Chapter 1

“Niuniu, be good. Mommy is sleeping, don’t cry. Daddy will make you some milk formula. It’s delicious.”

The sound of a crying baby, a man’s gentle yet slightly anxious coaxing, and a little girl shouting “catch it!” from outside the house all reached Xu Xiangjuan at the same time, disturbing her rest. She opened her eyes.

The first thing she saw upon waking was the wooden beams on the ceiling… It had been a long time since she had seen beams like these.

The baby’s crying was unbearably loud. Xu Xiangjuan’s body felt weak, her head was heavy and dizzy. Slowly sitting up, she called out to the outer room, “Bring the baby to me.”

How could this man be so bad at taking care of a child? The baby was crying so hard.

She remembered being on a vacation tour with a group. She had been sitting on the tour bus when it passed a mountain road. The bus brakes had failed somehow and kept charging forward. She recalled the sharp screams from the passengers inside the bus… Was she rescued from the car accident?

Zhou Chengning walked in carrying the baby. The baby was so tiny, yet its crying was loud and piercing. Seeing that the baby’s mother had woken up, Zhou Chengning breathed a sigh of relief. “Juan, you’re awake. Niuniu wouldn’t stop crying. I saw you were exhausted, so I didn’t disturb you.”

Xu Xiangjuan, upon seeing him, had no time to think carefully. She took the baby from him and lifted the baby’s diaper. The baby had soiled it. “Ah Ning, did you boil some water? Mix some warm water in a basin and bring it over. And take this diaper to wash… What’s Guagua shouting about outside?”

Taking the soiled diaper, Zhou Chengning replied, “A chicken flew out of the coop. Guagua wants to eat chicken, so she’s chasing it. Just now, Niuniu was crying too much, and I didn’t have time to look after Guagua. I’ll go stop her now.”

If not for the baby’s loud crying, which gave Xu Xiangjuan a headache, she would have thought she was dreaming. After Zhou Chengning left, she lifted her shirt.

The baby was hungry and gradually stopped crying once fed.

As she nursed the child, the child’s father came in carrying a basin of water. She didn’t bother to avoid him and continued nursing. “Put the water down for now. Ah Ning, go kill that chicken Guagua was chasing and pluck it clean.”

Zhou Chengning stood still, not reacting for a moment. His wife wanted him to kill a chicken?

“What are you standing there for? If Guagua wants to eat it, then kill one.”

She recalled the requirements she had mentioned back when Aunt Qian was introducing potential matches for her. At the very least, he had to have a high school education, know how to kill chickens, and be clean and tidy.

There was one more condition: she only wanted a bride price of 800 yuan, but on the condition that he agreed she would manage all the money in their household. They would live in her Maodong Village, and regardless of how much money he made, it had to be handed over to her. No stashing away private savings.

Aunt Qian, who had been a matchmaker for thirty or forty years, didn’t let her down. She actually found her this man.

Her husband did know how to kill chickens. He was just stunned now, probably because it seemed unbelievable that she would ask him to kill one.

“Alright, I’ll go now.” Zhou Chengning confirmed that his wife indeed meant killing the chicken, then went to the yard to catch it.

There were several clean and soft diapers by the bed. Once her husband left, Xu Xiangjuan noticed that the baby, having nursed, had fallen asleep. She took a diaper, soaked it in the warm water, wrung it out, and gently cleaned the baby’s bottom.

The baby, full and drowsy, didn’t cry or fuss while being cleaned. After finishing, Xu Xiangjuan checked to make sure the baby was sound asleep. She laid the baby down to rest, covering them with a small blanket. At this age, babies didn’t need pillows, so laying them flat was enough.

Once she was certain the baby wouldn’t wake, Xu Xiangjuan got out of bed.

She suddenly remembered this whole incident. When Guagua grew older, she often teased her about it.

It happened when Guagua was three years old, and Niuniu was just two months old. Xu Xiangjuan had been utterly exhausted. Her husband, who worked as a Chinese Language Teacher at the middle school in town, only had one day off since there was no concept of a two-day weekend back then.

On her husband’s day off, she had been so tired that she overslept. Knowing her husband was home, she felt at ease to rest. Meanwhile, a chicken from the coop flew out and ran all over the yard, unable to escape beyond it.

Guagua, hearing the roosters crowing “cock-a-doodle-doo” in the village, had taken to calling chickens “cock-a-doodles.” When one chicken escaped, she immediately chased it around the yard, shouting that she wanted to eat “cock-a-doodle.”

At three years old, the little girl had no hope of catching a chicken. She fell several times, her little face even smeared with chicken droppings. When Xu Xiangjuan woke up and saw this, she nearly laughed herself to tears. Her husband had told her at the time that catching the chicken took a lot of effort. He knew their family only had four egg-laying hens, so there was no way they could slaughter one for food. In the end, he threw the chicken back into the coop.

