Xia Xiaolan dragged the little rascal aside.

“Stop trying to sweet-talk me. I still have to cook.”

Tao Tao couldn’t help licking his lips. Xia Xiaolan’s cooking wasn’t extraordinary, but whenever she cooked, there was always meat or fish. Never just plain pickled vegetables or odds.

Tao Tao was practically drooling. When he saw her take out chopped pork ribs from the basket, he almost wished she could live here forever.

Who could possibly be better than Sister Xiaolan?

As usual, Xia Xiaolan put Tao Tao in charge of tending the fire. She steamed a few eggs. After all, eggs were the one thing the Liu family had in abundance.

After a moment’s thought, she decided not to braise the ribs in soy sauce but to make them sweet and sour instead.

Over the past few days, the Liu family had gone through oil, salt, and seasonings at an alarming rate. But Xia Xiaolan kept replenishing them, and Liu Yong had said that the family ought to eat well. Li Fengmei hadn’t objected either.

Even the sugar had been bought by Xia Xiaolan herself, so making sweet-and-sour ribs wasn’t difficult. The sauce was thick and glossy, rich with sweet and tangy flavor. Poured over steaming white rice, just imagining it made Xia Xiaolan’s mouth water.

Liu Yong and the others carried the half-dried grain back into the house. As soon as he smelled the aroma, he broke into a grin.

“You were all worried Xiaolan wouldn’t be able to sell the eels. I say this girl was never meant for hard labor. She’s got a sharp head on her shoulders.”

If business was good, there was money to buy meat.

It seemed Xia Xiaolan had done very well today. Liu Fen gave a foolish smile.

Li Fengmei thought to herself that the Xia family’s dislike of Xia Xiaolan proved how blind they were. Getting into college was impressive, yes, but a girl would marry sooner or later. Once Xia Ziyu married into another family, would that precious female college student really look after every member of the Xia clan?

If she were to help anyone, it would be Xia Changzheng and his wife, or her own younger brother. What were the other Xia relatives worth to her?

Liu Fen had mentioned that when Xia Ziyu left for university in Beijing, she took over five hundred yuan in family savings with her. Yet when Xia Xiaolan injured her head, the Xia family couldn’t even scrape together the money to send her to the hospital…

From small things one sees the bigger picture. Xia Ziyu was selfish! Taking all the family’s money to enjoy herself in the capital while leaving the others to fend for themselves.

If she ever prospered, would she suddenly grow a conscience?

Bah! Throwing away a watermelon to pick up a sesame seed.

Her own niece, on the other hand, was generous. Just yesterday she had bought Tao Tao a new schoolbag. Tao Tao’s father swore to heaven that the money had come from Xiaolan herself.

Li Fengmei felt deeply comforted.

“What did you cook, Xiaolan?”

Xia Xiaolan set down her spatula and came out.

“Sweet-and-sour ribs.”

Li Fengmei winced.

“Why buy ribs? They taste good but aren’t practical.”

Everyone knew ribs were delicious, but they weren’t economical.

Her niece was wonderful in every way, except that sometimes she was too freehanded with money. Li Fengmei couldn’t help advising her.

“You need to be frugal. I know you dote on Tao Tao, but that schoolbag was expensive…”

“Save some money. When you marry into your husband’s family, you’ll have more standing if you have savings.”

That was genuine concern, she wasn’t trying to squeeze Xia Xiaolan’s money dry for the Liu household.

Xia Xiaolan felt warm inside. “I know. I promise I won’t spend recklessly.”

Liu Fen’s eyes stung.

As she and Liu Yong continued tidying the grain, he lowered his voice.

“After the busy season is over, Xia Dajun will surely come to fetch you. Think it through. Life is finally looking hopeful. Don’t be soft-hearted and obediently go back with him!”

Liu Fen hesitated, head bowed, unable to respond.

Liu Yong stared at her.

“Don’t tell me you really plan to go back?”

His disappointment was undisguised.

After a long pause, Liu Fen spoke awkwardly.

“Xiaolan will marry someday. No one brings their mother along when they marry into a husband’s family. I can’t stay at my parents’ home forever…”

“Brother, where would I go then?”

She didn’t want to follow her daughter, nor did she want to remain indefinitely with her brother’s family. She feared causing friction over time and dreaded village gossip. Liu Fen felt lost about her future.

She didn’t want to burden her daughter or her natal family.

“Mom, are you reluctant to leave Dad? Do you want to go back to the Xia family?”

Xia Xiaolan had come up behind her at some point.

Liu Fen shook her head but remained silent.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t leave Xia Dajun... she was simply accustomed to enduring hardship and sacrificing herself for her daughter. If Xia Xiaolan could live well, Liu Fen would even be willing to humble herself in the Xia household just to scrape by.

Xia Xiaolan roughly understood her mother’s thoughts.

Fortunately, she wasn’t truly eighteen in mind. Having experienced the world, she could appreciate Liu Fen’s worries.

Marry?

Of course she would marry.I

In her previous life she had never experienced marital harmony. This time, she intended to.

But marry on the condition of discarding Liu Fen?

Treat her as unwanted baggage?

What kind of man would she marry if that were the case?

Her standards weren’t that low.

“Mom, I earned over twenty yuan today. You don’t even know how booming business is over in Shangdu. Once I save enough, I’ll buy an apartment there and take you to live with me. If your future son-in-law dares look down on you?

“He’ll only be allowed to live there if you’re in a good mood!”

Buying property was Xia Xiaolan’s long-term plan. Shangdu might not yet have true commercial housing, but it was already 1983. Within a few years, such housing would appear. China’s earliest commercial residential developments emerged in the mid-to-late 1980s.

Xia Xiaolan remembered a client mentioning that his first apartment in the 1980s cost just over 200 yuan per square meter. Units were built and sold primarily to employees, ordinary people didn’t usually qualify. But with enough money and some maneuvering, purchase quotas could be obtained.

Two hundred yuan per square meter? People in later generations would laugh in their sleep at such prices!

A 100-square-meter apartment would cost just over twenty thousand yuan. She didn’t have that much now, but would she always fall short?

This was the first time Xia Xiaolan had openly shared her intention to settle in the city.

Liu Fen was stunned.

“But we have rural household registration…”

The gap between rural and urban status was enormous.

Factory jobs and work units recruited from urban residents. Those with rural registration could only labor in the fields. The only ways to change status were through marriage or education and even marriage wasn’t guaranteed.

The most reliable path was like Xia Ziyu’s, get into university and leap out of the countryside at once. Becoming a city resident was so difficult that even believing in her daughter, Liu Fen hardly dared dream of it.

Liu Yong, however, sounded intrigued.

“Moving to the city isn’t bad. It doesn’t have to be Shangdu, and it doesn’t have to be an apartment building. A couple of single-story houses in the county town wouldn’t cost much.”

In a big city like Shangdu, no one would know Xia Xiaolan’s reputation. It wouldn’t hinder her from finding a match. Hearing Liu Yong’s approval, Liu Fen asked hesitantly.

“Is it really possible?”

Xia Xiaolan nodded firmly.

“Didn’t I say I’d give you a good life? Of course it’s possible.”

Buying an apartment in Shangdu was nothing. If she had extra money, she could even emulate the Wenzhou property investors of later years.

Sweeping into Beijing and Shanghai and buying entire buildings at once. The return on investment would far surpass any ordinary business venture.