Married to a Disabled Man in the 70’s

Because Su Jiaojiao was injured, Zhao Sisi went to the town to buy some snacks and pastries for her the next morning: “I’m sorry, it’s my fault you’re hurt. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have been involved in this.”

Zhao Sisi felt it was her responsibility and was full of guilt.

Su Jiaojiao knew that it wasn’t Zhao Sisi’s fault and wanted to refuse it, but she ran away after giving the snacks. Su Jiaojiao couldn’t run due to her twisted ankle, so she could only accept it.

Zhao Sisi gave her mung bean cake and chestnut cake. The taste wasn’t bad. Su Jiaojiao liked them a lot, but she still preferred the snacks from the system.

But the matchmaker system was a straight-up b̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲. You can only get one small snack a day, and it was only the kind that could be eaten in a single bite.

To think it had showed her some oden and grilled meat before as a demonstration.

Sadly, she could only eat one skewer per day, and she had almost finished the spicy strips of meat she obtained from a previous mission[1]. She had shared the spicy anchovies, also from a previous mission, with family members.

So she was running out of snacks.

Fortunately, Su Jiaojiao was rich. She was reluctant to use the marriage fund of one yuan a day, but she would splurge to buy a few things here or there. That was why she could still eat a lot of snacks.

She hadn’t claimed her small snack of the day yet. Since there wasn’t anyone in the home aside from her, Su Jiaojiao silently called up the matchmaker system. When she blinked, a grilled lamb skewer that seemed to be steaming hot appeared in her hands.

Su Jiaojiao took a deep breath and took a bite with satisfaction. Delicious!

…

Using the form of something to help reinforce something is a common practice in China.[2] Since Su Jiaojiao’s ankle was hurt, she had to drink bone-reinforcing soup.

Song Qinghan took the time to go to the town to buy two bobbin bones, two trotters, and some meat. All of these were Su Jiaojiao’s favorites.

The bobbin bones would be used for the bone-reinforcing soup, and the others would be braised.

The two hens in the family laid one or two eggs every day. Those eggs were quite large, but not all of them were double-yolk eggs[3]. Every two or three days, an especially large egg would pop out. When you cracked it open, more often than not, it would have two yolks.

The two of them would save up those eggs and eat them all at once. As it was September, some foods wouldn’t spoil as quickly.

Since she asked her two brothers for help yesterday, Su Jiaojiao asked Song Qinghan to send a portion of the food to them.

The two sisters-in-law looked at the fragrant stewed pork and the thick and delicious bone soup on the table, and then looked at the coarse grain rice they initially prepared. They finally realized that the food situation of the family had improved all because of Su Jiaojiao. Zhang Qing looked strange for a moment, then whispered, “Mom, I plan to make two pairs of slippers for my little sister and brother-in-law. What are their shoe sizes?”

Sun Fang looked at her eldest daughter-in-law with some joy in her eyes and said with a smile: “Jiaojiao is size 35. I’m not sure about Song Qinghan’s, but his shoe size should be about my eldest son’s. You can make them a little bit bigger. It’s not too big of a deal if the slippers are slightly oversized.”

“Ok.” Zhang Qian nodded.

Sun Fang smiled and said, “Jiaojiao gave some more cloth before. I’ll bring some to you later. Make a pair for yourself.”

Zhang Qian suddenly laughed, “Thank you, mom.”

She now understood, even if the younger sister really took advantage of her, she would not truly suffer.

…

After a quick meal, Song Qinghan went to work.

He had to finish his work ahead of time to cook for Jiaojiao when he came back.

Now that they had everything they needed at home, and his culinary skills had improved, Song Qinghan didn’t want to trouble his parents-in-law.

Su Jiaojiao continued to take a nap.

When she woke up, there were three more children in the yard.

Dabao happily came to help her: “Auntie, grandma told us to come and take care of her.”

Su Jiaojiao was embarrassed, let the three children take care of her? Why does her mother say those kinds of things…

She hopped into the kitchen while carrying Dabao, intending to get something to eat for them and herself. Of course, it was not a proper meal, just a snack.

After looking at the pantry, she found that it would be most convenient to make rice noodle rolls. She let Dabao light the fire, and Erbao and Xiaobao moved the firewood.

