Reborn to Strive

Guan Baiyu had faith in the words Shi Zhen spoke to him, and trusted that Shi Zhen wanted to treat him well. After the first time Shi Zhen came to look for him, Guan Baiyu had inquired after Shi Zhen’s affairs, and for the past several days he had watched Shi Zhen.

    His own life was very substandard. He was nigh on unable to eat anything decent, and he could see that Shi Zhen’s life was not particularly good either. Not to mention Shi Zhen wore clothes even worse than his own.

    Guan Baiyu had previously resented his mother for not wanting him, but seeing Shi Zhen’s appearance, this resentment vanished. His birth mother ought to literally have been unable to care for him, for her to give him to another person to raise.

    Shi Zhen was already so poor, yet he still came and found him, and even gave him money. It was unthinkable that he would want to harm him.

    But his poverty was precisely the problem. Shi Zhen was unlikely to have the money to allow him to study.

    The tuition for a polytechnic high school was 200-300 per semester, plus living expenses. In a year, if one wasn’t careful, one could spend 2000.

    It seemed truly impossible, but still, he’d think of a way to look for a job.

    Guan Baiyu returned to his dwelling, turned off the light, and went to bed.

    He didn’t dare to use too much electricity. Afterall, he had to pay for it.

    Guan Baiyu went to bed very early, but on his end Shi Zhen spoke with Guan Jianguo about the matter of Guan Baiyu being his younger cousin. Guan Jianguo was a bit taken aback, but like Guan Baiyu, he didn’t doubt it at all.

    Actually, all these years in the Guan family, they had wondered why his birth father’s family or his birth mother didn’t come to look for him. Now that someone had come to find Guan Baiyu, Guan Jianguo only had the thought, ‘finally they’ve come.’

    After talking about his and Guan Baiyu’s affairs, Shi Zhen added that he would later go over to Guan Baiyu’s home to eat meals.

    Guan Jianguo didn’t mind, but his mother was a little unhappy — if Shi Zhen and Shi Xinghuo didn’t eat her meals, she wouldn’t be able to earn a little money from them.

    Having finished what he wanted to say, Shi Zhen planned to leave, but at that moment, Guan Jianguo spoke, saying, “Xiao Yu’s store of rice looks to be only enough for one person to eat. When you go over to eat, remember to buy some rice to bring with you.”

    “I will.” Shi Zhen said.

    When Shi Zhen had gone to talk to Guan Jianguo, Shi Xinghuo had followed along with him. He waited for them to return to their room, then immediately asked, “A-Zhen, you have a maternal cousin?”

    “I do! I came here just so I could find him.” Shi Zhen said.

    Shi Zhen had the confidence to fabricate this story for a reason — his mom had come from outside the mountains and married in, but ‘till the day she died, nobody in their hamlet knew her origins. Even his father had no inkling as to her background.

    However, it could be guessed that her class background wasn’t too good1 for her to hide out in the mountains. Otherwise, with his mother’s looks, she was too pretty to likely have chosen to marry his father.

    And presently, his mom had already passed away.

    When he was eight years old, his mom fell ill and died, leaving him and his younger sister in the care of their father.

    His younger sister was only four years old at that time, and her health was poor. All day long, she cried, and his dad was unable to take care of her [remember they’re suuuuper poor and dad has to spend all day working just to sustain the family] so asked for someone to introduce him to someone willing to marry him and become his children’s stepmother. 

    His stepmother was older than his father, and had an average appearance. She brought her two daughters from her previous marriage when she married his dad, but she got along with his dad, and treated Shi Zhen and his younger sister well.

    There was no way his stepmom could have done anything to harm them, as the two kids were born and raised in the village while she and her daughters were outsiders. His father valued his own flesh and blood highly, and would never have tolerated their stepmom mistreating them.

    As far as showing partiality and so on . . . their hamlet was too poor, and there was nothing she could have given to show partiality. But as far as her relationship between her and her two biological daughters being closer, that was to be expected.

