She didn't turn on the light, but ran to the window and looked out. By the moonlight, she watched his tall figure fade into the dark night.
She turned and leaned against the wall, her heart beating wildly. After standing there for a while, she realized the scarf was still around her neck. She took it off, thinking she would wash it tomorrow and return it to him then.
She released Diandian from her space, and Diandian immediately started dashing around joyfully in the snow. Xiao Mandong didn't bother to stop it — the little thing would scratch at the door to come back in once it had enough fun.
After washing up, she lay under the covers but just couldn't fall asleep. His palm's warmth kept lingering in her mind. She pressed a hand to her own chest. What was this? A flutter of the heart? A crush?
She rolled over, burying her face in the pillow.
Living this second life, did she still need to chase after such a thing as love?
She suddenly sat bolt upright, staring at Diandian who was lying on the floor.
No, she didn't want love. She wanted a career, she wanted money, and she wanted a child that belonged only to her, nothing more. But she had to find an exceptionally excellent father for that child...
With a loud thud, she flopped back onto the pillow. Diandian gave her a reproachful, aggrieved look before closing its eyes again.
She had no idea when she drifted off to sleep. When she woke up, the sky was still dark. Xiao Mandong washed up, got herself ready, and stepped out into the snow, heading straight for the black market.
On the way, she found an empty alley with no one around and slipped into her space. She couldn't take fruits or vegetables out these days, so she grabbed some rice and wheat flour instead. The weather had turned cold, and grain supplies were bound to be tight. What's more, there would be a severe blizzard right before the New Year. She needed to find a buyer first, to see if she could exchange the grain in her hand for cash when the time came.
She had to save up as much cash as possible. In just over a year, the reform and opening-up policy would be launched. She planned to buy a small Western-style villa in Shanghai, and a siheyuan courtyard house in the capital city. She wanted to be a landlady who could live a leisurely life off rental income. The more she thought about it, the happier she became, and a smile crept onto her face before she even noticed.
"Hey," Hu Liu jumped out from behind her, "what are you grinning so widely for? Anyone who didn't know better would think you just found a pile of money."
Xiao Mandong got such a fright that she patted her chest hard. "Scaring people half to death, don't you know that?"
Hu Liu was wearing a thick military overcoat and a dog-fur hat, huddling his neck down into his collar.
"What did you come to buy this time?"
"I'm looking for Xia Mingyuan. Where is he?" She hadn't interacted much with Xia Mingyuan, but her intuition told her he was a decent person, so she wanted to talk to him about selling the grain.
"Whoa, so this comrade lady came looking specifically for my Brother Mingyuan?"
Before Hu Liu could finish his sentence, Dong Feng, who had walked up behind him, kicked him straight onto the snowy ground.
Hu Liu got up, brushing the snow off his coat, ready to cuss, but when he saw who it was, he shut his mouth immediately.
Dong Feng gave Hu Liu a glare and sighed.
"This kid doesn't have a bad bone in his body, he just can't stop chattering. Don't pay any mind to him. Mingyuan's got some family issues to sort out right now. If you've got something on your mind, you can tell me."
Looking at the girl in front of him, Dong Feng thought that it had only been a month since he last saw her, but she looked much better than before. She had put on a little bit of flesh on her face, making her look quite pretty.
Xiao Mandong followed Dong Feng to the familiar old house she had visited before. She put down her bamboo basket and untied the hemp rope fastening the bag. When Dong Feng saw the rice she had taken out, he almost dropped his jaw in shock. He scooped a handful of rice into his palm and rubbed it between his fingers. The grains were glistening, plump, and free of any sand or grit.
"This rice is really good," he nodded, putting the rice back into the bag and brushing off the non-existent chaff from his hands. "How much a jin?"
"Eighty cents a jin for the rice, sixty cents a jin for the white flour," Xiao Mandong had already thought through the price long ago.
