My Wife is the Vicious Supporting Character from an Era Novel - Chapter 42.2
Chapter 42.2
“Comrade, we’d like to buy something.”
Ji Baiqing gave her a sweet smile and stated their purpose.
The woman scanned them, then waved her hand. “Go on in. Remember to lock your bike.”
She led Ji Baiqing and Wen Miao into the building and said, “Look for what you need. Just come find me to pay when you’re ready.”
Many people came to the recycling station to find useful things for their homes. To earn some extra money, the manager would turn a blind eye to it.
Ji Baiqing pulled Wen Miao inside. The smell was unpleasant—a mix of sour and sweat, it was quite pungent.
Even Ji Baiqing was almost knocked out by the smell, and Wen Miao had to hold her nose.
“It smells really bad,” Wen Miao complained.
Ji Baiqing took a look. Some of the garbage hadn’t been processed yet. In the hot weather, it had started to ferment, and the smell was comparable to a biological weapon.
She didn’t know how the manager could remain so calm in such an environment.
Fortunately, Ji Baiqing had also brought the work gloves from the food station. She put them on for Wen Miao, then put on her own.
In a pile of junk, Ji Baiqing and Wen Miao sifted through things.
Of course, Ji Baiqing was the main one, as the eldest Miss Wen was a bit disgusted.
Wen Miao found a few black bowls. She couldn’t see the patterns on them, but after a few glances, she quietly put them behind her back.
Ji Baiqing’s eyes lit up, thinking she had a good chance.
She also found a wooden vanity. It was solid wood, but the glass was broken and one leg was lame. It could be fixed, so Ji Baiqing kept it.
The two of them found some other strange things in the pile of junk. Based on the principle of “better to buy it by mistake than miss it,” Ji Baiqing kept them.
She also found a few wooden boxes with things inside, but they were locked, so she couldn’t see what was in them.
Finally, Ji Baiqing found some mechanical parts, books, and newspapers. She put them in a bag and took everything she had chosen to pay.
Most of the items were for recycling, so the manager didn’t overcharge. The total came to three yuan.
However, some of the furniture was too big, so Ji Baiqing hired a cart to drag the things back to the village.
They arrived home early, and the villagers were all still working in the fields, so no one saw them.
The cart driver helped Ji Baiqing carry the things into the house. After she paid him, he left. Ji Baiqing was a little excited and took a saw to see what was in the boxes.
The first box she opened contained a few scattered paper bills. Ji Baiqing didn’t mind and happily put them away.
The second box was quite heavy, and the contents rattled when she shook it. When Ji Baiqing opened it, she found a watch and a stone inside.
She tinkered with the watch for a while and found that it was broken.
But Wen Miao took the stone to look at it. She didn’t have X-ray vision and couldn’t see what was inside, but she guessed, “Maybe it’s a rough jade stone?”
Otherwise, who would pack a stone so carefully?
Hearing this, Ji Baiqing silently gave up the idea of throwing it away. “Then we’ll keep it!”
The other things weren’t much. Ji Baiqing and Wen Miao worked together to wash a few plates clean.
The dirt on them was incredibly stubborn. After several washes, their true appearance was finally revealed.
Ji Baiqing looked at the blue patterns. Although she was mentally prepared, her voice still stammered a little.
“Is this… is this blue-and-white porcelain?”
Wen Miao nodded. “It should be. But I don’t have much knowledge about this. I’ll have to ask my second aunt.”
“Okay,” Ji Baiqing said. She wiped them dry, wrapped the blue-and-white porcelain bowls in newspaper, put them in a basket, and placed them under the bed in her room.
After tidying up the rest of the things, Ji Baiqing thought about the things she brought back today and wondered which ones Lu Yan’s grandfather had his eyes on.
Those few blue-and-white porcelain plates? She felt like it shouldn’t be them.
Maybe that thing hadn’t arrived at the recycling station yet.
Thinking about this, Ji Baiqing shook her head.
She and Wen Miao went to the field to pick a handful of string beans and a few palm-sized tomatoes. They washed them and made scrambled eggs with tomatoes and stir-fried eggplant with string beans.
During Wen Miao’s afternoon nap, Ji Baiqing was originally tinkering with the broken watch. She had disassembled the parts and laid them aside, intending to fix it and see if she could find a chance to sell it.
Earning twenty or thirty yuan would be nice.
In her previous life, she was a science and engineering student with a knack for hands-on work. She could fix anything she got her hands on.
But thinking about last night’s dream, Ji Baiqing hesitated for a moment and then went to the back of the mountain alone.
When the weather was hot, snakes liked to bask in the sun everywhere. Ji Baiqing startled two or three snakes along the way.
She frowned and gripped the realgar powder in her hand.
Thinking of the location of the cave from last night, she searched for half the mountain and finally saw the cave blocked by stones.
