Transmigration: On the Gossip Front

Early in the morning, the four of them of course first went to the entrance of the village to wait for the ox cart. After all, they were going to the commune to handle affairs; they couldn’t keep the village chief waiting.

The four of them were yawning. Yesterday, when they got to the house they’d be living in for the next few years, they didn’t go straight to rest, because it was really full of dust inside. There was no way to rest properly. What else could they do?

Of course they had to clean the house first. Compared to Qian Hao and the others, who only needed to clean their own rooms, Zhang Yu had an extra task—helping Zhang Hui clean hers.

After they finished cleaning, Zhang Yu and the others suddenly remembered something: they couldn’t even take a bath if they wanted to—no bathtub, and not even a washbasin. Sigh.

Zhang Yu was still fine; she’d already anticipated this, so she simply took out some wet wipes and wiped herself down casually, just waiting to go to the commune today to buy things.

"I did the math. I need one bathtub on my side, one basin for washing feet, one for washing my face, one for washing my butt, then another one for washing clothes, and one for washing vegetables."

"Oh, the vegetable-washing basin, we’ll share that one."

"And a kang table, two cabinets, plus a wardrobe." Zhang Yu had already quickly figured out everything she needed yesterday.

Zhao Yadong was quite startled by how big Zhang Yu was thinking, "You need that much stuff?"

Zhang Hui was also puzzled. Did she really need so many?

"Of course I do. For hygiene. The foot basin, butt basin, and face basin have to be separate, right? And the clothes basin and vegetable basin definitely also have to be separate. You can’t mix them together." Zhang Yu made it clear that, on her side, they were going to be separated.

Back then Zhang Hui had always used the same basin for washing her feet and her butt. She originally thought that was fine too, but now she’d just learned they needed to be separate. Hmph, they used to all share one basin, and she’d never complained. Now that Zhang Yu has a bit of money, she’s all smug about it.

Exactly, Zhang Hui just felt that Zhang Yu got some money and now she’s floating, getting all showy. Once the money’s gone, she’ll behave.

Zhang Hui knew Zhang Yu still had money in hand right now, so she really could toss it around as much as she wanted. Zhang Hui was just waiting to see what Zhang Yu would do once she had no money left—how would she still toss it then?

Zhang Yu didn’t know what Zhang Hui was thinking, and even if she did, she wouldn’t care. Come on, she gets money every month, plus what Zhang Fu and the others give her. Why let it sit there? Of course she wasn’t going to wrong herself.

As for startup capital for later, that had long been taken care of. After all, the jewelry and accessories the Ge Family gave were quite a lot.

But Zhang Yu had checked those pieces of jewelry; they really weren’t anything top-tier, just some ordinary stuff. With a family like the Ge Family, and a name like Ge Ban Cheng’s, to keep a daughter back, shouldn’t they at least leave her something good?

Then again, she was just a daughter. For the Ge Family, they were never short of daughters. If they had really cared about this girl, back before the 60s they would’ve had plenty of chances to bring her back, but they never took any action at all.

Still, the ten big yellow croaker fish pleased her very much. If luck was on her side, those might be enough to trade for a three-entry siheyuan courtyard house.

That’s right, she wasn’t planning to do business. Once she started doing business, it would be easy for Zhang Fu and the others to lock onto her and make her "take care of the family."

If the business got big, who knew—once the Ge Family came back looking for relatives, Zhang Hui would be the one shining in all directions again.

She just wanted to make money quietly. Hee-hee-hee, keep a low profile, lie flat and eat melon seeds. In short, she absolutely must not let the Zhang Family have any opportunity to cling to the Ge Family.

Zhang Hui yawned. "I just hope the commune has a full range of supplies."

Zhang Yu didn’t care, really didn’t care. She was already well stocked. Although she couldn’t bathe yesterday, at least she filled her stomach. She ate a box of self-heating rice and then a self-heating hotpot. This morning she had pineapple buns and shrimp dumplings, so she was feeling very satisfied.

Zhang Hui’s stomach was loudly protesting in all sorts of ways. She hadn’t eaten anything last night, and she hadn’t eaten anything this morning either. Seeing that Zhang Yu didn’t look hungry at all, she asked, "Sis, aren’t you hungry?"

"I am hungry." Zhang Yu knew why Zhang Hui was asking. "You can’t keep thinking about being hungry. Otherwise you’ll just feel like your stomach is protesting nonstop."

"All kinds of protests. Don’t think about it. You have to comfort yourself: once we get to the commune, you won’t be hungry anymore." Zhang Yu kept suggesting this to Zhang Hui.

Listening to Zhang Yu, Zhang Hui did her best not to think about her hunger, but it was no use. Her stomach kept making protest sounds; there really was no way to ignore it.

"Then there’s nothing else to do." Zhang Yu spread her hands helplessly. "That’s exactly how I comfort myself."

"Forget it, it’ll be fine once we get to the commune. I just don’t know how good the cook over there is, and whether they even have pots." Zhang Yu switched topics.

"If they don’t have pots, we’ll have to go to the city." If possible, Zhang Yu actually didn’t want to go to the city. Even though the supply and marketing cooperative in the city was bigger, the travel time was much longer.

More importantly, the road conditions were really awful. It was like getting your butt shaken to pieces the whole way. A round trip in one day was seriously exhausting on the body.

"True." Zhao Yadong thought about the road from the city to the county. "It really is super bumpy."

Right then, Zhang Hui suddenly realized a problem. "There’s a bus from the village entrance to the city, so the bus we rode yesterday—did it pass through here?"

"If it passed here, shouldn’t it have just dropped us off directly?" Zhang Hui asked a very critical question.

On this question, Zhang Yu could only say, "I don’t know. I fell asleep later on yesterday."

"I didn’t pay attention either." Sandwiched in the middle and with the blazing sun, they were all dizzy and woozy; how could they notice that kind of detail?

Qian Hao said with certainty, "It didn’t pass here."

"And even if it did pass here, we’d still have to go to the county first. The Youth Corps Office there has to do a handover procedure." Qian Hao didn’t know why it had to be that way, but it was a paperwork issue.

Fine, paperwork issue. Once that explanation was out, everyone shut up. The Youth Corps Office these days was also a powerful department. Just then, they heard the sound of an ox; they knew the ox cart had arrived.

Today Wang Ji was driving the cart to the commune to pick up goods, and he didn’t expect to see Zhang Yu and the others. "It’s ten cents per trip on the ox cart. You’ll have to pay for the ride back too."

"Okay." Zhang Yu didn’t mind. Even though it cost money, at least it meant they didn’t have to exhaust themselves. Yesterday they’d walked from the commune to the village in over an hour, proving they could walk it, but it was really tiring.

After the four of them quickly paid, they quietly got onto the ox cart. Once aboard, Zhang Yu started chatting away with Wang Ji. Although Zhao Yadong was also exhausted and, rocked back and forth on the ox cart, really wanted to fall asleep, he needed to know what exactly Zhang Yu was saying to the village chief.

So he really listened the entire way. His admiration for Zhang Yu kept growing. She could literally talk about anything. Zhao Yadong glanced at Qian Hao; he’d originally thought Qian Hao would fall asleep, since this morning he’d said he hadn’t rested well.

"Pretty impressive, huh?" Zhao Yadong asked in a low voice.

Qian Hao grunted, "Impressive."