    Because of these reasons, Shi Zhen could forcibly invent a younger maternal cousin, and nobody would be suspicious. Even his father would believe it. When it came to his own father, Shi Zhen understood him very well

    The next day, just after four AM, but before dawn had broken, Shi Zhen got up.

    Rubbing his shoulder, because dredging the river had made his muscles endlessly ache, he opened the door, walked out, and headed to town.

    When going to Guan Baiyu’s house for meals, he must not show up empty handed.

    In town was a vegetable market built not too long ago, divided into two floors. To the people of this era, it looked quite large.

    This was the town center. The upper floor of the building was filled with small shops selling clothes, toys, sewing notions, and all kinds of similar small items. The downstairs was where vegetables were sold.

    It was Shi Zhen’s first time here. Fortunately it was easy to locate, but he had arrived too early, and they had yet to open their doors.

    Though the vegetable market hadn’t opened yet, there were people waiting at the entrance. As soon as the doors opened, these people rushed within, their shoes slapping the pavement as they went.

    Shi Zhen followed them in, appraising the market as he looked around.

    There was an unpleasant smell permeating the place. Each booth was operated by the vendor who rented it — even though the market was open, each stall had to individually be opened by the vendor — and they all connected together into a long strip. 

    And those people who had rushed inside, some climbed over their stalls to get in, while others crawled beneath.

    Not long after these people entered the market, the customers showed up — some of them were early risers while some had their own shops and planned to get the day’s shopping done in advance.

    Shi Zhen approached a stall and asked after the price of pork.

    That vendor was using a bicycle to push half a pig into the stall. At his side, a woman carried a bamboo basket filled to the brim with pork. Having gotten the half pig securely into his stall, he started stripping the carcass while answering Shi Zhen, “Strip meat is 2.50 a jin, sitting buttocks meat is 2.80 a jin.”

    What he called strip meat is also known as wuhuarou [streaky pork], and sitting buttocks is the hind leg meat [pork butt].

    Years ago, fatty pork was always more expensive, but now, everyone was fond of lean cuts instead, so the price of hind leg meat had risen.

    Shi Zhen thoroughly questioned the butcher before finally deciding to purchase one jin of pure fat, intending to take it home to render into lard. 

    Fat was only one yuan per jin [half a kilo]. After buying it, Shi Zhen looked at the neighboring stalls, and spent a couple yuan to buy two chicken carcasses.

    The carcaases were frozen after the chicken’s breasts, legs, wings, etc. were removed. There wasn’t much meat on them, but the price was cheap.

    After buying these things, Shi Zhen thought a bit, and then purchased ten chicken eggs. 

    Guan Baiyu was still growing, and needed to eat well. 

    When Shi Zhen returned to the village after shopping, it was already half past six. 

    He gathered the things, called Shi Xinghuo, and headed over to Guan Baiyu’s place. 

    Guan Baiyu woke up early, but hadn’t headed to school yet. Seeing Shi Zhen bringing things over, he was shocked. 

    Shi Zhen grinned at him, “We’re eating together, so I went out and bought a few ingredients.”

    There wasn’t much time in the morning. At 7am, Guan Baiyu had to leave for school and Shi Xinghuo had to leave for work at that same time. . . Shi Zhen also couldn’t delay. He lit the fire for Guan Baiyu, used the cooking pot to render the lard, then poured out the fat and the left-over cracklings, leaving a bit of oil behind in the bottom of the kettle. He broke the four eggs into the pot and stirred them before adding a jin of the rice that Guan Baiyu had prepared in advance last night, making egg fried rice.

    The dish wasn’t large, and after dividing into thirds, he and Shi Xinghuo would still be hungry, but since he had also bought instant noodles, Shi Xinghuo would have plenty to eat.

    As far as himself, if he ate a bit less, it wasn’t a big deal.

    “You really used four eggs . . .” Guan Baiyu incredulously commented.

    He had eaten fried rice before, when his granny was still alive.

