An Encounter with an Auntie

This program was produced by Tomato Listening.

In Episode 6, "An Encounter with an Auntie," the two girls across from them smiled. Li Xiangwan said to her, "Your Mandarin is really good."

Lin Yuzhu scratched her head deliberately and said innocently, "My mom is the women's director. She always encouraged us to speak proper Mandarin."

Zhang Yanqiu nodded knowingly. That explanation made sense, and she believed it.

Li Xiangwan smiled and said nothing more.

Lin Yuzhu had wanted to say that his Mandarin was also quite good, but on closer listening, it still carried the flavor of a nurse's accent.

Thinking back, the female lead had been a nurse in her previous life, so accents were never an obstacle for her.

Reading too many books had one downside: many of the plots had become muddled in her mind. If the male and female leads' names had not been so distinctive, she would probably have needed to go through several plotlines before recognizing them.

After thinking for a long time, Lin Yuzhu finally remembered that the female lead's golden finger was a Jade Space. It could not grow crops, though. The female lead had discovered the space before transmigrating, and after finding it, she feared the world was about to end, so she spent money stockpiling supplies.

She had originally been a wealthy second-generation heiress and was not short on money. She spent hundreds of millions storing supplies and later even bought plenty of gasoline to put into the space. Looking at it now, turning that into cash would be rather difficult.

She had bought women's products by the warehouse-full, enough for generations to use only a few bags each. But tragically, after transmigrating to this era, many things could not be openly used. Lin Yuzhu even felt sorry for the female lead. The poor dear would probably have to wait another ten years or so before daring to use them. Although such things existed now, there were only a few brands, and they required foreign exchange coupons to buy.

Even more tragically, many of the clothes she had bought were modern sportswear. There was no way she could take those out. At a glance, they looked like foreign goods, with so many large English letters on them. At this time, girls were too embarrassed even to buy ready-made underwear from the Supply and Marketing Cooperative, and it was not easy to find such things there anyway, so underwear was basically sewn at home.

Lin Yuzhu was not particularly handy, and she had not tried that kind of technical work yet. Nor did she intend to try.

She could not help looking at the female lead, suddenly feeling the urge to buy underwear from her.

Naturally, that was impossible.

As they chatted more deeply, the four of them discovered that they were all getting off in the same city. Then they would all take a bus to the county town and wait for people from Kindwater Village to pick them up.

In other words, they were being sent down to the countryside in the same county.

Lin Yuzhu could not help covering her face. What kind of fate was this?

To think she had been thrown together with them too.

In fact, the relationships among them had already become somewhat subtle. Zhang Yanqiu had developed some fondness for the male lead, and it grew with each passing day.

They were from the same hometown and headed to the same place. The male lead was handsome and came from a good family. How could anyone not be moved?

At first, she felt she was not worthy of him and did not dare reveal too much of what she felt. But after seeing how well the male lead treated the female lead, whose circumstances were similar to her own, something in her heart became complicated.

The female lead, sharp-eyed as ever, discovered her little thoughts. Their once-friendly bond instantly collapsed, and now they were only friendly on the surface.

Lin Yuzhu knew that before many things happened, she could not rashly define someone else's character.

After all, the system had once said that her world was not truly a book she had transmigrated into. It was merely that some things in this realm happened to echo the author's imagination.

And the unpredictability of human nature would likewise lead to unpredictable events.

Sometimes, someone who looked like a bad person might happen to treat only you well.

People had to be understood slowly through getting along with one another. Lin Yuzhu decided not to view them merely as characters from a book, but as real human beings living beside her, people with thoughts of their own.

As long as she kept her secrets safe, nothing major would basically happen in this already peaceful era.

Over the following days, Lin Yuzhu got along more and more harmoniously with the other three.

There was wisdom in playing dumb sometimes. Some things did not need to be understood too clearly. Live muddleheadedly, and perhaps one day, you would discover that many hurdles that seemed impossible to overcome had actually passed easily with time.

What was yours would be yours. What was not yours should not be forced.

That was probably an insight Lin Yuzhu had gained after living for more than twenty years.

As for being sent down to the countryside, the road ahead was long.

Lin Yuzhu knew that if she wanted to return to the city, she would have to wait at least a few years, or wait for the National College Entrance Examination to return.

Lin Mother had always believed that children who started school early would graduate early, then start working and earning money early. Lin Yuzhu had begun school fairly young, and now, having graduated high school, she was only sixteen. When the National College Entrance Examination came around, she would still be under twenty.

Going to university at that age was not particularly old, but in this era, by the time she graduated, she would be considered an old maid.

Girls her age would probably already have several children by then.

Lin Yuzhu rested her chin in her hand and gazed at the endless plains outside the window.

The National College Entrance Examination, or going into business after returning to the city?

To be honest, she had a space, and the ration-ticket shopping system would not begin gradually loosening until the late 1980s.

Once the bleak era had passed, the Black Market would slowly emerge.

By then, as long as one did not offend anyone important, reselling goods would basically not cause trouble.

Other than reselling tickets, which could lead to harsh sentences, what about other businesses?

