlight shifted to the vanity table by the window, she sat up and listened intently. After ensuring her mother and brother were sound asleep in the central room, she tiptoed out.

Familiar with the path, she arrived at the cypress grove and placed the 300 basket of fruit that Qin Bin had ordered at their agreed drop-off point. Then, she crept behind a large overgrown grave mound and hid.

It wasn’t long before a six-cylinder, 9-liter, 120-horsepower diesel H6 truck with a 6,000-kilogram load capacity backed into the tractor trail by the cypress grove.

Hearing the men loading the goods, Shen Zhihuan cautiously poked her head out for a glance before quickly ducking back down, afraid to make a sound.

They worked fast. In no time, the truck started up and drove away.

When all was quiet again, Shen Zhihuan emerged from behind the grave mound, scanning the area to confirm no one was around. She exhaled in relief and walked to the base of a nearby tree to retrieve the floral fabric bundle Qin Bin had left for her.

Back home, utterly exhausted, Shen Zhihuan fell into bed without even checking the contents of the bundle.

She slept until noon the next day, waking up famished. After grabbing some egg cakes from Li Qiuhua’s room, she also treated herself to a bowl of milk.

Once fed, she carried the bathwater from under the grape trellis to her room’s door and finally opened the floral bundle from the night before.

Bundles of crisp banknotes were neatly tied together, interspersed with stacks of colorful national ration tickets. Shen Zhihuan casually shuffled through the tickets until her eyes lit up at a dozen or so industrial coupons in the middle.

The iron pot used for cooking rice at home had long since developed a crack. A single careless touch could result in a nasty cut.

As for the bowl used for soup, its base was almost worn through.

Every time Shen Zhihuan used it to hold rice porridge, she worried that the paper-thin bottom might give out and “go on strike,” splashing her with rice porridge all over.

She’d asked Qin Bin for industrial coupons many times, but they were always in short supply. She hadn’t expected him to deliver so many this time!

I just hope, these ten coupons would be enough. If there were any left over, she could buy some extra soup bowls—currently, there wasn’t even a spare bowl for vegetables.

As for luxuries like bicycles? Shen Zhihuan wouldn’t even dream of them.

After all, she still owed the Su family 80 yuan.

How was she going to repay them?

Given her family’s situation—a household of women and children burdened with illness—producing 80 yuan at once would raise too many eyebrows in the village.

What if someone with malicious intentions started spreading rumors or making trouble?

Even if that didn’t happen, such a large payment would still spark curiosity and gossip.

Having no money and surviving on coarse grain was exhausting.

But having money and living in constant fear was exhausting, too.

Still, she’d take the latter.

If it meant having meat every day, she could live with a little anxiety.

The key point is that although she, a newly-promoted Ten-Thousand-Yuan Household, She couldn’t even enjoy her money properly, let alone have meat every day!

It’s like she has the heart to sell cocaine, but earns money by selling cabbages.

Absolutely infuriating.

With a sigh, Shen Zhihuan stuffed the floral bundle into her space and headed to the kitchen.

Even without meat, they still needed to eat.

As the rice began to cook, a loud knock echoed from the courtyard gate.

Frowning at the noise, Shen Zhihuan placed the pot lid on the rice and went to open the door.

The stench hit her before she could even see who was there, causing her to squint and step back.

“You’re Shen Zhihuan, the third daughter, right?”

Before she could respond, the middle-aged woman standing at the gate began scrutinizing her from head to toe with the sharp, appraising gaze of a merchant examining goods.

“What do you want?” Shen Zhihuan’s bright, sharp eyes flickered with annoyance.

The original owner’s memories didn’t include this woman.

The woman put away her scrutinizing look and smiled. “I’m your second sister’s neighbor. She heard you broke off your engagement and asked me to—”

“Let me guess, to arrange a marriage for me?” Shen Zhihuan arched an eyebrow.

Since when was her second sister so kind?

“Let me tell you, this young man is the best in our village. His family has three large brick houses, and if you marry him, you’ll live a life of comfort! He only has an elderly mother, two sisters, and three sons—”

“Wait,” Shen Zhihuan interrupted, her lips curling into a smile. “Did you say he already has three sons?”

He is already the father of three sons, and he can still be called a young man…

Does she look so easy to fool?

The woman didn’t catch her sarcasm. “Yes, and isn’t that wonderful? You won’t have to go through the pain of childbirth. The eldest is already eleven, and the youngest is six—they’re old enough to earn work points and don’t need you to take care of them. It’s so much easier for you!”