Chapter 4

“That would be a miracle.”

With the police involved, those who were actually in a relationship might not escape Lin Nanzhi’s knowledge, but those who weren’t would at least be able to clear their names.

The school wasn’t that big—everyone basically knew who was dating whom. Asking the people involved or those around them would quickly confirm the truth.

The male student widened his eyes but only in amusement at others’ misfortune.

He didn’t like the homeroom teacher of Class 2-1 either, and this incident was indeed quite serious.

Seeing that it was getting late and he still had homework to do, he went home.

Lin Nanzhi didn’t bother with him and simply took out her homework and started working on it.

She suddenly recalled a legal education video she had seen before. It had posed a question: between skipping class and not doing homework, which one was illegal? She had thought the answer was skipping class, but surprisingly, it was not doing homework.

Apparently, skipping class was considered a personal choice, at most a violation of school rules. But the law explicitly stated that students must complete the homework assigned by their teachers, meaning that not doing homework was actually illegal.

Thinking about this, she couldn’t help but chuckle.

Lin Nanxun gave her a strange look, not understanding what was so funny. He quickly looked away. Seeing that it was getting late and their father would be home soon, he noticed Lin Nanzhi was still doing her homework. With no other choice, he got up to cook dinner.

As the sky darkened, the warm yellow lights turned on. Just as Lin Nanzhi finished putting away her notebooks and books, their father returned home.

Their father was only 1.78 meters tall, but because he was quite lean and carried an imposing presence, Lin Nanzhi had always thought he was 1.88 meters.

His face wasn’t a typical square shape but somewhat round—not entirely, though, as his facial lines weren’t very pronounced. He had a high nose bridge, lips that were neither thick nor thin, and overall, he was quite the handsome older man.

Lin Nanzhi had heard from her mother that their father had been the most handsome young man in the village when he was younger.

In her opinion, he was still the best-looking among the older generation.

But due to years of hard work, his skin had darkened, wrinkles covered his face, and his large hands were rough and weathered. He was only in his early forties but looked like he was in his fifties.

Looking at her father’s hands, Lin Nanzhi absentmindedly ate her white rice while secretly gritting her teeth. Since she had been reborn into this life, she couldn’t just do nothing—she had to make money. She wouldn’t let things repeat like in her past life.

She didn’t want her father to struggle so much anymore!

—-

After dinner, since their father was home, watching cartoons was out of the question. Instead, they watched the news with him, followed by two episodes of a war drama. By the time it was nine o’clock, Lin Nanzhi fetched some water, warmed it up a bit, washed her feet, and went to bed.

Since their house was small and didn’t have a bathroom, bathing was a hassle. They had to boil water, and it was simply too inconvenient, so she gave up on the idea.

The house had only one bedroom, which was originally their parents’ room. However, since both parents had gone off to work, the room was later occupied by their eldest sister, Lin Nanxuan.

—-

Two years ago, Lin Nanxuan left with their mother for Zhejiang Province, so Lin Nanzhi took over the room. However, ever since she started sleeping there, she had been having the same nightmare over and over, making her afraid to sleep in it now.

Luckily, besides the main living area, their house was built with three floors.

The second floor was essentially a platform with wooden planks laid over the main beams. Their father had recently cemented part of it. The third floor was different—only a few wooden boards were placed in one section, supporting a single bed. The house itself had a triangular shape, with the sides being lower, making only the middle section livable.

Their father slept up there.

—-

On the second floor, there were two beds—one wooden, one metal—placed side by side. Dried corn hung on the walls, and a pile of lower-quality corn and potatoes was stacked nearby.

Next to the iron bed was a wooden door. Opening it led directly to a main road and a few neighboring houses.

In the countryside, there weren’t many strict rules about gender separation, especially among younger kids. But Lin Nanzhi still felt a bit uncomfortable. She found an old mosquito net and used it to divide the two beds.

Since the mosquito net wasn’t opaque or very private, she also grabbed a bedsheet and covered the area, leaving only the wall side and the top open.

After fiddling around for half an hour, she finally lay down and turned off the light. A faint glow filtered in from above.

The roof was covered with green clay tiles, and two of them were actually glass tiles that their father had somehow obtained.

Before their house had window installations, most other homes became pitch dark in the afternoon, but theirs remained slightly brighter.

In the past, whenever she lay in bed, she would look up at those two tiles, bathed in moonlight, too bright to fall asleep. But now, that glow gave her a sense of security. She quickly drifted off, not even realizing when Lin Nanxun came to bed.

—–

The Next Morning

Lin Nanzhi woke up early, grabbed the carrying pole and buckets, and went outside.

Every weekend she returned home, she spent Saturdays doing laundry.

Since their family had limited clothes, especially for winter, and without a washing machine, drying clothes was slow—some took a whole week, or even longer.

To make sure she had clean clothes every week, she had to do laundry regularly.

With no washing machine at home, she washed everything by hand. When the weather wasn’t too cold, she carried the clothes and a basin to the well. In the winter, she lit a fire and fetched water from the well to heat up before washing.

She wasn’t sure if she still had the strength for it. In the past, she could carry water home effortlessly, but after ten years without practice, she wasn’t so sure.

For the first trip, she only filled the buckets seven-tenths full to test herself. The well was 500 meters from home, all uphill. With frost on the ground, one wrong step could send her tumbling.

Fortunately, she wasn’t some delicate young lady. She didn’t have a high education and had always done manual labor instead of sitting in an office. Plus, this was still her old body—one that had been trained since childhood. She was sturdy enough to handle it.

After five trips back and forth, she had filled the water tanks and all four buckets at home.

Meanwhile, Lin Nanxun had already started the fire, and their father had left for work.

As she collected their clothes, she realized she had very few thick winter clothes—all of them were more suited for spring and autumn. Then she remembered: Wumeng City wasn’t the same as it would be in the future.

—-

In the future, Wumeng would have scorching summers and mild winters. But right now, winter was still genuinely cold, and the other seasons felt like spring. So most of their clothes were spring and autumn wear.

Winter clothes…

Maybe it was because she was young and had a lot of energy. Or maybe it was just that she, like many kids her age, liked looking stylish—so she always wore light layers in the winter. Even her shoes were black canvas sneakers with the heels crushed down.

She finally realized why, in her past life, her heels always hurt so much in winter.

Looking at her pile of clothes, Lin Nanzhi sighed in disdain. In the end, she set them aside and instead gathered a few knitted sweaters made by her mother and some jeans to wash.

Besides her own clothes, there were also her father’s and Lin Nanxun’s—a sizable pile. After another seven or eight trips to fetch water, she finally finished washing everything and hung them on the clothesline outside.

Once most of the water had drained, she brought them inside and hung them near the fire. With the heat from the stove, they would dry in a couple of days instead of freezing outside.