Chapter 005

Chuxia happily followed Liang Youtian's steps.

Lin Xiaohan took a few big steps and caught up easily.

The primary school of Tanxi Brigade is opposite the brigade headquarters.

The village’s supply and marketing cooperatives, clinics, barber shops and other stores are also located in this area.

Liang Youtian took Chuxia and Lin Xiaohan to the team instead of going directly to school.

He first took Chu Xia and Lin Xiaohan to the brigade headquarters and gave them two sickles and a hoe.

When they were leaving the brigade with farm tools, Liang Youtian said to Chu Xia and Lin Xiaohan, "Since classes were suspended in 1966, our school has not been open again. No one has been allowed to clean up the place for so many years. The grass inside is taller than a person. Now I'm leaving it to you to take care of it."

Chu Xia held the sickle and responded, "Captain Liang, just leave it to us."

Liang Youtian smiled and turned around when he heard this, and said to Chuxia, "Comrade Xiaoxia, you seem to be more active today than usual. Did something happy happen to you?"

She used to be quite dull, quiet and not talkative.

Chu Xia smiled and said, "Isn't it because you asked me to be your teacher?"

Liang Youtian laughed when he heard this, and said, "Since you are so happy, you must do a good job of the task we entrusted to you and set a good example for the children in our village."

Lin Xiaohan then continued: "Don't worry, Captain Liang, we will."

Listening to Lin Xiaohan's words, Chu Xia turned her head and looked at him, just a very brief glance.

When I saw this, I just thought to myself that he is really good at pretending and acting. In front of the educated youth point and in front of the brigade cadres, he has two completely different faces.

Liang Youtian could never imagine what Lin Xiaohan was like in private in front of them, the educated youth.

If she had a choice, Chu Xia certainly didn't want to work with Lin Xiaohan.

Lin Xiaohan has always disliked her, treating her like a fool, and probably doesn't want to work with her.

But this was arranged by the team, and they had no right to choose their partners.

So early summer thought again.

She just needs to keep a good distance from Lin Xiaohan.

She was just his colleague, not his friend.

When they arrived at the school gate, Liang Youtian took out the key from his body and unlocked the door.

There is an iron railing door at the school gate. The iron bars are all rusted and bent by someone.

Liang Youtian opened the door, handed the key to Lin Xiaohan and said, "There is only one key to this lock. Now I will hand the key to you, and everything in this school will also be handed over to you."

Lin Xiaohan took the key and followed Liang Youtian into the school with Chuxia.

When I walked through the gate and looked inside, I saw that the yard and the house were indeed overgrown with weeds. Mixed among the dead grass were leaves that had turned green in the spring, some of which were indeed taller than people.

Liang Youtian bent down and pulled a handful of grass in his hand and said, "I have to tell you that in addition to the school needing to be cleaned up, you have to recruit students yourself. There weren't many children in our village who went to school in the first place, and after the school was closed, there were even fewer who continued to go to school. In the past two years, the number of students who went to school in Shazhuang Brigade and Commune totaled less than one finger, only three. I'll give you one week to manage the school and recruit students. Is that enough?"

Before Chu Xia had time to think about it, Lin Xiaohan immediately responded: "Captain Liang, seven days is enough. After seven days, you and the secretary can come directly to attend the opening ceremony."

Chuxia looked at him, and seeing that he agreed, she stopped talking.

Liang Youtian smiled and patted Lin Xiaohan on the shoulder. "Okay, I believe you can do it. You don't have to go to work anymore. You will get paid monthly like other teachers in other schools."

Lin Xiaohan responded with a smile, walked Liang Youtian out the door and watched him leave.

Chu Xia naturally followed to see Liang off. She waved to Liang Youtian outside the gate and watched him walk away before returning to the yard with Lin Xiaohan.

The primary school in front of us is not big, or you can say it is very small.

There are two houses in the yard. You can tell without looking that one is a classroom for classes and the other is an office for grading homework.

Besides that, there is a toilet.

Chu Xia naturally didn't take the initiative to talk more with Lin Xiaohan.

After reading it, she pushed aside the weeds and walked inside, until she reached the middle of the classroom and the office, then stepped on the weeds, leaving a straight line that divided the school into two halves.

