Chapter 004

Chu Xia and Gu Yuzhu had been arguing for a long time, while Chen Sisi and Li Qiao remained silent.

The two of them lay under the blankets, exchanging glances, enjoying the drama.

The matter with the mirror had nothing to do with them, so they didn’t get involved.

As for Chu Xia’s refusal to join the group, they were somewhat disappointed. After all, her actions hurt their feelings. However, since Li Qiao had already spoken to Chu Xia during the meeting, they didn’t waste any more breath on it.

Su Yun was still sitting on the edge of Chu Xia’s bed.

She noticed that Chu Xia seemed as hard as an iron board, with an air of defensiveness about her. She didn’t know what had happened to make Chu Xia react this way, but she couldn’t get any answers, so she gave up trying to pry.

After a while, noticing that Chu Xia and Gu Yuzhu had stopped arguing, Su Yun took a deep breath and said, “Let’s sleep now.”

She got up, blew out the oil lamp, and felt her way to the middle of the bed, pulling the covers and lying down.

The room fell into darkness, and Chu Xia didn’t look into the mirror anymore.

She placed the mirror next to her pillow, pulled the covers over herself, and lay down with her back to Gu Yuzhu.

Before, every night before sleep, Su Yun, Gu Yuzhu, Li Qiao, and Chen Sisi would chat a bit—complaining, venting, or talking about trivial matters.

That night, after the lamp was extinguished, none of the four women spoke.

Chu Xia rarely said much anyway, so she didn’t care whether the others talked or not. She simply focused on sleeping.

Of course, everything that had happened that day was truly strange.

Before falling asleep, Chu Xia closed her eyes and carefully reviewed everything in her mind, processing it once again.

After she had more or less made sense of it all, she fell asleep with her eyes still shut.

Once asleep, she began to dream again. In the dream, she held her mirror in front of her.

Her face reflected in the mirror—at first hazy, like seen through a mist—but gradually, it became clearer.

When the image in the mirror finally sharpened, Chu Xia couldn’t help but tense with anticipation.

She held her breath, staring at her reflection without daring to blink. When her entire face finally came into clear focus—brows, eyes, nose, lips, even the wisps of hair at her temple—she was overwhelmed with delight.

It was an exceptionally beautiful face.

Delicate, with arched brows like willow leaves, bright eyes, rosy cheeks, and lips naturally curved as if smiling.

She couldn’t even find the words to describe it—only that she liked it immensely.

Suppressing her nervousness and excitement, Chu Xia slowly reached toward her face.

She wanted to touch it, to feel it—but just as her fingers were about to graze her cheek, the dream suddenly vanished, and she woke up in bed.

The dream still vivid in her mind, she quickly reached for the mirror beside her pillow.

There was a faint light from the approaching dawn, just enough to see her reflection still shrouded in mist. Chu Xia closed her eyes again and put the mirror down.

So, it really was just a beautiful dream.

She lay there quietly for a while, then let it go.

Since the others were still asleep, she got up gently, dressed, tied her hair, folded her bedding, tucked the mirror back under her pillow, and went out into the courtyard to wash up.

As Chu Xia stepped out of the dorm with her washbasin, Lin Xiaohan had just finished his own morning routine.

Normally aloof and arrogant, Lin Xiaohan looked down on Han Ting, on the others, and certainly on Chu Xia—who, in his eyes, was nothing more than someone blindly trailing after Han Ting. His disdain often showed plainly on his face.

Most of the time, he wouldn’t even bother to lift his eyelids at her.

Today was no exception. He acted as if he hadn’t seen her, picked up his basin, and went back to the dorm.

Given his arrogant and cold nature, Lin Xiaohan had managed to offend almost everyone at the educated youth post. Nobody liked him, and neither did Chu Xia.

So she ignored him, too. Once he was gone, she went to the well and began her washing.

While she was busy, Lin Xiaohan came out again and went into the kitchen.

Chu Xia didn’t bother to wonder what he was doing.

After she finished, she returned to the dorm to put her things away and then headed to the kitchen.

By the time she arrived, Lin Xiaohan had already lit the fire behind one of the stoves.

Treating him as if he were air, Chu Xia went straight to her own food stash, grabbed a handful of sorghum and a few pieces of dried sweet potato, rinsed them clean, and put them in a pot to make porridge.

The kitchen stove had two cauldrons—Lin Xiaohan was using the outer one, so naturally, Chu Xia used the inner one.

She added water to the pot, covered it, and needed to go behind the stove to start the fire.

But Lin Xiaohan was sitting right in front of the outer firehole, blocking her way.

There was barely ten centimeters between his back and the wall—no way she could squeeze through.

So she said, “Excuse me, could you move a bit?”

