Jiang Xinyu followed behind her. Say whatever you like. She could tell that this elder sister could put on a show all by herself even if no one answered her. Capable woman!
Waiting for more than twenty minutes, it was finally Jiang Xinyu's turn. Looking at the oversized ladle that she had seen in her past life used to feed livestock, she had the urge to turn around and leave.
The woman serving the food was in her forties or fifties. With a face full of stubborn flesh, she didn't seem like someone easy to deal with.
Jiang Xinyu looked at the large bowl filled with green wild vegetables and porridge with barely any grain. She turned away and left, thinking, "Fine, let's pretend it's for health." Damn it, calling this healthy living? This is worse than pig slop, isn't it?
Holding the bowl, she walked out unable to cry. She didn't even have the mood to see how others' porridge looked.
Leaving the canteen, she hurried back home. She really didn't have the courage to eat this porridge, but what would she do if she didn't eat? She had a hundred bags of fifty-pound rice and a hundred bags of fifty-pound flour in her space.
But it's 1959, and it'll take another two years for this disaster to completely pass. Eating at the canteen daily, how would she improve her life?
She feared the aroma of better food might spread. Nowadays, people's noses were surely sensitive. By then, wouldn't she be besieged? Arrested? Shuddering at the thought, she realized that clinging to life was better than a good death — a truth she had grasped in her previous life.
At home, she had one hand holding a bowl and the other opening the door. The household next door was bustling, like a busy marketplace. Jiang Xinyu was somewhat envious of such families.
She put the porridge on the stovetop, shook her hand — just holding a bowl of porridge made her arm feel too sore to lift. A waste of a person indeed.
Jiang Xinyu placed the kang table on the floor of her room, but she couldn't muster the courage to put it on the kang.
Then she brought the porridge bowl inside but didn't sit down to eat it. She hadn't even made a fire yet; how could she sleep tonight? Besides, when she washed her neck earlier, she shivered at the thought of the layered grime. Stop thinking and quickly boil the water.
She lifted the lid of the large rusted iron pot made of wooden planks, and with a snap, put the lid back.
Jiang Xinyu's eyes turned red, not from sadness but from anger. "Damned heavens, are you playing with me?"
After standing beside the stove for a while, she lifted the lid again. Resigned, she scooped a ladle of water into the pot, using a brush to scrub it hard.
She poured the scrubbed water into the slop bucket, scrubbing three times until there was no rust color. The water in the water tank was nearly gone, so she scrubbed the tank with the brush. She couldn't move the big tank, so she stood on a stool and used a bowl to scoop it out, little by little.
With the tank cleaned, she carried a yoke to fetch water from the village well.
Jiang Xinyu couldn't use a windlass. It took her half a day to fill two buckets, yet she couldn't lift them after several tries.
It was already dark, the village was quiet, so she poured half a bucket back into the well to avoid wasting it. Only the village's 200-meter-deep well had water.
Fortunately, the well wasn't far from home. She poured the water into the tank and hurried for a second trip. At nine, the tank was finally filled.
The faint light of the kerosene lamp gave Jiang Xinyu a sense of warmth. She had no strength left, but couldn't bear the thought of lying on the kang without bathing.
Resigned, she went outside to bring in the branches her family prepared earlier, and also brought in the basket of leaves she gathered today.
Sitting on a stool, she burned the firewood. Seeing only a few matches left in the box, she thought, "These are consumables!"
Jiang Xinyu used to be a rural child; doing these chores was a breeze. So she quickly lit the firewood.
Recalling from memory, she retrieved a large wooden basin from the shed, which needed cleaning for her bath.
After bustling about after fetching food, she felt hungry again but reluctantly went inside. Looking at the bowl of porridge, she helplessly lifted the bowl on top; the porridge was already cold. Taking a bit with chopsticks, it tasted bitter and astringent. How could she eat this?
"Forget it, I won't eat today; I'll adapt tomorrow." To celebrate her rebirth today, she took out a meat bun and felt it never tasted so delicious.
After finishing she added more firewood outside. She went to the yard and put the firewood she collected today into the shed. Finally, she bolted the hall door and struggled to carry the big wooden basin into her room to mix water for a bath.
She dared not use the shampoo from her space as it was scented and would be hard to explain if discovered.
She had no choice but to use dish soap, which was odorless.
She washed her hair twice, then took a bath towel and scrubbed herself top to bottom, changing water twice, and re-dressed in clothes. She carried the basins to the yard to dump the water.
Once clean, she didn't want to search for clothes in the dark and took a set of her thermal underwear from her space. The top fit, but the long pants wouldn't stay up, with a waistline of only 16 inches. She had to use a shoelace as a belt.
She didn't have the courage to use a quilt, instead taking a single mat from her space and laying it on the kang, followed by a sponge pad she bought with money earned from selling popsicles one summer in school.
She then placed the bedding and pillow. Her hair still wasn't dry, but she didn't want to move, so she sat thinking of random things: sometimes about her past life, sometimes about the future.
Jiang Xinyu felt that if things continued this way, she would eventually lose her mind.
Once her hair was dry, she lay down. Though physically and mentally exhausted, she couldn't sleep. But the bed was warm, and she didn't know when she fell asleep.
All night, she relived memories of her youth, from family to school, over and over.
When Jiang Xinyu was awakened, she was confused, body aching and reluctant to get up, but the knocking outside was relentless.
She didn't get up. Let it be whatever. But she underestimated the persistence of the person outside.
Getting up, she stowed her light-sensitive belongings into her space, then put on yesterday's clothes before opening the door.
"Xinyu, what's wrong? If you didn't open the door, I was about to go back and get my brother to climb over the wall."
"Ailing, I'm fine; it's just that I realized after reaching home yesterday that the tank was out of water. I was exhausted going back and forth to fill it and slept too deeply, missing your knocking."
"Alright, hurry up, or there won't be any breakfast left."
"I'm not going. I was so tired last night I didn't even eat dinner. I'll heat it up later. You hurry to the canteen."
"Are you silly? Grab your bowl quickly; leave last night's for lunch."