She moved the stones aside, but she didn’t see the wooden door from the dream. It seemed that Lu Yan hadn’t discovered this place yet.
Ji Baiqing heard the hissing of snakes. When she shone the flashlight into the cave, a large snake instantly crawled into the cave, so fast that only a blur remained.
Looking again, she could only see a few snake holes on the ground.
This was indeed a snake den. It was likely that after Lu Yan discovered it in the original plot, he started to raise these snakes.
Snakes could be used for medicine and food, so it was not hard to deduce Lu Yan’s purpose for raising them.
Her eyes darkened. She moved the stones back to cover the cave entrance. As she backed away, she saw a small green snake curled up on the vines that covered the cave entrance.
Meeting those red, beady eyes, Ji Baiqing remembered the one in the dream.
Before she could act, the snake felt the danger from her body and ran away.
She rubbed her wrist, covered the marks, and walked down the mountain.
After delaying on the mountain for a while, Wen Miao had woken up when she returned. She was mixing old vegetable leaves with bran and pouring it into the trough to feed the chickens.
Seeing Ji Baiqing come back, she pouted. “Where did you go?”
Ji Baiqing took another ladle of water and poured it in. “I went to the back of the mountain.”
She showed her the handful of chocolate vines in her basket. “I suddenly remembered they should be ripe. They’re called chocolate vines and they’re very sweet.”
She peeled one and fed it to Wen Miao’s mouth. Wen Miao ate it.
It was very sweet, but it also had a lot of seeds.
Seeing Wen Miao’s sullen face as she spit out seeds, Ji Baiqing laughed.
She ruffled Wen Miao’s hair. “This is just a little sweet treat. It has a lot of seeds, so it’s a snack.”
Wen Miao spit out the last seed and huffed.
“Only kids like to eat this.”
She had seen villagers pick chocolate vines to coax their children, who also loved to go to the mountains to pick these wild fruits.
Ji Baiqing said with a smile, “You are a child.”
Wen Miao glared at her. “You’re the child.”
No, she was a child.
“You’re three years younger than me!” She poked Ji Baiqing’s shoulder with her finger.
Just as the two of them were talking under the eaves, Manman ran over with Xiaomi.
“Sister Ji, Sister Wen, what are you doing?”
Xiaomi’s cheeks were flushed from running. She looked like she had changed a lot in a short time. At the very least, she had more flesh on her face and a hint of a spark in her eyes.
She didn’t know how Manman, who was so disgusted with Xiaomi at first, came to like playing with her.
But Wen Miao was naturally happy to see these changes.
Wen Miao was a little embarrassed to be caught being doted on by a child. She immediately explained, “We’re feeding the chickens.”
Ji Baiqing frowned at her explanation, but didn’t say anything.
Manman pulled Xiaomi closer. “Sisters, we picked some yummy things for you!”
Looking down, the basket contained bright red raspberries, green, hairy kiwis, and purplish-green chocolate vines.
Great. Not only did Ji Baiqing use this to coax her, but the little ones also brought some for them.
Ji Baiqing pointed to her own basket. “I picked some for Sister Wen today. You guys eat these yourselves.”
The two little ones were reluctant at first, but after a long time of persuasion, they finally accepted them, taking the chocolate vines back to eat themselves.
Wen Miao felt a little helpless looking at the things in the basket.
How to say it? She really liked the two children. They would work in exchange for her food, and they would remember her kindness, bringing her everything good and fun they found.
Just as she was thinking this, a pair of hands suddenly wrapped around her waist.
Wen Miao was almost startled. She relaxed when she realized it was Ji Baiqing hugging her.
She turned her head, her face a natural blush. “We’re still outside.”
Ji Baiqing never wanted to make their relationship public, and she didn’t care much, except for getting jealous sometimes.
So she would go along with Ji Baiqing even when they were outside. She was afraid that their intimacy would be seen by others and cause gossip.
Although she didn’t mind, Ji Baiqing and the Ji family might.
Hearing Wen Miao’s words, Ji Baiqing, who already had a lump in her throat, felt even more wronged.
She mumbled, “I know we’re outside.”
“I’m not stupid,” she muttered.
Wen Miao poked her arm. “You know we’re outside, so why don’t you let go? Someone might see us.”
They had just been seen by the two little ones.
Ji Baiqing shook her head. “So what if they see?”
As if something had just occurred to her, she suddenly stood up, lowered her hands, and faced Wen Miao.
“Don’t you want to take responsibility for me?”
Wen Miao: “?”
What on earth was she talking about?
Ji Baiqing saw that she didn’t deny it and instantly felt more wronged.
“I knew you didn’t want to take responsibility, that you didn’t want to acknowledge our relationship to others.”
Although she knew that homosexuality was not accepted in this era, she would occasionally feel possessive.
She was desperate to prove to everyone: Wen Miao was hers.