Guagua, afraid to ask her mom for chicken to eat, had planned to catch one herself while her mother slept.

She didn’t dare pester her mom, so she clung to her dad instead, insisting on eating “cock-a-doodle.” But her dad always told her, “If your mom says no, then you can’t eat it.”

There was more to the story. For some unknown reason, that hen kept trying to escape the coop. Every time it was caught and returned, it escaped again. Of course, it never got out of the yard, as her husband always caught it. Eventually, the hen seemed to develop a problem—it stopped laying eggs for an entire month.

Well, after laughing about it, Xu Xiangjuan had been furious. She scolded her youngest daughter thoroughly.

Guagua, having rarely experienced her mom’s temper, cried immediately and even shouted that she didn’t want her mom anymore.

So, could they finally eat the hen that wasn’t laying eggs?

Of course not. Xu Xiangjuan sent the hen to her mother’s house in exchange for another egg-laying hen. Her mom stewed the non-laying hen and even sent a bowl of chicken soup back to their house.

Despite saying she didn’t want her mom anymore, Guagua still ate the chicken her mom brought home.

After nursing Niuniu again, Xu Xiangjuan finally understood—she had returned to the year 1985.

Her husband might not have been skilled at taking care of the children, but after watching her long enough, he had at least learned the basics. She didn’t blame him for being unable to calm Niuniu down, but Guagua’s mischievousness left a lasting impression on her.

This time, she didn’t want to go through the trouble of taking the chicken to her mother’s house to exchange it. Instead, she decided to stew it and let both the big one and the little one enjoy enough to eat.

—

In the yard:  

“Dad, cock-a-doodle.” Guagua squatted nearby, watching her dad pluck the chicken’s feathers, her little face already wiped clean.  

Without needing to tend to Niuniu, Zhou Chengning felt much more at ease. After wiping his daughter’s face, he focused on plucking the chicken feathers.  

Fortunately, he had boiled plenty of water, enough to scald the feathers properly.  

As he worked, he didn’t forget to talk to his daughter. “Guagua, this cock-a-doodle is the one Mom told Dad to catch for you.”  

He still found it a bit surreal. Usually, a chicken wasn’t killed for them to eat; it was plucked clean and sent to his mother-in-law’s house. But this time, the chicken was being cooked for Guagua to eat?  

It wasn’t that he was stingy with his daughter. His wife treated both him and their daughter the same—if anything, she was slightly kinder to their daughter. However, Guagua was still too young to understand limits. She wanted everything, and her mother rarely gave in, neither to this nor to that.  

Over time, Guagua had learned not to ask her mother for things and would try to find her own way instead.  

“Good Mommy! Cock-a-doodle!” Guagua’s eyes sparkled with excitement.  

With cock-a-doodle to eat, Mommy was the best Mommy in the world.  

—

Meanwhile, Xu Xiangjuan got up and went to the kitchen. Her body wasn’t in any serious condition—it was just sheer exhaustion from taking care of two children. After a good nap, though her body still felt a bit weak, she was much better now.  

The stove had two iron pots on it. Xu Xiangjuan scooped water from the water vat into the hot water jar, then took a bowlful of rice from the rice jar.  

This bowl of rice was enough to prepare a filling meal for the family’s dinner, with some left to pack into her husband’s aluminum lunchbox for his midday meal at school.  

By the time Xu Xiangjuan finished washing the rice, Zhou Chengning had just walked in, carrying the fully cleaned chicken, followed by a little tail—Guagua.  

“I’ll start the stove,” Zhou Chengning offered, taking the initiative. Guagua didn’t follow behind her father this time; instead, she focused intently on the chicken on the cutting board. Being so small, she had to tilt her head back to look at it. Watching her daughter strain her neck, Xu Xiangjuan couldn’t help but feel amused.  

Guagua had eaten chicken once at her grandmother’s house and had been yearning for it ever since.  

How could they eat an egg-laying chicken? Though Xu Xiangjuan’s family was considered well-off in the village, that wealth came later thanks to her elder siblings. During her childhood, life was tough. Meat was a rare luxury—back then, even being full from a meal could make one laugh in their sleep.  

Her former self would have thought the same way—just being full was a luxury, so how could one dare to dream of eating meat?  

But having lived better days, her mindset had shifted. She was no longer miserly. So, she assigned Guagua a task, “Guagua, wash your hands and peel this head of garlic. Also, clean this piece of ginger.”  

She placed a basin of water on the floor for Guagua to clean the ginger.  

The garlic and ginger had dried out. The ginger’s surface was embedded with dirt, making it tricky to clean. Guagua took the garlic and went straight to her dad, saying, “Dad, peel the garlic.”  

Zhou Chengning was adding firewood to the stove. The flames in the stove’s chamber were slowly growing. He took the garlic from his daughter and began peeling it.  

With her dad busy peeling garlic, Guagua returned to scrub the dirt off the old ginger.