Axolotl Translations

“The matchmaker is a neighbor from Wenjuan’s compound, she’s the girl’s eldest aunt. She works in the Women’s Federation, and her husband is in the logistics department.”

“The girl herself is a university graduate, twenty years old, four years younger than Haoxuan. She just completed her teacher training and was assigned to a middle school. She has a fair complexion, a delicate look, and has a gentle, quiet demeanor. Her father works as a director in the government, and her mother is a primary school teacher.”

When Grandma Zhang started talking about her trip to the capital, a smile broke across her face. Despite everything, the trip had brought some happy news.

“That sounds great! The families are a perfect match, and the children seem well-suited for each other,” Auntie said.

She leaned in, curious for more details. “So, does this mean the match was successful? When will they get engaged?”

“Everyone wants to settle it soon. Haoxuan is already twenty-four. Men his age already have kids old enough to buy soy sauce by now.”

“His unit is in the southwest mountains, and it’s rare for him to come home. This time, he saved up three years of leave, but traveling back and forth takes time, so he only gets about ten days at home.”

“Wenjuan wants to arrange a marriage with someone reliable. Since Haoxuan is the eldest son of their family, his future wife doesn’t need to come from a wealthy background, but she must be educated and well-mannered.”

“That’s certainly wise,” Aunt nodded in agreement.

“Haoxuan and Haoyu have a close bond, and we’ve watched Jiajia grow up. If he marries a troublemaker, it would damage the relationship between the brothers, and we wouldn’t bear to see Jiajia suffer under a domineering sister-in-law.”

“When he goes back, he’ll be promoted to deputy battalion commander, and his wife would be allowed to live on the army. Since the girl is a teacher, her position could be transferred to the school on the base,” Grandma Zhang sighed, her voice filled with resignation.

“But Haoxuan doesn’t agree. He thinks it’s unfair to the girl, who’s just starting her career and doesn’t know the hardships of being a military wife. They’ve barely spent time together, and he feels rushing into an engagement now would be irresponsible. He wants to spend more time getting to know each other, keep in touch through letters for now, and, if both still agree later, then formalize the engagement.”

To be honest, Grandma Zhang didn’t quite understand Haoxuan’s thinking. In her generation, marriages were arranged without the couple even meeting, yet life still went on smoothly. But since the young ones had already talked it through, as parents, they had no choice but to support them.

“Haoxuan is thinking practically. Nowadays, many young women want to marry soldiers because they see it as a mark of honor, but they don’t understand the hardships of being a military wife. If they jump into marriage without understanding, problems are bound to arise over time.”

Aunt reflected on this and felt that the Qiao family’s eldest son had a good head on his shoulders. He wasn’t going to let a hasty marriage make his life miserable. Besides, with Haoxuan stationed in the southwest and Haoyu’s future assignment unknown, the two families might not end up living close to one another.

She knew her own child well. Jiajia was strong-willed and capable, someone who could make the best of life anywhere.

Wenjuan had always loved Jiajia and treated her like her own daughter, so there would be no need to worry about having a conflict with her mother-in-law if she married into that family.

After sitting for a while, Grandma Zhang went home. Jiajia had been studying all morning, stepped out to help Aunt Fen with lunch.

When she first arrived, Jiajia struggled with the bland, simple food. Supplies were scarce in this era, and grains like brown rice and cornmeal were considered fine foods. Large families, burdened with many mouths to feed, often found their monthly grain rations insufficient and had to trade fine grains for more filling options like sweet potatoes and potatoes.

The Wei family, however, wasn’t short of money. In fact, they were wealthier than most. But without ration tickets, even money was useless.

This lack of ingredients meant that, despite Aunt Fen’s cooking skills, the food still tasted a bit bland to Wei Jiajia, who had grown up enjoying a variety of modern cuisines.

After a few days of eating like this, she expressed expressed her desire to learn how to cook.

In truth, she was quite skilled in the kitchen. At the orphanage, the older children were often required to help the caregivers with meal preparation. Later, when she entered the workforce, she would cook her own meals to save money. It was only when work got busier that she stopped cooking regularly.

But the original owner had no cooking skills. She had only done small tasks like washing vegetables while Aunt Fen handled the meals. So, Jiajia carefully pretended to be a novice, gradually “learning” the basics. Even though she intentionally held back, Aunt Fen was still impressed with how quickly she got the hang of things and praised her for having a natural talent for cooking.

Within just two weeks, Jiajia had taken charge of the kitchen. The children loved her food so much that they started eating an extra bowl of rice with each meal.

This was no surprise—food resources were painfully limited in this era. But Jiajia had access to a stash of modern seasonings in her spatial storage. She would discreetly add a bit to the dishes while cooking, ensuring that no one would notice.

This spatial storage was something she had stumbled upon by accident. One evening, while walking home from work, she had noticed an elderly woman collapse by the side of the road. And Jiajia, out of kindness, had taken her to the hospital.

At the hospital, the doctors determined that the elderly woman had fainted from hunger. At that time, Wei Jiajia had just started working, renting a small place with little money to her name. Even so, she paid the medical expenses, bought food for the woman, and stayed by her side through the night.

When it was time for the woman to leave, she insisted on giving Jiajia a token of her gratitude—a plum blossom-shaped pendant she had worn since childhood, explaining that it was a stone she had found by the river when she was young. It was her way of thanking Jiajia for her kindness in taking her to the hospital and watching over her all night.

