The first thing I did was to find out

Chapter 13: Drought and Famine (Part )

When it was daybreak, Chen Huihong woke up on time.

As if she was not used to having a child lying next to her, Chen Huihong's first reaction after getting up was to eat tree bark and then leave, almost stepping on Hui Niang. After seeing Hui Niang, she reacted belatedly, and then she remembered that there was indeed such a person last night.

Seeing that Hui Niang had not woken up for a long time, Chen Huihong became impatient after waiting for a while, so she left first, found the abandoned well discovered yesterday, and started drawing water.

Most of the wells Chen Huihong found along the way were completely dry, with the bottoms full of dust and mud, and not even a drop of water could be pumped out.

In the few areas that have not dried up completely, the water is very little. The thin layer of water cannot keep up with the evaporation rate, and only in the morning can a trace of turbid sewage be discharged.

This shows how serious the drought is.

Chen Huihong pumped three or four times before she was able to get a thin layer of turbid water out of the well. Without a container, she just carried the bucket back home.

Fortunately, the refugees who passed by this abandoned well did not take away the hemp rope and the broken bucket, otherwise Chen Huihong would have to twist the hemp rope and find a bucket.

When Chen Huihong returned, Hui Niang had already woken up and was sitting on the ground in a daze, looking wooden like a puppet. Seeing Chen Huihong coming, Hui Niang excitedly got up from the ground and ran towards Chen Huihong, which was in stark contrast to her staggering appearance last night, which was comparable to a zombie learning to walk.

"elder sister!"

"Water." Chen Huihong said concisely, putting the bucket on the ground. "It's a little dirty. Wait for it to settle for a while before drinking it."

After saying that, Chen Huihong sat down, and Hui Niang also nodded and sat down obediently.

"Sister, what do you want to ask me?" Hui Niang knew that Chen Huihong had something to ask her.

"Where are you fleeing to?"

Hui Niang lowered her head and thought for a while: "At first, my mother said to flee to the north. I heard that the drought in the north is not as serious as ours, and it is raining. The price of wheat is less than 20 yuan per stone. If I go there to sell my body and farm, I don't need to borrow money to buy food, and maybe I can still have food to eat."

"But dad disagrees. He says that there is war in the north and many people have died, including many bandits. They may have died on the way. Although the drought gets worse the further south you go, I have a relative who is a carpenter in Lin County. We can have something to eat if we go there." At this point, Hui Niang, who had been keeping her head down, raised her head and glanced at Chen Huihong secretly.

Chen Huihong was thinking about her own things and didn't pay any attention to Hui Niang. She asked, "Did you go to Lin County?"

Hui Niang shook her head: "There was a plague in Lin County, and many people died. My relatives also died. The villages with serious plague were burned down. No one dared to approach."

"I don't know where my parents are going. They may go to Beiping or Qindi. But on the way we heard from others that Qindi was also suffering from drought. Some people also said that Beiping would not allow the disaster victims to enter the city and stopped them outside. My father wanted to hitchhike to the south, but many people fell off and died. Some were shot to death. My father was afraid that my brother would fall to his death, so he didn't try to get on the train."

"Are there many people fleeing famine?" Chen Huihong asked.

"A lot." Hui Niang nodded affirmatively. "It's been drought-stricken for three years. There's no snow in the winter and no rain in the spring. At the beginning, we had a little harvest to barely survive, but last year the wheat harvest was a total failure and we didn't even have any crops left."

"The wheat harvest has failed, but we still have to pay the rent and taxes. Many families in our village have left. My family has four acres of land, and we are going to keep it for my younger brother to get married. My father didn't want to leave, so he didn't leave."

"I sold my eldest sister last year to pay taxes, and I thought this year might be a good year. But it hasn't rained since the beginning of spring, and I couldn't survive. My grandparents were afraid of being a burden, so they ate nothing but Guanyin soil and died."

"Last month, my parents buried my grandparents, sold the land, and ran away with my brother and me."

"Actually, my father wanted to sell me last year, but my mother said that I ate little and was able to work, and if I was a year older I could sell me for more money, so they kept me until this year. But when the human trafficker came to our house this year, he thought I was ugly and a waste of food, and refused to take any money." Hui Niang's tone was indifferent, as if she was telling about something ordinary.

"Sister Chun from next door is pretty. The trafficker took her in and gave her two bags of wheat. The trafficker said he wanted to sell her to Peking. Sister Chun was very happy and left her red hairband to me. She told me that she might be able to eat white flour buns in Peking, and if she was lucky, she could even eat rice."

"Sister, do you know what white flour steamed buns taste like? In our village, only Landlord Zhang can eat white flour steamed buns. I saw one once. It was so white and soft, definitely softer than the clouds in the sky. They all say that white flour steamed buns are sweet, and they are sweet even without adding sugar."