Before, Su Jiaojiao had wanted to build an oven out of brick. She had seen a blogger’s instructional video on the Internet about making an oven in her past life, but she didn’t think she would be able to use it so she forgot the information contained in it. Su Jiaojiao also didn’t know whether or not Song Qinghan would be able to make an oven.

Having three children accompanying her was better than being home alone. At the very least, she could converse with them.

She made several portions of rice rolls and asked Dabao to give one to Zhao Sisi next door.

Zhao Sisi still hadn’t gone to work. Su Jiaojiao thought she was in no mood to work and was slacking off, but as her family was enormous even by that era’s standards, she could afford to do so.

When the other villagers had finished working, Song Qinghan had already returned to prepare the food. He let the three children stay over to eat with them.

After finishing the meal, Song Qinghan went to wash the dishes. Su Jiaojiao vaguely heard someone crying in the village. The cry was sorrowful, and it was many times sadder than Mother Song’s wailing.[4]

The sound made her a little disturbed, so she said, “Dabao, can you go and see who is crying?”

“Okay!” Dabao departed quickly and returned after a while. He wrinkled his face and said, “It’s the person working in the bullpen. The old man broke his leg…”

The bullpen?

Su Jiaojiao thought about it carefully. She soon remembered that there was a man in their village in the original owner’s memory who had been sent from the city to here. Apparently, he had committed a crime. He also brought a teenage granddaughter with him.

For several years, the old man and his granddaughter had kept their heads down and took care of the cow very well. Most of the people in the village weren’t inherently evil, so except for the first few years where they were treated suspiciously, they weren’t mistreated at all.

This old man…Su Jiaojiao doesn’t know what the situation is, but he most likely wasn’t a criminal. Some people were framed, others were misjudged, and now they had become like this…

Su Jiaojiao was thinking about it when she suddenly felt that the sorrowful voice seemed a lot closer to them.

She hopped ]to the doo when she saw a person wearing a heavily-patched clothes kneeling at every door she came across, begging them for borrow some money. She would chop wood to recompensate or return the money to them in the future.

Some people would give a little, and some would say a few perfunctory words.

The person didn’t beg further, but just cried and said two words of thanks. Then, she went to pull a cart over to the next house. Her speed was not slow, and it even felt a little anxious. Her thin and fragile body looked like it’d fall down any time.

On the cart was a bony old man, whose legs were covered with blood, as if he was dying.

This scene was a huge shock to Su Jiaojiao, who grew up in a sheltered society.

From memory, Su Jiaojiao knew that this was a girl, but looking at herappearance, she couldn’t tell her gender at all. That was because she was too thin, and her face was too dirty.

Su Jiaojiao shouted to the kitchen, “Qinghan!”

Song Qinghan came out immediately.

Su Jiaojiao said softly, “Go and get ten dollars.”

Song Qinghan took out the money decisively.

The next one she was going to beg for money happened to be their home.

However, a young man who watched the excitement awkwardly said, “Don’t go, this shrew can be stingy, and didn’t even give money to her own mother-in-law. So how would she give you anything?

When the young man finished speaking, he was punched by Daniu and shut his mouth aggrievedly.

The girl hesitated, bloodshot eyes looked at Su Jiaojiao, and whispered, “Could you lend me a little money…”

They couldn’t afford to pay back money, so they dare not borrow more than they needed. They could pay off the money incrementally if they asked every household for not more than a few cents.

“Wait a minute.” after Su Jiaojiao said that, the girl’s eyes lit up, and she looked at her cautiously with expectation.

When Song Qinghan gave her the money, Su Jiaojiao gave it to her directly. “Take it and go to the hospital.”

The young man who had been speaking did not believe Su Jiaojiao would actually lend the money, so when he saw that scene, his eyes went wide, his face blushed, and he was shocked. Why did this shrew suddenly become generous?

Armos D. Platypus: …I’m confused. So Chappie 61 was talking about a mission from the Matchmaker system, and this chapter what happened? These are the same chapter, just split because I can’t do that much as once, so I really appluad the author on the poor chappie formatting.

[1] See TinkerReleases for that bit.

[2] True up til this day.

[3] Apparently, they bring good luck. I did not know that.

[4] Actually, this is a decent comparison…I think…