The 1960s: The Story of a Country Girl's Journey to the City

"If we don't hide it here, where else can we hide it? If we hide it here, my great-grandmother can keep an eye on it. Whoever takes it, we'll go after them."

Bao Ya rolled her eyes, completely unconcerned. She was now certain they hadn't found any gold bars. Since they hadn't found any, she didn't care.

"Hehe, is that so?"

The two men were a little embarrassed. They handed her a bag of money, and she took it without hesitation. She then picked up a shovel and filled the hole back in, even tamping the ground down with her feet.

"Oh, so you're not burying it underneath."

Wang Xiao was also a smart aleck; he blurted out something without thinking.

"I'm not burying it anymore. You've already seen it. What if it gets lost?"

"you……"

After saying that, Lin Baoya picked up the shovel in one hand and her huge sum of 1.85 yuan in the other, and turned to leave.

He took a few steps, then stopped, turned around, and said to them, "Are you looking for something or someone? I can't help you with the thing, but I might be able to help you with the person."

As soon as she finished speaking, Lin Baoya regretted it. Was she being too kind-hearted? Had she carried over her goodwill toward soldiers from her past life into this one? But these two were much nicer than the others.

Xu Mingda's eyes lit up. They were at a loss and hadn't learned anything useful in the past few days. Listening to her might give them a new perspective. Just as he was about to speak, he saw Lin Baoya raise two fingers.

"Two pounds of fruit candy, I'll find you two pounds of fruit candy."

Wang Xiao was about to speak when Fang Mingda stopped him.

"Okay, deal."

"Wait for me at the edge of the woods around three or four in the afternoon, and remember to bring the candy."

The location was determined by following the direction Bao Ya pointed.

"Okay, we'll wait for you there this afternoon."

Seeing that he had agreed, Lin Baoya waved and turned to go home.

"Old Fang, can we trust what she says?"

"Never mind, if we don't find any more clues, we should go back to the team. It wouldn't hurt to try her method."

Bao Ya walked slowly home, suppressing her joy, afraid that others would notice.

When she got home, everyone in the family had gone to work, and her grandmother had gone to visit other people's homes, leaving her breakfast.

Bao Ya stuffed the paper and cloth used to wrap the money into the stove and burned them completely.

He checked each room, found no one, returned to his own room, closed the window, took the gold bars out of his undergarment pocket, held them in his hand, and grinned like a hamster.

Afraid of laughing out loud and being heard, she buried her head in the blanket. She laughed for a while before finally emerging to calm herself down.

She wrapped the gold bars in a new handkerchief and stuffed them into the new cotton shoes her grandmother had made for her, along with the fifty yuan she had gotten from the Lin family.

The shoes were put back into the dowry chest that Old Lady Su had prepared for her. She covered it with other things, then locked it and kept the key on her person.

Looking at the loose change in her hand, well, she didn't really care for it. So she casually stuffed it under the mat in the corner of the wall.

The two gold bars were her first large sum of money after she transmigrated. Each large yellow croaker weighed about 300 grams, and the current recycling price was about four or five yuan per gram, so one bar was worth more than a thousand yuan. She would find a way to exchange them for cash when she got to the city.

Making money in the village is not easy, and spending money is also not easy. Everyone exchanges goods, so there are not many places to spend money.

But she is not the same person she was yesterday. Bao Ya is getting a little cocky. She hasn't spent money in a long time, and she feels that she should go to the city to shop and buy herself some things. There isn't even a mirror at home, and she can only look at herself in the water tank every day, what a waste of her good looks.

Now that she's rich, she'll buy a mirror. It's the first time in her two lives she's looked so beautiful; it would be a shame not to see her.

She only has money now, no tickets, but that's okay. She has a fiancé, and a man's money is better spent than wasted. She should cultivate his habit of spending money on his wife.

After packing her suitcase, Lin Baoya started eating breakfast: a bowl of porridge, a cornbread, and some pickled vegetables from her own home. In a good mood, she didn't even feel the pain in her cheeks while eating the cornbread.

After breakfast, I washed the dishes, fed the chickens, and cleaned up. Then I went to my private plot to pick some vegetables to cook for lunch.

Bao Ya first washed some mung beans and put them in a large pot in the yard, then added more than half a pot of water, covered the pot, and put two half-sized pieces of wood in the stove to burn. She swept the firewood around the stove to make sure it didn't burn out. Once the fire in the stove burned out, the mung bean soup in the pot would be ready.

After tidying up, Bao Ya filled a basin with water and took it inside to wash herself. The weather was hot and humid, and she always felt sticky.

After washing up, I lay on the bed to rest for a while. It wasn't the hottest time yet, so I could take a nap.

It's too hot, so Bao Ya gave up on the idea of ​​going to the city and decided to wait until the weather cools down.

I made a few simple pancakes and two cold dishes for lunch, which I ate with mung bean soup. Judging from the dishes today, I could tell she wasn't in the mood to cook.

Seeing her listless appearance, Grandma Su figured the child must be too hot, so she put a watermelon in the well to cool it down.

After lunch, everyone went to rest. Lin Baoya told Gou Dan that she would take his friends up the mountain in the afternoon to find some good food. Gou Dan agreed and ran off. Really, aren't these little brats afraid of the heat?

After he left, Bao Ya climbed back onto the kang (a heated brick bed) and lay there, trying to calm herself down, believing that a calm mind brings coolness.

After waking up from her afternoon nap, Bao Ya felt a bit better. But then she regretted her plans to meet Fang Mingda and the others that afternoon. She didn't want to move and thought it would have been better to meet them the next morning. Oh well, what a mistake.

I listlessly got up, dawdled over washing my face, drinking water, and going to the toilet. Finally, I mustered up my courage, shouldered my little basket, and headed up the mountain.

When we got to the foot of the mountain, we saw Gou Dan waiting there with a bunch of little pups, chattering away.

"Sister, sister, look, my sister is here. I didn't lie, did I?"

Gou Dan skipped and hopped two steps toward her, pointing at her and shouting.

"Sister Baoya."

"Sister Baoya."

"Sister Baoya."

"Hmm, everyone's here?"

Looking at this group of little brats, there were twenty or thirty of them, Bao Ya's head throbbed. She didn't like kids that much; they were too noisy.

"Quiet! Everyone, follow me."

Then, Bao Ya led a group of children aged seven or eight and up up the mountain. Yes, children aged seven or eight and up can help with chores at home. Children who are seven or eight and can come out to play are usually the most pampered children at home. Si Mao was only sixteen when his uncle called him to Lin Lao Er's house to build a house.

People passing by weren't surprised. Lin Baoya had a bad temper, but she wasn't stingy. She often took the children up the mountain, and they would always try to get something to eat. The children were happy to hang out with her.

Fang Mingda and Wang Xiao had been waiting at the agreed location for a long time. They waited and waited, thinking that they had been tricked by her again. Wang Xiao had said for the third time that she was leaving when Bao Ya brought a group of children over.

Fang Mingda and Wang Xiao sighed. Well, another fruitless day.

"You said three or four o'clock, what time is it now?"

Wang Xiao pointed to the watch on his wrist and asked Bao Ya, annoyed, "They started waiting here at three o'clock, and now it's five o'clock."

"Oh? Really? My timing is perfect."

Bao Ya raised her bare wrist and pretended to check the time.

What's there to not understand? The entire village doesn't have a single watch; they all estimate time by looking at the sun. So how can they be on time?