"I know." Chen Huihong said, "The white flour buns are not white, and the flour is not white either, it's gray and not sweet."

Chen Huihong's honesty made Hui Niang a little disillusioned, but Hui Niang still couldn't help swallowing her saliva. It was obvious that compared with Hui Niang's description which was entirely based on her imagination, Chen Huihong's words were more real.

Thinking that Chen Huihong had actually eaten white flour buns, Hui Niang looked at her with even more respect and asked cautiously, "Sister, are you a lady from the city?"

Chen Huihong didn't answer, so Hui Niang took it as her acquiescence and continued to ask: "Sister Chun worked as a maid in the provincial capital. She said that now the young ladies in the city are learning from Shanghai, wearing foreign clothes, eating foreign food, and going to foreign schools to learn foreign languages. Do the young ladies in your city also eat white flour buns?"

Chen Huihong choked and said, "Eat, eat steamed buns everywhere."

After thinking for a while, Chen Huihong added: "Eat too."

“Rice is white.”

Hui Niang asked curiously, "Are the ladies in the city also fleeing?"

"…Run away, everyone."

Hui Niang nodded: "Sister Chun also told me that the master of the family she served before died, and the family fled. Several concubines stole a lot of jewelry, and Sister Chun also picked up a silver hairpin, but it was found and taken away by the steward."

Seeing that the topic was getting off topic, Chen Huihong took the initiative to ask, "If the traffickers didn't buy you, why did your parents take you with them when they fled the famine?"

This question was quite heart-wrenching and it made Hui Niang silent.

After a long time, Hui Niang whispered, "Mother said she couldn't bear to let go."

"Anyway, I don't eat much, and I know how to find food. I can take care of my brother on the way, so why not take me with you, just in case... I can be useful too."

"Do you know how to find food?" Chen Huihong looked at Hui Niang.

Hui Niang nodded repeatedly: "I know. I can dig grass roots from the ground, find bugs, find water, and find rat holes. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to not only find the food hidden by black rats, but also catch them."

"Although many rivers have dried up, there are always places with water. No matter how severe the drought is, you can always get water by digging wells." At this point, Hui Niang secretly looked at Chen Huihong again, "Sister, you don't seem to have a water storage jar."

"It's broken." Chen Huihong said perfunctorily, "Go on."

Hui Niang thought for a moment and added, "If the grain price hadn't been so high, the promised disaster relief grain hadn't arrived, and there were extra taxes this year, my father wouldn't have sold the land and fled."

"I know." Chen Huihong said calmly, "I know you people...farmers in the countryside who have land at home are considered to be in good condition. Many people have no land and rent land from landlords. If they can't pay the rent, they borrow money from the landlords at interest, and the interest is compounded until their families are ruined and they have to sell their children."

After saying that, Chen Huihong added: "I heard it from someone at the tea stall."

"Where are you going now?" Chen Huihong asked.

Hui Niang was a little confused, but also a little expectant. She looked at Chen Huihong carefully with her eyes like a little deer: "I don't know where to go."

"Sister, can I follow you?"

"I don't know where to go either. There's no point in you following me." Chen Huihong said.

"Then...can I follow?"

"Whatever." Chen Huihong was like a ruthless game player. She didn't care about the sad past of the NPC at all, but only cared about the progress of her own task.

Although she didn't seem to have any tasks to catch up on.

"Thank you, sister." Hui Niang happily followed behind Chen Huihong, letting her shadow completely blend into Chen Huihong's shadow, as if this would make her feel safe.

"Sister, what's your name?"

"My name is...Hongniang."

"So what's your last name, sister?"

"What's your last name?"

"My last name is Chen." "What a coincidence, my last name is also Chen."

"So, sister, where are you going?"

"I don't know." At this point, Chen Huihong stopped and asked, "Where... is there a lot of people and is it safe?"

Hui Niang thought for a moment and said, "Beiping."

"The emperor used to live there."

"and after?"

"Later, there was no emperor." Hui Niang said, "but there were many other masters. Sister Chun told me that in the past, if you accidentally bumped into a young lady, a young master, a lady, or a master in the city, you had to kneel down and kowtow. When the opera troupe came to our village to perform, the people in the opera had to kowtow when they saw the emperor. Maybe the emperor is similar to those masters."

Chen Huihong frowned: "I don't like to kowtow to others."

"Sister, you are a lady, of course you don't need to kowtow to others." Hui Niang said, showing her first smile after seeing Chen Huihong, "I don't like to kowtow to others either. Mother always scolds me for being hypocritical and mentally ill. I always avoid landlords when I see them in the village. So I didn't go when Sister Chun went to work in the city, and I didn't go even if my parents beat me."

Chen Huihong said nothing and continued walking forward.

Hui Niang followed her like a little shadow, following closely.

"Sister, are we going to Peking?"