Those could still be done.

She could easily go to an unfamiliar city and sell fruit for ten days at a time.

At the forefront of economic recovery, money would be easy to make.

There were no surveillance cameras on the streets then, making the source of goods easier to conceal. Once she had earned enough money, she could leave in time, go to a city she liked, buy several homes there, and wait for their value to rise.

Or she could buy a few street-facing houses from relocated households, then, when the golden age arrived, instantly convert them into shops and rent them out.

It was still better to have her own business as a safety net.

Actually, if she had enough nerve, she could go to the Black Market now. At this time, much gold, silver, and jewelry was worthless. Some people, just to have enough food, would trade such things for grain. If she got lucky and acquired an antique, she could make a fortune later.

If nothing else, she could trade for liquor coupons at the Black Market and buy Moutai and Wuliangye. Other than the Warehouse, where time stood still, everything outside the space followed normal time. Storing the liquor in her space would preserve it just the same, and it would be worth a considerable amount in the future. A few bottles of Moutai might even make her rich.

Just thinking about it was exciting.

After the excitement faded, however, she understood that once things opened up, opportunities would be everywhere, but so would swindlers. There would also be plenty of desperate criminals. After wealthy people became targets, many families would be ruined.

That was something she had to consider too.

Speaking of which, Lin Yuzhu had been a workhorse in her previous life, relying on herself for everything. Only she knew the bitterness of surviving in a fast-paced city.

Now that she had transmigrated to the 1970s, she wanted to slow down and live a quiet life. Perhaps getting into university, securing an iron rice bowl, and using the system to earn a little money now and then would make for a more comfortable life.

Her thoughts circled endlessly in her mind. The female lead and the other two had been sitting on the train for nearly a whole day. After the train traveled another stretch, they grew sleepy again and no longer felt like talking. Before long, they drifted off once more.

Only Lin Yuzhu, who had gained hope in this era because of the system, was brimming with energy and still riding high.

As long as she endured the hard days of being sent down to the countryside, the future was something to look forward to.

Lin Yuzhu's gaze drifted toward Li Xiangwan. The female lead slept against the seatback, her face gentle and tranquil. Even in this awful train environment, she still possessed her own aura.

Setting everything else aside, Lin Yuzhu truly envied the female lead. In her previous life, she had been a socialite from a wealthy family, seen things ordinary people rarely saw, and enjoyed a life ordinary people could not have.

Take the Maserati, for example. Lin Yuzhu had only ever seen one and never driven one, yet the female lead had a beloved limited-edition model in her space.

None of that really mattered. If she worked hard, Lin Yuzhu believed she could have such things in the future too.

What was truly enviable was that after transmigrating, the female lead had a male lead who sincerely loved her and a male supporting character who was unwaveringly loyal to her. Even in reality, such things were hard to come by.

Thinking of how the female lead would have a happy marriage and many children in this life, Lin Yuzhu could not help sighing. She truly had smooth sailing in both lives!

People really could not be compared. This generation of Educated Youth had created so many ill-fated relationships.

Many Educated Youth could not endure the erosion and torment of the years. In the countryside, they chose life partners to comfort each other and keep warm together. Yet when it came time to return, they abandoned one another and went home separately, slowly revealing the selfish side of human nature.

Many chose peaceful divorces, but it was the children who suffered.

Facing another round of family restructuring, how many children gradually developed dark personalities, creating lives that could never be salvaged?

Those Educated Youth who married rural men simply abandoned their husbands and children and returned to the city. Those who married rural women abandoned their wives and children as well. The people forced to bear the consequences not only had to endure the pain, but also suffered the mockery of the villagers.

These were all debts born from the weaknesses of human nature.

The values of the twenty-first century and those of the twentieth century were probably separated by several generations' worth of chasms.

Lin Yuzhu sighed. She would not easily give her feelings to anyone.

First, she did not want to test human nature. Second, she did not think she could easily meet someone whose values matched hers.

Getting married simply for the sake of marriage was impossible. She refused to give up a carefree, comfortable life just to settle for a meaningless married life.

After all, even into the 1990s, divorce was considered shameful. Why would she trap herself in such a mire?

Sighing once more at the female lead's good fortune, she too became increasingly sleepy and could not help closing her eyes and falling asleep.

When she woke again, an auntie's luggage had bumped into her and roused her.

In this era, one needed a letter of introduction to buy a train ticket, and population movement was relatively limited. Since it was not a holiday, there were not as many people on the train as there would be in later generations. But long-distance trains stopped at many stations, so passenger numbers constantly rose and fell. Sometimes there were empty seats, and sometimes there were none. It all depended on luck.

The auntie said to the female lead and Zhang Yanqiu, "Girls, move farther in. Let Auntie sit down too. I still have to ride for a whole day before reaching my station."

The auntie was old, and her body could not take it.

Lin Yuzhu touched the bridge of her nose. Mm, the plot had begun. Originally, the auntie had sat in her seat. This auntie would bring not merely a little harm to the female lead and Zhang Yanqiu, but a whole lot of psychological trauma.