Chapter 18: The Chen Family’s Wishful Thinking
At the Supply and Marketing Cooperative, Wu Jiaxiu ran her hands over the fabric bolts with a sigh. She didn’t have enough cloth coupons, meaning she could only purchase a maximum of six feet of material.
Her sister-in-law was due to give birth soon, and as an aunt, it was expected that she show her support with a decent gift. After mulling it over, she decided the best option was to sew a tiny set of clothes for the baby. Once the child outgrew them, the fabric could be unpicked and used as patching material for other clothes—a highly practical gift.
Sheng Wanyan finished buying her pastries and returned to find Wu Jiaxiu still staring at the counter, completely conflicted.
“Sister Jiaxiu, are you not going to buy any?”
“Wanyan, I just don’t have enough coupons on me,” Wu Jiaxiu admitted, looking embarrassed. “I’ll have to buy it next time.”
She figured she should go home and have her husband come up with a solution first. As a newlywed, she couldn’t afford to look too stingy in front of her in-laws, otherwise they would inevitably gossip about her behind her back for years.
Shaking off her disappointment, Wu Jiaxiu led Sheng Wanyan over to buy some roasted melon seeds and hard candies to sweeten her mood.
Sheng Wanyan watched her coworker’s absentminded expression and realized she had just stumbled upon a perfect opportunity to make a small fortune.
“Sister Jiaxiu, do you absolutely need flawless cloth?” Sheng Wanyan asked, leaning in.
Hearing this, Wu Jiaxiu immediately grabbed her arm, pulling her to a quieter corner of the cooperative. She lowered her voice to an urgent whisper. “What do you mean? Wanyan, do you have a connection?”
“I have a friend who works in a textile factory,” Sheng Wanyan whispered back smoothly. “He can get me fabrics, but they’re officially labeled as defective. He only wants cash—no coupons.”
It was the perfect cover. Inside Sheng Wanyan’s space sat mountains of “defective” goods. During her pre-transmigration shopping spree, she had visited numerous textile mills and cleared out their surplus inventory. One factory owner had an enormous backlog of slightly damaged fabrics—cloth with minor misprints, tiny snags, or uneven dyeing. He had asked if she minded the defects, and when she said no, he sold her the entire lot at pure cost, waiving all labor and markup fees.
Knowing she was about to travel back to an era of extreme scarcity, she hadn’t cared in the slightest. She had bought it all just in case. Even if she didn’t use it herself, she knew it would be a highly tradable commodity.
“Defective is completely fine, as long as it’s new!” Wu Jiaxiu’s eyes lit up.
In this era, “defective” usually just meant a small stain or a tiny tear on the edge of the bolt, which didn’t affect the process of cutting and sewing clothes at all. And if she didn’t need coupons, the deal was an absolute godsend, no matter the price.
“Wanyan, could you please help me ask him about it over the next couple of days?”
“Of course. I’ll find time to talk to him soon,” Sheng Wanyan promised.
Wu Jiaxiu was immensely grateful. She mentally promised herself that if Sheng Wanyan pulled this off, she would definitely buy her a nice gift to say thank you. In the workplace, relationships only lasted if there was equal give and take.
“Thank you so much! I’ve been stressing over this for days,” Wu Jiaxiu smiled warmly. “But please, if it’s too much trouble or risk for your friend, just forget it.”
She didn’t want to force the issue. If it didn’t work out, she wouldn’t blame Sheng Wanyan. Helping was a favor; not helping was perfectly understandable.
“You’re welcome. Who knows, maybe it’ll be my turn to ask for your help down the line,” Sheng Wanyan smiled. She genuinely enjoyed dealing with Wu Jiaxiu. The young woman was sensible, understanding, and had been a massive help in navigating the factory.
After finishing their shopping, the two parted ways to head home. Before entering her apartment building, Sheng Wanyan checked her surroundings to ensure no one was watching. Finding a blind spot, she pulled ten plump tomatoes, two pounds of fresh lettuce, and twenty eggs from her space, placing them carefully into her basket.
When she walked through the door, Grandpa and Grandma Sheng saw the fresh produce but didn’t scold her this time. They knew she wouldn’t listen to their lectures anyway, so they simply reminded her to be extremely careful and avoid drawing attention.
Sheng Wanyan nodded repeatedly, promising to be vigilant. The elderly couple still firmly believed she was secretly buying these goods from the country women hovering near the factory gates; they never could have imagined their granddaughter possessed a magical, limitless storage space.
