CHAPTER 30: CHAPTER 20: SIGNS BEGIN TO EMERGE (PART 1)

Zhang Guoqing rubbed his forehead and turned to enter the bedroom, not knowing if Jiao Jiao had woken up. He hadn’t properly spent time with his son, busy for half a day. Quietly going in, he found that neither of them had slept.

"Oh~ my little wife, your husband is so pitiful~ holding a steamed bun and not a drop of oil in the dish... tears keep flowing down..."

Zhou Jiao chuckled, looking at the child’s eyes in her arms, she said, "Baby, look at your dad, isn’t he pitiful? Shouldn’t our baby comfort daddy?"

Zhang Guoqing quickly came to the bed, sat down, and hugged Jiao Jiao, "Baby, I am daddy. Baby, daddy finally sees you awake, why do you sleep so much, huh? Are you full? Daddy is so pitiful, not even as happy as the baby with milk to drink."

Zhou Jiao leaned against him with their son in her arms, "You’ve been to quite a few places today, haven’t you? Move this small table over here, I’ll put things down. I had chicken soup noodles for lunch, nobody will smell it. This time you have honey-glazed chicken leg fast food, I don’t even remember when I bought it, I got bored this morning and reorganized the space, with roast chicken, eat more."

Zhang Guoqing stood up, returned to the small living room, and closed the door, moved the small table over, "Put the son aside, don’t hold him. Holding in confinement will cause arm pain and develop bad habits, making it tiring to carry yourself later."

Seeing her conjure up a cup of soup with the fast food box, he drooled, yesterday after traveling through time, his taste was almost gone from fear.

Zhou Jiao saw him swallowing his hunger and felt heartbroken that this fool wouldn’t buy something to eat in the city, even though he had tickets and money, that corn porridge was painful to swallow just remembering it.

"Are you dumb? You should’ve eaten your fill in the city before coming back. Next time, make sure you eat before returning, otherwise, you’ll mess up your stomach with gastritis while you’re young."

Finally able to eat a few mouthfuls, Zhang Guoqing quickly drank the soup, "In the morning at my second sister’s, I had 2 buns, then delayed a bit at the Zhou Family. When I got home, I was starving, but all there was was cornmeal buns and corn porridge, everything was corn. So I had to bear with it, eating a bun and drinking a bowl of corn porridge, dad still handed me another bun and I almost cried. The pickles were so salty I’d want to strangle whoever sells salt; it was deadly salty but I ate it all."

Zhou Jiao pointed to herself, "As for me, I was silly too; I just wouldn’t eat, and only when I couldn’t stand it anymore did I force myself to swallow, afraid to tell you. The family just thinks I have a small appetite. Eating with grandma at the Zhou Family, the older folks only eat soft things."

Zhang Guoqing quickly finished his meal, asking Zhou Jiao to gather everything into the space, opened the door to the small living room to let the smell dissipate, "No wonder you’ve grown so thin, good thing you returned quickly, otherwise you’d be unable to recover from such bodily losses.

You really need to take care during your confinement, no matter what others say, you must do the full 30 days of confinement. If possible, I’d have you do it for 40 days. Dad just mentioned at the table that tomorrow the house construction would start, planning to move by next spring. How are we going to get through these months? We don’t have much stockpiled, and it’s not practical to buy grain for everyone to eat."

Zhou Jiao thought about the corn bun and the oil-less stew from memory, feeling troubled, she frowned at him, "In the village, after three days of confinement, people start tidying homes, not working is considered good, and they just eat a bit nutritiously for milk. Will I attract gossip like this? Do you remember how your two sisters-in-law handled their confinement?"

"Can they compare to you? Those folks routinely rough it out, naturally. What’s the use of that gold brick in the space? Are we short on money? We buy whatever we lack. Why care about them? Women naturally get jealous. You must stay in confinement for 30 days in the room, just in time for the start of winter for ten more days. I’ll handle any family disputes, rest assured. As for the brother-in-laws’ confinements, I’m just a man, who cares about that." Zhang Guoqing rolled his eyes at her in annoyance.

He contemplated what to buy to appease the sisters-in-law, knowing that their confinement meant getting up after three days for cooking, boiling pig feed, just avoiding cold water and not earning work points. In essence, it was just doing things as usual. Only Jiao Jiao would believe he didn’t know, having six kids born one after another in the family, how could he forget?

If they were to build a house, they’d need to cover the main food for those people, the house would undoubtedly become chaotic, he’d have to consider a solution, if the mother-in-law came by, he might utilize her. He didn’t feel guilty about using the mother-in-law, who knows what kinds of people hide what plans, meeting them is necessary to understand, poor Jiao Jiao never had parental love in two lifetimes.

Zhou Jiao thought he was right, they weren’t short on money, and if they really wanted her to work, there’s little she could do. In her past life, her sister covered for her; she went to school and when older, worked part-time distributing flyers and helping in the restaurant kitchen. Then in university, she earned wages through translation.

This lifetime’s Zhou Jiao learned embroidery from grandma, without doing much housework. There was a pile of idle folks in the Zhou Family, after marrying into Zhang Family, she was soon pregnant, doing nothing beyond lighting the fire.

Comparing her to the village women now, her body shudders at the thought, she’d rather listen to her husband’s orders, pointing where he says goes. "Fine, I’ll listen to you, I’ll just nest here and won’t return."

Zhang Guoqing gently stroked her hair. "Alright, let’s stop talking about this. We need to find a way to buy grain, next we’ll be most short on grain. It’s not just us, but parents, four brothers and sisters above — we can’t let them eat bark while we eat well. I suppose coarse grains will suffice."

Zhou Jiao was worried from his words, she thought if she’d known about the time travel she’d have bought hundreds of tons of rice. "Where would we buy grain from? In the city, they eat their allotted supplies, rural places are even lacking."

"Let me share my plan, listen to it first, okay? Here’s what I’m thinking; Huang Yaoguo, my eldest sister-in-law’s brother, drives for a factory, I’ll find him to see if we can buy some defected cloth, then contact his elder brother in the supply and sales shop for internal defect items, plus half of our brown sugar kept for personal use. Everything would be priced below supply shop rates, sneaking into distant rural areas to exchange for grain, we don’t want money, just grain, whether fine or coarse.

Even now, with money, buying grain from the black market is still possible. Keep 1000 from the money you have, change the rest into grain. Once your confinement ends, and I fully grasp the city’s situation, we’ll act, having the space makes things much safer."

Zhou Jiao kept nodding as she listened, thinking it’s doable, nothing more important than grain, but for safety, she had her opinion, "I agree with everything you’ve said, just exchanging grain like that can’t be done too frequently, don’t forget you still need to go to work. If you frequently skip work, people will notice."