"No need, Aunt Hua has already packed up the steamer basket. We’ll use it again tomorrow."
"I can handle all of this now. You’ve been helping for several days, I feel quite bad about it. You should go back to school and not delay your studies."
Alright, Qin Xiangnuan was originally going to help clean up, but Aunt Hua pulled her onto the tricycle, insisting that Aunt Hua’s eldest son take her back to the village, lest she returns too late and catch a cold. Qin Xiangnuan couldn’t argue with Aunt Hua. Sitting in the tricycle, facing the cold wind, she placed her hands over her mouth, exhaling a breath of white mist, only then did her fingers feel slightly warmer.
Nuannuan is back.
The moment Granny Lu saw Qin Xiangnuan, she quickly pulled her into the house, heated up some water for her to wash her hands and face. Placing her hands in the warm water, Qin Xiangnuan finally sighed, "It’s so fortable." The chilblains on her hands still existed, but pared to last year, they were much better. She thought that next year might be lighter still, and perhaps the year after they might be healed.
In her previous life, her hands were always frostbitten until her twenties, never properly taken care of, never used any hand cream. The reason they eventually healed, she felt, might be due to the gradually warming global temperatures.
She took her hands out of the hot water, then Granny Lu carefully applied some ointment on her. This ointment was a product of its times, used for rubbing on hands though it left the hands greasy and not as refreshing as later hand creams, but it was very cheap; just a few cents each, one could last a whole winter.
In the evening, Granny Lu made a pot of cornmeal with sour pickled vegetables, adding lots of red beans to the cornmeal. The taste was particularly delicious. Even after decades, with so many other foods available, Qin Xiangnuan still cherished eating cornmeal, just like that time when she was alone, and a whole pot of it was only for her.
Even with good people, they end up isolated.
Even with delicious food, it’s just a taste savored alone.
Even good times, they merely wear down life.
Even the best age, in truth, is already threadbare like frost.
After dinner, Qin Xiangnuan intended to help Granny Lu wash the dishes, but Granny Lu brushed off any help from the kids. She insisted on taking care of all household chores herself. Having endured hardship her entire life and always been active, now even wanting to relax a bit — she simply couldn’t sit idle. Too much idle time might make her feel as though her bones were loosening.
Granny Lu was still busy outside tending to this and that. In spite of the shabby house, she kept it spotlessly clean. The yard didn’t have a single weed and included a patch of ground where she grew edible vegetables so it wouldn’t go to waste. When wanting vegetables, she could just pull some out. In the backyard, Granny Lu also raised some chickens. When the Qin siblings were in school, she would collect vegetable leaves and other greens mostly from excess crops left by other villagers in the fields. Then, she’d chop them finely at home and mix them with coarse grains to feed the chickens. These chickens had been fed for nearly a month and in a few more months, they’d start laying eggs, producing home-grown chicken eggs.
At this moment, Qin Xiangnuan was working on an embroidery frame in the system, embroidering her first plete pattern assigned by the system. The pattern was provided by the system; she just needed to follow it to embroider. Once she became proficient, she could start creating her own patterns.
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