"Deal, how much do you have?" Dong Feng agreed without hesitation. He had never seen rice of such quality before, and the price was very reasonable. There was no reason to hesitate.
"Two hundred jin of each. I'll let you know when I have more," Xiao Mandong didn't dare to take out a huge amount all at once. You could never fully know a person's true character even if you thought you knew their face, so she decided to test the waters first.
"Great, when and where should we make the trade?" Dong Feng was a little disappointed that the quantity was so small, but then he thought that grain was already in such short supply, it was already a miracle to get such high-quality stuff, so it made sense she couldn't have a huge stock.
"I'll find a place, and once I've moved the rice there, I'll bring you the key. Then you can send people over to pick it up," Xiao Mandong planned that if she wanted long-term cooperation, she would rent a remote little house to store her goods in before letting Dong Feng collect them, so no one would notice anything suspicious.
"Do you have a place in mind? If you don't, I have an empty warehouse not far from here. It's really out of the way. I can give you the key."
Dong Feng didn't want to bother arranging porters and paying extra labor fees either. He had even put mousetraps all around that warehouse, so it was perfectly safe to store rice and flour there.
"Alright, take me to see the warehouse first," Xiao Mandong agreed happily. This saved her the trouble of hunting for a rental house herself.
"Let's go, right now." Dong Feng fished the key out of a drawer and walked ahead, with Xiao Mandong following behind. Hu Liu tried to tag along, but Dong Feng shot him a glare that sent him scurrying back.
After about a ten-minute walk, they reached an open area of residential houses. One of the houses still had smoke curling up from its chimney.
Dong Feng pointed at the smoking house. "That's Xia Mingyuan's place. The one next to it is mine. We grew up as neighbors. This other house belongs to my uncle, and I rented it out to use as a warehouse."
Xiao Mandong started to regret it. They lived so close by. If they never saw her hauling any grain over, how was she supposed to explain that the warehouse was suddenly full of rice? But now that she was here, it would be awkward to say the place wouldn't work.
Well, if it really came down to it, she could give Bowen a chance to earn some money, so that the brother and sister pair could live a little more comfortably.
They had just finished sorting everything out and were about to leave, when Xia Mingyuan came rushing out of his yard, carrying an old lady on his back.
"Brother Feng, hurry up, my grandma has passed out!" Xia Mingyuan spotted Dong Feng at once and yelled for him to help.
Dong Feng rushed over in a few strides to support the old woman from behind Xia Mingyuan. Xiao Mandong looked at the old lady: her face was flushed dark red, her lips were purple, her breathing was ragged and shallow, and though she had fainted unconscious, her whole body was tensed up stiff.
She immediately reached out and grabbed Xia Mingyuan to stop him.
"You can't carry her running like that. Her qi has rushed up and blocked her heart orifice. The air is stuck in her chest and can't get through. If you move her now, her blood will surge upward too fast, and at best she'll never wake up again, at worst it'll be fatal. Take her inside and lay her flat on the bed first."
The woman who ran out after Xia Mingyuan went deathly pale the second she heard that.
Xia Mingyuan didn't hesitate at all. He turned around and carried his grandma back inside, laying her down on the kang bed.
He didn't even know why, he had only met this girl a few times, but he felt an instinctive, unshakable trust in her.
Xiao Mandong followed them inside. There were shattered bowls and plates scattered on the floor, clear signs that a fierce quarrel had just broken out.
Hiding the movement under her coat, she took out a set of silver acupuncture needles from her space. Xia Mingyuan lit a candle, and she ran the needles over the flame twice to sterilize them. With a quick twist of her fingers, the needles landed precisely in the renzhong acupoint, the hegu acupoint, and several other critical points.
Xia Mingyuan stood to the side, not daring even to breathe too loudly.
After finishing the acupuncture, she used the excuse of fetching water to slip a small bowl of spiritual spring water out of her space, and fed it to the old lady one spoonful at a time. A few minutes later, Grandma Xia slowly opened her eyes.
