Chapter 1686 - 1087: Heroine of the Republic 61

Chapter 1686: Chapter 1087: Heroine of the Republic 61

Gu Cheng only took the sticky bean buns and didn’t want the eggs. An Yi forced them on him, so he had to accept them, but it was only after he left that she discovered he had slipped five yuan by the stove at some point—surely New Year’s money for the children. This man was actually quite courteous.

She directly handed the five yuan to An Hu: "If you need anything, go buy it yourself. If there’s nothing you want to buy, then save it up and use it to get yourself a wife in the future."

Anna was listening beside them and laughed: "If you want to be a mother‑in‑law, you’ll have to wait quite a few more years. How old is Hu Zi now?"

Born in 1940, Hu Zi was 17 this year. Although he wouldn’t officially be 17 until winter, the 20‑years‑older An Yi was already 37.

In the 1960s, when the average life expectancy was only fifty or sixty, 37 was already considered to have half a foot in the grave. It’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it fully shows the broader environment of that era. As for Hu Zi at 17, if he weren’t in school, he’d already be of an age to talk about marriage.

So the reason Anna thought he was still young was because they were all still studying. If they weren’t studying, if they faced the Yellow Soil and turned their backs to the Sky every day, they wouldn’t think this way.

"Sis, you’re always saying time pushes people into old age. If you didn’t say it, no one would think you’re already thirty‑seven. The way you look now, you’re at most in your early twenties—really, not the slightest exaggeration."

Anna wasn’t wrong. Not only her; even Angel and An Hu felt that An Yi had such a good mindset, she seemed incredibly young. There wasn’t a single wrinkle on her face, not even any spots; it was very clean. They had no idea this was the effect of the mask.

If that layer of mask were removed, they’d see the real Yishui—she wasn’t just young, she was truly beautiful. This had to do with her long‑term exercise in the space maintaining a good mindset, as well as her healthy, uplifting eating habits.

The An family women’s refusal to marry had already spread throughout the area. The gossip about their household had never stopped, and was especially nasty. Some even said An Yi was the concubine of the original owner, that the whole family had gone off to Beijing to enjoy a good life and dumped her here, and that the two daughters were definitely her illegitimate children, blah blah blah...

Of course, there were also people who thought she was ugly and didn’t deserve that family. Whenever she heard this, she just chuckled twice—counting it as a response.

"She doesn’t get married herself, but what fault do those two little sisters of hers have? Why doesn’t she let them marry either? Look at how her little sisters are all better‑looking than she is—she’s definitely jealous of them!"

Their family usually kept such a low profile that not many people knew their past. Anna and Angel weren’t pressed about their backgrounds and were actually regarded quite highly. They were even stopped on the road for blind dates more than once. There were all kinds of such bizarre incidents. Each time they refused, saying their studies came first, and in the end it all got blamed on An Yi.

Who told her to be ugly? That had already become one of the reasons everyone disliked her.

There were even shameless students at school who pointed at her nose and cursed her for being ugly, and An Yi simply brushed it off with a smile.

Ugly or beautiful, she might not have understood before, but after living through so many lives, she had long seen through it all—it’s nothing but a layer of skin.

If you’re an empty Vase, when your beauty withers, what will you have left?

An Yi’s popularity at school was actually not bad. Some people thought she was ugly and naturally didn’t like her, but most of the children respected her greatly. Even her male colleagues praised her unstintingly. This all depended on her teaching ability and her own learning. Just like Gu Cheng, who had previously hated the sight of her face—now he could treat her with a normal mindset too, couldn’t he?

After The Eighth Day of the Lunar New Year, An Yi once again set out on a journey with her two daughters. This time, the direction she chose was—Su Country.

She left the two sisters and An Hu at home to hole up and study, while she took the two little girls on a trip that would last a few months.

Mostly, hiding from winter was too boring, and Su Country was a place she’d always dreamed of, especially Su Country in this particular era.

Su Country’s long winter was even harsher than that of the Northeast. Almost every year it started snowing around early October and wouldn’t melt until after the "May Day" holiday the following year.

To get to Su Country, she first had to go to Ha City, then take the international express train from Ha City to Moscow. If departing from Beijing, you had to spend nine days and nights on the train.

Taking advantage of the barely light dawn, when there weren’t many people around, she drove the little car she’d gotten from Japan and struggled all the way from the small county to Ha City. Seeing that there was hardly anyone on the road, she didn’t stop at all and drove straight to her destination.

After arriving in Ha City, she used forged letters of introduction and red seals to assume a new identity, and first boarded the train bound for Manzhouli. Of course, she couldn’t buy sleepers, because she had no such entitlement, so she could only endure two days and nights in the icy hard seats.

When it got unbearably cold, she’d take advantage of a trip to the toilet to slip into the space, have a meal, swap for a cup of hot tea, and play with the children for a while. The two sisters were now already used to the spring‑like climate in the space. Sometimes, when she was busy and couldn’t pay attention to them, they’d cry for a while, then get tired and fall asleep on their own.

The grassland had no dangers at all, and she’d left plenty of toys and food by their side. As long as she kept an eye on their situation, under normal circumstances there was no problem. If anything did happen, she’d find a way to enter the space immediately.

When they reached Manzhouli, the train would stay for an hour. Su Country customs and border officers boarded the train to inspect, check documents, and process entry procedures.

To ride the international train, you needed either a work permit or a student dispatch certificate. She had neither, so she found a way to enter the platform as if she were seeing someone off and then used a brief burst of Invisibility Technique to get on the train and into the space.

Because the Invisibility Technique only lasted for one minute, she could only use it after entering the platform. And one minute was enough time for her to board and slip into the space.

On this train, she needed to stay for seven days, which in the space would be almost half a month, so next she could play around to her heart’s content with the two children in the space.

Of course, she also had work to do during this half month, namely sorting out all her eggs.

If necessary, she’d dispose of them all in Su Country. She hadn’t counted them carefully, but there were at least tens of thousands of them.

The reason she took the two daughters along was that if she left the children at home, the three of them probably wouldn’t be able to devote themselves wholeheartedly to their studies, so she chose to take this trouble on herself.

Once the train was pulled into the shunting yard, they changed the wheels on the cars, and the train staff were all replaced by Su Country People. The three daily meals also switched to Russian food.

After entering Su Country, she could see what was outside from within the space—

The people were Su Country People, the writing was in Russian, the streets were sparsely dotted with wooden houses, and even the dogs seemed different from those in Hua Country?

This kind of foreign atmosphere fell into An Yi’s eyes and suddenly made everything feel unfamiliar.

After that, the train exited to Su Country’s border station—Ao City Station.

During border crossing, she noticed that they also had to undergo a health quarantine, and everyone was given an injection.

The Su‑style syringes had long, thick barrels and large doses. Just seeing that needle made her scalp tingle. No wonder many people, after the shot, felt sore in their backs and legs, their whole bodies uncomfortable, as if they’d just gone through a serious illness.