House Repair 

The next morning, Lin Miaoyin woke up feeling very uncomfortable. The bed was made of straw with a cotton quilt and old clothes on top. She felt pain all over her body, and it was itchy. 

Moreover, the bed was very small. Since Meng Yuanzheng was tall, they had to squeeze together, and it creaked every time he moved which made it difficult for her to sleep deeply. 

She opened her eyes and saw that it was still dark outside. She didn’t have to go to work today because it was raining; otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to sleep so late. 

Meng Yuanzheng had already gotten up at some point. She found a coat to put on, slipped on her cloth shoes, and grabbed a comb as she went outside under the eaves. 

There was no mirror in the house, and the original owner wasn’t someone who dressed up much. On the contrary, Meng Yuanzheng had a shaving set he brought from the city, which included a blade and a mirror. 

Since there was no need to go to work today, she was too lazy to braid her hair. She simply combed it smooth and tied it up with a rubber band. Then she put down the comb and found her not-so-clean face towel. 

The face towel was already a bit black, and the fabric was rough. She also noticed earlier that the original owner didn’t even have basic skincare products. No wonder Meng Yuanzheng thought she looked plain and unrefined. 

But during this era, village girls were all like this. Only the educated youths who came here for the countryside would dress a little better. 

Now, with material shortages, even buying a bar of soap required a ration ticket, let alone anything else that was considered rare. 

Fortunately, Meng Yuanzheng was from the city and cared more about cleanliness. He also had soap at hand, so she secretly took his soap and used it to wash her face. 

She entered the kitchen and lifted the lid of the pot, and to her surprise, she found that there was half a pot of hot water at the bottom of the pot, with a bamboo steamer on top and two cooked sweet potatoes on it. 

This… 

She frowned as she held the lid, wondering if this was the breakfast Meng Yuanzheng had left for her. 

Where was he? Yesterday, Father Lin said that Meng Yuanzheng could no longer return to school to be a teacher, so he had no choice but to work in the fields. But since there was no work today, where could he have gone? Surely not to see that Zhang Hui? 

Zhang Hui was currently being held at the police station. In the original story, it was mentioned that although she was given a disciplinary record, her family had connections and managed to get her out of jail. Afterward, she stayed at the Houtouwan Brigade, but she couldn’t be a teacher anymore and was instead assigned to feed the pigs. 

The person who replaced her was one of the new educated youths, the original female protagonist of the story. 

Seeing Meng Yuanzheng try to win the female protagonist’s favor and remembering her own situation, Zhang Hui couldn’t help but cause trouble for the female protagonist in various ways. 

But Zhang Hui’s ending was tragic. She was raped by a local scoundrel. Afraid of being embarrassed, she kept it a secret. In the end, she became pregnant and had to marry the scoundrel. 

When the educated youths returned to the city, she couldn’t leave with them and spent the rest of her life here. 

Lin Miaoyin felt a bit of pity for Zhang Hui’s fate. After all, in the original story, Zhang Hui hadn’t done anything truly evil. The ambiguity between her and Meng Yuanzheng was initiated by Meng Yuanzheng himself. 

Later, she could have returned to the city, but she chose to stay because she couldn’t bear to leave her child. 

In short, this is a cannon fodder that is even more miserable than Lin Miaoyin in the original story. 

But thinking about it this way, Meng Yuanzheng should be anxious to cut off his relationship with Zhang Hui and would definitely not go looking for her. 

As for last night, she was still a bit confused. Meng Yuanzheng said he had forgotten his past? 

That wasn’t mentioned in the original story. 

Could it be that her transmigration into the book had caused a butterfly effect? 

She picked out the sweet potatoes and put them in a bowl and hung up the bamboo steamer. She then scooped some hot water to scrub the washcloth clean, and after washing up, she began to eat the sweet potatoes. 

The sweet potato wasn’t like the sweeter ones from later generations. It had white flesh and tasted a bit tough, not sweet, and was somewhat hard to swallow. 

But during this time, even having enough to eat was a problem. If it weren’t for her being the daughter of the team leader, with the original owner and Meng Yuanzheng both being lazy, they might not even have sweet potatoes to eat. 