When Father and Mother Sheng returned from their shifts, the family sat down for dinner. Father Sheng happily announced that he had managed to trade some favors with a coworker to secure one bicycle coupon. They still needed to figure out how to get a second one, otherwise the mother-daughter duo would still have to take awkward detours to share a single bike every morning. While sharing was fine once or twice, doing it every single day would be exhausting.
After dinner, Grandma Sheng pulled Mother Sheng into her bedroom for a private chat, leaving Father Sheng in charge of washing the dishes. Whatever the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law discussed behind closed doors, it clearly wasn’t pleasant. When Mother Sheng emerged, her expression was stormy and thunderous.
Walking out of the kitchen with wet hands, Father Sheng was startled by his wife’s dark face. Thinking the two women had argued, he considered going to his mother to find out what had happened.
“What are you standing there for? Go back to your room!” Grandpa Sheng barked, glaring at him over his newspaper.
Father Sheng immediately retracted his foot. Since interrogating his own mother was a surefire way to get a beating, he had no choice but to follow his wife into their bedroom.
“Wife, what did Mom say to you?” Father Sheng asked cautiously, terrified she would snap and slap him.
Mother Sheng, who had just finished washing her face, instantly flared up. She sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, her face dark with fury. Before Father Sheng could even process the situation, she unleashed a torrent of complaints.
“It’s that shameless hag from the Chen family! She actually had the nerve to corner Mom today and suggest a marriage between her youngest son and our Yan’er!”
“Has she completely lost her mind? She wants to plot against my daughter? She should take a long, hard look in the mirror first!”
“She seriously thinks she can drag my Yan’er into the Chen family to slave away as their free ATM! They are a literal household of vampires! That youngest son of hers is a factory worker on paper, but he’s nothing more than a spineless momma’s boy and a useless piece of trash!”
Father Sheng stood there, weathering his wife’s furious rant for nearly half an hour before he finally grasped the full picture.
“You mean the Chen family that lives upstairs?”
“Is there any other Chen family in this building with an unmarried, useless son?!” Mother Sheng snapped.
The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. She and her husband had practically bled themselves dry securing a premium, safe job for their daughter, keeping her out of the countryside. Yan’er hadn’t even been working for a full week, and already the neighborhood vultures were circling. Aunt Chen’s greedy, calculating schemes were so loud Mother Sheng felt she could hear an abacus clicking from three floors down.
“Wife, don’t be angry,” Father Sheng said, moving to rub her shoulders. “I’ll corner old man Chen at the plant tomorrow and make our stance perfectly clear. Don’t let yourself get so worked up over garbage like them; it’s not worth your health.”
Under his persistent comfort, Mother Sheng took a few deep breaths and finally managed to calm down.
“Just you wait and see,” she muttered darkly. “Since Mom shot her down today, they’ll realize the women in this family won’t budge. They’re going to come straight after you.”
Mother Sheng’s prediction was frighteningly accurate. The very next day, during the lunch break at the steel plant, Father Chen cornered Father Sheng with a wide, ingratiating smile.
Father Sheng tried to brush him off, but Father Chen was relentlessly persistent.
“Old Sheng, listen to me, about what I mentioned…”
“My daughter believes in free love, Old Chen. Our family isn’t going to arrange anything,” Father Sheng cut him off firmly.
Father Chen’s smile faltered, annoyed by the blunt, unyielding rejection. They were colleagues, for heaven’s sake! Wouldn’t it be far better for the girl to marry into a familiar family rather than take her chances with strangers?
“Old Sheng, when it comes to marriage, it’s always the parents who have the final say,” Father Chen pressed, adopting a patronizing tone. “Besides, we know each other inside and out. Your daughter wouldn’t suffer a single grievance if she married into my household.”
It’s exactly because I know you inside and out that I know she’d be miserable! Father Sheng thought, his patience wearing thin.
“Comrade Chen, we live in a new era now,” Father Sheng said coldly, his voice raising just enough for nearby workers to hear. “It’s best not to peddle those feudal, old-society traditions here. The state explicitly advocates for free love. We must elevate our political awareness.”
Father Chen’s face flushed bright red with embarrassment. To be publicly lectured on his political awareness was a deep insult. Even after offering an olive branch, the Sheng family was being entirely ungrateful.
Just wait, Father Chen thought bitterly. When my youngest son gets promoted and makes it big, the Sheng family will be crying tears of regret.
Having finished his meal, Father Sheng calmly washed his aluminum lunchbox and headed straight back to his workstation. He didn’t have the time or energy to waste on meaningless gossip. He’d rather put in extra hours, secure a higher production bonus, and buy his wife a nice new dress.
Father Chen stood frozen in the cafeteria, glaring daggers at Father Sheng’s retreating back. His teeth ground together in fury, but there was absolutely nothing he could do.
