Noon on the First Day of Marriage
The house Zhou Jiajing lived in had been allocated by the factory, and all the neighbours in the surrounding area were employees of the machinery factory. Everyone knew one another quite well.
When they saw a beautiful young woman coming out of Zhou Jiajing’s home, they realised she was his newlywed wife and discreetly sized her up.
The people living in this building were all individuals of some status or their family members. Jiang Lianyue greeted everyone she passed. She was attractive and had a pleasant attitude, so they all responded with friendly smiles.
An auntie with greying hair smiled and asked, “Mrs Zhou, are you heading out?”
Jiang Lianyue paused before realising the woman was addressing her. She nodded.
“I’d like to look around and buy some vegetables while I’m out. Do you know where the market is?”
The auntie replied enthusiastically, “Go out through the entrance and walk straight past two intersections. Turn right, then walk past one more intersection, and you’ll be there.”
After thanking her, Jiang Lianyue went downstairs and followed the auntie’s directions towards the market.
In her previous life, Jiang Lianyue had also been from Lingnan, so she was very familiar with the local environment. The tall, lush Chinese banyan trees and arcaded buildings lining both sides of the road looked rather comforting and familiar.
Had the era not been wrong, the buildings along the streets not been relatively low and dilapidated, and the shop signs and pedestrians’ clothing not looked so distinctly old-fashioned, she might have felt as though she were walking through her hometown.
The market was not far away. Since the weather was unusually clear, it was crowded with people buying and selling food.
However, supplies were scarce in this era, so there were not many vegetables available. It was also March, and many crops had only recently been planted. Only a handful of vegetables could be found in the market.
There were plenty of eggs, though, as well as chickens, ducks, and fish.
Hengzhou was surrounded by rivers, so the market sold many kinds of fish—silver carp, grass carp, tilapia, crucian carp… Almost every sort of freshwater fish was available.
The fish looked particularly plump and fresh, so Jiang Lianyue bought a grass carp. She also bought a large portion of pickled mustard greens, planning to make fish with pickled vegetables that evening.
The five- or six-jin grass carp and a bowl-sized portion of pickled vegetables cost only sixty cents altogether.
Jiang Lianyue could not help marvelling at the purchasing power of money in this era. It could really buy a lot.
While she was considering what else to purchase, she suddenly heard someone ahead cry out in alarm.
“Hey! What’s wrong with you?”
Jiang Lianyue looked up and saw an elderly woman lying on the road in front of the market. A middle-aged woman in blue work clothes reached down and tried to pull her up but could not move her.
Passers-by quickly gathered around and began whispering among themselves.
“How did she suddenly collapse?”
“She doesn’t seem to be breathing. Look, she isn’t moving at all.”
“Could she be dead?”
Jiang Lianyue pushed through the crowd and squeezed her way inside. The elderly woman’s eyes were tightly closed, and her chest was completely still. She looked as though she had already stopped breathing.
Jiang Lianyue was about to check her neck for a pulse when the elderly woman suddenly began convulsing.
The middle-aged woman was startled and hurriedly stepped back.
Jiang Lianyue’s heart sank.
She dropped the fish and pickled vegetables she was holding, stepped forward, and pressed her fingers to the left side of the woman’s neck.
There was no heartbeat.
She immediately raised the woman’s head slightly, placed both hands over her chest, and began performing CPR.
In the middle of her frantic efforts, Jiang Lianyue raised her head and shouted at the people surrounding them, “Hurry and get a doctor!”
The middle-aged woman immediately turned and ran.
A young man wearing a navy-striped sailor shirt stepped forward and helped hold down the elderly woman’s still-convulsing arms and legs.
After several chest compressions, Jiang Lianyue leaned down and gave the elderly woman rescue breaths. Her movements were swift and practised, and her expression was solemn.
Afraid of interfering with the rescue, the surrounding crowd did not dare speak loudly. They whispered among themselves.
“My neighbour collapsed at home exactly like this. She was gone in less than half an hour.”
“The old lady wasn’t moving at all just now. I’m afraid she might also…”
Once those two people finished speaking, everyone silently took a step backwards.
It was not that they did not want to help, but encountering a dead person so soon after the beginning of spring felt rather unlucky.
Under everyone’s uncertain and alarmed gazes, the elderly woman’s chest, which had previously gone completely still, slowly began to rise and fall again under Jiang Lianyue’s persistent efforts.