He didn’t reply or look at her, just shifted his small stool forward slightly.

Chu Xia politely said, “Thank you,” and slipped behind him.

She sat down, gathered a handful of straw, and stuffed it into the firehole.

Between the two fireholes was a small compartment that held matches.

Chu Xia reached in and opened the matchbox, only to find it empty.

She paused, recalling that after making zhajiang noodles last night, there had only been one match left.

Han Ting was the one in charge of the new matches.

She returned the empty box and glanced at Lin Xiaohan’s fire.

Borrowing fire from the next stove was simple enough—but she didn’t open her mouth to ask.

Mainly because it was Lin Xiaohan.

Everyone knew how cold and stingy he was.

Li Qiao often said behind his back that he was petty, narrow-minded, and his good looks were completely wasted.

Knowing he’d probably say no, Chu Xia didn’t bother to embarrass herself.

She looked away and waited for a moment. Then she quietly gathered another bunch of straw in her hands.

As soon as Lin Xiaohan got up to check his boiling porridge, she swiftly reached over and lit her straw in his firehole.

The straw caught immediately. She pulled it out and stuffed it into her own firehole.

She moved quickly, her actions as rapid as her heartbeat.

But on the surface, she remained calm and composed. Not once did she glance at Lin Xiaohan. She simply continued feeding the fire, focused on cooking.

Lin Xiaohan: “…”

He stirred his porridge and sat back down, turning to glance at her. Then he let out a speechless, mocking laugh.

Chu Xia, thick-skinned, pretended not to hear a thing.

Fortunately, Lin Xiaohan didn’t say anything else, and the two of them went back to ignoring each other.

Since Lin Xiaohan started earlier, his porridge finished first.

He ate, washed his pot and bowl, and by then Chu Xia was just sitting down to eat her own.

After cleaning up, Lin Xiaohan didn’t leave right away. He went in and out of the kitchen, busying himself.

While eating, Chu Xia watched him as he worked—washing sorghum, corn, and sweet potato, separating them into bamboo baskets and setting them out in the courtyard to dry.

She watched him finish and walk out of the courtyard.

Chu Xia thought to herself—he’s actually pretty good at managing daily life.

These coarse grains weren’t meant to be eaten as porridge every day; not only did they taste bad, but it wasn’t cost-effective either. Normally, they’d be washed, dried, ground into flour using a stone mill, and then steamed into buns to keep on hand.

So after finishing breakfast and washing the dishes, Chu Xia also washed some sorghum, corn, and dried sweet potatoes. Since Lin Xiaohan had already used the bamboo tray, she used a winnowing basket instead and set it out in the courtyard to dry as well.

By now, the sky had brightened.

The sun was just starting to peek out from the east—it looked like it would be a sunny day.

Chu Xia silently prayed that the weather wouldn’t turn again today, and then headed out.

It was early March, and the morning air was crisp and cold. Because it had rained the night before, it felt even chillier stepping outside.

Chu Xia pulled her coat tighter around herself and carefully watched where she stepped. But the muddy ground had been thoroughly soaked by the rain, and no matter how carefully she picked her way forward, every step landed in a puddle of muck.

She hadn’t gotten far past the fence gate when—

A sharp, piercing bell rang out suddenly in the courtyard: “Riiiing, riiiiing…”

The others still asleep in the two dorm rooms groaned and reluctantly opened their eyes at the sound.

When the bell finally stopped, they stayed in bed a little longer before sluggishly getting up, yawning and stretching. After tidying up their bedding, they lazily went to wash up.

Once they were fully awake, someone suddenly asked, “Wait—what about breakfast?”

That one question instantly cleared the drowsiness from everyone’s minds.

Before they’d been assigned their own rations and allowed to cook independently, they’d always gotten up when the alarm rang and rushed off to eat at the homes of the local villagers. But now? Those villagers weren’t going to prepare food for them anymore.

And at this hour, if the villagers didn’t wait for them, chances were they’d already finished eating.

“No one made breakfast?” someone else asked.

Everyone looked around at each other, but no one responded.

Then someone ran into the kitchen and lifted the lids on the stove pots—inside the two big iron pots, not a single grain of rice remained.

It didn’t take a response—clearly, no one had gotten up to cook breakfast.

Li Qiao swallowed hard and looked at Han Ting. “What do we do now?”

Han Ting wasn’t a miracle worker. After a brief silence, he said, “What else can we do? Go hungry.”

Chen Sisi looked like she was about to cry. “What? But we still have to go work in the fields—we’ll starve!”

Gu Yuzhu added, “Sure, you guys might be fine, but us girls? We won’t last out there on empty stomachs.”

Hu Yang, one of the male educated youths, suddenly chimed in, “If you can’t take it, why didn’t you get up and cook?”