Only then did she understand why not a single one of her next-door neighbors had made a peep when Liu Jinbao brought those thugs to stir up trouble.
Lin Lan had just reached the middle of the tractor path when He Cuicui deliberately said in a loud voice, "Lin Lan, I hear you've come into some money. You should hurry up and pay back what you owe us."
"Alright." Lin Lan counted out four dollars and gave it to them, her face flushing. "I'm sorry it took me until today to pay you back."
Li Guizhi, who had expected to have to argue for it, gave her a surprised look. She reached out, took the money, and said softly, "Well, as long as it's paid back."
He Cuicui pursed her lips. "So you have money for sunflower seeds, but not to pay your debts." With that, she pulled Li Guizhi away.
The two went to Zhang Yazhen's house. He Cuicui looked at Zhang Yazhen with a grin. "We were in such a hurry just now, I didn't get to ask. How did you know Lin Lan had money?"
Zhang Yazhen walked to the courtyard gate, glanced outside, then shut the gate and came back with a smug look. "This morning, Liu San brought people to kick down the Yang family's door... I heard Yang Dingbang tell the police that he wanted Liu Jinbao to pay for her door. He also said that the gambling debt belonged to the Yang family's youngest son and had nothing to do with Lin Lan."
"I saw her leave with the police, so I waited by my gate for her to come back to ask for my money. Who knew she'd hand it over so readily?"
He Cuicui giggled. "Yazhen, you're so clever. Otherwise, we'd never have gotten that money back!"
Zhang Yazhen smiled smugly and whispered in He Cuicui's ear, "I was planning to pick a fight with her, to get Yang Dingbang to help pay it back."
He Cuicui glanced at her. "Would Yang Dingbang really help her pay it?"
Zhang Yazhen winked. "He's a big-shot detective. Do you think a couple of bucks is anything to him?"
He Cuicui nodded. "That's true."
Li Guizhi smiled. "Actually, Lin Lan is pretty pitiful. She thought she was marrying into a family on the edge of the city, but who knew that good-for-nothing son of the Yangs would turn out to be a dirt-poor, gambling delinquent."
"Why do you feel sorry for her?" Zhang Yazhen sneered. "She's always been a shallow, greedy, and lazy woman. Now she's a widow, and with those seductive looks of hers... We need to put her in her place a bit, if you know what I mean!"
"We know!"
The two exchanged a look of tacit understanding, then giggled as they thanked Zhang Yazhen and headed home.
* * *
Lin Lan stood in the courtyard and surveyed her new home. The yard was spacious, with the house facing south. An earthen brick wall enclosed the building, and there was a decent-sized vegetable patch.
Outside the western wall was a grove of bamboo. Outside the eastern wall was the Yang family's private plot, where the rapeseed had been planted by the original owner's mother and two brothers two months ago.
The house looked quite old. The three main rooms were made of brick and roofed with tiles, but the three rooms of the east and west wings were made of packed earth with thatched roofs of wheat straw.
The room to the right of the main hall had been her and Yang Guangming's marital bedroom. After Yang Guangming died, the original owner had been too afraid to sleep there and had moved into the room on the left.
In the west wing, the room closest to the main building was the woodshed. A stone millstone sat in a corner by the door, and inside were piles of firewood and miscellaneous junk.
The other two rooms served as a pigsty. In a corner was a square chicken coop made of Moso bamboo. The latrine was also in the pigsty building, with a trench leading directly to the septic pit dug behind the west wing.
The main hall had double doors. In the east wing, the room next to the main building was the kitchen, and the other two rooms had belonged to Yang Guangming's three sisters before they were married.
A long bamboo pole hung horizontally under the eaves. Against the wall stood a three-tiered, triangular washstand holding two wooden basins.
Two old towels hung from the stand, and a small, square mirror was propped up on the soap dish.
Lin Lan leaned closer to the small mirror and saw her current appearance: an oval face, phoenix eyes, a delicate, straight nose, a mouth that was a little wide, and lips that were a little full. Her long, black hair was a messy pile on top of her head.
'The original owner's looks were several times better than her personality,' Lin Lan thought after looking.
