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

CHAPTER 121: The 1980s Villain’s Biological Mother (14)

　　To avoid giving Auntie Zhao a chance to say anything, Mu Shuhui quickly shoveled down a few bites of food before taking the two children and leaving.

　　Auntie Zhao could only sigh. Everything else about her was fine, but she was just a little too stubborn.

　　She took a couple bites of food herself, then looked at her grandsons. Turning to the two older boys, she asked, “Jianguo, Jianqiang, haven’t you two been pestering me about wanting a mom? What do you think of that auntie just now?”

　　“No!”

　　“I don’t want a stepmother!”

　　The two children answered in unison, their little faces tense with obvious resistance.

　　All the adults told them that stepmothers were bad people. They would beat them up later and even pinch them secretly when the adults weren’t around. There was no way they wanted one!

　　Auntie Zhao was left speechless. She said helplessly, “You two really take after your father.”

　　How was a man supposed to get by without a woman to take care of him?

　　Besides, she was getting older by the day. Sooner or later, she’d reach the point where she couldn’t even get around on her own. If her son had a wife, then at least when he wasn’t around, his wife could take care of her.

　　After thinking it over, Auntie Zhao still wasn’t ready to give up. She felt Mu Shuhui was actually quite suitable for the time being.

　　After all, she was just a village girl, and a widowed mother with children at that. They could save on the bride price, and judging by how solidly built she was, she probably had plenty of strength. Household chores shouldn’t be a problem for her.

　　Just mentioning remarriage was enough to scare her into swearing that oath. She clearly wasn’t all that sharp. Someone like that would be honest and easy to handle once she married into the family, and she’d definitely treat her mother-in-law with respect.

　　The more Auntie Zhao thought about it, the more pleased she became.

　　After all, at her age, taking care of three grandchildren was already quite a strain. Having a free helping hand around the house would be perfect.

　　As long as her son agreed, there shouldn’t be any problem.

　　Her mood immediately improved.

　　Meanwhile, in the west room, Mu Shuhui was already packing.

　　After she and the two children finished washing up, she packed away everything they needed to take with them.

　　They would leave as soon as it got light the next morning.

　　This was hardly a place where they could settle down. It was clearly just another pit of trouble.

　　That Auntie Zhao was obviously trying to find her son a woman to live with and run the household for him, whether she said it outright or not.

　　Mu Shuhui had no intention of becoming anyone’s stepmother. Auntie Zhao made it sound nice, saying her son was a regiment commander, but in reality, he was away from home most of the year. This was just a way of finding a free housekeeper to take care of the whole family.

　　Wang Chaoyang and Er Ya obediently helped their mother pack. They didn’t ask questions or say much. They only knew that their mother was getting ready to take them away from this place. Whatever happened, she would never leave them behind.

　　……

　　The next morning, just as the sky was beginning to brighten, Mu Shuhui woke the two children and left with her bag.

　　It was still early, so she took the children to a larger hotel nearby.

　　She checked them in right away and got a double room for the three of them. The hotel wasn’t cheap, but the room was bright, clean, tidy, and well-equipped.

　　It was the first time the two children had ever stayed in a hotel, so they looked around curiously, touching and examining everything they saw.

　　After putting down their luggage, Mu Shuhui took the children out for breakfast.

　　Once they had eaten, the three of them wandered along the streets, taking their time looking around until it was getting close to the time she had in mind.

　　Only then did Mu Shuhui take the children back to the Zhao family’s house.

　　As luck would have it, they ran into the young man from yesterday right at the entrance.

　　He was riding a bicycle today. He smiled and stopped, then parked the bicycle off to the side.

　　“Sister-in-law, you’re up early. Going out for a stroll?”

　　“I took the children to find a hotel this morning and got us a room.”

　　Before the young man could even ask, Mu Shuhui added, “Comrade, please thank the higher-ups for me. I really appreciate their concern, but staying at someone else’s house isn’t a long-term solution. I have some money with me too, so don’t worry. I won’t end up on the streets.”

　　The young man sighed. He felt even more that she truly was a military wife. She must have been worried about causing trouble for Regiment Commander Zhao’s family, which was why she had resorted to this.

　　“All right, Sister-in-law. As it happens, I came here today to take you to see the job. Once you’ve settled into your work, you can rent a place nearby. A room in the county town only costs three or four yuan a month.”

　　Mu Shuhui smiled and nodded. “Sure. Then we’ll go take a look with you.”

　　And just like that, the two adults didn’t even step inside the Zhao family’s house before hurriedly heading off to see the workplace.

　　The job the military unit had found for Mu Shuhui was serving food at the cafeteria of a cotton mill.