After dividing it, she said to Lin Xiaohan: "Don't worry, I won't take advantage of you. We will use this line as the boundary, half for each of us, and take care of our own half."

Lin Xiaohan had no objection and just picked up the sickle and started working.

As soon as Liang Youtian left, he pulled her up. Chuxia secretly sneered and went to work with a sickle.

While working, Chu Xia tried her best to keep as much distance between herself and Lin Xiaohan as possible.

There were weeds blocking the way, so we couldn't see each other, so we just thought we were working on our own.

The weeds fell down bit by bit.

The sun climbed higher and higher.

Educated youth point.

Han Ting and the other ten people did not go to work, and did not do anything else after breakfast.

All ten people gathered in the boys' dormitory to play.

Han Ting, Chaozi and Guogai were playing poker, while the others were watching from around.

When they got excited, the ten people started shouting together, almost blowing the roof off.

Just as the shouting became more intense, someone suddenly called out, "Hello, Captain Liang!"

After hearing this, the room suddenly became quiet. Everyone turned around and saw Liang Youtian who had entered the room at some point, and then they all became busy again.

It was naturally too late to collect the playing cards, so he pulled the messy quilt over the pot lid and covered it.

Han Ting stood up and said with a smile: "Captain Liang, why are you here?"

Liang Youtian came in quietly and had seen everything he should have seen.

With a cold face and a cold voice, he asked Han Ting: "What do you think?"

Han Ting still smiled and said, "Captain Liang, today is our first day of independent firing. We have no experience, the time is not arranged well, and the meal is not prepared. After eating, we all had diarrhea and kept running to the toilet, so we didn't go to work. Are you angry?"

Liang Youtian sneered, "Why should I be angry? If you don't work, you won't get any work points, and you won't get any food. Then you'll be the ones starving. What does it have to do with me?"

Speaking of this, Chen Sisi added in a low voice: "It's not so bad to be short of half a day's work points."

Liang Youtian had been able to hold himself together, but when he heard this his anger instantly reached the top of his head.

He glanced at Chen Sisi and suddenly shouted angrily: "Only half a day? You guys were lazy and didn't steal enough before?! Do you have any shame?! Do you have any shame!?!"

Chen Sisi was frightened by him and trembled, not daring to speak again.

Han Ting smiled and continued, "Captain Liang, of course we have a sense of shame. We really have stomach problems, otherwise why would we not go to work?"

Liang Youtian pointed at him, "Han Ting, stop talking nonsense to me here! I'm from the countryside, I don't have much knowledge or culture, but I'm not a fool! The organization sent you to the countryside to let you receive re-education from the poor and lower-middle peasants! It's to let you know how hard life is and how hard it is to get food! It's not to let you come here to eat, drink and have fun! I took you to the educated youth site of Shazhuang Brigade to visit and study before. Is this how you learned?!"

They are all irrelevant. No matter how much you say, it will be useless.

Liang Youtian took a breath, then calmed his tone and said, "You don't have to go to work, and I won't whip you. But I'm going to make it clear to you now, and you all have to listen to me. The food distributed to you yesterday is for half a year, which is only enough to eat until the autumn harvest. If the work points you earned in the first half of the year are not enough to pay for the food for the first half of the year, you can forget about asking for food for the second half of the year! When the time comes, when you make up the work points you owe for the first half of the year, when can you get the food for the second half of the year? You asked for it!"

"We don't keep idle people in our brigade. I mean what I say!"

"If you have the ability, just keep on doing this! You won't even be able to get a letter of introduction when you want to go out and beg!"

"I want to see how thick-skinned and capable you are!"

After saying this, Liang Youtian turned away.

None of the ten educated youth went out to see him off. When he left the gate, their expressions relaxed and they all sat down again, saying indifferently, "It's just half a day's work, what's the big deal?"

Wang Xiangqian did some calculations and said, "Don't be ridiculous. A strong laborer can only earn ten work points at most after working all day, which is only a few cents. The work points we boys earn are not bad, but you girls earn much less. In addition, when we are lazy at work, the scorekeepers always keep an eye on us and deduct our work points when recording them."

Everyone suddenly felt sad after hearing this.

Gu Yuzhu said, "I don't want to stay in this crappy place for even a day. I'm exposed to the wind and sun all day long, working hard on the farm, and I can't even get enough to eat. It would be great if I could go back to the city."

