This program was produced by Tomato Listening.
The two girls across from her smiled. Li Xiangwan said to her, "Your Mandarin is really good."
Lin Yuzhu pretended to scratch her head and said foolishly, "My mom is the women's director. She always encouraged us to speak proper Mandarin."
Zhang Yanqiu nodded in understanding. That explanation made sense, so she believed it.
Li Xiangwan smiled and said nothing more.
Lin Yuzhu had wanted to say that his Mandarin was quite good too, but listening closely, she could still hear the flavor of a nurse's accent.
Thinking back, the female lead had been a nurse in her previous life, so accents were no obstacle to 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 distinctive, she would probably have needed to go through several plot points 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 be used for farming. The female lead had discovered the space before transmigrating, and fearing that the world was about to end, she had spent money stockpiling supplies.
She had originally been a rich second-generation heir and was not short on money. She had spent hundreds of millions storing supplies, and later even bought a great deal of gasoline to put into the space. Looking at it now, cashing that in would be rather difficult.
She had bought women's products by the Warehouse-load. Her descendants could probably use a few packs, 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 thing would probably have to wait more than ten years before daring to use them. Although such things existed now, there were only a few brands, and they required foreign exchange coupons to purchase.
Even more tragically, many of the clothes she had bought were modern sportswear, which could never be taken out. They looked obviously foreign, with so many large English letters printed on them. At this time, girls were too embarrassed even to buy ready-made underwear at the Supply and Marketing Cooperative, and it was not easy to find such things there anyway. Most underwear was basically sewn by hand.
Lin Yuzhu was not particularly handy, and she had not yet tried this kind of technical work. 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 taking a bus to the county town and waiting for people from Kindwater Village to pick them up.
In other words, they were all being sent to the countryside in the same county.
Lin Yuzhu could not help covering her face. What kind of fate was this?
To have thrown her in with them too.
In fact, the relationships among them had already become somewhat delicate. Zhang Yanqiu had begun to feel some affection for the male lead, and it was growing day by day.
They were from the same hometown and were going to the same place. The male lead was handsome and came from a good family. How could anyone not be tempted?
At first, she felt she was not worthy of him and did not dare reveal too much of what she felt. But when she saw how well the male lead treated the female lead, whose circumstances were about the same as hers, her feelings became somewhat complicated.
The female lead noticed Zhang Yanqiu's thoughts with her sharp eyes. Their once-friendly bond instantly crumbled, and for now they were only friendly on the surface.
Lin Yuzhu knew that before many things happened, she could not rashly define someone's character.
After all, the system had once said that the world she was in was not truly a world inside a book. It was merely that certain things in this dimension happened to echo the author's imagination.
And the unpredictability of human nature would also lead to the unpredictability of events.
Sometimes, someone who appeared to be bad might just happen to treat you well.
People had to be understood slowly through getting along. Lin Yuzhu decided not to view them merely as characters in a book, but as real human beings living beside her, with thoughts of their own.
As long as she kept her secret safe, nothing major should happen in this already peaceful era.
Over the following days, Lin Yuzhu got along more and more harmoniously with the other three.
Life was rarely clear-cut. There were some things you should not try to understand too thoroughly. Live in a muddled way, and one day, you might find 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 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 arrive.
Mother Lin had always believed that children should start school early, graduate early, and then start working and earning money early. So Lin Yuzhu had begun school rather young. Now, having graduated high school at sixteen, she would still be under twenty when the National College Entrance Examination came.
Going to college 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 on 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 the space, and the coupon-based purchasing system would not begin to loosen until the late 1980s.
Once the bleak era passed, the Black Market would gradually emerge.
By then, as long as you did not offend anyone, reselling goods would basically not get you into trouble.
Other than reselling ration coupons, which could result in severe sentences, what about other businesses?
Those could still be done.
She could 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 it easier to conceal where goods came from. Once she had earned enough, she could leave in time, move to a city she liked, buy several houses there, and wait for their value to rise.
Or she could buy a few storefront properties from relocated households at the right time, then turn them into shops and rent them out once the golden age arrived.
It was better to have her own business as a safety net.
Actually, if she were bold enough, she could go to the Black Market now. At this time, much gold, silver, and jewelry was worthless. Some people would trade such things for grain just to have enough to eat. If she was lucky enough to acquire an antique, she could make a fortune in the future.
At worst, she could exchange for liquor coupons at the Black Market and buy Moutai and Wuliangye. Aside from the Warehouse, where time stood still, everything else in her space followed normal time. Storing liquor there would be the same as storing it outside. Its value would be considerable in the future; perhaps a few bottles of Moutai alone could make her rich.
Just thinking about it excited her.
But once the excitement faded, she understood that after things opened up, opportunities would be everywhere, but swindlers would also be everywhere. There would be no shortage of desperadoes among them. Once wealthy people were targeted, many families would be ruined.
That was something she had to consider as well.
Speaking of which, Lin Yuzhu had been born to toil in her previous life. She had relied on herself for everything, and 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 quieter life. Perhaps she could get into college, secure an iron rice bowl, use the system to make a little money now and then, and live more comfortably that way.
Her thoughts circled around in her head. The female lead and the other two had been sitting on the train for nearly a day, and after the train traveled on for a while, they became sleepy again and lost the desire to chat. Before long, they drifted off once more.
Only Lin Yuzhu, who had gained hope in this era because of the system, was full of energy and still riding high.
As long as she endured the bitter days of being sent to the countryside, the future was something to look forward to.
Lin Yuzhu's gaze drifted to Li Xiangwan. The female lead slept against the seatback, her face gentle and peaceful. Even in this terrible train environment, she still seemed to possess her own halo.
Leaving aside everything else, Lin Yuzhu truly envied the female lead. In her previous life, she had been a wealthy socialite, seen things ordinary people rarely saw, and enjoyed a life ordinary people could not enjoy.
Take a Maserati, for example. Lin Yuzhu had only ever seen one and had 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 those things someday too.
What was truly enviable was that after transmigrating, the female lead had a male lead who sincerely cared for her, as well as an utterly loyal second male lead. Even in reality, such things were rare and hard to come by.
Thinking of the female lead's 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 with one another. This generation of educated youths had created so many ill-fated relationships.
Many educated youths could not withstand the erosion and torment of time. In the countryside, they chose life partners to comfort and warm each other, only to abandon one another and return home separately when it was time to go back. The selfish side of human nature slowly emerged.
Many chose peaceful divorces, but the children were the ones who suffered.
Faced with another round of family restructuring, how many personalities gradually descended into darkness, creating lives that could never be redeemed?
Educated youths who married rural men simply abandoned their husbands and children to return to the city. Those who married rural girls likewise abandoned their wives and children. The people left to bear the consequences not only had to endure the pain, but also the mockery of the villagers.
These were all debts of fate created by 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 would easily meet someone whose values matched hers.
If marriage was only for the sake of marriage, then that was impossible. She refused to give up her carefree life and settle for a meaningless marriage.
After all, even into the 1990s, divorce was still considered shameful. Why should she drag herself into such a mire?
Sighing once again over the female lead's good fortune, Lin Yuzhu gradually grew sleepy as well. She could not help closing her eyes and falling asleep.
When she woke again, an auntie's luggage had knocked 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 passengers constantly got on and off. Sometimes there would be empty seats, and sometimes there would not. 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 stop."
The auntie was old, and her body could not take it.
Lin Yuzhu rubbed her nose. Mm, the plot was beginning. Originally, the auntie had sat in her seat. This auntie would bring the female lead and Zhang Yanqiu not just a little harm, but a whole lot of psychological trauma.
Before you continue