I Have a Lake as I Walk Through the Courtyard

Yan Bugui looked at the young man with surprise, feeling that he was different from before. Although chefs are often glib, Lin Feng was much more assertive today.

"I'm your teacher, and your elder, how could you give me such a nickname?"

"You know you're a teacher, how can you just call people by their nicknames?"

"I didn't give you that nickname!"

"But you called out!"

"Alright, alright, I admit I was in the wrong! Everyone, please don't call me that anymore." Yan Bugui was a rare good-tempered person in the courtyard; as long as it didn't involve personal gain, he was relatively easy to talk to.

"Okay, it's settled then!" Lin Feng chuckled to himself as he watched the guy clutching his stomach. He himself got diarrhea after eating just two slices of meat, while this old bastard ate four slices yesterday. He wondered how the guy had developed such fast hands. But his body was definitely much better than his.

Lin Feng watched him run towards the toilet with a smug look on his face, whistled, and leisurely walked out of the courtyard gate.

Following his memory, Lin Feng went out and entered the nearest state-run restaurant. He glanced at the slogans on the wall and obediently went to the counter.

"Give me a plate of shredded potatoes, a plate of stir-fried cabbage with vinegar, and two steamed buns!" It wasn't that Lin Feng didn't want to order meat dishes; it was that they simply didn't have any.

The listless waiter, slumped over the counter, glanced at Lin Feng. "Why are you eating so early? It's only 10:30!"

Lin Feng cautiously glanced at the opening hours next to him. "This place opened at 10:30!"

The waiter raised his eyelids slightly, habitually pulled out the abacus, and quickly operated it. Watching Lin Feng yawn, he lazily said, "That'll be 3 mao plus four liang of grain coupons!"

If it were Raymond Lam in the past, he would have been heartbroken for a long time, after all, his monthly salary was only 27.5 yuan, and 3 mao was enough to cover half a day's work.

The waiter took the money. "Wait, I'll call you when the food is ready!" Lin Feng could only obediently return to the table. As for tea, you're dreaming. The sign prohibiting the arbitrary beating of customers was like a Damocles' sword hanging over Lin Feng's head!

After a full half hour, just as Lin Feng was getting impatient, a waiter called out from the window, "Come and bring the food!"

Lin Feng walked speechlessly to a wall in front of the kitchen, took out two plates of food and two steamed buns through a small window in the wall, and obediently sat back down in his seat.

"There's hot water over there. If you want some, go get some yourself."

"Thank you!" Lin Feng, who was starving, picked up an empty bowl with a steamed bun in his mouth, filled it halfway with hot water, and placed it on the table to cool down.

After a whirlwind of eating, Lin Feng comfortably patted his stomach. It felt so good to be full. Looking at the plate on the table, which was cleaner than a dog had licked, he finally felt a warm thing in his stomach.

I strolled to the market, and found that my kitchen, which I thought was decent, didn't even have a set of proper kitchen utensils.

Even though it was midday, it was still very cold when Lin Feng stepped onto the street. He tightened his tattered cotton-padded coat and frowned as he thought about the original owner's frugal lifestyle.

Lin Feng had only walked a few steps into the market when a strong smell of pickled cabbage made him wrinkle his nose. He wandered around the entire market, and the desolation there exceeded his expectations. He only managed to buy some sauces for stir-frying, and found almost nothing. Thinking that the three years of natural disasters wouldn't end until next spring, Lin Feng simply left the market. All the good stuff had already been bought up in the morning.

He tossed the sauces he bought into his spatial storage, then went into the supply and marketing cooperative and bought all the oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar that the original owner had been reluctant to buy. He also bought a set of pots and pans, a pair of cotton shoes, and a new stove before finally ending his shopping trip.

After leaving the house, Lin Feng did the math and realized he had spent over 40 yuan, almost completely using up the coupons the original owner had saved up over two years. The most expensive item was the cotton shoes, which cost 18 yuan a pair. He didn't have enough cloth coupons and had to pay extra for them.

Lin Feng finally witnessed the power of coupons in this era. He wanted to buy himself two cotton-padded coats, but he didn't have any coupons, so he couldn't even think about it. Coupons were really too precious. After saving up coupons for two years, Lin Feng could barely afford a pair of shoes.

There were quite a lot of things, so I called a deliveryman to take them back to the courtyard house, which cost him another 2 cents. Fortunately, the deliveryman was a nice guy and helped me carry the things into the house.

"Wow, you're really going all out! Buying so much stuff at once must have cost a lot of money!"

"With the Lunar New Year just around the corner, we need to stock up on some things for the house, otherwise where will we eat during the holiday?"

"That's true!" Yan Bugui said enviously, touching Lin Feng's newly bought stove. "It's brand new; I heard it has a very strong fire!"

"Of course, it costs four or five yuan!"

After chatting for a while, Yan Bugui's eyes darted around. "You had diarrhea yesterday too, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I had diarrhea all night, and my legs still feel like cotton balls."

"Many people in the compound have diarrhea too. Don't you want an explanation?"

Lin Feng pondered for a moment after hearing this. "How dare I, a junior, go to his house to demand an explanation? Unless everyone goes together, that would be more likely!" With Jia Zhangshi's personality, getting anything out of her is harder than getting a pie to fall from the sky.

"You guys are cowards. There are many of us, so we have to find that old woman and demand an explanation. She made me take half a pill yesterday, which should have cost at least 1 cents."

"Sure! You organize it, and we'll all go together!"

"It's settled then. I'll call you tonight!"

After cleaning up the kitchen, it finally looked like a home. There was oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar, but no scallions, ginger, or garlic. He looked through his rice container and found only some cornmeal, a few lonely potatoes and sweet potatoes.

Lin Feng's eyes lit up when he saw the potatoes and sweet potatoes. He closed the door and took them into his space! There was still half an acre of land in the yard by the lake. Without thinking, Lin Feng put all the sweet potatoes and potatoes in the yard to grow seedlings. The temperature here is high and the soil is fertile. He figured he would never lack these things again.

Without a cell phone or a TV, bored Lin Feng spent the whole afternoon tidying up his room until it was spotless. Except for the stiff, blackened blankets, it finally felt like home.

Soon it was dinner time. Lin Feng wanted to eat fish, but unfortunately he didn't have enough seasoning. Without seasoning, the fish was so fishy that it was almost inedible. He could only spend a lot of money to eat out before leisurely returning to the courtyard house.

The courtyard was filled with the aroma of food, and children were running around wildly. Some of the naughty ones were covered in mud. Lin Feng sat at the door, watching all this with great interest. It seemed that transmigrating here wasn't so bad after all.

"A meeting is starting! A hospital-wide meeting is being held!"

Lin Feng, who was lost in thought, smiled when he heard this shout. He picked up a stool from his home and slowly walked towards the central courtyard with the crowd.