Time-Travel: The Tragic Cannon Fodder Female Supporting Character Makes a Comeback

CHAPTER 60: The 1960s Marriage Swap: Marrying a Cook (14)

　　Ye Liu had sweet-talked the Ye family into believing quite a bit, painting a picture of how promising Tan Jun would be in the future and how the whole family would eventually enjoy the benefits. Even her strict mother-in-law wouldn’t last forever, and sooner or later the household would be hers to run. The Ye family actually got persuaded by her words.

　　But things kept shifting. Tan Jun still hadn’t returned, and Ye Liu was starting to panic. Worried something might change, she gritted her teeth and decided to head straight to the military unit to find him.

　　After quite a bit of persuading, she managed to squeeze fifteen yuan out of her mother and boarded a train to the army base, determined to get married.

　　But when she arrived, she was stunned.

　　It turned out that during a mission, one of Tan Jun’s comrades had died saving him. The comrade’s wife came with a child causing a scene, claiming she was a helpless widow with no one to rely on, and shockingly insisted on marrying into Tan Jun’s family so he would support her and the child.

　　Ye Liu couldn’t stand it and ended up fighting that woman in the military housing compound. In the end, she was reprimanded.

　　Tan Jun felt humiliated and never even brought up the marriage again.

　　He himself couldn’t accept marrying a divorced woman either. In the end, after coordination through the organization, he agreed to raise his fallen comrade’s child until adulthood and send five yuan a month to the comrade’s elderly parents as living support.

　　Everyone else seemed satisfied with the arrangement, except Ye Liu, who ended up in the worst situation of all.

　　Tan Jun was busy with work and simply left the child in her care. To smooth things over, he hastily registered the marriage with her.

　　Then he sent her back to her hometown with the child.

　　She did get married in the end, but she also became a mother overnight.

　　——

　　Ye Bai went to the county town for his medical examination, and Hao Wenfang brought Ye Su along as well, planning to take her daughter for a full check-up at the hospital too.

　　The three of them set off together. When they reached the town by ox cart, Ye Su even stopped by to see Duan Ziyu for a bit and gave him his daily candy.

　　Duan Ziyu chatted with Ye Bai for a while and handed him two jars of sauce, one chili sauce and one pickled savory sauce. “The food out there isn’t always great. These’ll help,” he said.

　　Ye Bai was deeply moved and gave him a big hug, telling him to take good care of Ye Su and that he would definitely come to their wedding when the time came.

　　After that, the three of them took a bus to the county town.

　　By the time they arrived, it was already noon. Ye Bai rushed off to the examination site, and after passing the physical examination, he went straight to registration.

　　Hao Wenfang and Ye Su also headed to the county hospital.

　　Ye Su had already taken the recovery pill, so there was no way anything was wrong with her body. Still, to put her mother’s mind at ease, she cooperated fully with the check-up.

　　The doctor’s exam was quick and simple, taking less than half an hour. Everything came back normal, no issues at all.

　　Only then did Hao Wenfang finally feel satisfied.

　　Meanwhile, Ye Bai finished his registration, and his assignment notice also came down.

　　The assignment was far away, on the border region, and he had to set off by train that very night.

　　When Hao Wenfang came back and heard the news, her eyes turned red. She grabbed her son’s hand and kept reminding him over and over.

　　“You troublesome boy, once you’re out there, behave yourself. Don’t go stirring up trouble, but don’t let others bully you either. If something dangerous comes up, run if you can. Don’t just act all reckless. Once you leave your parents, you’re an adult now…”

　　Ye Bai wasn’t afraid of danger, but seeing his mother like that, he still broke down a little and hugged her, crying for a moment.

　　Ye Su, who was standing nearby, also wiped away her tears.

　　Truthfully, going to the border wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. There were more missions there, mostly guarding posts. It might be tough, but at least soldiers would have food to eat and clothes to wear.

　　After chatting a while longer with his mother and sister, Ye Bai prepared to head to the reporting point. Before leaving, Ye Su slipped him a small cloth bag and told him to keep it with him. She said it could help his body recover if he got injured.

