1950s: After transmigrating into a capitalist, I relied on military industry to achieve a comeback.

Although he lost 40%, the money became "clean" and turned into the "hard-earned money" he made from doing manual labor outside.

And so, over the next month, Lin Hongsheng, posing as a down-on-his-luck farmer who "wanted to go to the city to find work and sell his belongings to make ends meet," secretly broke down a dozen or so small yellow croakers into smaller amounts and exchanged them for thick stacks of cash.

He also bought some items befitting a "farmer moving to the city" according to Lin Jiaoyue's list. These included several old but thick cotton-padded coats, several pairs of sturdy rubber-soled shoes, and a huge, worn-out canvas bag that looked like it could hold all his belongings.

While their father was out "fighting on the front lines," Lin Jiaoyue and Su Wanqing were also busy at home.

Lin Jiaoyue was busy making a good impression on the villagers. She knew that it wasn't terrible for people to forget her after she left; what was terrible was being gossiped about after she was gone. She wanted to etch the impression that "the Lin family's daughter is a living Bodhisattva" firmly into the minds of the villagers.

In winter, Grandpa Zhang from the east end of the village suffered a flare-up of his chronic leg pain, so bad he couldn't get out of bed and groaned all night long. Lin Jiaoyue carried a small bamboo basket "up the back mountain," but actually she was just picking some pain-relieving and blood-activating herbs from her spatial storage and secretly adding some diluted spiritual spring water to make a medicinal soup.

"Grandpa Zhang, this is a folk remedy I found in an old book. It says it's a cure for leg pain. I don't know if it will work, but please try drinking it while it's hot." She held the bowl, her eyes crinkling with a smile, looking exceptionally well-behaved and sensible.

Within half an hour of drinking it, Grandpa Zhang felt most of the piercing cold dissipate, and his legs and feet felt warm and comfortable, as if they were being wrapped with a hot towel.

The next day, the old man was able to sit in the sun at the village entrance, leaning on his cane, and praise others: "Oh my, that girl from the Lin family, she's amazing! Her heart is kinder than Guanyin Bodhisattva's! After drinking that medicine, my old legs stopped hurting!"

Aunt Li, who lived at the west end of the village, had poor eyesight and went blind at night. Lin Jiaoyue diluted it with spring water, put it in a clean little eye drop bottle, and told her that it was an "ancestral remedy for improving eyesight," and that she also had to eat the dark herbal residue.

Within a few days, Aunt Li was able to sew shoe soles under the kerosene lamp, and she would tell everyone she met, "Jiaojiao is destined for great fortune! Whoever marries her will have their ancestors' graves emitting auspicious smoke!"

These actions, seemingly unintentional, have inadvertently built up immense prestige for the Lin family. Now, when villagers mention the Lin family, especially Lin Jiaoyue, they can't help but give them a thumbs up. In this way, even if the Lin family leaves in the future, the villagers will only remember their good deeds, and no one will gossip behind their backs, saying that they "fled to escape punishment."

Su Wanqing became the "moving worker" in the house.

She was quietly carrying out a special kind of "renovation" every day.

Today, she will put away the soft cotton quilt from her bed into her spatial storage. The quilt is embroidered with exquisite mandarin ducks playing in the water, and it was part of her dowry. She strokes the quilt, a hint of reluctance flashing in her eyes, but it disappears in an instant. She then replaces it with a stiff old cotton quilt that she found at the market, which is patched in several places.

Tomorrow, she will put away several delicate porcelain bowls and replace them with a few rough earthenware bowls with chipped rims. The edges of those rough earthenware bowls are sharp; she even cut herself the first time she washed them, but she just pursed her lips and continued scrubbing.

Even the purple clay teapot that Lin Hongsheng usually liked to use was replaced by a large tea mug with peeling paint and a missing spout.

She gradually transformed this cozy home into a space befitting her status as an impoverished farmer.

Late at night, a cold wind howled. Su Wanqing was busy in the warehouse of her spatial dimension.

She sorted everything—personal belongings, medicine, changes of clothes, and the cash she had earned—wrapped them in oil paper, and neatly stacked them on the warehouse shelves. Looking at the mountain of supplies piled up in the warehouse, her anxious heart finally felt a sense of relief.

The family of three each performed their duties, working together to prepare for their goal.

They were waiting, waiting for news of Li Shouyi, waiting for the opportunity to knock on the door of a new world.

As 1951 began, the wind on the Northeast Plain seemed to be whistling, howling and seeping into one's bones.

The village's peaceful and comfortable life, with wives, children, and warm beds, was shattered by a sudden tense atmosphere.

The township issued a strict order to launch a campaign to suppress bandits and spies. Work teams were stationed directly in various villages and hamlets, supposedly to conduct a comprehensive search, focusing on those outsiders with unclear origins and backgrounds.

The news spread incredibly fast, reaching every nook and cranny of Lijia Village in just half a day.

The old villagers were eating and drinking as usual. Lijia Village was so poor that even a mouse would leave with tears in its eyes if it entered a house. Even bandits would leave two bags of rice when they came. Who would hide in this godforsaken place?

But the hearts of the Lin family of three tightened instantly.

At this critical juncture, the term "outsider" is like a knife hanging over one's head.

The only sound in the room was the wind outside the window. Su Wanqing's hands trembled slightly, and she held the needle and thread for a long time without being able to put the needle down.

"Father, Mother, hold on."

Lin Jiaoyue's voice wasn't loud, but it carried a calmness that could reassure people. Her eyes were calm, and she had already made plans in mind. "This was expected, even a few days later than I anticipated. It's precisely at times like this that we mustn't panic."

She stood up, her gaze sweeping across the room, her mind racing: "When they come to investigate, they'll use nothing more than three tricks: look at people, look at things, and listen to accents. As long as we play this role convincingly, we'll just be the most honest and poorest refugee farmers."

"Listen to Jiaojiao." Lin Hongsheng gritted his teeth. As a former manager of a trading company, his decisiveness remained. "We've even given up our family fortune, are we afraid we won't do a good job of putting on this show?"

That evening, the Lin family locked themselves in and carried out an almost frantic "emergency clearing."

The thick cotton quilts that had just been made for winter, along with the face cream that Su Wanqing had hidden under the cabinet and the fountain pen that Lin Hongsheng used for bookkeeping, were all put into Lin Jiaoyue's space.

Instead, there were several tattered cotton quilts, hardened like blocks of iron, that had been found somewhere, emitting a musty smell. The cupboard had been emptied, leaving only a few large, chipped, coarse porcelain bowls. The rice jar was empty, and a layer of ash had been deliberately applied to its walls.

The most amazing thing was the pair of rubber-soled shoes that Lin Hongsheng had just bought a few days ago. To make them look old, he spent half a day rubbing the soles in the ashes of the stove pit, then walked around in the mud in the yard a few times, and finally used sandpaper to sand the uppers until they were frayed, making them look like old junk that he had worn for three or five years and couldn't bear to throw away.

Lin Jiaoyue looked at all this and nodded in satisfaction. She then took out a handful of dried mugwort and moldy orange peel from her spatial storage and threw them into the stove to burn.

The musty smell, the smell of cooking, and the sour smell unique to poor people's homes quickly filled the entire house.

"That's right," Lin Jiaoyue said softly. "This is what poor people taste like."