Chapter Sixteen: A Woman’s Second Rebirth

“Dogs only know how to babble,” Lin Xiang said, deliberately swinging her hoe toward Wen Siyuan’s foot. Caught completely off guard, Wen Siyuan cried out in pain, clutching his foot.

“Lin Xiang!”

She ignored him entirely, hoisting her hoe and moving to another spot to continue digging for mushrooms.

Her attitude infuriated Wen Siyuan to no end.

Yet Lin Xiang treated his shouts as nothing more than dog barks, paying no heed to anything he said.

After gathering the mushrooms, Lin Xiang slung her basket over her back and headed back to the brigade headquarters.

Before she could enter the gate, someone blocked her path.

“Wen Zhiqing just came looking for you again. Lin Xiang, how can you be so shameless? On one hand, you say you look down on Wen Zhiqing, yet on the other, you’re always grabbing and pulling at him. You’re utterly disgraceful!”

Lin Xiang planted her hoe by her feet and looked coldly at the girl standing before her.

This was Yang Lihua, daughter of Zhao Chunping, roughly Lin Xiang’s age but one of the few high school students in Lihua Brigade. She considered herself superior and, due to their shared rivalry, had always looked down on Lin Xiang, who was known in the village as lazy and good-for-nothing.

“Think about it. You’ve gone through high school, your uncle is a permanent worker at the steel plant, your mother is our brigade’s women’s director, and though your father holds no official position, he’s a skilled carpenter. With your background, you could easily be a permanent worker in town. So why on earth are you fixated on Wen Siyuan?”

“And you don’t even mind that he’s playing the field and living off others!”

Yang Lihua stiffened her neck. “That’s a complete lie! It’s just you, blinded by jealousy, trying to slander Wen Zhiqing!”

Lin Xiang stroked her nose. “Is that what Wen Siyuan told you?”

Yang Lihua said nothing, tacitly admitting it.

“Perfect!” Lin Xiang clapped sarcastically. “Don’t even talk about being a high school student. With a brain like yours, no matter how much you study, you’ll still be fooled by men! You don’t want to use your head even a little bit—no wonder you’re so easily deceived!”

“You being deceived is your own business. Don’t drag your mother into this to cause me trouble. She’s already old; aren’t you afraid of embarrassing her?”

“Lin Xiang, you, you, you…” Yang Lihua pointed at Lin Xiang but couldn’t manage a coherent sentence.

When did Lin Xiang become so eloquent?

Lin Xiang grasped Yang Lihua’s hand, pressing down her pointing finger, and spoke earnestly: “There are plenty of men in this world, far better than Wen Siyuan. If you look carefully, you can find someone who suits you in every way. That scoundrel Wen Siyuan? Even if you married him, the hard days would still lie ahead.”

“Yang Lihua, marriage is no small matter. Choosing a partner is like a woman’s second birth. Don’t you want to spend the coming decades with someone better than such a scoundrel?”

Yang Lihua was clearly taken aback by Lin Xiang’s words. She hesitated, then awkwardly said, “You used to follow Wen Siyuan around too. What you did was even worse than me!”

“Who says otherwise!” Lin Xiang slapped her thigh, growing emotional. “That’s why, after seeing his true colors, I woke right up! Look at me now—I’m capable enough to help our Lihua Brigade string telephone lines! You’re one of the few girls in our village with a high school education and your whole youth ahead. Why waste it on that scoundrel Wen Siyuan?”

Yang Lihua was momentarily at a loss for words. Lin Xiang now felt like a stranger to her.

Lin Xiang patted her shoulder. “Because we’ve been through similar things, I don’t want you to follow my old path, so I’m warning you kindly. Of course, if you find my words too blunt, you can choose to ignore me. Just don’t treat me as an enemy and keep making trouble.”

The book contains no further mention of Yang Lihua, but anyone who could fall for a scoundrel like Wen Siyuan was destined for an unhappy end.

Lin Xiang couldn’t bear to watch an innocent girl ruin her life by choosing the wrong man.

At the same time, she didn’t want Yang Lihua dragging her mother into causing her trouble either—it was too bothersome.

Having said all she wished to say, Lin Xiang ignored the complex expression on Yang Lihua’s face, shouldered her half-full basket of mushrooms, and entered the brigade headquarters, heading straight to the kitchen.

“Girl, you’re back!” The brigade leader greeted Lin Xiang warmly. “Have you decided what dishes you’ll prepare for the commune leaders and the telephone bureau staff?”

In the 1970s, when most people barely had enough to eat, a full meal was a luxury. That’s why the brigade leader valued this reception meal so much.

“Doesn’t our brigade raise chickens? I’ll catch an old hen and use half to make soup—old hen stewed with mushrooms, delicious and nutritious. The other half we can stir-fry, plus two vegetable dishes. Nothing extravagant, but enough to fill everyone up.”

By 1977, many brigades had begun large-scale poultry farming, so killing an old hen for a reception meal was not unusual, and the commune director wouldn’t object.

“All right, I’ll go catch the chicken.”

The brigade leader selected the fattest old hen from the coop, handed it to Lin Xiang for preparation. Lin Xiang held the cleaver, hesitating for a long time.

Though she was a food blogger, there was no rule that she had to slaughter her own chicken!

She usually used ingredients she could buy ready-made; killing a chicken was something she really couldn’t bring herself to do.

“Look at me—you girls haven’t experienced this kind of bloody scene. I’ll go get the chicken soup ready for you.”

“Fine, I’ll start on the stir-fries.”

Lin Xiang prepared four dishes and a soup: the soup was old hen stewed with mushrooms; the dishes included spicy diced chicken, stir-fried cucumber with eggs, hot and sour shredded potatoes, and stewed pork with vermicelli.

Since she wasn’t sure of Director Qian’s taste, Lin Xiang prepared dishes covering both strong and mild flavors. The old hen soup was a standout dish in the ’70s, and with several vegetable dishes, the meal was both proper and modest enough to avoid accusations of extravagance.

Lin Xiang cooked swiftly. By the time the telephone bureau staff finished laying the lines, the reception meal was ready.

“We won’t be eating. Serving everyone is my duty as commune director. There’s no need to go to such lengths to entertain us.”

The brigade leader hurriedly replied, “Director Qian, you’re too polite. We didn’t prepare much—just some home-style dishes by the girl. You’ve been busy all morning; it wouldn’t be right to let you go hungry.”

As Director Qian looked puzzled at who ‘the girl’ was, Lin Xiang quietly raised her right hand.

“That would be me.”