Jiajia didn’t think much of it, assuming the pendant was just an ordinary stone, not something particularly valuable. But refusing would only trouble the old woman, so she accepted it and wore it around her neck, finally putting the woman’s heart at ease.

She didn’t discover the pendant’s secret until she woke up in this era. Her Auntie had fallen seriously ill, needing rare and costly herbs to recover. On top of that, her own body was frail from the lingering effects of illness after her parents’ death. Both of them required urgent nourishment.

Desperate, Jiajia made several trips to the black market, hoping to buy red sugar and millet to help everyone regain their health.

She couldn’t help but think how much easier things would have been in modern times. Food and supplies were abundant and accessible. But here, even with money and ration tickets, there was no guarantee you could buy anything at all.

That night, after she drifted off to sleep, she found herself in an unfamiliar space. The space wasn’t large—only about seventy square meters. Misty fog shrouded its edges, making it impossible to see or pass beyond, as if a natural barrier had sealed it off.

In the center of the space lay a pool of spring water. The spring’s source was shaped exactly like the petals of the plum blossom pendant she wore around her neck.

Ever since she arrived in this world, she had noticed a plum blossom-shaped birthmark on her chest that hadn’t existed before. It was identical to the pendant the old woman had given her.

She had wondered whether the necklace was the reason for her rebirth. Now it seemed that not only had the pendant brought her back to life, but it had also created this mysterious space.

However, the spring water was disappointingly sparse—just a single drop at a time trickled from the source into the pool, making it seem precious and rare.

Although she wasn’t much of a novel reader, she was familiar with the common tropes of time travel and rebirth stories, which often included mystical springs and hidden spaces as “cheat” abilities. Could this be one of those legendary spiritual springs? She resolved to test it thoroughly when she had the chance.

At the very back of the space, she discovered a small room. The moment she stepped inside, she was so stunned by what she saw that she stood there, frozen, unable to move or think for a long time.

What did she see? Wasn’t this the same supermarket she used to visit? How could it be here?

And how could such a small room contain something as enormous as a supermarket? It made no sense at all. Still, from the moment she had traveled through time, logic and science had stopped making sense. Compared to being reborn, encountering something strange like this hardly seemed surprising.

Perhaps it was her constant thoughts about food that had shaped this magical place.

Without overthinking it, she stepped inside the supermarket, grabbed some bread, and began to eat. What did it matter if it was real or not? She wanted food, and even if this was a dream, she’d enjoy it while it lasted.

Although she had been eating her fill since her rebirth, the food of this era was merely functional—it filled her belly but it brought no real enjoyment. Having grown up in hardship, she knew what it was like to eat poorly, but after tasting delicious food, it was hard to go back to bland, unseasoned meals.

She had barely begun chewing the bread when she woke up—and there it was, still in her hand. The moment she realized that what had just happened wasn’t a dream but reality, her heart raced with excitement.

Her grin widened uncontrollably as she took another bite. If she hadn’t managed to keep her composure, she might have burst out laughing in the middle of the night.

The supermarket had come at exactly the right moment. She had been worrying about how to find better food to nourish her family—who could have imagined that a space filled with supplies would suddenly appear?

The supermarket wasn’t huge, but it came with a storage room packed with rice, flour, grains, and oil. If they rationed it carefully, it could feed the whole family for many years.

What’s more, it also held various items that were either impossible to find or extremely scarce in this era. Most importantly, there was a small pharmacy right by the entrance. In an era where medical resources were severely limited, having access to modern medicine was a dream come true—far superior to anything locally available.

With these provisions, her aunt’s illness would heal faster, and the children would finally have better nutrition.

It was currently 1957, and in just two years, the infamous three-year famine would begin. She didn’t have the power to change history, but at the very least, she could ensure her loved ones and friends wouldn’t go hungry.

The moment Wei Jiajia opened her door, two little ones darted toward her, each grabbing onto one of her legs.

“Sister, you came out! I missed you so much!” The sweet-talker was, of course, their little darling, Nuannuan.

“Sister. Miss you. Candy!” That was straightforward Yangyang.

Although the older twins behind them remained silent, their longing expressionss spoke volumes.

“Do you miss your sister, or do you miss your sister’s candy?” Wei Jiajia asked, half amused, half exasperated.

“Sister!” “Candy!”

The dragon-and-phoenix twins answered in unison, then glanced at each other.

“Candy!” “Sister!”

Wei Jiajia looked at the two little troublemakers, sighed and pulled eight pieces of White Rabbit candy from her pocket.

“Xiangdong, you’re in charge of dividing these fairly among your siblings.”

Candy was an irresistible treat for children, and in this time period, it was a rare luxury. Without ration tickets, it wasn’t even an option.

Most families used their precious sugar coupons to buy brown sugar, valued as a health supplement—especially important for women to recover after childbirth.

But Wei Jiajia didn’t have to worry about scarcity. Her magical supermarket had all sorts of candies—enough to keep the children happy for several years. Still, too much sugar would rot their teeth.

So she set a rule: each child could have two fruit candies per day. Once the daily portion was gone, tthere would be no more—no matter how much they cried or complained. Thankfully, the younger ones were well-behaved and never asked for extra.

All the children showed admirable restraint. The two older ones, in particular, often saved their candies in secret. Wei Jiajia noticed but never said a word.

The twins were clever, and she believed that as long as she guided them carefully during their formative years, the rest could be left to them. After all, life was theirs to live, and having a good sense of judgment was always a positive thing.

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