Reborn:1983

Chapter 7: Does She Look Improper?

Gulp.

The young man’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard.

Was it the noodles smelling that good?

It was Xiaolan being that beautiful!

A backwater county like this held such a stunning beauty?

Her skin was dazzlingly fair, her eyes shimmered like pools of water, her chin was delicately pointed. Even the plain blue top she wore, stretched taut over her full bust, suddenly seemed... improper. The bandage wrapped around her forehead, showing traces of blood, only made her appear more pitiable and alluring.

Watching her take small, delicate bites of her noodles made him wish he could be the noodles in her bowl… Truthfully, walking through the county town today, they’d drawn similarly stunned gazes everywhere. Liu Fen thought people stared because of their shabby clothes, but it was all for Xiaolan.

The noodle stall auntie banged a bowl down sharply, finally snapping the young man out of his daze.

“You want noodles or not?”

The young man flushed slightly, handing over two large lunchboxes. “What do you mean? That aroma hooked me from way down the street! Two bowls, packed to go!”

A Beijing accent. Not a local.

Xiaolan frowned slightly. People had been stealing glances at her all day, but none had been as direct and brazen as this outsider.

She still wasn’t quite used to this face. After decades living with plain features, it was easy to momentarily forget just how striking she looked now. The lock alone wasn’t enough security. She’d buy a pair of scissors right after finishing her noodles.

The pork bone broth bubbled merrily on the small stove, the noodles hand-rolled thin and fine. The outsider’s two bowls were ready quickly. He paid but seemed reluctant to leave, glancing back repeatedly as he walked away.

Liu Fen also sensed something amiss and sped up her eating.

The 0.3 yuan portion came in a large, deep bowl. Liu Fen drank every last drop of the broth. People in these times had little oil in their diets; on an empty stomach, a woman could easily put away a whole jin of steamed buns in one sitting.

Xiaolan then dragged Liu Fen off to buy a knife.

She’d wanted a kitchen knife earlier. The stainless steel ones looked good quality, made in Shanghai… but one cost 5 yuan. CEO Xia (in her mind) had turned away immediately then. The item was good, but her meager funds couldn’t stretch that far. Now, she thought a pair of scissors would do.

The outsider, carrying his two lunchboxes of noodles, reluctantly returned to the truck, sloshing some broth. In the driver’s seat sat a man with a crew cut, his face sharply defined and handsome by any era’s standards.

“Look at you, no backbone!” he scoffed.

His companion, the one who’d bought the noodles, protested. “Chengzi-ge, I’ve never seen anyone that beautiful. If you saw her, you’d freeze too!”

How many girls and women were there on the streets of Beijing?

He’d never laid eyes on anyone prettier than the girl back there.

Not the sturdy, handsome type, but a soft, alluring beauty, the kind that looked… a bit improper, the kind that hooked men hardest.

“We agreed before we set out. I’m only taking you on this one run. How much of the ropes you pick up is up to you. If you can’t cut it, go rot wherever you please. Or do you want to get off right here in this county town and la mi?”

La mi was Beijing slang for picking up girls. Chengzi-ge had an edgy air and a short temper. His companion immediately clammed up. They slurped down their noodles and drove off.

Four wheels moved faster than two legs. After a couple of streets, they coincidentally passed Xiaolan and her mother again.

“Chengzi-ge, look! Quick!” The passenger-side youth bounced excitedly.

Chengzi-ge lazily lifted an eyelid and caught a glimpse of a retreating figure. A blue, patched jacket, loose and oversized, only accentuating the girl’s slender, graceful figure. The skin peeking from behind her ear was impossibly fair… What was all the fuss about beauty? Women all had two eyes and a mouth. Boring.

The young man sighed dramatically. “Ah well, just wasn’t meant to be~~”

Chengzi-ge didn’t give it another thought. The truck soon left Anqing County behind. Getting to Shanghai would take two more days. Long-haul driving was exhausting and fraught with the danger of highway robbery. No time to gawk at pretty faces.

The leering outsider served as a wake-up call for Xiaolan. She went and bought a large pair of scissors.

They had no pot and couldn’t afford one, so she bought another enamel mug to make a pair. These versatile items could boil things, hold things, be used for drinking water… incredibly practical. Adding two pairs of chopsticks, her original 9.2 yuan dwindled to just 6 yuan. She dared not spend any more. Wild duck eggs weren’t easy to find; Great River Village’s duck nests had been thoroughly raided. To keep earning by gathering eggs, they’d have to venture into other villages’ territory – and relying solely on mother-daughter foraging would only yield survival money.

Xiaolan wanted to start an egg reselling business. With about 20 yuan in capital, she wouldn’t need to comb the reed marshes anymore.

Great River Village was two hours from the county town. What about villages even farther away?

Walking three hours to sell ten eggs for 1.5 yuan, with a six-hour round trip? If she offered to buy them at 0.12 yuan each, normally people might be willing to walk six hours for an extra 0.3 yuan. But in a few days, it would be harvest season. Even the half-grown kids would be needed in the fields. Who would have time to trek to town to sell a few eggs? If eggs weren’t sold during the busy two-week harvest, they’d likely spoil in the summer heat… Xiaolan aimed to exploit this specific window to earn the price difference.

Making two or three fen per egg didn’t sound like much, but 100 eggs a day meant 2-3 yuan.

Excluding rainy days when traveling to town was difficult, she could easily make over 70 yuan a month. Didn’t sound like much? In her past life, an elderly client once told her about working at a county guesthouse in the 1980s, earning just 36 yuan a month. In 1983, the truly wealthy were the self-employed entrepreneurs who’d started businesses a few years earlier, though they kept their wealth hidden. Those openly earning high wages weren’t civil servants or state employees. The “reversed income structure” was severe; intellectuals earned less than workers, especially in heavy industries like oil and coal, where workers could pull in one to two hundred yuan a month! Meanwhile, senior high school teachers in key schools might only earn a few dozen yuan!

Farmers were, of course, at the bottom of the income ladder.

If Xiaolan could earn 70 yuan a month, the Xia family would probably welcome her back as a goddess!

Without starting capital or useful connections, Xiaolan knew the first steps to prosperity would be tough. She’d have to take it slow.

Loaded with their purchases, they walked the two hours back to Great River Village.

After stashing their things in the ramshackle hut, the iron lock boosted their sense of security immensely. They returned Old Wang Tou’s flashlight at the cattle shed. Xiaolan felt an itch at her forehead wound. Liu Fen urged her to go to the clinic to change the dressing. Xiaolan also took this seriously; running around sweating, she feared infection.

Changing the dressing wasn’t expensive, mainly for disinfection.

The doctor had some professional ethics, unlike the village gossips. He examined Xiaolan’s wound carefully.

“Don’t worry, it’s healing well. Looks like it won’t scar.”

Xiaolan breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you for your care.”

As mother and daughter left the clinic, Liu Fen grabbed Xiaolan’s sleeve.

“Isn’t that… your uncle?”

The Xia house was at the village entrance. A short man was arguing fiercely with Old Mrs. Xia.

“You rotten-hearted Xias! If you’ve killed my sister and niece, I’ll smash this whole place to pieces! Hand them over now, or see what happens!”