Chapter 2 : Poor Family

Outside the fenced yard, Gu Xiang and his sister Gu Nian were both filled with worry. Since waking up yesterday, their mother had been in a daze. Could she have hurt her head when she fell?

“Brother, do you think mom hasn’t recovered yet? Should we go to town and get a doctor?” Gu Nian asked, her little face scrunched up with concern.

Gu Xiang frowned, deeply troubled. “Hmm, I’ll go to town this afternoon.”

“Do we still have money?” Gu Nian’s face looked even more worried; hiring a doctor was expensive.

“We do. Mom saved up some money for our school fees. I won’t go to school for now; I’ll use that money to get a doctor for mom. I can go back to school next year when we have more money.”

“No way,” Gu Nian quickly shook her head. “Brother, you go to school. I won’t go. Not many girls in the village even go to school. I’ve already gone for two years, which is good enough. Besides, I don’t like school anyway. I can stay home and help mom with the chores.”

“No! You have to go. Saying you don’t like school is a lie. If you didn’t love school, how would you get a hundred on your tests?”

“Brother…”

“I’m the older one, so listen to me. Maybe I can earn enough money for school before the semester starts. Don’t worry, I’ll figure something out…”

Selling the family’s grain was out of the question—they needed it to last the whole year. Selling it would only bring starvation. The nearby cicada larvae had all been picked clean, so it looked like they would have to go up the mountain.

Gu Xiang, like a small adult, was calculating the family’s livelihood.

“Maybe mom will get better soon…”

Holding on to that hope, the siblings walked back into the yard.

“Mom, we’re back.”

Gu Nian hurried to Su Zhaozhao’s side, proudly showing her the basket she was carrying. “Mom, look, I dug up a lot of wild vegetables on the mountain, including some dandelions. Our teacher said that dandelions are good for clearing heat and detoxifying the body. It’s the best thing to eat in hot weather.”

She then pointed to the fish Gu Xiang was holding. “Brother also caught two fish from the river. We can make fish soup for you to help you get better.” After saying this, she carefully watched Su Zhaozhao’s expression, afraid that she would just give a brief response and remain distant, as she had before.

Their voices brought Su Zhaozhao back to her senses. She looked down at the somewhat old wild vegetables in the basket and then at the two small fish, which were barely two fingers wide, and said softly, “Alright, but children shouldn’t go near the river. It’s not safe.”

The fish were still alive. Gu Xiang poured some water into a basin and tossed them in. “Don’t worry, mom. I’m a good swimmer. I’ll go catch more tomorrow. Fish soup is really tasty.”

Asking a child not even ten years old to catch fish in the river for her to eat was something that Su Zhaozhao, no matter how much she resented fate, could never bring herself to do.

As the saying goes, the ones who drown are the ones who know how to swim.

“Don’t go. Be good.”

Gu Xiang smiled broadly. “Okay, mom, you rest. My sister and I will go cook.”

“Yes, mom, you rest. We’ll have the meal ready soon,” Gu Nian added.

Hearing Su Zhaozhao speak several sentences made the siblings very happy. It meant that her health wasn’t too bad.

“Sigh…” With a long sigh, Su Zhaozhao dragged her weak body and followed them to the kitchen.

Since she was here, she might as well settle in. There was no other choice. Things were as they were now, and since she had entered someone else’s body, the least she could do was take care of these two children.

She couldn’t bear the thought of the children taking care of her all the time, fearing that the original owner might come back to reclaim her body.

Su Zhaozhao accepted her fate.

“Mom, why did you come in?”

Gu Nian was lighting the fire, while Gu Xiang was scooping a small handful of rice from the bag to make porridge.

“I’ll light the fire,” Su Zhaozhao offered. Although she had seen traditional stoves before, she had never used one and planned to observe first to avoid any mistakes.

“I’ll do it, mom.”

Su Zhaozhao paused. “Alright, I’ll sit by the side then, just to warm up.”

It was only mid-August, and although autumn had technically arrived, the weather was still very much like summer. Cooking over a fire would make anyone sweat…

Seeing their mother weak like this made the siblings worry again.

Unaware of their thoughts, Su Zhaozhao used her foot to hook a small stool and sat down. When she saw Gu Xiang only scooping a small handful of rice, she asked, “Are we making vegetable porridge? Isn’t that a bit too little rice?”