　　She had made it the night before inside her space, using protein powder and fruit glucose with vitamin C, then mixing in three crushed recovery pills to form candy-like tablets. It filled about half a small cloth bag.

　　In this era, being a soldier still came with some danger. Having something on hand for emergencies could really be a lifesaver.

　　“Second brother, I worked really hard on this. I even added herbs I picked from the mountains. You’ve got to keep it with you at all times,” Ye Su said.

　　Ye Bai was so moved his eyes turned red. He rubbed his little sister’s head and said, “You’re really the best sister ever. I got it, I’ll keep it on me all the time.”

　　After saying their goodbyes, Ye Bai’s eyes were red. He quickly wiped his face, then turned and jogged off without looking back.

　　Hao Wenfang was feeling awful too and sat by the roadside for a long while to calm herself down.

　　Ye Su stayed with her. Once her mood improved a bit, she took her mother to eat a bowl of noodles.

　　They had eaten breakfast earlier, but lunch had been delayed, so both of them were hungry by then.

　　While eating, Ye Su’s sharp ears caught two cooks nearby sighing and muttering.

　　They were complaining about tighter food supply controls again, saying that in some villages in Henan where their wives came from, this year’s wheat harvest was full of empty husks.    

　　Ye Su’s brows twitched slightly. She had been living in the Ye family where food was always enough, never having gone hungry, so she had almost forgotten about this.

　　Right now, it was still a famine-prone period. Everyone depended on a good autumn harvest to get through winter. If something went wrong with the harvest this season, winter wouldn’t just mean rising prices, it might even mean having money but no food to buy.

　　After finishing their noodles, Ye Su paid and took her mother straight home.

　　Once they got back, she told the family about her concerns.

　　The Ye family took it seriously right away and immediately started digging the cellar deeper and stocking up on winter supplies.

　　In this era, most of the harvested grain had to be handed over as state quota grain. After that, what was left over was what they had to live on. Luckily, this year’s soybean harvest was decent, so together it was still enough for the whole family.

　　To prepare for possible price increases later on, the Ye family gathered all their ration tickets and went to the town and county to stock up on essentials.

　　Things like matches, flashlights, salt, sugar, seasoning, needles and thread, as well as items like clam oil and soap.

　　Ye Su also reminded Duan Ziyu. As a cook who worked closely with ingredients every day, he had already started noticing some signs himself.

　　His family wasn’t short on money or ration tickets, and Luo Meiling also began making preparations accordingly.    

　　A few days later, just as expected, prices really did start to rise. Some goods even became limited, and even having both money and ration coupons wasn’t enough.

　　Workers in town were complaining nonstop.

　　As for the rural families, they had already gone through the earlier famine years. Each household guarded their grain carefully, rationing food by headcount every day and preparing early for winter.

　　After the harvest, the weather gradually turned colder. Most villagers stayed home, while a few carried baskets into the mountains to dig up wild vegetables.

　　Duan Ziyu had been busy with work lately and only came by once every three or four days. Ye Su, on the other hand, couldn’t stay idle at home at all. She grabbed her second brother’s hunting tools and followed the older women up the back hills almost every day.

　　At first, Hao Wenfang and Tian Daniu were worried and kept following her. But later, they realized Ye Su was as quick as a little monkey, even more agile than them, and with the village women keeping her company, they gradually let her roam freely.

　　The reason Ye Su was so fixated on going up the mountain was because she had been using her space’s “treasure detection” ability and had found quite a few good things.

　　Sometimes, when the aunties weren’t looking, she would quietly slip deeper into the mountains.

　　She had her second brother’s crossbow slung on her back, and in her hand she carried a long wooden stick.

　　Inside her space, she had also stored a shovel and a few digging tools she packed before heading out.

　　Over the past few days, she had quietly found quite a lot of things, even digging up some ginseng. Not only were they valuable tonics, they also had high medicinal worth.

　　In short, no matter what era it was in, these kinds of things were always worth a lot.

　　So every day, Ye Su would sneak up the mountain to dig them up. Once she found something, she would immediately store it in her space for safekeeping. 

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