Hu Yang said to her: "You want to go back to the city right after you went to the countryside. What are you thinking? Many old educated youth went to the countryside for six or seven years and still couldn't go back. For those of us who just arrived, forget it."

Gu Yuzhu rushed to him, "What are you doing? You can't really go back. Can't I think about it anymore?"

These words become more and more discouraging the more you say them. There is no need for them.

Han Ting said again: "Don't think too much, I'm here and I won't let you starve to death. If the work points are really not enough, then we can think of other ways."

Everyone trusted Han Ting, and they felt relieved after hearing what he said.

They couldn't talk about serious things for long, and they all got together to play.

After playing for a while, it was noon and we lit a fire to cook.

The food they cooked was naturally simple, without any oil or vegetables.

When eating, they couldn't help complaining that the food was too bad and that their life was worse than that of pigs.

Then someone envied Han Ting and said, "Brother Ting is still comfortable. Early summer gives me some special treatment from time to time."

Speaking of this, Han Ting naturally thought of the bowl of noodles with soybean paste that Chu Xia took away last night.

Thinking of Chu Xia's weirdness, Han Ting asked Su Yun: "Did you ask Chu Xia what happened to her last night?"

Su Yun shook her head. "I asked, but she didn't say anything specific. I don't know what happened."

Gu Yuzhu answered from the side, "She must have taken the wrong medicine. She never looks in the mirror normally. But last night she suddenly asked for my mirror back and had a quarrel with me. I was almost mad to death."

Then she looked at Han Ting and said, "She is your sister, don't you care about her?"

Han Ting drank a mouthful of coarse grain porridge and said, "Wait until she comes back, I'll go ask her myself."

***

I did not return to the educated youth point at noon in early summer.

The school yard and buildings don’t look big, but it’s not as quick to clean up as you might think.

Seeing the sun rising directly overhead, Chuxia finally cut her half of the weeds in the yard. The remaining roots needed to be dug out and the ground leveled.

The coarse grain porridge I had in the morning had long been digested.

Chuxia wanted to go back to the educated youth site to cook and eat, but seeing that Lin Xiaohan had no intention of leaving and was still busy cleaning up, she did not go back.

Mowing the lawn was tiring, so she stopped digging out the weed roots.

She took a breath and ran to the yard of the brigade headquarters opposite, scooped up two and a half buckets of water, carried them back to school on a shoulder pole, and then swept and cleaned the office.

By the time I had cleaned the dusty office from inside to outside, the sun had already set to an angle to the west.

Chuxia was tired and hungry, but Lin Xiaohan seemed to have no intention of leaving.

He also went to the brigade office to fetch water and cleaned the classroom next door.

Chuxia stood at the door of the office, slightly tilting her head to look into the classroom next door.

She took a deep breath and thought to herself, why not just ignore Lin Xiaohan and go back to cook. Only when she is full will she have the strength to continue working. Otherwise, she will be exhausted to death here.

This Lin Xiaohan is indeed a ruthless person.

In order to gain recognition, sometimes we don’t even take ourselves seriously as human beings.

When Chu Xia was looking at the classroom and thinking about this, she suddenly heard a voice: "Comrade Xiao Lin, Comrade Xiao Xia, you should take a rest quickly. You have to eat to survive."

Chuxia heard the voice and turned around, only to see Liang Youtian’s wife Chen Jinfeng entering the yard. She carried a small bamboo basket covered with a cloth on her right arm and a thermos in her left hand.

Chu Xia hurriedly took two steps forward to greet her: "Auntie, why are you here?"

Chen Jinfeng walked up to her and said with a smile, "You guys are working too hard. Lao Liang was afraid that you would get sick from being hungry, so he asked me to bring you some food."

Chu Xia hurriedly said politely: "Aunt, no need, we can just go back and cook for ourselves."

Chen Jinfeng pointed at the sun above her head and said, "What time is it now? How can we still have time to do it?"

Before Chu Xia could say anything else, Lin Xiaohan came out of the classroom.

He held the soaked rag in his hand and said, "Aunt, didn't I just tell you not to send it over? You won't starve to death if you skip a meal or two. The child's matter is more important. We can't delay."

