She Only Cares About Cultivation

Chapter 1630: Chapter 1069: Heroine of the Republic 43 (6000+)_4

Since it’s pregnant, it can’t be left unattended, but it won’t be allowed to run around anymore. I’ll just tie it at the front door to watch the house.

Generally speaking, a dog can give birth two months after getting pregnant. However, it hasn’t had its period before, so this pregnancy is quite puzzling. But Nuts is not young anymore; it has been with her for two or three years, and considering an eight-year lifespan, it is indeed an adult now.

She has already moved the chickens from the coop into her space and relocated them to the county courtyard, including the chicken coop. Anyway, she didn’t miss anything that could be removed or relocated, not leaving anything useful for them.

In Liu Family’s old house, aside from bedding and ragged clothes, there’s nothing else. Whenever she goes out, she takes the pots and pans into her space because their courtyard walls are low, and there are always people trying to sneak in and steal things. She’s caught them not just once or twice, so what’s left there is just some junk.

All the grain she stored in the county’s cellar, a feature typical of the Northeast. Every household has a cellar, and some even have secret cabinets. Just like the An family nowadays, she has discovered several hidden compartments around the house, but of course, there’s nothing inside. With space available, these compartments are unnecessary even if they exist.

Away from the village, with a courtyard of their own, there’s no restriction on what to eat. Each morning, everyone has an egg, and the two kids have egg custard with milk. They make pancakes, porridge, or steam mixed grain steamed buns, flower rolls, and oil rolls. Pancakes are all possible. The standard for meals is to eat well and eat enough, with only the evening meal being a bit of porridge just for formality. Breakfast and lunch are always of high quality and quantity.

That’s pretty good considering, during the "cat winter" season, many families have only two meals a day or even only one meal, because without work, even meals become a calculation.

If you don’t do this, the grain might not last until the next harvest.

Although money can buy grain, it is high-priced grain, and most families wouldn’t waste grain and money like that.

So every day, they plan carefully how much to eat, and even a little more is unacceptable.

Come spring, everywhere people dig for wild herbs, dry them, and sometimes don’t even waste tree leaves, just to gather more.

An Yi goes home after finishing her class at An Yi Village School to water the ground, apply some fertilizer, and pluck some sweet potato leaves. She buys some fresh chives or toona sinensis from villagers, which doesn’t cost much. Five cents will last them a week, very cheap and practical, because people are even eager to exchange these for money with her!

Of course, wild herbs and toona sinensis are eaten for their freshness and seasonality. Once the season is over, they might not be available anymore. So whenever someone comes to her, she takes it all in, and at worst puts it in her space, where it won’t spoil, right?

Therefore every time she leaves, her bamboo basket is always full. This is why she takes special care of her neighbors, so they can help watch over her vegetables, preventing theft.

Besides toona sinensis, locust flowers, Yun Qian, willow tips, winter melon and pumpkin tips, there’s shepherd’s purse from the mountain grove, Chenopodium album, and purslane commonly seen in the cornfields. After the famine season, these wild herbs grow in abundance come spring and summer. In the days without pesticides, even if people go out every day with baskets to pick them, they can’t finish them.

Purslane steamed with dough and dipped in garlic juice is incredibly flavorful.

Sweet potatoes are treasures all over; sweet potato stems are stir-fried, sweet potato leaves paired with cornmeal can be steamed into rolls or made into pancakes, offering plenty of ways to eat.

Despite the hardship of this era, it is the most natural and pollution-free time. Even the children have no study pressure, as after school, they play and do chores like picking up firewood or cutting pig grass. Everyone knows what to do and never thinks of slacking off, because not working means getting beaten and having no food. Raising children is about having labor, not nurturing them into talents.

This is the biggest difference between this era and the later generations because there aren’t many costs. The later generations are different, waking up means money, money, money; without money, it’s hard to move an inch. In this era, even without money, if you’re willing to work, generally, you won’t starve.

The An Yi family’s meals are not all great. Besides the two kids, the three others still eat coarse grains without interruption. Of course, they also drink eggs and milk. Therefore, while others look pale and unhealthy, only the An family appears to have healthy bodies.

"Today, our math teacher fainted in class from hunger. He has heavy family burdens, not only supporting a big family but also being divided by his forty-yuan salary with his brothers back at his old home,"

Such situations are prevalent, at least to An Yi, very common, not to mention these teachers. In the early days of the Republic, before the first census, there was a severe shortage of jobs in the city, so rural areas started recruiting workers into the City. These positions were nominated by the whole family, so whoever went into the City had to provide corresponding compensation to their brothers in the countryside. But during difficult times, those trimmed from the workforce were mostly those with heavy family burdens. The priority was families where one person had an urban residency and others were rural residences.

An Yi can’t save everyone because, in this era, there are too many who foolishly practice filial piety, preferring to let wives and children starve just to help parents and brothers. Plus, there’s male-preference thinking, leading to more than just the abandoned An Ran sisters dying unjustly.

As for An Yi, her only blemish might be being sold to the Old Forest for a shared wife role, but that only matters if they can uncover it. No matter how stressful the situation gets, she has ways to protect their small plot of land and ensure her children’s safety.

Why has she been so low-key these years? It’s nothing but fear of those turbulent years spreading to them. Otherwise, given her skills, what couldn’t she obtain?

Nowadays, Japan’s population is already slowing down thanks to her impact. The population decreases year by year, and before the 21st century, this sinful nation will be swallowed and broken by the great countries.

Time is the ultimate witness to everything.

She often doesn’t return to the village, so the captain thought something was wrong and came to the school to inquire.

"No problem, Captain. I have no issues. Since I’ve let go of the house, why should I care about what others say about me? You know since I came to the village, there have been plenty of rumors about me. Isn’t it true that First Middle School arranged a room for the three of us sisters to temporarily live in? Once I find a house to rent, we’ll move out. This can save time. We will still live in the village house, but now there’s no place at home to renovate, so we’ll live in the city first!"