After transmigrating, he supported his family by working at a garbage dump.

As the moon rises over the eastern hills, the old duck village remains as quiet as ever at night.

In the Xu family courtyard, under the kitchen shed.

Zhang He was tending the stove, boiling water, while Xu Zhuzhu and Xu An were sitting quietly to the side.

Xu An was fine; he was writing down the new characters he had learned that day by the firelight. However, Xu Zhuzhu, who was usually very lively, was quite quiet.

Zhang He was secretly amazed.

Looking up, I saw Xu Zhuzhu take out the small beads that were hanging around her neck.

Holding a tablet in one hand and beads in the other, he looked puzzled but observed them very carefully.

At noon, the beads on her chest suddenly felt hot, and Xu Zhuzhu hurriedly took them off.

The beads, however, remained unchanged, their surface still gleaming with a soft red light.

However, even through her thick cotton sleeves, she could still feel the unusually intense heat of the bead.

Xu Zhuzhu had no choice but to put the bead into a bucket of water to cool it down. After a while, the temperature returned to normal.

Only then could she put the beads back around her neck.

When her father returned, Xu Zhuzhu asked him if he had any thoughts.

Xu Wenjie said she would look for clues on the tablet after she got home, but the father and daughter had only been sitting down to study it for a short while and hadn't found anything when Li Quanfu came and called her father away.

Xu Zhuzhu guessed it was probably because of the rice delivery.

After returning from the market, her parents counted the dumplings. In half a day, all two hundred dumplings, except for the ones Zhang He had specially saved, were sold, earning a total of one hundred and fourteen coins.

Because of Granny Mi's recommendation and because she borrowed Granny Mi's pot, Zhang He took it upon herself to give Granny Mi twenty coins, but Granny Mi naturally refused to accept them no matter what.

Zhang He then instructed Xu Zhuzhu to secretly slip the item into Grandma Mi's pocket when she wasn't looking.

In this way, the family earned a total of ninety-four coins from this trip, which was quite decent, although not as much as his father earned from setting up a stall during the New Year.

However, this was just a small gathering, and only lasted half a day, but I still gained quite a lot.

Therefore, her mother was in an exceptionally good mood.

Thinking that her father wouldn't be back anytime soon, she packed up her things at the stall and left them with Granny Mi.

Zhang He said that since it was a rare trip to town, she insisted on taking her two children sightseeing.

Grandma Mi readily agreed and told Zhang He not to rush and to take her time to look around.

Zhang He smiled and said thank you for your trouble, then confidently led Xu Zhuzhu and Xu An to stroll around the various stalls and shops in the town.

When the mother and her two children passed by a clothing store, Zhang He went inside without hesitation.

She thought that the quilts in their house were not very "decent" at the moment, so she decided to buy some cotton and cloth to make a new quilt.

Upon inquiring, Zhang He learned that cotton cost eighty wen per jin, and even the worst cotton cloth cost fifty wen per bolt. Without much thought, she silently led her two children and quickly retreated outside the shop.

Zhang He said, "Our current quilts are warm enough, so let's just make do with them for now."

Xu Zhuzhu chuckled.

She had no objections. Although their belongings were a bit worn out, when the weather was sunny, her mother would take apart the mattresses and quilts, wash and air them out, so they were now clean and warm.

Xu An nodded, agreeing that there was no need to change it for now.

……

Anyway, once the water boiled, Zhang He instructed the two children to wash up early so they could go to bed.

When Xu Wenjie returned, Xu Zhuzhu and Xu An, the two children, were obediently soaking their feet under Zhang He's direction.

When they saw Xu Wenjie carrying half a sack of things and slowly walking into the yard, they all called out in unison, "Father!"

Zhang He hurriedly went to greet them, took the sack, and placed it on the ground.

The sack was quite heavy, so he asked in confusion, "What's this?"

"Brother Li, you're too kind."

Zhang He guessed that it was probably a thank-you gift from Li Quanfu after receiving the rice, but she didn't know what was in the sack.

Xu Wenjie smiled awkwardly, his expression somewhat helpless.

"It's carbon."

"what?"

Even Zhang He's smile froze a bit.

"Not the same kind as last time, right?"