　　She would spend the first month as a trainee, and after that, she could become a permanent employee. The monthly salary was thirty-five yuan, and the cafeteria provided two meals a day.

　　At a time like this, it was practically an ¹iron rice bowl.

　　After Mu Shuhui took a look at the cafeteria kitchen and the serving counter, she found the place clean, bright, and quite decent.

　　The factory provided two meals a day, lunch and dinner, so the working hours were relatively relaxed. During mealtimes, she only needed to serve food at the counter and didn’t have to handle every odd job that came up. Besides the cooks, there were other workers helping out in the kitchen. Overall, the job wasn’t particularly tiring.

　　Most importantly, this was one of the larger factories in the county town, with a large workforce. The factory had even set up a daycare center for the workers’ children, and right next door was a primary school that had been funded and built with the factory’s support.

　　As long as they were factory employees, their children could attend school for free.

　　Mu Shuhui was quite satisfied and decided on the spot.

　　For now, she planned to stay here for a while, get their household registration transferred, and let the two children start school first.

　　Summer was almost over, and she didn’t want the children to keep moving around with her. It would be better to settle down for now and make new plans after autumn, winter, and the New Year.

　　The factory dormitories were already fully occupied, and quite a few workers still didn’t have a place to live. Some were able to stay with their older relatives, while others rented rooms in the nearby alleys.

　　With the young man accompanying her, Mu Shuhui went to look at some rental places. Most of them were courtyards where individual rooms were rented out separately.

　　Each room was around ten square meters and cost three or four yuan a month.

　　Considering how cold winter could get, Mu Shuhui didn’t want to have to burn a stove in the room herself. If something went wrong, she could end up with carbon monoxide poisoning.

　　She went to look at some residential buildings near the factory’s primary school. She specifically wanted a place close to the school. That way, when winter came and the weather turned cold, it would be more convenient for the children to get to and from school.

　　The young man helped ask around and found out that the apartment buildings beside the school had been newly built at the beginning of the year.

　　There were four buildings in total, each with three units per floor and six floors altogether.

　　They had also been built by the cotton mill, but most of the residents were factory cadres and leaders, along with long-time employees who had worked there for at least eight years.

　　The apartments ranged from sixty to eighty square meters. Most had two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, and even a balcony.

　　The biggest advantage was that the buildings had radiator heating, so there was no need to burn a stove for warmth in winter.

　　Compared to the three or four yuan a month for a single rented room, the rent here was several times higher.

　　For example, an empty sixty-square-meter apartment on the third floor rented for twenty yuan a month. The larger apartments assigned to cadres could cost as much as thirty yuan a month.

　　There were several vacant apartments available, but the rent was simply too expensive, so they had remained unrented.

　　After all, ordinary factory workers only made thirty or forty yuan a month. Who would be willing to spend an entire month’s salary just to rent a place to live?

　　Mu Shuhui had her eye on the sixty-square-meter apartment on the third floor. It wasn’t too tiring to climb the stairs, and the apartment was bright and spacious, with windows in every room. From the balcony, she could see the school playground, and there was nothing blocking the view outside the windows. Overall, the view was quite nice.

　　The owner had been transferred to another post shortly after being assigned the apartment and had barely lived there. The place was clean and bright, with little inside aside from the furniture that came with the new apartment. A quick cleaning was all it needed before someone could move in.

　　Mu Shuhui asked the young man to help contact the owner so they could discuss the rental.

　　Twenty yuan a month was within her budget, but saving a little would be even better. After all, the job she had found only paid thirty-five yuan a month, so spending twenty yuan just on rent really was a bit of a luxury.

　　The young man simply assumed she wanted to give the children better living conditions, so he didn’t say much.

　　When the owner came over, the young man also helped put in a good word for her and asked if they could lower the rent a little.

　　After hearing that she was a military wife whose husband had died, leaving her to raise two children on her own, the owner felt some sympathy.

　　The apartment had been sitting vacant for nearly half a year because no one was willing to rent it. At first, the owner was prepared to offer it for eighteen yuan a month.

　　But seeing how difficult things were for the mother and her two children, he gritted his teeth and lowered the rent to the absolute minimum of sixteen yuan a month. Any lower than that, and he simply couldn’t do it.

　　Mu Shuhui readily agreed.

　　The two sides signed the rental contract, and just like that, she had a place to live.

________________

Glossary:　

¹Iron rice bowl (铁饭碗): A secure, stable job, traditionally associated with state-owned enterprises or government positions, that provides steady employment and benefits. In the context of 1980s China, such jobs were highly valued because they offered long-term job security and reliable income.

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