    His granny had used gauze wrapped chopsticks to brush the pan with oil, making a scant circuit around the bottom of the pot, added rice and salt, and called that fried rice. But she was absolutely unwilling to spare even a single egg to add to the dish.

    But Shi Zhen had actually added four eggs all in one go!

    “Eat a little more.” Shi Zhen handed Guan Baiyu a bowl filled to overflowing.

    Guan Baiyu lowered his head and began to eat.

    The eggs and rice fried in lard had an indescribably fragrant aroma. He didn’t know if he had ever eaten anything so delicious.

    The last time he’d eaten meat was at the New Year’s Eve dinner with his foster parents.

    But even then, he couldn’t eat very much. The chicken butchered for the Lunar New Year had to last the few days of the celebration, and was used to treat guests. 

    After eating, the revived Baiyu packed the instant noodles Shi Zhen gave him yesterday, and left for school. Shi Zhen and Shi Xinghuo each left for their respective places of work.

    Their jobs, being unskilled labor jobs, required grit. Over time, you exchanged your blood, sweat, and tears for your livelihood.

    For example, a day of carrying bricks and mortar, if one continued in that work, you’d eventually grow accustomed to it and be unlikely to have aches and pains all the time, but if you changed your work to dredging silt all of a sudden, then you’d ache all over.

    Shi Zhen ached from head to toe these last couple of days, but he still worked enthusiastically.

    Compared to this time in his previous life, his enthusiasm for work was even greater.

    He was alive. His beloved was by his side, and his cousin was also still alive. Things really couldn’t be better.

    Today’s noontime meal was taro and roasted pork, and of course the taro was plentiful while the pork was scarce.

    The past couple of days, Shi Zhen had always saved some of his lunch to take back home, but today he didn’t. Firstly, he skimped on breakfast, and he was really hungry, and secondly he had gone shopping for groceries this morning.

    “Kid, today you finally ate a full meal.” Wang Cheng discovered Shi Zhen gobbling up his lunch and teased him.

    He had a good impression of Shi Zhen, since Shi Zhen went all out when working.

    Shi Zhen grinned at him, but didn’t reply.

    Wang Cheng added, “In a couple days, we’ll be done dredging up all this sludge, and next will be building the river embankment. Do you want to stay and continue working?”

    “Yes.” Shi Zhen replied.

    “Then you’ll have to move stones.” Wang Chen said.

    “Uncle Wang, I’ve worked as a bricklayer. If there are other kinds of work, I can also do them.”

    Wang Cheng said, “You already learned to lay bricks? Great! How about, when the time comes, I’ll look and see if you can do other work.”

    Shi Zhen smiled in response.

    The past few days he had worked his heart out, and didn’t make any errors, so he could continue to work on this project.

    He temporarily was unable to find other work, so he could only do this.

    In the evening after work, Shi Zhen hurried home, arriving before Guan Baiyu had returned.

    At this time, rural villages had many houses without locks. During the day, they were open, while at night, the people inside would draw the bolt and secure the door.

    However, Guan Baiyu’s house had a lock with only one key, and Shi Zhen was not in possession of it.

    He sat on a stone by the entrance and waited a while. Guan Baiyu and Shi Xinghuo returned and they all went inside.

    Guan Baiyu scooped up three portions of rice, washed them, and put them in the pot to steam. He originally thought he would steam a dish at the same time, but Shi Zhen stopped him, “it can be cooked separately.”

    When the rice was nearly cooked, Guan Baiyu removed it from the fire.. Seeing this, Shi Zhen put the nearly cooked rice into several bowls, poured a bit of water into the pot, added the cut up chicken carcasses and some fat dregs.

    That done, he added the last bit of Guan Baiyu’s soy sauce, as well as chopped garlic greens pulled from Guan Baiyu’s vegetable plot, and simmered it all. 

    Chicken carcasses didn’t taste great, but they were meat, afterall. 

