Chapter 40: 60s Farm System (6)

Xie Yang had a good sleep.

Upon waking, she discovered she was the only one left in the house.

The others had gone to work or school, seemingly unconcerned that she was leaving her hometown that afternoon by train to live in a completely unfamiliar place.

However, she didn't care either; it was better that no one was home, so she took the opportunity to pilfer some food from the cupboard and the pantry.

Both the cupboard and the pantry were locked, and the original owner had never had a chance to touch the things inside since she could remember.

But to Xie Yang, these old-fashioned padlocks were as good as non-existent; she snapped them open with a little bit of force.

She used up the flour and eggs in the cupboard, picked a few stalks of green onions growing on the windowsill, and fried over a dozen scallion egg pancakes; she boiled the remaining eggs into tea eggs and packed them into an aluminum lunch box.

There were also Chinese sausages and salted meat left over from the New Year in the cupboard, and she suddenly craved a meal of steamed rice.

Last night, Yu Huizhu had made sweet potato porridge.

From the original owner's memories, she knew that Yu Huizhu rarely made steamed rice at home; she and Father Xie ate at the Canteen during lunch.

The Canteen had steamed rice and meat dishes, and Xie Qi and her two siblings, relying on being young, often ran to the Cotton Textile Factory Canteen to treat themselves.

Therefore, the evening meal was relatively simple, consisting of either thin porridge that left them hungry shortly after eating, or coarse grain steamed buns that choked the throat.

Xie Qi and her two siblings had private meals provided by Yu Huizhu, while the original owner could only go to bed hungry until dawn.

Day after day like this, it would be a wonder if she didn't get stomach trouble.

Xie Yang unceremoniously sliced up all the Chinese sausage and salted meat.

She found the ceramic jar containing rice on the bottom shelf of the cupboard, but there wasn't much left when she scooped it all out, so she simply took out the one jin of Interstellar Rice she had exchanged with points yesterday, mixed it together, and steamed a full pot of rice in a clay pot, with the sliced sausage and salted meat spread on top.

After it was steamed, she first served herself a large bowl, taking a bite of white rice, a bite of oily, savory sausage, then another bite of white rice, and a bite of salty, fragrant meat... she let out a sigh of contentment as she ate.

After eating her fill, she evenly packed the remaining rice, sausage, and salted meat into two old lunch boxes she found in the cupboard and packed them to take away.

She also took half of the tea leaves from the pantry.

As for the unopened Malt Extract, two jars of Canned Food, and a two-jin bag of White Rabbit Candy, she unceremoniously took them all.

In her memory, these were gifts from Yu Huizhu's maiden family.

The Yu family was very eager to get all their younger generation into the Cotton Textile Factory as workers, so they gave her gifts during every festival.

In fact, it had become increasingly difficult to get into the Cotton Textile Factory in recent years; if it were easy, the original owner wouldn't have made such a fuss.

Yet Yu Huizhu clearly knew the inside story but still accepted the gifts from her maiden family, showing she was a greedy person.

Biscuits, Peking University dates, and sponge cakes were things Yu Huizhu bought to secretly feed her three children.

To be honest, Xie Yang didn't have much interest in them, but perhaps she could trade them for things she was interested in, so she pilfered those too!

In the pantry drawer, there was also a brand-new military canteen that was said to have been bought for Xie Lang to use on a field trip, which Xie Yang also took as a tool for drinking water on the road.

In the end, she only left half a jar of tea for her cheap father... well, considering he had secretly slipped her ten yuan of private money before going to bed last night.

Everything else that could be eaten or used was taken by Xie Yang in one fell swoop.

This way, the food for the few days on the train would definitely be enough.

As for the money and coupons in her hand—

After taking stock, she topped up two hundred into the System Mall, exchanged them for daily necessities like toothpaste, Toothbrush, Towel, Soap, and toilet paper, and also exchanged for masks, straw hats, Labor Protection Gloves, and other farm work auxiliary tools, packing them together with her change of clothes.

