Ye Qingshui woke up and stretched out on the straw mat. She applied a layer of sunscreen on her face before putting on a mask and going to work. Xie Tingyu was suddenly injured, which caused her more than a little trouble and squeezed Ye Qingshui's rest time.

Having slept so long that he was almost late, Ye Qingshui hurriedly put on his mask and said to Xie Tingyu, "If you have anything to say, just bear with it for now. If you really can't bear it, ring the bell. Erhu from Aunt Li's house next door will come to find me when he hears it. Are you in a hurry to pee now? I'll get you a chamber pot."

Xie Tingyu sat on the bed in a standard posture, listening to the radio attentively. Apart from some injuries on his body, he did not seem to be irritated at all. His calm and composed demeanor made him look like someone on a leisurely vacation. He did not look embarrassed at all.

Xie Tingyu listened to her nagging words and hummed for the first time. Usually, he would only do this kind of relieving himself when Shen Weimin came, and he was unwilling to lower his face and ask Ye Qingshui for help.

Ye Qingshui handed him a chamber pot, turned around and walked out of the room.

When she entered the room again, she found that there was something strange about Xie Tingyu's usually calm face: his ears were slightly red.

Ye Qingshui didn't want to think too much, she emptied the chamber pot and went to work quickly. Because the sun was already late, she still insisted on going to Grandma Ye's place before going to work. She brought a full pot of cold water for Grandma Ye, letting her rest and drink water aside, while she did most of the work herself.

The old lady muttered, "Shui Ya, I'm not old yet. My hands can still support my shoulders and carry heavy things."

"I was just fetching some mud from the well."

Ye Qingshui muttered as usual: "Grandma is old, her eyesight is blurry, and her legs and feet are not as nimble as those of young people. You must be careful not to slip, and look carefully when you work so as not to step on empty space."

"I know, I know!"

Ye Qingshui helped the old lady finish her work before going to do her own work. The female laborers of the brigade were divided into five groups, scattered in different places, and seven or eight laborers dug a well.

On this day, Ye Qingshui had a particularly bad time working and his heartbeat was getting faster and faster. He didn't know if it was because Xie Tingyu complained last night that he didn't get enough sleep or because he was too tired recently.

When she finally finished pouring the last basket of mud and was about to leave work, someone called out to her, "Oh! Someone has fallen into the well. Qingshui, go see if it's your mother-in-law!"

The shovel in Ye Qingshui's hand fell to the ground with a clang. The string in her mind broke with a bang, and she ran to Grandma Ye like a madman.

"Grandma—Grandma—"

Grandma Ye had been pulled out of the well by someone. Her head was bleeding. The old lady was trembling, her hair was messy, and her coarse cloth clothes were torn.

Grandma Ye first touched Ye Qingshui's face and wiped away her granddaughter's tears with her thick thumb, "Shuiya, don't cry... Grandma is fine, my ankle hurts--"

Before she finished saying the word "that's all", Ye Qingshui's tears started to flow. She hugged the embarrassed old lady heartbrokenly and blamed herself: "It's all my fault, grandma, I'll carry you to the hospital."

At this moment, Ye Qingshui's dissatisfaction with his own submission to fate reached its peak.

If I had known this would happen, why didn’t I just let grandma stay at home and avoid this disaster?

Knowing that no water can be drawn from this well and that all efforts will be in vain, why should we remain silent?

Grandma Ye, the bound-foot lady in the arms of her granddaughter, laughed. She patted her granddaughter and said, "Don't make trouble. You'll make a fool of yourself. You don't have to go..."

It was a thrilling experience. Grandma Ye was just muttering to her granddaughter that her legs were not flexible, and she fell down. Fortunately, she had rested enough in the afternoon and did not do much heavy work, so she still had a lot of strength. When she fell, the old lady grabbed the rope in the well and slid down slowly. Except for hitting her head and cramping her feet, she was fine.

Ye Qingshui shed two lines of tears, hugged the still healthy old lady and cried and laughed. The barefoot doctor in the brigade roughly examined the old lady's legs and feet and the wounds.

"It's okay, just go home and apply a few packs of stinkweed to cure it!"

Ye Qingshui carried the old lady on his back and said to the team leader: "My grandma can no longer participate in well digging."

The team leader is a middle-aged man in his forties, and he has also survived hard times.

He picked up a grass cigarette, lighted the cigarette paper with his thumb, rolled it into a cigarette neatly, and took a deep breath.

The team leader was silent for a long time, and then said, "Grandma Ye will be fine after some care. Shuiya, Sixth Grandpa knows you hate her very much, but the second-season rice is about to be planted. Now everyone is tired and wants to take a break. There are old cows that are tired of plowing and threshing but still refuse to move. If this one refuses to work and that one refuses to work, what will happen to our food?"

