Chapter 4

“Thank you for the reminder, Sister Wei. I understand now.”

Gratefully thanking Sister Wei, Su Wan invited her to stay for a meal, but was politely declined. Only then did she return inside the house.

It was already noon. Su Wan hurried to start cooking.

She was making food for two. In this era, rice cookers still needed to be manually operated. She quickly washed the rice cooker, cooked one and a half bowls of rice, then rushed to wash vegetables and meat.

The weather was hot, and without a refrigerator, she planned to cook one jin of pork into red-braised pork, stir-fry the fatty meat, and use the lean meat to make meatballs for a vegetable meatball soup.

Soon, a plate of red-braised pork, a porcelain bowl of vegetable meatball soup, and a plate of stir-fried greens were all set on the table.

Once the meal was ready, Chen Yuan still hadn’t returned.

She waited a bit, and just as she was about to go outside to look for him, Chen Yuan walked in from outside.

His expression was still serious. When he saw the food on the table, a flash of surprise passed through his eyes. “You made this?”

“Mm-hmm.” Su Wan smiled and nodded. “From now on, come home to eat, okay?”

“Okay.”

Chen Yuan still spoke very little. He scooped a bowl of rice and naturally placed it in front of Su Wan before serving himself one as well.

The two sat at the table, not saying a single word.

Su Wan didn’t feel awkward. How could anything be more awkward than that night?

Just thinking that the dream she had — that kind of dream — actually came true made her want to crawl into a hole. Fortunately, Chen Yuan never mentioned it, so the two were able to get along peacefully.

Halfway through the meal, Su Wan suddenly remembered what Sister Wei had said. She asked tentatively, “Chen Yuan, Sister Wei said we haven’t held a wedding banquet yet. Should we pick a time, and I’ll cook a meal at home to treat everyone?”

Chen Yuan froze the moment he heard that.

He looked up at Su Wan, feeling that ever since that night, she seemed like a different person. Could it be that, having gotten what she wanted, she had become more docile?

Thinking of that fiery night, a surge of heat rushed straight to a certain part of him.

The strange sensation made him suck in a sharp breath. The wound on his back was pulled, burning with pain. The heated thoughts vanished, and he quickly sobered up.

“To invite my comrades, we’d need at least two full tables of food.”

“That should be fine. The weather’s hot, so the dishes won’t cool quickly. I can prepare them in advance. You just choose a date, and I’ll head to the market early that day to buy ingredients.”

Since Su Wan was willing to do it, Chen Yuan was curious whether she had truly changed, or was just playing some new trick, so he agreed.

After the meal, Chen Yuan said he’d go inform his comrades, then left.

Once she cleaned up the dishes, Su Wan tidied the house a bit. When Chen Yuan returned, he said, “Let’s do it tomorrow evening. Twenty-three comrades agreed to come. There are about a dozen wives living nearby and around a dozen kids too. The wives said they’ll come help tomorrow. Let’s make it three tables of food.”

Naturally, when hosting a meal, everyone should be invited — whether they came or not was up to them. Only then would no one feel slighted.

Su Wan nodded. “I’ll write up a menu later. I’ll need to go to the market early in the morning, or everything will be gone by the time I get there.”

Chen Yuan glanced at her soft, fair, round face and was momentarily dazed.

Snapping out of it, he took two 10-yuan bills from his pocket and handed them to Su Wan. “Use this to buy groceries.”

Twenty yuan.

What did twenty yuan mean in 1982?

At that time, rice was 0.18 yuan per jin, cooking oil was around 0.7 to 0.8 yuan per jin, pork cost 1 yuan per jin, eggs were 0.11 yuan each, and most fruits and vegetables were only a few cents per jin. So twenty yuan had a lot of purchasing power.

Chen Yuan had joined the army at fifteen. Now, at almost twenty-two, he was already a senior captain with a Level-16 salary, earning 112 yuan per month.

His unit was a confidential one, so each month he also received allowances — 20 jin of grain coupons, 5 jin of meat coupons, and two bars of soap.

Su Wan didn’t take the money and softly said, “I still have some money on hand.”

“That’s the dowry your parents gave you. Save it for yourself. I’ll give you more once I get paid.” Chen Yuan added, “This time I’m getting two months’ pay. I plan to send a hundred yuan back home. Is that okay with you?”

Chen Yuan’s salary was always split into two parts — one to keep for himself, one to send home. A few months back, his older brother had an accident while chopping wood on a mountain. He fell and hit his head and injured his back. The medical bills cost over two thousand yuan, which nearly wiped out Chen Yuan and his family’s savings. What little he had left was used to marry Su Wan. Right now, he was essentially broke.

Su Wan gently said, “That’s over two hundred yuan for two months, right? With your allowances, we don’t need that much for groceries. You can send a bit more back home and just keep some on hand in case of emergencies.”

Chen Yuan gave her a complicated look, unsure whether she was being sincere or sarcastic.

They came from the same village. Su Wan wasn’t exactly a bad person, but she was never known for being considerate — in fact, she was quite selfish.

Her sudden change made Chen Yuan wary.

After all, the drug she gave him had nearly cost him his life.

They were married now, so he would fulfill his duties as a husband.

Intimacy between a man and a woman should be pleasurable, but that night had made Chen Yuan feel like a plowing ox in the fields, huffing and puffing through the motions. Though he had been drugged, he could still clearly feel his freshly stitched back wound tear open again. He couldn’t deny that there was some physical pleasure, but it filled him with disgust and cooled his heart.

Su Wan noticed his ever-shifting expression and swallowed nervously before speaking again: “I meant it. Our families spent a lot on the wedding. My parents must be tight on money too. Sending a little more back means they can buy something nice to eat.”

Chen Yuan gave a soft “mm.” Whether or not she was being sincere, he decided to send some extra money home.

That night’s meal was a fresh batch of rice, but they reused the leftover dishes from lunch, with an added plate of stir-fried greens to make do.

Chen Yuan went off to work. After Su Wan showered, she washed the laundry and hung it outside before lying on the bed, staring into space in boredom.

Without a phone, she didn’t feel it while busy — but once idle, she really felt the emptiness.

She rolled over and noticed paper and pens on the desk by the bed. So she decided to write up the menu for tomorrow.

There would be about forty adults and over a dozen kids. Su Wan had to think carefully — how to make the food abundant and delicious.

Maybe she could buy two fish — use the heads for a big pot of fish head tofu soup, and slice the tails for water-boiled fish. She could layer it over bean sprouts, fried tofu puffs, and pig’s blood cubes. Then get five jin of pork — make one dish of red-braised pork and one of sweet-and-sour pork strips that kids liked. Maybe a whole chicken too, for braised chicken with mushrooms…

She wrote out the full menu and, later, yawning, went to sleep.

Chen Yuan didn’t come back until nearly eleven. The house was already quiet. When he walked in and saw Su Wan already fast asleep in bed, he let out a breath of relief.

He never thought that one day he’d go so far as to stay out late feeding mosquitoes just to avoid sharing a bed with his own wife.