In her previous life, Ding Chunli suffered a miscarriage and massive bleeding on the day the original protagonist was captured, resulting in both her and her child's death.
At that time, the autumn harvest had just concluded. Ding Chunli, exhausted, disturbed her pregnancy, which led to the miscarriage after being shocked, costing both her and her child's lives.
"The easy tasks are done by the elderly and children in the village. I'm healthy and strong, how could I compete with the elderly and children for work?" Ding Chunli said.
She didn't want her father-in-law to pressure the village head, nor did she want the villagers to gossip, since there were several pregnant women in the village. If the village head assigned her light work, what about the others?
No fear of scarcity, just fear of unfairness. At that point, it would cause an uproar.
"Yuan Chun, take the porridge to the main room; I'm going to grab some cornbread from the kitchen." Ding Chunli turned into the kitchen.
Yuan Chun carried the wild vegetable porridge into the main room.
Staring at the steaming wild vegetable porridge, Yuan Chun shamefully slurped her saliva.
How long had it been since she last tasted grains?
By the third year of the apocalypse, grains had become extinct.
Even plants had mutated and were all poisonous.
The only edible things were Mutant Beast Meat.
She had gnawed on meat for seven years, and it wasn't even tasty, tough as tree bark, scraping her throat raw as she swallowed.
God knows how long it had been since she tasted grains.
But no matter how tempted, Yuan Chun resisted.
"Sister-in-law, where did everyone go?" Yuan Chun reluctantly left the main room and slipped into the kitchen.
Ding Chunli was picking the cornbread out of the pot and into a basket.
Looking at the steaming cornbread, Yuan Chun's mouth watered even more, overwhelming her.
"They've all gone to water the private plot. Grandma said we need to spread manure over the potatoes, radishes, and cabbages in the private plot before the autumn harvest, to help them grow bigger so we can have more to eat."
"Several children also went to the field to pull weeds."
Ding Chunli grabbed a piece of gauze, shook it open, and covered it over the cornbread, "Yuan Chun, take the cornbread to the main room; I'm going to boil some hot water so when Grandma and the others come back, they can wash up."
Yuan Chun swallowed her saliva and quickly took the cornbread to the main room, then darted out the door, "Sister-in-law, I'm going to help in the private plot."
She couldn't stay any longer.
It was too tormenting.
Seeing but not eating was truly the most painful thing in life.
The Feng family was nearly out of food, and the cornbread was made in measured amounts; if any went missing, people would know she had sneaked some.
No matter how tempted Yuan Chun was, she couldn't sneak a bite; it would be too humiliating.
How embarrassing it would be for a big shot to sneak food.
...
The Feng family's private plot wasn't far from the village, and Yuan Chun reached it in five or six minutes.
The Feng family had borrowed manure buckets from the brigade, and the whole family was busy hauling manure, watering, weeding, working zealously. Yuan Chun went over, took the water bucket off her mother Liu Qingqiu's shoulder, and said, "Mom, let me fetch water, you go take a break."
The protagonist's mother was among the first group of educated youth to come down from the south. She was knowledgeable, cultured, attractive, petite, and delicate, and in the second year after coming down, she was saved by Feng Laoer during a drowning incident.
Because of that, the two got married.
After marriage, the honest and decent Feng Laoer was very kind to his wife, and Grandma Feng was a reasonable mother-in-law. Although Liu Qingqiu's days at the Feng family were a bit hard, she hadn't endured any grievances.
"Everyone's working; how could I rest? I'll go pull weeds." Liu Qingqiu rubbed her sore shoulders and went to her mother-in-law's side to pull weeds.
Grandma Feng looked up, and seeing her eldest granddaughter arrive, she scolded, "Yuan Chun, you dead girl, where did you run off to? The whole family is working, and you're nowhere to be seen."