She gathered her hair, smoothed it with her hands, and tied it up, getting ready to work.
She pushed open the kitchen door. The first thing she saw was a small, square table with a few small bamboo chairs. Turning her head, she saw another small door at the back. A single lightbulb hung from a rafter.
Looking at the lightbulb, which was yellowed with grime, Lin Lan thought, 'Life in the suburbs is better after all. They already have electric lights in this era.'
The place she used to live only got electricity in '83. She still remembered how overjoyed everyone was on that day.
The next day at school, the teacher had even given them a riddle to solve: "A vine grows in the house, a gourd grows on the vine. When the sun goes down, a red flower blooms in the gourd."
Lin Lan still remembered how everyone in her class had guessed the answer instantly, shouting in unison, "An electric light!"
Looking over, she saw a double-burner earthen stove built against the wall. A ceramic kettle, burnt to a glossy blackish-red, hung in front of the firebox opening. Flames licked out, heating the water in the kettle. This was their source of daily hot water.
Firewood was piled messily in front of the firebox. Scallion leaves, vegetable roots, and sweet potato peels were strewn on the floor. On the stove sat two iron woks. The outer one was filled with dirty bowls and chopsticks, while the inner one held a half-pot of hogwash.
The cement stovetop, caked in black grime, looked like it hadn't been washed in ages. A large ceramic basin rested against the wall, with a filthy bamboo basket on top of it. Two more baskets hung on the wall.
Behind the stove, against the wall, was a heavy wooden cupboard, its paint mottled and peeling. It was clearly old but still very sturdy.
Next to the cupboard, near the back door, was a large water vat with a woven bamboo lid. Lin Lan lifted it and saw only a little murky water left at the bottom.
She unlatched the bolt and opened the back door to find a small backyard. On the right side of the yard was a well, covered with a round stone slab.
Next to the well was a square cement basin about two feet high. Beside it lay a rectangular whetstone. A bluestone washboard was propped near the wall, and a drainage ditch led out of the yard.
On the left side of the yard was another small vegetable patch. There was a small wooden gate in the back wall. The patch only had some scallions, cilantro, and patchouli growing in it. Outside the wall was all bamboo forest, through which you could see the roof of the house behind them.
Lin Lan looked around and felt that the layout was somewhat similar to her childhood home. The local accent was also close to the one from her past life; only the place names were all different.
She looked at the yard and thought, 'I managed to build a thriving life for myself from even worse situations than this before. Now that I have a second chance, my life is going to get better and better, just like a sesame stalk blooming higher and higher!'
Lin Lan had always been a strong-willed person. Having made up her mind, she glanced back at the filthy kitchen, rolled up her sleeves, and got busy.
She fetched a bucket of water, poured half of it into the water vat, and grabbed the bamboo brush from the stovetop that was about to fall apart. She scrubbed the vat clean, then tossed the dirty water onto the vegetable patch.
She rinsed the vat with clean water twice before it was finally clean, then hauled seven or eight more buckets of water in one go to fill it up.
Only then did Lin Lan go to the stove. She felt around inside the firebox, pulled out a box of matches, lit a handful of straw, and started heating water to wash the dishes.
Once the water was hot, she used a loofah sponge to scrub the bowls, chopsticks, ceramic basin, wok lids, and bamboo baskets clean. She stacked them all in a porcelain basin and carried it out to the sink in the yard.
She went back inside and scooped a handful of plant ash into the wok, using the brush and the loofah to scrub down the stove and the cupboard.
Who knows how long it had been since the cupboard was last wiped down. It was covered in a thick layer of black grime inside. She also found a handful of soapbeans on top of it.
Lin Lan took out all the bowls, plates, basins, jars, and the soy sauce and vinegar bottles from the cupboard and washed them all.
In a small jar, she found a pot of lard and some spices. She remembered these were leftovers from the funeral arrangements.
While scrubbing the cupboard, she noticed several jars of various sizes—large, medium, and small—in the corner, along with a ceramic oil jug.
Inside the oil jug were five or six pounds of rapeseed oil, a gift from the original owner's family after Yang Guangming's death.