Raising Kids in the Mining District [The 1980S]

[This novel has undergone major revisions. The only complete version is on Jinjiang.] In the summer of 1978, Wei Mengxi's in-laws were waiting to marry off the beautiful young widow in exchange for a bride price. Her two kitten-like children had nowhere to go. Across the river, at the Caihuagou production brigade, Lu Guangquan, an engineer at the Jinshui Mine, had been widowed for two years and urgently needed a woman to manage the household and raise his children. The two hit it off and promptly got their marriage certificate on the day they met. Everyone said Wei Mengxi was lucky. A widow with two little burdens to raise had managed to marry an engineer who received grain rations. But the truth was that the couple lived apart, her in-laws schemed against her, her daughter died young, and even the four children she had raised with such effort grew up to be troubled or disabled. Her second marriage was a complete mess. If she could start over, Wei Mengxi wouldn't marry again. She only wanted to be a single mother. Then she opened her eyes and was reborn. The bad news was that she was in her second marriage again. The good news was that she still had the cooking skills from her previous life, and she had even found her family's long-lost cookbook, A Record of Rare Delicacies! To hell with being a dutiful daughter-in-law to her in-laws. She was done putting up with them! To hell with living apart! Even if the whole family had to squeeze into a ten-square-meter shack, she would become a mine worker's dependent and open a restaurant to make a fortune! Worker A: Hear the news? Engineer Lu's new wife is selling boxed lunches in a shack. Worker B: Give me a break. That woman can't lift a thing. Whatever she cooks wouldn't even be fit for a dog... Wait, that's delicious! Worker C: Hear the news? Engineer Lu's wife has opened a braised-meat shop in the shack district. Worker D: What's so special about braised meat? It's just... Hey, wait! Save me some! Before long, the employees of Jinshui Coal Mine noticed that Engineer Lu was coming back to the little shack more and more often, and earlier and earlier. Everyone said his new wife had him wrapped around her little finger and that he had no backbone. Lu Guangquan: I don't, I haven't, don't make things up. My wife's brown-sugar glutinous rice cakes, mushroom soup, fish hot pot, fish-fragrant shredded pork, sweet-and-sour ribs, and spicy dry pot... They'll be sold out if I don't get home soon. The comparison-group heroine, the reborn woman, the lucky little koi, and everyone else: We heard Wei Mengxi had an unhappy marriage, good-for-nothing children, and a life of poverty. How did she end up opening restaurants in the capital? No, wait, she even opened them in Tokyo, New York, Berlin, and Italy! Wherever there are people in the world, her food is there. It's ridiculously... delicious! ★★★ Hu's completed novels are nice and hefty. Come and read them! ★★★ The Swapped Lives of the Seventies: A national treasure scientist's tearful tale of raising children The Little Earth Spirit Is Three and a Half: Cute and adorable, no brains required Marrying the Coal Boss: He really does own a mine Back to When My Ex-Husband Had Just Died: A construction foreman raises his daughter Spring Flows into the Old Years: An ancient straight man's journey to becoming a doting husband Transmigrated as the Short, Dark Younger Sister of the Heroine: An older factory girl turns her life around Theme: Diligence, courage, and self-reliance