The next morning, before the sky was even light, Song Laosan was already getting ready to leave for the county town to work as a laborer.

Even the village chief, Song Guangguang, was there to see him off: “You should know, the Qingshui Gorge Reservoir is a project that’s in the news every day. They say it’s the largest in Asia. You’re going there as a foreman, so make sure you supervise the workers properly. Don’t let the laborers slack off. Understand? If the dam collapses, the whole Qingshui County could be flooded!”

“That’s nothing. I’ll do a good job,” Song Laosan replied confidently.

Since he was going to be a foreman, he wore the leather shoes his brother, Song Tingxiu, had sent him, along with an old, faded shirt, looking quite decent.

The old lady, who knew her son well, couldn’t stop giving advice: “Don’t boast. Once you’re there, remember to get up on time every morning. Whatever the workers do, you do too. You’re earning fifty yuan a month; that’s not free money. Understand? Your eldest and second brothers didn’t get their positions by sleeping in.”

Song Lao San didn’t care. “I’m a foreman now, a cadre. How can I work alongside the laborers?”

As he passed by the labor camp, he shouted loudly, “Big Brother, I’m going to work as a laborer!”

In the labor camp.

Su Xiangwan was still in a deep sleep when she suddenly felt someone nudging her.

Since there was a strange man lying beside her on the kang (a traditional bed), she immediately opened her eyes.

When she looked, her coarse cloth shirt was half lifted.

Song Qingshan’s hand was still in the air, having not yet retracted it.

“Song Qingshan, what kind of trick are you playing early in the morning?” Su Xiangwan was furious and immediately slapped him.

What kind of person was this?

He wouldn’t even let her bathe in peace, and now he was trying to lift her clothes while she was asleep?

Was it because she had given birth to three children that she was so easily taken advantage of?

Lu Dan and Gou Dan had also woken up.

Lu Dan, angered, rushed forward and yanked down his mother’s shirt, covering her up tightly: “No one touches my mom except me. If you dare touch her again, you better be careful.”

Well, the child had been spoiled by his father, thinking his dad had no temper.

As a result, early in the morning, Ludun grabbed his father by the arm and gave him two sharp slaps on the butt: “I’m your father. If you don’t call me ‘Dad’ again, just try me.”

Gou Dan immediately jumped up and charged at Song Qingshan: “Who told you to bully my mom?”

Alright, the other child was also grabbed and slapped twice: “Get up! We’re going to the market now.”

It was like a battle. Early in the morning, the kids hadn’t even had their soup, and Su Xiangwan hurriedly made a bowl of milk for Zhi Zhi.

Song Qingshan’s tractor had already started up, making loud engine noises outside.

He kept urging them on: “Hurry up, I’m in a rush.”

“Song Qingshan, what’s going on? You’re hitting the kids and rushing us to get up early. What exactly do you want to do?” Once they were all in the tractor, still before dawn, Su Xiangwan didn’t dare to shout in front of the children, but she grumbled.

Song Qingshan was still shaking the tractor’s handle. With a sudden jerk, the tractor revved and sped out of the gate.

In just three to five minutes, they had reached Hongxing Commune.

Further ahead was Xinxing Township, and beyond that, the county town.

“You don’t even have a good outfit, do you? Yesterday I asked around, and there’s a fabric market here before seven in the morning. You can buy fabric there. Aren’t you going to get some?” Song Qingshan said irritably.

Su Xiangwan was visiting the market for the first time after crossing over.

Her eyes were still half-shut, and as soon as she jumped off the tractor, she was immediately swept up by a crowd and pushed forward.

This was in front of the only fabric factory in the county, where people were scrambling for fabric like an army on the march, packed in three layers deep.

They were fighting for leftover fabric scraps from the machines.

The scraps didn’t require tickets, just money, and they were cheap, costing only eight cents per meter.

“What do you want? Hurry up and tell me, I’ll help you grab it.” Song Qingshan, who was physically strong, pinched Su Xiangwan’s waist from behind. “What color do you want, or how much fabric do you need? We have money, you can spend it freely.”

Looking at the anxious expressions on the faces of the people fighting for fabric, Su Xiangwan was filled with dread.

But she still said, “At this point, what’s there to choose from? Just grab whatever you can. The more, the better.”

Even if the fabric scraps were sewn together, it could still make a piece of clothing, right?

In this situation, there was no room for picky choices.

Suddenly, with a loud clang, the large iron gate opened.

Su Xiangwan saw people rushing in, and she tried to follow, but how could she compete with the experienced city folk?

At that moment, Song Qingshan lifted her up. “Make way, auntie, make way, big brother, you make way.”

But at this point, no one was willing to give way.

Su Xiangwan screamed as she felt herself being lifted by Song Qingshan’s strong hands and thrown into the pile of fabric that the factory was dealing with.

She grabbed handfuls of fabric, holding them tightly in her arms.

Someone tried to snatch fabric from her hands, but she clenched both hands tightly, bent down, and quickly backed out.

The checkout was near the gate.

When Su Xiangwan walked out holding the fabric, many people were still trying to push in.