    Whether it was Guan Baiyu or Shi Xinghuo, they wouldn’t dislike it. Shi Xinghuo even chewed up and swallowed a few of the chicken bones.

    Eating that meal, Shi Zhen still felt a little dissatisfied. They lacked too many household items.

    In this era, washing machines, refrigerators, and other household electrical appliances were already common in city houses. TVs were also no longer a rare sight. Gas stoves and such, were even more common.

    But out of all those things, Guan Baiyu had absolutely none!

    Furthermore, this house . . . the floor was still earthen, and held a lot of moisture. Living here was bad for Guan Baiyu’s health!

    Shi Zhen’s mind was occupied with all kinds of ways to make money, but as he’d only been reborn a few days, he had no capital and no social connections, and those methods weren’t of any use.

    After eating, Guan Baiyu cleaned up. Seeing this, Shi Zhen hurriedly said, “I’ll wash the dishes.”

    “I’m fine with doing it.” Guan Baiyu said. Today Shi Zhen had given him eggs to eat, and gave him chicken to eat, so how could he let Shi Zhen do the dishes? 

    “Let me.” Shi Zhen persisted, “Go do your homework.”

    Guan Baiyu hesitated, but had no choice but to comply.

    Shi Zhen filled the pot with water, and used a luffa to scrub the dishes.

    Last lifetime, when he and Guan Baiyu were together, Guan Baiyu always did the household chores. He never thought of helping. This lifetime would be different.

    He wanted Guan Baiyu to stand by his side as an equal, dearly loved by his family, and to dote on him as he grew up. 

    Guan Baiyu didn’t bring home much homework to work on.

    His school never assigned much homework, so he could pretty much complete it at school. 

    But since Shi Zhen told him to work on his assignments, he took out a book and studied.

    Suddenly gaining a few elder cousins, he was not accustomed to it, so right now . . . he was elated.

    Shi Zhen washed dishes while chatting with Guan Baiyu, and shared the following plans, “Don’t worry about not having firewood, I’ll go buy some mulberry shoots tomorrow.”

    ‘Mulberry shoots’ were mulberry twigs used for raising silkworms. In this village, Gaun Baiyu was not the only one who didn’t have enough firewood. When they ran out of rice straw, they could burn mulberry twigs — every year mulberry trees needed their branches pruned.

    These only cost a few cents. If he spent an yuan, he could probably buy a whole cartload of them.

    “Okay.” Guan Baiyu easily agreed.

    Shi Zhen also said that tomorrow they could have congee for breakfast, then asked Guan Baiyu how school was going for him.

    Guan Baiyu’s school life wasn’t great.

    Today, Yan Jiangtao came to school. Needless to say, during class he messed with Guan Baiyu, and even announced that he was dirty. 

    But, as long as Yan Jiangtao didn’t mess up his things, and just taunted him, he ignored him.

    Guan Baiyu didn’t mention these things, just said that he was doing well.

    “Xiao Yu, how are your grades?” Shi Zhen asked.

    Guan Baiyu said, “Not bad.”

    “Generally speaking, what’s your class ranking?”

    Guan Baiyu thought for a bit, then said, “Usually it’s the first.”

    “It’s that impressive?” Shi Zhen was pleasantly surprised, “How about in your year?”

    Guan Baiyu said, “Also the first.”

    Shi Zhen was even more delighted, and a little puzzled. 

    Guan Baiyu’s grades were so good, why would he attend an average high school? According to reason . . . he could gain admission to the very best high school.

    Today at work Shi Zhen had chatted with people, and came to understand that every junior high had a few slots to recommend students for admission to Changxi District’s top high school. 

    Shi Zhen asked, “So will you go on to high school?”

    Guan Baiyu was taken aback, but immediately after that said, “I want to study at a technical high school, and train to be a teacher. Then I can work as a primary school teacher.”

    Shi Zhen pondered, and then burst out, “Why bother with technical school? You definitely must go to high school. Then you can take the college entrance exam!”