"You, Sixth Grandfather, can't agree to this. Your uncle has joined the army, and your family is already short of a strong laborer. If you only want to take a break and have no fighting spirit, how can you live a good life?"

Ye Qingshui was angry and his eyes were hot after listening to the captain's heartfelt words. There was nothing wrong with what the captain said. In the end, it was all because of poverty. Because of poverty, the 76 production teams in Hongqi Commune owed grain to the country every year.

They were so poor that they didn't dare to say where they came from when they went out. When outsiders mentioned the Red Flag Commune, they looked at it with contempt.

Backward, poor, with bad mountains and bad water, the reality is so hopeless. But here there are the most simple folk customs, the sweetest mountain springs, and the most beautiful ballads. After Ye Qingshui walked out of the mountains, he found that the outside world was also a rural area, but much richer than their Yejia Village. Other villages had electricity in 1975, but Yejia Village did not have it until the 1980s.

Only when you are in that situation can you truly understand this sentence: one person’s wealth is not real wealth; the wealth of everyone is the real wealth.

Ye Qingshui forced back her tears and said, "It's no use digging a well like a headless fly now. The location of this well is too hasty. There is a high probability that no water will be produced."

As soon as Ye Qingshui finished speaking, the educated youth who was listening to the gossip nearby rolled his eyes.

Especially Sun Lingyu, who doesn't get along with Ye Qingshui.

She said: "Comrade Ye, how can you waver in your revolutionary resolve? I dare not say anything else, but the well was discovered after the educated youth worked together and carefully explored it for a long time. Your hasty evaluation is a blind and arbitrary mistake."

Ye Qingshui rejected the choice of the well site, and undoubtedly stood on the opposite side of the educated youth. One was an ignorant country woman who had only been to school for a few days and had no experience. But on the other side were well-educated educated youth, both men and women.

It was almost self-evident who was more trustworthy. The dozen or so eyes present all fell on Ye Qingshui, as if they were watching a joke.

Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, they watched the little girl struggle to refute: "You said that this is the crystallization of everyone's wisdom to determine the location of the well. I want to ask what method you used to detect it, and who surveyed it?"

“What should we do if the wells are not dug before the second-season rice is planted?”

Sun Lingyu put her hands on her waist and said contemptuously, "There is no such thing as if. It is impossible that none of the ten wells can produce water. Ye Qingshui, I think you are arrogant because you married a good man. Not only are you unwilling to work, but you also bite back. If it weren't for the good folk customs and honest hearts of the villagers here, you should have been criticized. Ignorant!"

No one wanted to answer Ye Qingshui's three questions seriously, but laughed at them instead.

"Go back and read more books!" others laughed.

"'The first to succeed' is the first. When it comes to the art of digging wells, everyone here is 'ahead' of you!"

Ye Qingshui listened to all the ridicule and calmly said to the team leader, "Grandma is injured now and definitely can't work. I'm going to ask for some leave for her. Sixth Grandpa, my opinion may not be correct, but it needs to be considered."

"There is always a chance of something happening, so we must be prepared for both scenarios."

Grandma Ye finally sighed heavily: "Sixth brother, do you still remember how your eldest brother helped you back then? If there is more, I won't say more. Shui'er, let's go home."

Ye Qingshui returned the farm tools and carried the old lady back home.

The old lady was on her back, mumbling, "I'm sorry to have caused you trouble, Shui'er...You have the same stubborn temper as your father."

She put her face on her granddaughter's warm neck and rubbed her wrinkled face against her granddaughter's smooth skin, feeling satisfied and touched. She couldn't help but feel a little sad.

Her granddaughter was bullied by the educated youth and could not even raise her face. She was accused and laughed at by so many people, but no one came out to help her. She was so alone, and Grandma Ye felt very guilty.

"When your grandfather and your father were still alive, no one in the village dared to speak out. Your father was a very promising man. He was educated and smart. It was your father who wrote a letter to the Revolutionary Committee to have the first road in the village built. If he were still alive, he would definitely not want to see you suffer."

Ye Qingshui sensed the old man's sobbing tone and quickly pulled herself out of her deep thoughts. She smiled and said, "My father is so kind. He is a very capable man."

"Don't be sad, grandma. Shuiya is not a mean person. I will have a bright future. You should take good care of me and enjoy my life to the fullest."

After Ye Qingshui carried the old lady back home, she picked some herbs for injuries and blood circulation and helped her apply them on her. She had learned a little pharmacology from her master before, so she could easily treat minor injuries and illnesses.

She fetched some water and washed the old woman's feet and massaged them herself, which made Grandma Ye hum. After she was done humming, she felt very comfortable.

