CHAPTER 1274: CHAPTER 1275: THE LITTLE WIDOW OF THE SIHEYUAN 2

Zhang Yu woke up again, and through the moonlight from the window, she could see the simple furnishings of the room.

Wow, the little System actually dug a pit for her. It previously said she was just a young widow in a Capital Quadrangle Courtyard, with no in-laws to take care of, no man to worry about, and even the children were well-behaved.

But the System never mentioned that she was coming to the quadrangle courtyard of the ’50s and ’60s.

Zhang Yu was very familiar with this era. Now, she could only pray and hope it wasn’t the year 1960, because if it was, she really would complain to the System in minutes.

Zhang Yu was really angry, but she couldn’t shout out loud, letting the neighboring families hear and think something happened to her.

She closed her eyes and began to accept the task, only to find out that although it wasn’t 1960, it wasn’t much better. She had come to 1958.

Next year would be 1959, the starting year of the natural disasters. My goodness, Zhang Yu gasped sharply.

She somewhat understood why the System was generous enough to give her a personal space.

And it was a space of 5 square meters. Initially, she thought the System was nice, even after her promotion, it didn’t forget to treat her, the Task Taker, well.

Turns out it was to shut her up beforehand. She could even imagine that when she would later go to the System for accountability, how it would say that the space was meant to assist her in completing her tasks.

Zhang Yu flipped off the System again; when she went back, she would make sure to have a good talk with him.

She’d never seen such a pitfall-digging System, it was too much, really too much.

But fortunately, it didn’t send her directly to 1959, or else she’d break down. Even with space, there’d be nowhere to place things.

With no time to think too much, Zhang Yu went straight to calculate the money left by the original owner’s family.

Although now many things were bought with coupons, the Pigeon Market still existed. Things were a bit more expensive than at the supply and marketing cooperatives and the vegetable market, but the upside was no coupons were needed.

Right now, buying grain was the most important thing. As the saying goes, "People are made of iron, while food is made of steel," which shows the importance of grain.

Storing food, even if it’s coarse grains, sweet potatoes, or potatoes, must be stored. Anyway, placed in the System, you wouldn’t worry about mold or pests.

Right, if possible, buy more lard, that stuff is great. Without meat supply, you can have rice mixed with lard.

This thing can be used for a long time. Yes, that’s it, Zhang Yu noted everything she needed to buy while finding things.

Soon, she had turned over all three side rooms, swiftly digging out two jars from a side room using the original owner’s memory.

Zhang Yu’s eyes went wide, "Could this be the treasure from the original owner’s memory?"

Indeed, although she hurried through the original owner’s memory earlier, Zhang Yu didn’t miss the key content.

For instance, this room, in the 1960s, had something valuable exchanged at a low price for food because they swapped it with someone else.

As for what exactly it was, the original owner didn’t know. She just knew that the person who got the house got rich in the 1980s, claiming it was due to being a ’flipper’.

The original owner thought so too, but once overheard them arguing, only to learn the reason for their wealth.

What made the original owner even angrier was that they knew something was inside long ago, so they set up a trap.

Now, of course, this wealth couldn’t be allowed to fall to them. Zhang Yu didn’t even feel like digging out the jars; it was genuinely tiring.

She just took the things inside straight out, and as for what to stuff inside, Zhang Yu had decided to fill them with soil.

Otherwise, suddenly getting two more jars would make the neighbors ask questions, and it would be easier to alert the snakes.

Filling the soil back in, Zhang Yu was really quite exhausted, "So tired, really tired."

It wasn’t that Zhang Yu had become weak, but that after the man had just passed away, the woman couldn’t bear the blow and also collapsed. If it weren’t for the two children needing her care, she probably would have followed suit.

But her body was quite weak, Zhang Yu persevered to the bedside, collapsing directly from exhaustion.

"Phew, this body is really a piece of trash." Too useless, really too useless, didn’t even do much and just digging in the room had her collapsing.

"Still need to take good care of the body." Only with a good body could she take better care of the two children. Otherwise, how could a frail widowed mother raise two children?

Especially in this four-entry courtyard, a frail widow with two children, living in three east side rooms, such attention from people was immense.

Only by becoming strong herself would she avoid being schemed against. The top priority now was to keep the job the man left behind. In ten years, jobs would become really hard to find. Not to mention formal jobs, even temporary ones would be fiercely contested.

The original owner was without decisiveness, weak-bodied, selling that job for a mere pittance after some sweet-talk from the neighbors.

This time, Zhang Yu didn’t want to sell that job; it must be kept, all the way until the children could take over.

Zhang Yu had it all figured out: the two children would each take over one job, and neither would need to go to the countryside.

Yawning, she turned over and closed her eyes to sleep soundly.

When she woke up again, she heard the commotion outside. Ah, this four-entry courtyard, the faucet was between the second and third entry because the yard was big.

Especially the yard in the second entry, it was the largest, so there were more faucets, and many people used them.

Now outside, it was really lively. Zhang Yu yawned, got up, and the previous days, her workplace had sympathized with her husband’s death, letting her handle the funeral at home.

Now that the matter was settled, Zhang Yu also planned to go to work. Staying at home, the neighboring families were all prying for information.

Initially, they lamented Zhao Jun’s early demise and worried about how the mother and her two children would live. Afterwards, they began showing interest in Zhao Jun’s job left behind.

Zhao Jun was a staff member in the publicity department of a machinery factory, and he died trying to catch a thief for the factory. People thought the compensation from the unit was fine, as for the job he left, it should be sold cheaply to the neighbors in the courtyard.

Zhang Yu yawned and began urging Zhao Lei and Zhao Hong to get up.

Zhao Lei, hearing Zhang Yu’s urging voice, quickly got up, while Zhao Hong tossed and turned on the kang, "Mommy, I don’t want to get up."

Zhao Lei, knowing that Dad wasn’t around anymore, realized that there was only Mom at home. As the only male in the house, he knew he needed to support the family now and started coaxing Xiao Hong.

Watching Zhao Lei patiently coax his sister, Zhang Yu got out of bed, kicked open the stove, and prepared to start making breakfast.

Having made breakfast, she went to the faucet to wash her face and brush her teeth. The neighbors saw her and were quite surprised.

"Zhang Yu, you’re up?" Auntie Zhao from opposite looked at Zhang Yu in astonishment.

Zhang Yu replied, "I’m up. Zhao Jun has already passed away, and I need to pull myself together. I still have Xiao Lei and Xiao Hong to take care of."

After washing up, she was just about to head back when she suddenly turned around, "Auntie Zhao, you see Zhao Jun passed away, and he died for the factory. There should be a solution now, right?"