A Hard-Won Experience
There were all sorts of reasons the meal tasted so good.
But Sister Xiao Zhu really was a good cook!
She was probably as good as the average restaurant chef!
So, at the thought of having another delicious meal tomorrow evening, he shamelessly agreed on the spot.
These days, accepting an invitation to eat at someone's home was something to consider carefully.
Food was far too scarce, after all.
But since Liang Xin had agreed to go, he had already resolved not to show up empty-handed!
He only kept quiet about it for now because he was afraid Sister Xiao Zhu would refuse.
But he absolutely had to bring something!
Otherwise, given their family's circumstances, what could they eat?
No matter how good a cook Sister Xiao Zhu was, how could the food make him happy if the ingredients weren't up to scratch?
It wasn't that he looked down on their family or thought they were poor.
Both husband and wife were workers, and they only had one little baby who didn't eat solid food. How could they be poor?
But that was simply how things stood right now.
They might not be short of money, but they certainly didn't have any good ingredients!
And so it was happily settled!
Before dinner, he would take some things over to her place and surprise them!
Hehe.
Just thinking about another wonderful meal tomorrow was already making Liang Xin feel happy!
As for the idea of going to a state-run restaurant...
Forget it!
Why go to a restaurant?
It was expensive, and he couldn't set his mind at ease about it.
Were the things they made even clean?
Well, that was a quick about-face.
When his own cooking tasted awful, why hadn't he thought about whether the restaurant was sanitary?
After dinner, once everything was tidied up, Sister Xiao Zhu and her husband chatted with Liang Xin for a while, then got up to leave.
Liang Xin rose to see them out.
He suddenly noticed that more than half of the jin of sunflower seeds he had bought earlier was still left.
It dawned on him at once.
Brother Chen was actually a considerate man.
Earlier, it had seemed as if he hadn't even hesitated before eating sunflower seeds and chatting with Liang Xin.
In fact, he had shown restraint and hadn't eaten much.
That made Liang Xin like the couple even more.
He grabbed the sunflower seeds and started stuffing them into their pockets.
"Sister Xiao Zhu, Brother Chen, there's not much to do for entertainment in the evenings. Take some sunflower seeds home to snack on!"
"Don't stand on ceremony with me!"
"After the meal I had today, Sister Xiao Zhu is my own sister! Sis, don't turn your little brother down!"
Liang Xin had never been able to understand why people in old TV shows forced things on one another as if they were going to war.
He had even seen it with his own eyes as a child.
But he just hadn't understood.
It had seemed outrageously exaggerated, and he had even wondered if there was something wrong with those people!
Was this little bit of stuff worth nearly coming to blows over?
Did one side really have to refuse while the other insisted on giving?
Now, he suddenly understood.
Because his emotions had reached that point! He just couldn't help himself!
Yes, that meal had really been so delicious that it had stirred up his emotions!
It seemed you really did have to go hungry before you could understand how precious food was!
If he hadn't been reborn here, then, given how abundant supplies were in the modern age, he might never have had the chance in his entire life to experience the feeling of eating his fill after going hungry.
How should he describe it?
Hmm, wonderful!
Absolutely wonderful!
The next morning, he got up.
Liang Xin went outside first, caught a child, and told him to gather all the other children!
Then he used candy produced by the system to harvest more than fifty points of experience.
This time, he couldn't be bothered to play hard to get.
That trick only got him a dozen or so extra experience points, and since he had used it yesterday, the children might have become immune to it.
Even if he tried it again, it might not work.
A scheme was easy enough to pull off the first time, but the second time was another matter.
Unless these children were all the village's Sha Zhu, they wouldn't be fooled again and again.
He had more than thirty experience points left after leveling up yesterday.
The young couple hadn't eaten that meal for nothing, either.
They had been very satisfied with it and given him ten experience points each!
You could imagine how happy the two of them had been!
With the fifty-odd points the children had contributed, his experience had topped a hundred again!
Judging by the previous Level-Up Experience curve, going from level four to level five probably wouldn't take too much experience, either.
He figured it would probably be around two hundred points.
"Oh, right, I haven't signed in today!"
"Sign in! Sign in! I want to sign in!"
[Congratulations on completing sign-in. Successfully claimed one yuan and nine jiao]
"What? One yuan and nine jiao? Haha, why not round it up and just give me two yuan?"
"What's one yuan and nine jiao times thirty?"
"Wow, fifty-seven yuan? Fifty-seven yuan a month-without even trying, I've almost reached the standard for a grade-five worker!"
"And if I add my eighteen-yuan salary, that's seventy-five? Even a grade-six worker can't match me!"
"Is life really this full of promise?"
Grade-five and grade-six workers were already considered senior workers!
Most people worked at their units all their lives without ever reaching that grade!
For most workers, grade four was basically the ultimate goal of a lifetime!
Yesterday morning, his system balance had been a little over sixteen yuan.
He had bought quite a few things, including rice, white sugar, and eggs.
He had even splurged on a one-yuan pack of specially supplied cigarettes.
He had spent nearly two yuan.
But as soon as he signed in today and claimed the one yuan and nine jiao, his balance instantly went right back up!
It was as if he'd lived the good life without spending a single cent!
That felt great!