Whitaker Scarlett felt no moral qualms about catching fish secretly to sell. She and Elizabeth had nothing but 20 pounds of sweet potatoes to their name—what was the point of clinging to some misplaced sense of moral purity when they were on the brink of starvation?
Unfortunately, she lacked the tools and the skills to catch fish with her bare hands.
Both sides of the river were lined with tall white-flowered reeds with thick stems. If it were May, Scarlett might have been able to gather some reed leaves to sell to city folk for making dumplings. But the Boat Festival was long over, and these reeds were no longer in demand. Even earning a pittance from them wasn’t possible now.
What about weaving mats or baskets to sell?
From the original Scarlett’s memories, many people in Larkspur Village possessed this skill. During idle farming seasons, families would weave straw mats or baskets. However, these were nearly worthless in rural areas and had little appeal in the city, where people were more interested in food like meat, eggs, and dairy rather than traditional crafts.
Scarlett stared at the river, lost in thought. Could it be that she, a person who had once risen to a high-ranking corporate executive, would starve to death in 1983? If she wanted to separate herself from the Whitaker family, she needed to find a way to support herself and Elizabeth. Before they ran out of sweet potatoes, Scarlett had to secure some startup funds.
The countryside wasn’t an option—she would have to go to the city to look for opportunities.
The flow of goods was the only way to generate profit. Rural folk didn’t have much to spare, subsisting on matchsticks, soap, fertilizer, and a few other industrial goods. By 1983, most villagers were self-sufficient… A group of women by the river pointed and whispered about Scarlett.
Scarlett, meanwhile, was deep in thought, gathering dry twigs by the riverbank. She had no time to waste on gossiping busybodies. Instead of arguing and exhausting herself, she walked a little farther to the reedy marsh near the cow pen, a stinking area that even the reed cutters avoided.
She ventured deeper into the reeds, and two wild ducks suddenly burst out of the undergrowth.
They flapped their wings and quacked loudly, as if trying to lure Scarlett into chasing them. Scarlett’s eyes lit up—how could she be fooled by such a simple trick? This was a classic case of diversion!
Sure enough, after carefully searching the reeds, she discovered a well-hidden duck nest.
The nest, made of soft grass, was filled with a pile of blue-shelled duck eggs. Scarlett, who had once negotiated multimillion-dollar contracts, found herself grinning foolishly at the sight of the eggs. Picking them up one by one, she held them up to the light to check—each was a fresh, unhatched egg.
There were 12 in total!
The saying was true: rely on the mountain for sustenance, and the water for survival. With this marshland and its reeds, Scarlett was confident she could make it through 1983. Resisting the temptation to continue raiding the marsh, she wrapped the 12 wild duck eggs carefully and carried them home along with her bundle of dry twigs.
“Mom, how about we roast some sweet potatoes?” she suggested.
After all, they needed to eat their fill to have the strength to work.