“I didn’t touch you. I told you I would never touch you, and I didn’t. Your clothes were lifted up by the squeaky noise.” Song Qingshan took a large bundle of colorful fabric scraps, still irritated.

“The three kids are watching. Yes, we’re married, but do you think this marriage, where one intercourse leads to one baby, is normal? Don’t you think we need a deeper understanding?”

Intercourse?

Song Qingshan’s eyes nearly popped out.

Oh, right, she had called him a donkey who only knows how to mate last time.

Clearly, back in Dongfeng City, when she cursed him in front of all his colleagues, her colleagues almost couldn’t stand it.

But Song Qingshan thought back to the morning when Su Xiangwan was lazily sleeping and their daughter was crawling on her.

He still felt his throat dry and burning.

But in the morning, it was clear the kids woke her up, and he had intended to lay her back down, but what could he do?

“This relationship is not normal. So I said I would never touch you, and I won’t. I’m a soldier, Su Xiangwan, I have my principles, principles as firm as steel, unbending and unbreakable, and no one can easily taint them.” He said, resolutely.

The crowd was packed with people, and others were trying to grab the fabric from Su Xiangwan’s hands.

If not for Song Qingshan’s large frame, wearing a military outfit with four pockets, protecting her, the fabric she had grabbed would likely have been taken away.

“That 500 yuan? It was intercepted by me when the third one wanted to use his connections to meet Fang Gaodi. I still have some food tickets. You can buy some milk powder for Zhi Zhi and then go back.” After getting on the tractor, Song Qingshan said again.

“Over the years, you’ve probably sent about 2,000 yuan home, and not a penny was saved for us. Now you’ve managed to get 500 yuan from your brother. Do you think this can just be settled like that?” Su Xiangwan raised her voice.

Song Qingshan paused, and didn’t say anything.

Perhaps it was because their parents looked displeased, and the two kids, Gou Dan and Lu Dan, had each received two big slaps in the morning and weren’t fully awake yet.

They were pouting now, looking embarrassed but too shy to speak up.

Su Xiangwan thought about it and probably realized she had wrongly accused Song Qingshan.

Maybe it was indeed the clothes that made the squeaking noise, so she stopped arguing.

The most painful part of parents arguing is for the children.

In her past life, her parents often quarreled over family issues, and she always felt uneasy, thinking that it was because of something she had done wrong or not done well, causing them to fight.

She didn’t want her own children to suffer the same pain.

“We still want to walk around the county, so you don’t need to send us. You hurry to work.” Su Xiangwan said.

The two little ones also said, “We don’t need you to send us. We’ll take the bus ourselves.”

Every afternoon, there was a bus from the county to Hongxing Commune.

Su Xiangwan could go back by herself.

Watching Song Qingshan leave on the tractor, Su Xiangwan finally realized that he had taken out the Longines watch from his pocket. “Then wear this watch,” he said.

Su Xiangwan began to doubt that the watch might have some problem, but since she was a traveler and before crossing over, she was just an ordinary young woman, completely unaware of the work environment that Song Qingshan was dealing with.

Still, she sharply sensed it: “You think I’ll take your 900 yuan and run away with the three kids?” Su Xiangwan laughed, “Come on, you see 900 yuan as a huge sum, but to raise several kids, 900 yuan is not enough.”

Staring at her, she finally chose to compromise and put on the watch. “Hurry to work.”

Su Xiangwan had worked before, and usually, work started at 8:30 AM.

She knew it was getting late, and he would soon be late.

After watching Song Qingshan leave, Su Xiangwan took the two kids and wandered around the county.

They found a state-run store, where she used her food tickets to buy two pounds of biscuits for the kids to eat.

Lu Dan and Gou Dan were happy with the biscuits.

“Mom, can we go visit Uncle’s house now?” Lu Dan suddenly asked with a glint in his eye.

Goudan also said, “Yeah, yeah, we haven’t been to Uncle’s house in a long time. Uncle will definitely be so happy to see us.”

It turns out that when Song Qingshan was still alive, the original body would take the two kids back to the county town and visit her maternal home.

Her mother’s family lived on the other side of the county town, in the Su family’s corner.

Her father, Su Baohé, had a bad background and had passed away shortly after his background was confirmed. Now, there was only her mother and a younger brother at home.

Su Xiangwan didn’t remember the original book mentioning where her maternal family went later.

She only remembered that her younger sister, Su Xianghong, should be working at the county hospital, so she told the two children, “Su family’s corner still requires a ride, it’s too far. Let’s go to the hospital to find your little aunt.”

The two children were even happier when they heard this: “Okay, Mom, let’s go. We miss Little Aunt so much.”

Their little aunt, Su Xianghong, was only eighteen and extremely beautiful.

She earned only eight yuan a month but would often bring them a few fruit candies from the county town.

However, when Su Xiangwan arrived at the hospital and asked, they told her that Su Xianghong no longer worked there, and the acupuncture department she was in had been closed for being considered feudal superstition.

But the head of the internal medicine department, Director Wang, called Su Xiangwan into his office and secretly handed her a large brown paper envelope.

He then seriously told her that she must protect this thing.