"do not know."

"Where are we going then?"

"do not know."

"Sister, this is so strange. I was so hungry, but after you gave me tree bark to eat yesterday, I am no longer hungry."

"The bark is very hungry."

"Am I going to die? The people in my village who fled with us were like this. They kept saying they were so hungry, but when they were about to die, they were suddenly not hungry anymore, and then they died."

"No, a dying person won't talk so much." Chen Huihong paused, turned around, glanced at Hui Niang, and reluctantly took out a piece of tree bark that was slightly larger than the one last night and handed it to Hui Niang, "Eat."

Hui Niang took the bark and stuffed it directly into her mouth. Her hesitation seemed more decisive than yesterday, and she even swallowed it faster than last night.

"Sister, you are so nice!"

The good guy card has been issued.

Chen Huihong frowned, seeming to hate this sentence, and said sternly: "Find your own food in the future."

"Sister, I..."

A flash of white light appeared, and Qin Huai left the dream.

"Ding, congratulations to the player for unlocking the illustrated book."

Qin Huai after coming out of the dream: ...

Qin Huai thought for a moment: ...?
Although dreams are all bizarre and varied, Chen Huihong's dream was a bit too realistic. During those ten-days' journey, Qin Huai didn't speed up for a single second. He and Chen Huihong had to see the desolate scenery together for more than ten days.

And what does Chen Huihong’s dream mean?
Mother-daughter relationship changes to sisterhood?
In real life, they are a mother and daughter who are rich enough to have no worries, but in their dreams, they are a poor duo fleeing famine. The main theme is to experience life, contrast cuteness + development.

The key is--

Sister Hong, you haven’t finished your dream yet!

The character also collapsed.

Chen Huihong is not the kind of person in dreams who is cold yet kind-hearted. If people are compared to objects, Chen Huihong must be the sun, burning herself to illuminate the world, with fiery passion. However, she is not like a candle that burns out after a short while, and has a very strong endurance.

and……

This dream was a little too real.

Qin Huai recalled the clips and scenes he saw in his dream, which were a little too real. If it weren't for the dialogue in the dream that clearly indicated that it was during the Republic of China period, Chen Huihong was Chen Huihong when she was young, but Hui Niang was Chen Huihui at this age now, Qin Huai would have suspected that this was not a dream, but Chen Huihong's memory of the past.

Even if it is a dream, it seems like a fleeting dream from the previous life.

While thinking, Qin Huai opened the game panel.

There is one more item in the unlocked illustration.

Unlocked illustrations: 1/12
The lit illustration is Chen Huihong’s profile picture, click on it.

Name: Chen Huihong
Species: ??? (to be unlocked)

Dream: 1/3
Recipe: Bark (click to view details)
Gift: None
Qin Huai: Species??? What the hell is that?!

Are you going to tell me that Chen Huihong is not a human being?
So our system is not an ordinary daily management system, but an aura revival system/doomsday system/mysterious invasion system?

What's the use of giving recipes?

The aura is revived, the doomsday is coming, and the mysterious invasion has come. What can you solve by cooking? Can you beat the opponent to death with a rolling pin? Or beat the opponent to death with a mold? Or stuff the opponent to death with enough noodles?

Qin Huai clicked on the menu with a question mark on his head.

【Bark Grade F】

Producer: Chen Huihong

Dish details: Although I really don't want to admit that this is a dish, let's just call it that. It's unpalatable, dry, and hard to swallow. It's not recommended to eat it directly without processing. Unless you are on the verge of death, no one would want to eat this dish. Eating more than 3g can quickly fill your stomach, a real light meal. (Since this dish is really unpalatable, it is recommended to use it as a seasoning)
Amount that can be produced per day: 0/50g
A good light meal, and a good suggestion for use as a seasoning.

All the capitalists wanted to applaud when they saw this.

Qin Huai thought that selling a light meal of a few vegetable leaves, a little salad dressing, two shrimps, a slice of avocado and some cheap goods for thirty or forty was already a good deal, but he didn't expect that there was something even more ruthless here.

Guess what, straight onto the bark.

Still full.

Healthy and weight-loss, a truly delicious light meal.

At the same time, it is also very consistent with Chen Huihong's cooking skills.

Oh no, while preparing for the Parent-Child Cooking Day, Chen Huihong wouldn't really be so whimsical, so bold, so innovative, and so fearless as to use tree bark as a seasoning, right?
But where to buy the bark?

Can the tree bark sold on Taobao be eaten?

You can't just go to the green belt downstairs in the community and peel it off, right?
Qin Huai felt that if he dared to do so, Chen Huihong would arrest him on the spot within three minutes. Even if he had the title of "Chen Huihong's Affirmation", he would never show favoritism.

This chapter is two chapters in one, and one chapter will be updated today.

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(End of this chapter)