The remaining one hundred, along with various coupons and some important documents, were kept together and hidden in the inner pocket of her undershirt.

By the time she finished packing her bundle, it was only noon.

She set off with the huge luggage wrapped in a blue bedsheet on her back.

It was still early to gather at the train station, so she planned to visit the home of the original owner's aunt, Xie Chunlan.

Xie Chunlan and the original owner's biological mother, Chen Yalan, were classmates; both their names contained the character "Lan," and they gradually became best friends.

It was also Xie Chunlan who acted as a matchmaker back then, allowing Father Xie to meet the gentle and beautiful Chen Yalan.

Unfortunately, beauty is often short-lived; Chen Yalan passed away from cancer the year after giving birth to her daughter, and the heartbroken Xie Chunlan had treated her best friend's daughter like her own ever since.

It was just that her husband's family's conditions were also average; her father-in-law had broken his leg years ago and was bedridden long-term, requiring someone to take care of him.

Her two younger sons had also reached the age where they ate their father out of house and home.

Except for the eldest son who got into a secondary specialized school and lived in the school dormitory, the other six family members were squeezed into a 20-plus-square-meter Tube Building, with even tighter housing than the Xie Family.

Even though she knew the original owner must not be having a good time under her stepmother, she was powerless to help.

Upon learning that the original owner was going to be sent to the countryside by her stepmother, Xie Chunlan was frantic.

For the past few days, she had been asking people to find a job, having searched through all the Temporary Worker positions at various large factories, and finally received a reply, though the price was a bit expensive—the other party asked for 450.

How could Xie Chunlan have so much money? She was so anxious that she went everywhere borrowing from people, and even after borrowing everything she could, she was still 50 short.

When Xie Yang knocked on the door, Xie Chunlan was humbling herself, negotiating with the person selling the position, asking if she could owe the 50 and pay it back in three months.

The other party was also in a difficult position: "The Temporary Worker position at the Food Factory is something people would scramble for even at 500; I'm only selling it for 450 because your husband helped me before. To be honest, if I weren't in urgent need of money, I wouldn't be willing to sell it at all..."

"Knock, knock, knock—"

"Who is it?" Xie Chunlan opened the door with a bitter face, and seeing it was Xie Yang, and then seeing the bundle on her shoulder that was much larger than her, she was stunned, "Yang Yang, you are..."

"Aunt, I've decided to go to the countryside. The train is at 4:30 this afternoon, so I came to say goodbye to you."

"What!!!"

After the shock, Xie Chunlan asked anxiously: "Why so sudden? Is it your stepmother? This Yu Huizhu! She's infuriating me! You're still young and don't know, but doesn't she know? Life in the countryside is so hard, and with your thin arms and legs, you're no material for farm work... I think she did it on purpose! I'm going to settle the score with her!"

Xie Chunlan rolled up her sleeves and rushed out to fight Yu Huizhu, but was grabbed by Xie Yang.

"Aunt, I've already signed up, it's impossible to change it. There isn't much time, and I have some things I want to tell you."

"You child..."

Xie Chunlan also knew that once the registration form was submitted, it could not be withdrawn unless one immediately found someone to marry or fell terminally ill, and she was so anxious that she started wiping away tears.

Now, there was no need to buy the position anymore.

Xie Chunlan sent away the person selling the position, pulled Xie Yang into the room, hugged her and cried for a while, and knowing that time waited for no one, she wiped her tears and pulled out a stack of money tied with a rubber band from her pocket:

"There is four hundred yuan here, originally intended to buy you a position. Since your going to the countryside cannot be changed, take this money. When you arrive, settle down well and don't wrong yourself. If you are bullied, you must write a letter or send a telegram to tell your aunt..."

Before Xie Yang could open her mouth, she stuffed the money into Xie Yang's arms all at once.

Dumplings for departure, noodles for arrival; Xie Chunlan gritted her teeth, returned to her room to grab the only remaining Meat Coupon intended for the Qingming Festival ancestor worship, and hurried out the door to buy meat, planning to wrap a meal of dumplings for her niece.