Rebirth in the 50s: The Couple with the Hidden Space novel Chapter 30

Chapter 30: Chapter 20: Signs Begin to Emerge (Part 1)

Zhang Guoqing rubbed his forehead and turned to enter the bedroom, not knowing if Jiao Jiao had woken up. He hadn’t properly spent time with his son, busy for half a day. Quietly going in, he found that neither of them had slept.

"Oh~ my little wife, your husband is so pitiful~ holding a steamed bun and not a drop of oil in the dish... tears keep flowing down..."

Zhou Jiao chuckled, looking at the child’s eyes in her arms, she said, "Baby, look at your dad, isn’t he pitiful? Shouldn’t our baby comfort daddy?"

Zhang Guoqing quickly came to the bed, sat down, and hugged Jiao Jiao, "Baby, I am daddy. Baby, daddy finally sees you awake, why do you sleep so much, huh? Are you full? Daddy is so pitiful, not even as happy as the baby with milk to drink."

Zhou Jiao leaned against him with their son in her arms, "You’ve been to quite a few places today, haven’t you? Move this small table over here, I’ll put things down. I had chicken soup noodles for lunch, nobody will smell it. This time you have honey-glazed chicken leg fast food, I don’t even remember when I bought it, I got bored this morning and reorganized the space, with roast chicken, eat more."

Zhang Guoqing stood up, returned to the small living room, and closed the door, moved the small table over, "Put the son aside, don’t hold him. Holding in confinement will cause arm pain and develop bad habits, making it tiring to carry yourself later."

Seeing her conjure up a cup of soup with the fast food box, he drooled, yesterday after traveling through time, his taste was almost gone from fear.

Zhou Jiao saw him swallowing his hunger and felt heartbroken that this fool wouldn’t buy something to eat in the city, even though he had tickets and money, that corn porridge was painful to swallow just remembering it.

"Are you dumb? You should’ve eaten your fill in the city before coming back. Next time, make sure you eat before returning, otherwise, you’ll mess up your stomach with gastritis while you’re young."

Finally able to eat a few mouthfuls, Zhang Guoqing quickly drank the soup, "In the morning at my second sister’s, I had 2 buns, then delayed a bit at the Zhou Family. When I got home, I was starving, but all there was was cornmeal buns and corn porridge, everything was corn. So I had to bear with it, eating a bun and drinking a bowl of corn porridge, dad still handed me another bun and I almost cried. The pickles were so salty I’d want to strangle whoever sells salt; it was deadly salty but I ate it all."

Zhou Jiao pointed to herself, "As for me, I was silly too; I just wouldn’t eat, and only when I couldn’t stand it anymore did I force myself to swallow, afraid to tell you. The family just thinks I have a small appetite. Eating with grandma at the Zhou Family, the older folks only eat soft things."

Zhang Guoqing quickly finished his meal, asking Zhou Jiao to gather everything into the space, opened the door to the small living room to let the smell dissipate, "No wonder you’ve grown so thin, good thing you returned quickly, otherwise you’d be unable to recover from such bodily losses.

Comparing her to the village women now, her body shudders at the thought, she’d rather listen to her husband’s orders, pointing where he says goes. "Fine, I’ll listen to you, I’ll just nest here and won’t return."

Zhang Guoqing gently stroked her hair. "Alright, let’s stop talking about this. We need to find a way to buy grain, next we’ll be most short on grain. It’s not just us, but parents, four brothers and sisters above — we can’t let them eat bark while we eat well. I suppose coarse grains will suffice."

Zhou Jiao was worried from his words, she thought if she’d known about the time travel she’d have bought hundreds of tons of rice. "Where would we buy grain from? In the city, they eat their allotted supplies, rural places are even lacking."

"Let me share my plan, listen to it first, okay? Here’s what I’m thinking; Huang Yaoguo, my eldest sister-in-law’s brother, drives for a factory, I’ll find him to see if we can buy some defected cloth, then contact his elder brother in the supply and sales shop for internal defect items, plus half of our brown sugar kept for personal use. Everything would be priced below supply shop rates, sneaking into distant rural areas to exchange for grain, we don’t want money, just grain, whether fine or coarse.

Even now, with money, buying grain from the black market is still possible. Keep 1000 from the money you have, change the rest into grain. Once your confinement ends, and I fully grasp the city’s situation, we’ll act, having the space makes things much safer."

Zhou Jiao kept nodding as she listened, thinking it’s doable, nothing more important than grain, but for safety, she had her opinion, "I agree with everything you’ve said, just exchanging grain like that can’t be done too frequently, don’t forget you still need to go to work. If you frequently skip work, people will notice."