After preparing dinner, Ye Qingshui finished his own portion and quickly served Xie Tingyu's dinner.

She walked to the door and heard Shen Weimin’s voice.

"Oh, don't think like that. Your family has a lot of rules. If your grandma knew that you brought Shuiya back, she would kill you alive."

"And Uncle Aijun's family in the compound, have you seen it? That is a precedent. Uncle Aijun married a country girl. Let's not talk about the issue of whether the two families are well-matched or whether their thoughts are synchronized, but we can see that aunt. At the beginning, they had a small quarrel every three days and a big quarrel every two days. To paraphrase the old people, they were too thoughtful and wanted to take advantage of everything. In the end, Uncle Aijun always had to clean up the mess. The whole compound was in chaos. Everyone was laughing at their family. In the end, they couldn't live together and divorced. How can a military marriage be divorced so easily? You will also go down this path in the future... Although Shuiya seems to have a good temper and is a good person, have you thought it through——"

"Shui Ya had a quarrel with that group of female educated youth today. I don't know why there are always so many disputes. Maybe it's all thanks to you." Shen Weimin said and fell silent.

"Ahem—" Ye Qingshui held the bowl and knocked on the door.

When Shen Weimin saw this, his face darkened and then turned red, and he hurriedly threw down a sentence and slipped away: “Well, Brother Yu, I’ll come again tomorrow.”

Ye Qingshui fed Xie Tingyu calmly and wiped his mouth and hands carefully.

Xie Tingyu asked calmly: "Are you angry?"

Ye Qingshui shook her head. She had never thought about marrying Xie Tingyu again, and it didn't hurt to hear such words. Maybe she was not comfortable with his horizontal analogy just now, but then again, Shen Weimin didn't understand her, so why should she argue and get angry about his misunderstanding?

Xie Tingyu smiled slightly, revealing his white teeth: "That's good. I'll apologize to you on his behalf. I'll ask him to apologize in person tomorrow. Don't worry about such irresponsible words."

"I heard about what happened to you today..."

Ye Qingshui put away the bowl, took a small notebook and came to Xie Tingyu. She asked: "If you were asked to dig a well, how would you choose the address?"

Xie Tingyu saw that she was indeed not angry. Her eyebrows were light and pleasant, like a landscape painting. The space between her eyebrows was neat and smooth, and the pair of eyes that were exposed were like dots of lacquer, black and pure, as if they were nurtured by the beautiful mountains and rivers.

He moved his thumb and took off Ye Qingshui's mask, letting her skin breathe in some fresh air.

He began, "We need to build a model based on the hydrogeological conditions to predict the distribution of groundwater before considering site selection. If it is a flat terrain with a simple underground structure, it is easy to locate the site. But this is a karst landform, which is more complicated, and we also need to consider the situation of the caves. It is not easy to build a model and it is also difficult to find water..."

Xie Tingyu spoke slowly and steadily, trying to use simple examples and language to make Ye Qingshui understand.

Ye Qingshui asked him again: "How can we know where there is water underground?"

He paused and continued, "You can drill holes for detection. Common methods for finding water include seismic method, induced polarization method, and telemetry. Currently, the most commonly used water-finding equipment uses the principle of resistivity method to find water. But it is not very applicable here... For example, the resistivity method, I have tried it, the instrument shows water when it goes down, but when I dig deeper, it is just a pool of mud."

Ye Qingshui pondered for a long time after hearing this, and then she said, "It would be great if there was an 'underground clairvoyance' that could detect water."

"Thank you. I understand."

Xie Tingyu was a little confused, but when he saw the little girl seemed to suddenly understand and then frowned again, he couldn't help but tease:

"Why, do you still want to find this kind of 'underground clairvoyance'?"

"I don't look for it, I do it myself."

Ye Qingshui swiftly flipped through Xie Tingyu's "University Physics" and started reading. She flipped through the pages quickly and nodded, "If resistance doesn't work, then how about electric field?"

"As Chairman M said, nothing exists in isolation. Groundwater does not exist in isolation either. It evaporates and flows all the time. Flowing water generates electric current, and directional movement of electric current generates an electric field."

Xie Tingyu couldn't help but smile after hearing this, with a faint smile on his face, and encouraged: "Shui Ya, you try it."

If conditions permitted, Xie Tingyu wanted to shake the water out of the little girl's head to sober her up, but he thought of Ye Qingshui who always got full marks in math and physics, and stopped this idea.

The author has something to say:

Pingshengjun: Brother Yu, do you think your wife will be successful?

Brother Yu: No

Pingshengjun: Then why do you encourage Shuiya to pretend that the world is peaceful and harmonious?

Emmmm, scheming boy

Brother Yu: “…”