Forced to marry a disabled man in the countryside? I'll repay you tenfold!

Liu Shuqing couldn't get a word in edgewise during the rest of the discussion. While Old Shen, Aunt Wen, and Chen Xiuer were enthusiastically discussing the technical details of strain propagation, he simply sat to the side, smiling contentedly, feeling exceptionally at ease.

By the time they finished discussing the matter, it was already late and time to finish work. The group decided to focus on resolving the alfalfa seed issue first, and then try to get the tractor back—after all, the seed issue was more urgent and fundamental than arguing with their superiors.

Su Wanqing was in a hurry to get home to "cook". Actually, she didn't really want to cook, but she wanted to take out all the cooked food she had prepared in the space before people came back.

"Alright, it's settled then. Our top priority right now is to propagate Xiao Su's strain as quickly as possible. Only with solid evidence can we stand tall. We must fight to the bitter end for the alfalfa seeds." Old Shen made the final decision, and everyone dispersed.

Before leaving, Su Wanqing called out to Liu Shuqing, "By the way, Secretary Liu, I'd like to apply for that empty brick house next door for Xiuer and her mother. You've probably heard about Xiuer's family situation..." She briefly recounted the unpleasant things that had happened to Chen Xiuer's family.

Liu Shuqing was in a good mood at the moment and immediately nodded: "The house is no problem! However, if Comrade Xiuer wants to move in legitimately, it would be best if she could also make some contribution to this strain propagation work. That way, the allocation will be more convincing to everyone."

Su Wanqing immediately chimed in, "Let Xiuer take the lead in expanding the propagation process, with Old Master Shen and Aunt Wen providing guidance. I'll also be working on this simultaneously, a two-pronged approach."

Upon hearing this, Chen Xiuer's eyes welled up with tears—Dr. Su had directly given her a share of the credit. She quickly said, "I'm not afraid of hard work! Many people in the troupe are eyeing that room; I can't stay there for free and put Secretary Liu in a difficult position. I will definitely do my job well and won't hold anyone back... In the future, I will definitely repay Dr. Su properly!"

Everyone laughed.

Chen Xiuer finally felt a huge weight lifted from her heart—she and her mother would finally have their own brick house. Though small, it would be a real place to settle down.

She will never forget the care that Dr. Su took for her.

"Before this, my mom and I would squeeze in and set up a bed in my place," Chen Xiuer said. It was only for a few days anyway, so they could manage.

"Alright, now that we're back, and I'm pregnant again, the planting site will have to rely on you and Aunt Wang from now on. Aunt Wang can officially start working tomorrow."

"Okay, my mom can't sit still at all. She's over there tinkering with Guo Mingyuan right now."

With a daily wage of one yuan, Granny Wang would probably be laughing in her dreams.

·

When Su Wanqing returned home, only Uncle Ding was busy in the backyard; the others hadn't come back yet. She quickly took out the egg drop soup she had prepared from her spatial storage and then "returned tenfold" the whole smoked pig leg that Ding Xiaomei had left behind—in the blink of an eye, she had ten shiny smoked pig legs in her hand.

Zhou's mother had obviously not cooked during the days she was at home. She didn't even know how to light a fire, let alone cook. Therefore, the pork leg was still intact, and she put the smoked bacon into the craftsman's grid to process it.

She just hoped this time it could be cooked into a ready-made dish, so she wouldn't have to think about making other dishes. The craftsmanship is good, but it's always random and full of uncertainty; you eat whatever comes out.

A faint light flickered.

This time, "Craftsmanship" has transformed smoked pork leg into a dish of stir-fried cured pork with garlic sprouts—the slices of cured pork with alternating layers of fat and lean meat are as thin as paper, the garlic sprouts are green and glossy, and the rich, salty aroma is irresistible.

Su Wanqing was overjoyed; she now had another main dish that she could serve up anytime! From now on, as long as the cured pork was still hanging there, it was like having a hot and delicious side dish with her—super convenient, since she could just ask anyone and they'd say it was cooked with cured pork from the kitchen.

With braised eggplant taken from the space and a large bowl of white rice, dinner was complete.

A short while later, Zhou Yanshen returned. Seeing the table full of food, he frowned slightly: "Wanqing, you're pregnant, try not to cook for yourself in the future."

Su Wanqing placed a piece of cured meat on his plate: "Eat up. I've saved Mom's portion in the pot. If I don't cook, who will? What if I don't cook well and I become malnourished? Let's not talk about this anymore. Tomorrow we'll go to the market and buy more meat, and see if we can find any duck eggs or ducks—I want to pickle some salted duck eggs and make some preserved eggs to store up for winter."

She felt a strong sense of crisis. Although there were still two months until winter, she had to start stockpiling supplies as soon as possible. Although she had more than a hundred salted eggs in her storage space, it was far from enough.

Zhou Yanshen nodded: "Okay, I'll take half a day off tomorrow morning and go with you."

Uncle Ding happened to come in from the backyard and heard this, so he said, "You guys decide what to buy. I think we need to dig a cellar for the house. Erzhuzi and the others are digging a cellar these days, I'll go help them out, and when they're done, they can dig one for us too, so it'll be convenient to store things in the winter."

It's possible that she thought of building a cellar because she saw that Tian Dahua was pregnant and was worried that there wouldn't be enough food in the winter, and the place was too small. However, in the original text, many people died here in the winter. What reason would she give to encourage everyone to store more food?

Thinking to herself, Su Wanqing replied, "Okay, having a cellar is great, we can store even more things."

Uncle Ding sat down, picked up his bowl, and looked at it: "Your mother still hasn't come back? She must have finished work a while ago, right?"

When Su Wanqing entered the kitchen today, she noticed that apart from the cooked foods such as pork jerky, salted eggs, and fish buns that had been left behind, which had all been eaten, the raw ingredients and firewood remained untouched—Zhou's mother had obviously not cooked these past few days.

Zhou Yanshen said, "I asked her on my way back this afternoon, and she said she left work early. She's definitely alright, but I don't know where she went. I'll go look for her after I finish eating."

"Then let's eat first, we're starving!" Uncle Ding's eyes lit up as he took a bite of the garlic sprouts and cured pork. "Wanqing, your cooking is amazing! It smells so good!"

Zhou Yanshen nodded silently. His little wife was good in every way, but sometimes she looked too fragile. She would break if touched even lightly.

Su Wanqing buried her head in her food and ate voraciously—how could it not be delicious? Anything made in this space is guaranteed to be top-notch. This cured pork was stir-fried so fragrantly that it was impossible to stop eating.

Before they had finished eating, the courtyard gate suddenly banged open. Zhou's mother rushed in like a gust of wind, her clothes were dirty and disheveled, and her hair was unkempt. It was hard to tell what kind of life she had been living these past few days.

She froze as soon as she entered the door, clearly not expecting Su Wanqing and the others to return. However, when she saw the food on the table, she swallowed hard, then started yelling:

"Oh my god! You guys finally decided to come back? Do you even know how I've been these past few days? You heartless bastards, eating and drinking your fill here, and you don't even bother to call me when you get back! What kind of pig swill have I been eating tonight?! You might as well just die out there!"