Chapter 18: Family Discussions
The Fu women all had different opinions. Although they had acted friendly toward Su He earlier, it was only because she didn't compete with them for anything.
Now that Su He had come to their doorstep and was competing for land, they couldn't help but side-eye her a little.
To be honest, people are inherently selfish. Fu Tinghua was a university graduate with a stable job in the city and a salary.
A salary? That was a new and strange idea back then.
In rural areas, they had only recently started using money for work. Before, they traded with food coupons and rarely used cash.
The sisters-in-law probably thought: *You already have an iron rice bowl in the city, so why come back and compete with us for land?*
*Our family has no state-assigned jobs or university graduates—we'll still rely on farming in the future. Can't you leave the land for those who really need it?*
While the women were mulling this over, Su He spoke up: "Well, I'm not sure if the family allocated any land to me and Tinghua back then—I can't quite remember now. But if none was assigned, I'd like to rent some from the family. I want to grow something to sell."
Rent? Land?
Everyone was stunned.
Fu Dajun, however, was displeased. His youngest son's wife wanted to use family land to grow something, yet she mentioned renting? What kind of talk was that? He immediately frowned and said, "His residency is still in the village, so of course he has a share of the family's land. We're all one family—no more talk of renting."
As for the durian business, Su He had no intention of keeping all the profits for herself.
After all, they were family—she definitely wanted to give them a leg up.
Su He didn't want to make money only to have her relatives always watching her pockets.
If they all earned together, once everyone was better off, they wouldn't resent her.
Besides, the Fu family was quite decent overall. Though the sisters-in-law had their own little schemes, Su He found that only human.
When personal interests are at stake, it's only foolish not to react.
"Then thank you, Dad. Which hillside plot is still available? Or is there one ready for harvest?" Su He asked again.
Better to get this sorted fast. After all, durians took several months to grow and bear fruit.
"How about the plot behind our hill? I'll take you there tomorrow morning," Fu Dajun said.
Su He agreed immediately.
With this major concern resolved, Su He prepared to head back.
Fu Dajun asked his eldest son, Fu Guoqing, and his wife to walk Su He and the kids back home. Walking from the village center to the outskirts took at least ten minutes at a brisk pace, mainly because the path cut through farmland and was quite narrow. It was the very path where Su He had warned the kids not to go to their grandmother's house to beg for food.
"This trail's too tight—hard to walk," Fu Dajun remarked, shaking his head.
"If we get the opportunity, this road will be widened."
Su He carried Niu Niu in her arms, while Fu Dajun held Zai Zai—each with a kid in their arms.
Hearing Su He's words, Fu Dajun figured the village wouldn't bother expanding the road, given how only a handful of homes were in this area.
But what he didn't expect was that in the future, it wouldn't be the village that widened this road—it would be Su He footing the bill herself.
Once home, after seeing off Fu Guoqing and his wife, Su He immediately heated water for the kids' baths.
In the north, even in summer, people don't necessarily bathe every day. But as a transmigrator, Su He, who was used to cleanliness before, genuinely couldn't handle going to bed without a bath.
Moreover, the two kids had followed her up the mountain all day, squeezing through every nook and cranny and sweating so much. Su He really couldn't bear the thought of them not bathing.
"Mom, mom, mom, mom..."
"Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom..."
"I hear you, I hear you," Su He replied helplessly to the two kids in the bathtub.
"Mom, today you were so..." Zai Zai really wanted to praise Su He for being so awesome today, but he was still too young and didn't know the word, so he couldn't describe it.
"So what?" Su He asked while bathing the two kids.
"So... I just really like Mom," Zai Zai said shyly.
"I like Zai Zai too, and I like Niu Niu. You two are my two favorite people," Su He replied.
"My two favorite people... even more than Dad?" Zai Zai asked innocently.
Su He: ...
She hadn't even met Fu Tinghua—how could there be any love or not?
But of course, she couldn't answer like that. A parent's marriage is the model for their children's relationships.
If their relationship wasn't happy, it would probably shape how the kids view marriage later in life. After all, parents' marriages serve as a reference.
"Of course, Mom loves Dad too. Zai Zai and Niu Niu should also love Dad, okay?" Su He said.
"I love Dad, but I love Mom more," Niu Niu immediately replied.
To be honest, they had always been closer to Su He, since she spent the most time with them.
But in the past, Su He had often yelled at and spanked them, so they had feared her more.
Now that Su He had made up for it with affection, the two kids had become completely dependent on her.
"Good, Mom loves you too."
After bathing the kids and getting into bed herself, Su He immediately accessed her dimensional space.
The bird eggs, snake, and medicinal herbs she had caught in the mountains were all perfectly preserved inside. Time was frozen in the space, so everything remained exactly as it was when she left.
Looking at the blackish-green snake, Su He couldn't suppress a shiver.
Turning her gaze away from the snake, Su He summoned the system interface.
"Customer Service 808 at your service. How may I assist you?" The characteristically sweet automated voice rang out again.
"I'd like to convert all these items into system points," Su He said, pointing at the items before her.
"All scanned materials add up to a total of 10,000 points. Proceed with conversion?"
10,000?! This was beyond her wildest expectations! she thought.
"Confirm."
As soon as Su He finished speaking, 10,000 points appeared in her space.
The storage interface expanded significantly, since the 10,000 points meant she could now exchange for even more items.
Not long after, Su He noticed a rather peculiar machine appearing before her. It looked like a computer, except it was a hologram.
"What is this?" Su He blurted out.
"This is a machine that connects with other parallel worlds and hosts who have material exchange systems. It includes forums and reward postings, allowing hosts to trade items or points."
"No way, that's so handy!" Su He immediately walked over to the machine, opened the forum, and indeed saw a multitude of reward postings.