Halfway through her meal, she heard a noise outside in the yard and saw Meng Yuanzheng coming in carrying a bamboo ladder and some other things. 

He was dressed differently today. He usually dressed flamboyantly in a shirt, leather shoes, and slicked-back hair, but today he wore old clothes and straw sandals, looking just like an ordinary village man. 

Lin Miaoyin was stunned. She watched him as he put down the bamboo ladder and leaned it against the wall, then squatted down and stirred something in the bucket. 

Then he pulled some dry straw and said to her, “Miaoyin, help me hold the ladder.” 

Lin Miaoyin walked over doubtfully, holding onto the ladder with her hands and resting her feet against the foot of the ladder to prevent it from slipping. 

“You want to fix the roof?” she asked. 

“It’s going to rain for a few days. If we don’t repair it, it’ll get damp inside,” As he spoke, he took off his coat and put it on the bench. His pale, though not muscular, arms were exposed as he climbed onto the roof. 

Lin Miaoyin was captivated by his fair skin and thought to herself that people from the city were really different; they were much more refined than the people from the countryside, who had been doing farm work since childhood. 

“Could you hand me the straw and the bucket?” Meng Yuanzheng squatted on the roof and asked. She quickly passed him the straw and glanced at the small bucket, which was filled with mud and tools for patching the roof. 

She handed it to him while asking, “Where did you find the ladder and these things?” 

“I borrowed them from the secretary.” 

Meng Yuanzheng took the things and carefully spread it on the leaking surface, then smeared the mud on it to cover the gaps. He also patched up other suspicious areas around that might leak. 

Lin Miaoyin watched him working from below and was amazed at how capable this man was at his work. 

“You didn’t know how to do anything before. When you first came to the brigade, the educated youth in your room said that you were crying in the middle of the night. How come you can even repair the house now?” 

She mocked him without holding back. 

At that time, there was an educated youth who shared a room with Meng Yuanzheng and was quite talkative. He spread the news that Meng Yuanzheng had cried in the middle of the night after falling while carrying manure and Meng Yuanzheng had ended up fighting with him. Of course, how could a weak scholar like him beat a male educated youth who had been working in the countryside for several years? He was beaten so badly that his nose and face were swollen, and he had to wear a hat to cover his bruises when going out. 

Meng Yuanzheng’s tone, however, remained calm, as if he had truly forgotten those events. “It’s not that hard.” 

He handed the bucket to Lin Miaoyin, climbed down the stairs, and went to return the ladder and bucket to the secretary. 

“Wait,” she called out. 

Meng Yuanzheng turned around and looked at her in confusion. She then pretanted to asked, “Don’t you have a watch? I want to see what time it is now.” 

“You can read a watch?” He frowned. 

It seems that the original owner really couldn’t read a watch. 

“My father taught me. If you don’t want to show me, that’s fine,” she pretended to be disappointed. 

Meng Yuanzheng no longer doubted it or ask any more questions. “It’s in my cabinet.” 

He carried the bucket and walked away. Lin Miaoyin went into the house and found a watch in his cabinet. 

The watch was very heavy. She couldn’t recognize what brand it was, but it was well made and probably not cheap. 

The hands showed that it was a little after ten in the morning. She put the watch back and thought about what to eat for lunch. 

What to eat is a big problem. Nowadays, supplies are in short supply, and you need tickets to buy everything. There are only a few each year, and once they are used up, they are gone. When she was a child, she heard the older generation talk about the black market, but since it was called a black market, it was naturally hard to find. Moreover, if caught, it would be considered speculation and would have serious consequences. 

Last night, she had sweet potato porridge with pickled vegetables and stir-fried eggplant and green beans made with just a little oil. This was considered a good meal in the countryside, even though everyone only got a small piece of meat. It was still much better than families with seven or eight children who could only gnaw on wild vegetable roots.  

But as a person from the later generation, she’s used to eating rice and meat every day. Now, trying to adapt to the eating habits of this era felt even more painful than adjusting to life without a smartphone or computer. 

No, she must find a way to get meat to eat!