Chen Jinfeng glared at him, "It's important for the children to go to school, but it's equally important for you to eat. How can you teach your children to study if you're starving? You're still growing up, so you need to work hard and eat well. Don't talk nonsense to me, go in and eat."

After saying this, Chen Jinfeng went to the office.

Chuxia glanced at Lin Xiaohan, but Lin Xiaohan didn't look at her.

He followed Chen Jinfeng into the house, still saying polite words like "I can't trouble Chen Jinfeng so much", which didn't sound like he was pretending at all.

Chuxia followed Lin Xiaohan into the office.

Chen Jinfeng had already lifted the cloth covering the bamboo basket. Inside the basket were two steaming cornmeal buns and a bowl of cabbage and vermicelli.

Chen Jinfeng brought out several bowls, placed them on the desk and said, "Don't say anything, just eat while it's hot. When you're done, just put the bowls and chopsticks in the basket. I'll come get them later."

After saying that, she didn't stay any longer and left in a hurry.

Chu Xia and Lin Xiaohan had just walked her two steps when she quickly walked out of the hospital.

As soon as Chen Jinfeng left, Lin Xiaohan's expression immediately changed.

In the last second he was smiling harmlessly, but in the next second his smile disappeared completely.

Chu Xia saw how quickly his expression changed and subconsciously felt that he was terrifying.

She even couldn't help but suspect that Chen Jinfeng's coming to deliver food was probably his plan.

Lin Xiaohan showed his original expression and turned back to the office.

Chuxia stood there and swallowed, adjusting her mood before turning around and going in.

I went into the house to scoop some clean water to wash my hands, then went to eat at my desk.

Chuxia naturally didn't communicate much with Lin Xiaohan. She picked up the steamed bun and chopsticks and started eating.

Before her chopsticks fell to touch the cabbage vermicelli, they were suddenly blocked by Lin Xiaohan's chopsticks.

Chu Xia raised her head in confusion and looked at Lin Xiaohan, "What are you doing?"

Are you not allowing her to eat?

Lin Xiaohan looked at her and said, "I don't like to share a bowl of food with others, especially women."

Chu Xia: “…”

Without waiting for Chuxia to say anything, Lin Xiaohan directly pushed away her chopsticks, picked up the empty bowl and started to serve the food.

He divided half of the cabbage vermicelli into another bowl and placed it aside.

Chu Xia: “…”

Did he think she really wanted to share a bowl of food with him?

Chuxia decisively picked up half a bowl of food, took the chopsticks and steamed buns and went to the desk next to her.

Sitting down to eat, Chu Xia couldn't help thinking in her heart - no wonder he didn't even have a real

Iridium

He has never met anyone who truly loves him, so it would be strange for someone like him to meet someone who truly loves him.

He and Han Ting are really two extremes.

In the novel, Han Ting is a righteous man who is kind to everyone. He often takes other people's affairs as his own. He has many romantic interests and many people like him.

And Lin Xiaohan doesn't even have a relationship in the novel.

Of course, he doesn't seem to need any feelings, he only cares about fame, fortune and status.

And his ending was pretty tragic.

He pursued fame and fortune all his life, but ended up failing miserably in the end.

In the early days, when Han Ting was intoxicated with enjoying a carefree life, youth and love, he was busy and cautious, and did much better than Han Ting at every stage.

He enjoyed the feeling of stepping on other people's heads, especially Han Ting's head.

He calculated every step carefully, and while he gained a sense of accomplishment and fame and status, he also looked down on Han Ting, who was entangled among women, with a full sense of superiority.

When Han Ting was still hurt by love, he had already become the richest and most powerful person in the whole book.

But the result was that Han Ting was just too lazy to argue with him.

After Han Ting experienced the bitterness of love, put away his unruly nature, got married and settled down, focused on his career and started his own business, he quickly caught up with him.

Only then did the two of them truly confront and clash.

But when Han Ting got serious, Lin Xiaohan was no match for him at all.

After several confrontations, Han Ting easily crushed Lin Xiaohan under his feet, and all the wealth he had accumulated over half his life was instantly wiped out.

He lost everything in one night.

Thinking of this, Chu Xia couldn't help but look at Lin Xiaohan with sympathy.

However, when she saw his cold profile, she immediately put away her sympathy.

She should stop sympathizing with others and just mind her own business.