“Look! She’s moving!”
“She’s alive again! That’s incredible!”
As the elderly woman’s breathing gradually returned to normal, her arms and legs also stopped convulsing.
The young man in the sailor shirt released her and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
He looked up at Jiang Lianyue, who had also breathed a sigh of relief and was wiping away her sweat.
The young woman’s white dacron blouse had become damp with perspiration and clung lightly to her body, revealing the graceful outline of her figure.
His heart skipped a beat, and he hurriedly raised his gaze.
Her fair face was slightly flushed from the exertion, as vivid as a flower in full bloom.
The young man felt the heart that had just missed a beat begin pounding wildly. He quickly turned his head aside.
“The doctor’s here!”
Someone shouted, and the crowd parted.
A doctor in a white coat ran over, accompanied by two or three nurses and orderlies carrying a stretcher.
The doctor opened the elderly woman’s eyes to examine them, then checked her pulse.
“Fortunately, she received treatment in time. Hurry, take her to the hospital.”
They lifted the elderly woman onto the stretcher and hurried away.
The middle-aged woman in blue work clothes was kind-hearted and followed them. The young man in the sailor shirt also took a couple of steps after them.
He turned and saw that Jiang Lianyue had not followed. After hesitating briefly, he continued after the others.
Jiang Lianyue truly had no intention of following.
Now that a doctor had taken over and there were helpful people accompanying the elderly woman, she would not be able to do much. She might as well go home.
She turned around, intending to retrieve the grass carp and pickled vegetables she had dropped, only to find that someone had already picked them up and brought them to her.
Jiang Lianyue looked up and saw a young woman in a white floral dress smiling shyly at her.
Jiang Lianyue smiled back, thanked her, accepted the fish, and headed home.
By the time she returned to the machinery factory’s residential compound, it was lunchtime. The aromas of various dishes drifted through the air, and Jiang Lianyue could not help swallowing.
She was starving!
The two bowls of egg congee she had eaten that morning had not been filling, and she had been busy all morning. Now she was so hungry that her stomach felt pressed against her spine.
Jiang Lianyue silently rubbed her growling stomach and raised the corners of her lips in self-mockery.
Since arriving in this era, the strongest sensation she had experienced was hunger.
Well… it was rather fitting for the current circumstances.
Jiang Lianyue quickened her pace and returned to Zhou Jiajing’s home. She headed straight into the kitchen and began preparing fish with pickled vegetables.
The fish was already barely alive.
She held the cleaver sideways and struck it unconscious, scraped off its scales, slit open its belly, and removed its organs, gills, and lateral line.
After thoroughly cleaning the black membrane from inside the body cavity, she cut the fish in half, then chopped it into chunks with several firm thuds.
She sliced the pickled vegetables and chopped the spring onions, ginger, and garlic. With that, the preparation was complete.
Jiang Lianyue struck a match and lit the stove, then placed the iron wok back over the heat.
Once the wok was hot, she added oil, followed by the ginger and garlic, frying them until their fragrance emerged.
She then added the pickled vegetables and stir-fried them.
When they were about seventy per cent cooked, she added the fish pieces and continued frying.
Once the flesh turned white, she poured in water and added Sichuan peppercorns, cinnamon, star anise, and other seasonings.
She brought everything to a boil over high heat, then reduced the flame and allowed it to simmer slowly.
Zhou Jiajing returned home carrying food he had bought from the factory canteen.
Before he had even entered the house, he caught a strong aroma in the stairwell.
It was fresh and sour, with a slightly sharp, stimulating scent that made his nose itch and his mouth water.
Zhou Jiajing wondered which household was cooking something so fragrant.
When he opened his door, the aroma became even stronger.
He could not help looking towards the kitchen and, sure enough, saw his “newlywed wife” standing before the stove, busy cooking.
Hearing the door open, Jiang Lianyue turned around and happened to meet Zhou Jiajing’s gaze.
She curved her lips into a smile.
“You’re back?”
Zhou Jiajing’s expression stiffened as though he had been caught doing something shameful. An awkward, almost-smile appeared on his face before he forced himself to look indifferent and gave a small nod.
He had originally worried that there might not be any food at home and that Jiang Lianyue, as a new bride, would be too afraid to go outside.
