Returning to the 1960s: Starting with Digging for Fo-ti

In the kitchen stood a large wooden tub filled with steaming hot water. Liu Xiuyun was sitting inside it.

Water vapor hung in the air. She used her pale hands to gently wipe the skin of her arms. The water in the tub just covered her chest.

As she moved, ripples spread across the surface, and her breasts swayed gently.

Du Jianguo stared, somewhat dazed. He had never imagined his wife’s skin could be so fair and tender.

Although he already knew Liu Xiuyun came from a wealthy family and was different from the village women who worked in the fields all day, seeing her up close like this made him realize she must have been quietly taking care of herself to maintain such good skin.

Seeing Du Jianguo staring straight at her, Liu Xiuyun frowned and said, “If you want to come in, just come in and close the door. All the heat is escaping.”

“Oh, oh.” Du Jianguo snapped out of it, nodding with a bit of guilty panic. He didn’t forget the original reason he came to the kitchen.

He walked mechanically to the iron pot, picked up a rag, and started washing the bowls and chopsticks.

In the kitchen, one person bathed in the tub while the other washed dishes by the stove.

Liu Xiuyun felt a bit uneasy, but she didn’t overthink it. After all, they were a legitimate couple. Even if she didn’t favor Du Jianguo right now, they had done what couples do countless times before, so what was there to fear from being seen?

What truly surprised her was that Du Jianguo was voluntarily washing the dishes.

If Du Jianguo just wanted to trick her out of money, there would be no need to go this far. Even doing delicate work like washing dishes was beyond his usual nature.

Du Jianguo washed the dishes absentmindedly, his eyes constantly darting toward the tub.

Ever since Liu Xiuyun poisoned herself in his past life, he had not remarried. Later, as he grew older, his desires faded completely, and he had not touched a woman for decades.

He thought he had trained his heart to be as still as water, but now he realized he simply hadn’t met someone who could move him.

Looking at the living, breathing Liu Xiuyun now, Du Jianguo felt that masculine vitality surge back within him.

“Wife, let me help you scrub your back,” Du Jianguo said subconsciously.

Liu Xiuyun suddenly froze, sitting stiffly in the tub, unable to figure out what Du Jianguo was up to.

After pondering for a moment, she hesitantly agreed.

“Then… then alright, you scrub, but gently.”

With his wife’s permission, Du Jianguo took a towel and walked behind her. His hands trembled uncontrollably as he reached out. Just as he was about to touch her skin, his gaze fell upon her back, and he froze completely.

On her fair skin, blue and purple scars crisscrossed, and there were even a few faint brown bite marks. All of them were marks left by his past life’s cruelty.

He remembered how, in the past, whenever Liu Xiuyun refused to be intimate, he would beat and curse her. Those absurd memories now pierced his heart like needles, and guilt instantly overwhelmed all his other thoughts.

Du Jianguo steadied himself, scrubbed Liu Xiuyun’s back properly without saying another word, and then turned to leave the kitchen.

Watching him leave, Liu Xiuyun was left somewhat bewildered.

She had expected Du Jianguo to try something improper, but she never thought he would simply scrub her back steadily without a single overstep.

After finishing her bath and pouring out the dirty water, Liu Xiuyun returned to the main room.

As soon as she entered, she saw Du Jianguo fiddling with several wooden sticks. Beside him was a basket, and one of the sticks was already lit.

Liu Xiuyun asked, “Where are you going?”

Lighting a stick clearly meant he planned to go out at night. But in such darkness, where could he possibly go?

Was he going to hit the card game again?

Liu Xiuyun’s brows slowly furrowed.

Du Jianguo smiled, putting the firewood into the basket. “I want to take a walk and see if I can stumble upon another rabbit den. I want to exchange it for pork fat scraps for you.”

Hearing this, Liu Xiuyun did not get happy. Instead, she frowned and retorted, “Finding one rabbit den was already your lucky day. How can there be a second one? If you really want to add something to the household, you might as well follow the villagers and pick up potatoes.”

With the heavy snow coming soon and the children needing to be picked up from her parents’ house, how could they survive the winter without enough food?

Liu Xiuyun felt worried and couldn’t help but sigh.

Seeing her anxious look, Du Jianguo thought for a moment and said, “Don’t worry, wife. I will definitely gather enough food before the snow blocks the mountains.” With that, he put on his prepared gear and walked out of the house.

Watching Du Jianguo’s back, Liu Xiuyun shook her head in disappointment. In her eyes, Du Jianguo’s words were clearly made-up. How could she really expect him to get winter supplies?

Digging up that Fo-ti tonight.

This was the most reliable method Du Jianguo had decided on after careful consideration.

If he waited until daytime, the fields would be full of villagers working. Digging for the herb then would carry a huge risk of being caught.

Although he hadn’t been discovered when digging the rabbit hole this morning, who could guarantee he would have such luck a second or third time?

Thinking this way, sneaking out at night felt much safer.

Although it was pitch black and he didn’t have a flashlight, no one was foolish enough to go to the wild at midnight to talk about love.

Moreover, he had already found the leaves of the Fo-ti. According to common sense, the mother plant was likely nearby.

As long as he could get his hands on this herb, the immediate problem of the household’s lack of winter food could be solved.

Thinking of this, Du Jianguo’s steps became steadier, and he suddenly felt a surge of energy within him.

Following his memory from the day, Du Jianguo quickly found the place where he had previously spotted the Fo-ti leaves. Along the way, he also saw the rabbit hole.

When he left in the morning, he had deliberately covered the hole with dry grass. However, the pile of grass was now a mess, clearly disturbed by the mother rabbit returning to forage.

If that mother rabbit knew that four of her 6 kits had already been wrapped in seasoning and eaten by Liu Chun’an, leaving only two alive, she would surely be heartbroken.

“Don’t blame me for being ruthless. Survival of the fittest. I’ve already left two for your lineage.”

It would be great if he could use those two baby rabbits to lure the mother back.

An adult female rabbit weighs at least two or three jin. Exchanging it for goods could get him at least several jin of cornmeal, enough for the family to eat for a few days.

Unfortunately, while mother rabbits protect their young, they don’t dare to fight to the death with humans. Relying on two baby rabbits to lure it back was clearly unrealistic.

Du Jianguo suppressed this thought and focused his attention back on finding the Fo-ti, no longer distracted.

Holding his hoe, he chose spots where the soil was loose to dig. These were the preferred growing environments for the herb.

The hoe struck the ground, and although he couldn’t find the leaves of the Fo-ti anymore, he occasionally dug up potato-sized tubers from the clumps of dirt.

He didn’t mind. He simply picked them up and stuffed them into his basket.

In these years of food shortage, food was always a good thing. Every mouthful counted, and no one ever complained about having too much stored food.

He kept an eye on the ground while speeding up his movements.

Suddenly, his hoe hit something with a clunk.