There was no intention to blame or dislike Li Quanfu for carbon, but since the last time he fainted from carbon, Xu Zhuzhu's family has become very sensitive to carbon.

Of the charcoal Li Quanfu gave us, half a basket is still sitting in a corner. When we need it, we take it to the yard and burn it until it's glowing red before bringing it inside.

However, since the weather has been warmer recently, they no longer need to burn charcoal for heating in their houses, so the basket of charcoal has naturally been neglected...

"No."

Xu Wenjie quickly denied it with a smile.

"Brother Li said that his father-in-law burned the charcoal, and it was all top-quality charcoal. He helped carry the charcoal into the mountains yesterday, a whole oxcart full of charcoal, and he was going to deliver it to the town government office today."

"Now that it's getting warmer, we naturally have to take advantage of the still-cold weather and sell another batch of charcoal before spring arrives to make a profit. Although ordinary people don't burn charcoal these days, the important people in government offices still need it..."

These are Li Quanfu's original words.

After helping his father-in-law, Li Quanfu returned home before dark, carrying two baskets of charcoal.

But to his surprise, he saw that the family's meals had suddenly changed from brown rice porridge to white rice porridge. He was so shocked that he couldn't speak, thinking that Hu San Niang had sold some of their family's belongings again.

"Has the peddler come to the village to collect eggs?"

Hu Sanniang rolled her eyes and explained the whole story.

Li Quanfu looked distressed and rushed to Xu Wenjie's house without even eating. "Why didn't Third Aunt stop us? We haven't helped Brother Xu at all, how can we accept such heavy things from him?"

She was about to head to Xu Wenjie's house when she realized it was already late at night. Hu Sanniang quickly stopped Li Quanfu and said, "I didn't accept it at all. Someone secretly poured it into the rice jar. I only found out at night. My child and I were still drinking coarse rice porridge. I only cooked this bowl for you because I thought you had worked hard."

They said it was late and they could go tomorrow, so Li Quanfu thought about it and had no choice but to agree. However, he didn't sleep well all night.

The next day, Li got up very early and went to Xu Zhuzhu's house, but he didn't see anyone there. Only the Xu family's tightly locked courtyard gate came to see him...

Li Quanfu waited in front of the door all morning but no one came back. It was Hu San Niang who came to find him and mentioned that Xu Wenjie's family was now setting up a stall in town. She estimated that they wouldn't be back until the afternoon, so Li Quanfu went home.

Li Quanfu came several more times that afternoon, but he didn't see him.

It wasn't until evening that Li Quanfu finally encountered someone and quickly took Xu Wenjie to his home to return the rice.

Xu Wenjie sent this out on purpose, how could he possibly take it back?

One didn't want to keep it, and the other didn't want to accept it, so the two were deadlocked. In the end, Hu San Niang came up with a compromise and said, "Why don't you take that basket of charcoal with you, Brother Xu? It's not worth much money, but it's the thought that counts."

Xu Wenjie didn't want it, but Li Quanfu had already put the charcoal into a sack and handed it to him.

Without waiting for Xu Wenjie to refuse, they locked him and Tan out of the room and made some harsh remarks.

"If you don't take this charcoal with you, this bag of rice will be right at your doorstep tomorrow."

Xu Wenjie had no choice but to accept it with a smile.

After hearing this, Zhang He suddenly realized and said with great emotion, "Brother Li is truly an honest man."

Xu Wenjie nodded; he had truly met a benefactor.

While Xu Zhuzhu was eating melon, she and Xu An had finished washing their feet and were told by Zhang He to quickly get into bed and cover them up.

Her mother then urged Xu Wenjie to go wash up, but Xu Wenjie was thinking about the garbage dump.

He then suggested that Xu Zhuzhu take him there. Xu Zhuzhu noticed that her father looked a little tired and, feeling rather lazy herself, said that it wouldn't be too late to go tomorrow.

Her mother agreed.

But his father wasn't happy about it.

"Diligence leads to mastery, while idleness leads to ruin. Our family has benefited from this, so naturally we can't afford to work only sporadically..."

Xu Wenjie looked serious.

Xu Zhuzhu suddenly remembered that she had said during the day that she would pray properly after returning home, and she immediately became very motivated.

"Go! Go right now!"

After a tiring day, the family shouldered their baskets and went to clean the garbage station.