He had therefore bought an extra portion of food for her and planned to explain where she could buy groceries and prepared meals.
Judging from the situation now, however, his concern had been entirely unnecessary.
Then again, how could someone who knew to wake before dawn and cook for herself possibly allow herself to go hungry?
After greeting him, Jiang Lianyue turned back to her cooking. She did not notice Zhou Jiajing’s faintly aggrieved gaze.
Seeing that the fish broth had turned milky white, she switched off the heat and ladled the fish and pickled vegetables into a large serving bowl.
There was still some egg congee left from the morning, so Jiang Lianyue did not cook rice separately.
The fish was large enough that she would probably be full after eating it anyway.
Zhou Jiajing placed the two enamel lunch containers filled with food on the dining table.
He was about to go into the kitchen to get chopsticks when, from the corner of his eye, he saw Jiang Lianyue carrying the large bowl out.
He immediately picked up both enamel containers and hurried back into the study, afraid she might notice that he had bought two portions.
Jiang Lianyue placed the fish on the dining table, fetched a bowl, and sat down to enjoy her first proper meal since transmigrating into the novel.
The fish was fresh and firm, while the broth was rich, milky, and delicious. Even the pickled vegetables were pleasantly sour and crisp.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
The ingredients in this era were genuinely far better than those from the future. The resulting dishes were also much more delicious.
Jiang Lianyue ate with great enjoyment.
Inside the study, Zhou Jiajing inhaled the aroma drifting in from the living room while staring at the two enamel containers filled with canteen food.
He swallowed again and again. His stomach growled with hunger, but he was too embarrassed to go outside and get chopsticks.
If he went out now, it would look as though he were deliberately heading towards the meal she had cooked.
He could not afford to lose face like that.
After enduring for half an hour, Zhou Jiajing finally heard Jiang Lianyue clearing away her bowl and chopsticks.
He waited a little longer until there was no more movement outside.
Only then did Zhou Jiajing lick his lips, leave the study, and fetch chopsticks so he could eat.
After sitting for so long, the food had already gone cold. It tasted bland and unappetising.
Zhou Jiajing remembered the delicious meal Jiang Lianyue had eaten, whose fragrance had nearly made him drool, and sighed.
Why was the food he ate inferior to that of a village girl?
After lunch, Zhou Jiajing rested briefly before returning to work.
When Jiang Lianyue woke from her afternoon nap, she wandered around the house with nothing to do.
She thought that remaining idle and gradually exhausting her savings was not a solution. She needed to find something to occupy herself and earn some money at the same time.
But what could she do?
Jiang Lianyue sat beside the dining table in the living room and recalled the novel’s plot.
After the original Jiang Lianyue graduated from junior secondary school, she failed to gain admission to senior secondary school and remained at home.
Because her family doted on her, she did not work in the fields. She merely did a little housework each day.
She did not know how to farm.
After marrying the male lead, she became a full-time housewife. Even after the divorce, she never found work.
One could say that she had never truly worked a day in her life.
What skills did the original Jiang Lianyue possess?
Jiang Lianyue racked her brain, searching through her memories.
After thinking for a long time, she finally remembered that, when the original Jiang Lianyue had nothing to do at home, she liked imitating the daughters of wealthy families and growing flowers.
She was also quite talented at it.
Not only did the flowers she grew flourish unusually well, but their blooming periods were also slightly longer than normal.
Growing flowers?
Several ways of becoming rich through flowers immediately occurred to Jiang Lianyue.
First, she could cultivate rare and valuable flowers.
Second, she could grow ordinary ornamental flowers.
Third, she could plant flowers for commercial use.
After a moment, however, Jiang Lianyue rejected all those ideas.
The general population was not yet wealthy. The first two were luxuries only petty bourgeois families would pursue, while there was nowhere to sell commercially useful flowers even if she grew them.
She would have to think of something else.
Jiang Lianyue thought and thought but could not come up with a good solution.
Irritated, she stood up, picked up the thermos, and poured some hot water into an enamel mug.
She noticed a small metal box nearby and curiously picked it up.
When she opened it, she discovered tea leaves inside.
She pinched a small amount and dropped them into the mug.
The brown tea leaves slowly sank to the bottom, and the aroma of tea gradually drifted into the air.
As Jiang Lianyue breathed in the fragrance, her eyes suddenly lit up.
That was right!
How could she have forgotten about that?
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