“It’s enough. The porridge is for you, mom. We’ll just eat mush.”

“Mush? What kind of mush?”

Gu Xiang scooped out another bowl and filled it with a fine powder.

When Su Zhaozhao saw it, she realized, “This is… rice bran?”

“It’s rice bran. Wheat bran is even rougher.”

Aren’t they both bran? You can still see the unground husks in it.

The milling machines of today couldn’t compare to those of later times. It took two rounds to completely remove the husk from the white rice. The first round produced coarse wheat bran, while the second produced rice bran, which might contain some broken rice. In these times, no one would dare waste it.

In modern society, some people might choose to eat finely processed bran and other coarse grains for health reasons. But clearly, the two were entirely different things—one was refined and tasty, while the other was just rough and scratchy.

Gu Xiang looked at Su Zhaozhao with confusion. “Mom, how could you not recognize rice bran?”

Su Zhaozhao blinked. “I know it. How could I not? I just spaced out for a moment. Anyway, let’s not eat rice bran today. For lunch, let’s have plain white rice. We’ve just harvested, so we have enough grain.”

Since yesterday, she had been drinking two meals of vegetable porridge, and she really didn’t want any more. She had always disliked porridge since childhood.

It seemed that for the past two days, the children had been making porridge for her while eating rice bran mush themselves.

Su Zhaozhao’s sudden generosity shocked Gu Xiang and Gu Nian!

Plain white rice was typically only eaten during the New Year or on their birthdays.

Normally, they ate whatever was harvested from the fields—corn, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and wild vegetables. Fine grains like white rice were considered the best quality food. Even when they did eat it, they usually added sweet potatoes or greens to stretch it further.

The rice bran they had now was made from freshly milled new rice this year. The old stock had long been eaten up.

Normally, their mother was the most frugal with their grain supplies.

“Mom, is your head still dizzy? After we eat, how about brother and I go to town to get a doctor to check on you?” Gu Nian asked, her eyes wide and unblinking as she looked at Su Zhaozhao.

Having gone through the original body’s memories, Su Zhaozhao looked at the two worried children and said, “…Mom’s fine. No need to see a doctor. I just feel like we can eat a little better today. Let’s make soup with the fish Xiao Xiang caught, and a cold salad with the dandelions Xiao Nian picked. Our whole family should nourish ourselves properly.”

It was so difficult—eating plain rice was considered nourishing in this era.

The whole family was malnourished.

This novel’s main timeline spans from the early post-liberation period to the reform and opening-up era, with the story grounded in real societal contexts.

Currently, it’s autumn of 1955. There’s no high-yield hybrid rice yet, so they can’t achieve a thousand-pound-per-acre yield. The Su family has few members and little land—only two acres of paddy fields, with the rest being dry land. In this southwestern region, rice is grown only once a year, yielding just a few hundred pounds of rice. That’s the weight before removing the husks, and they still have to pay a portion as public grain. Everything they eat and use comes from the land, and even with other crops, they barely manage to stay half-full year-round. No wonder even rice bran is considered a good thing.

In the book, the female lead’s children lived a happy life from a young age. Even during this time of scarcity, they never went hungry. Their household had everything—milk, candy, cookies, toys. Meanwhile, these two children, who were never mentioned in the book, hardly ever got to eat meat. They had never tasted a whole candy in their lives, and going hungry was a regular occurrence. The brother and sister were as skinny as bamboo poles, clearly malnourished. The difference was worlds apart.

In the coming decades, no matter how much adversity the male and female leads faced, their family remained unaffected. By the end of the book, the male lead had become a senior military officer in a large military district, while the female lead inherited a vast fortune overseas. Their children also achieved great success in various fields.

As for the original body’s two children, their future was predictable—struggling just to stay above the poverty line.

If she hadn’t arrived, and the original body had died, these two children’s lives would have been even more miserable.

Why should it be this way?

Fate was so unfair.

Su Zhaozhao thought of herself. Wasn’t she also someone’s child?

No matter how much she tried to look past it, telling herself not to think about it, she couldn’t remain calm when it came to her own family.

Who knows, after her “death,” would they be sad for her? Would they regret it?

Of course, the male lead could still be forgiven for one thing—he didn’t know about these two children.

At this point in time, had the male and female leads gotten married yet?

She needed to recall the details carefully.