The group discussed it but came to no conclusion, so they let it go and went to wash their hands and eat.

Shen Mu Ning quickly returned to her room, took out the iron stove, and started cooking rice.

Only then, while the other educated youth were eating, did he take the note out from under the table.

The note contained only two lines: “I know your secret. See you at my house tonight. —Cao Jin”.

Shen Mu Ning held the note, her eyebrows raised.

She knew that Cao Jin would definitely come looking for her, but not in a legitimate way.

I just don't know what he wants to do now?

She put the note into the iron stove, where it burned completely.

It looks like tonight is going to be another interesting night.

Actually, when Cao Jin realized that something was wrong with him and cleverly thought of her.

She would never stoop so low as to confront Cao Jin when he only felt fear towards her.

But if she senses that he harbors ill intentions towards her, she will not hesitate to use other methods to kill or cripple him.

In fact, ever since she learned around noon that Cao Jin had noticed her unusual behavior, she had been asking Bloodthirsty Vine to keep an eye on his feelings for her.

Until Cao Jin arrived at the drying dam, he did not harbor much ill will towards her.

Even the slightest bit of malice was quickly suppressed by fear.

So unless Cao Jin takes the initiative to contact her, she will not pay attention to him for the time being.

However, since he could still think of seeing her even when he was filled with fear.

Although it didn't align with her previous thoughts, she didn't know what his plans were.

However, Cao Jin's behavior showed he had guts, and she wanted to see what tricks he was up to.

But right now, the most important thing is to eat first.

After burning the paper notes, Shen Mu Ning focused on cooking. After eating, they had other plans.

She cooked and ate very quickly by herself, and by the time she finished cleaning up, the other educated youth had also finished cleaning up.

Zhu Yang watched as Shen Mu Ning finished washing the dishes before gathering everyone together.

"Didn't the brigade assign us tasks for today? Digging the ground to plant cabbages and radishes?"

Aside from the veteran educated youth, the three newcomers, Shen Muling, Zhang Jiayang, and He Xiaolan, had no idea what he was up to.

It was only on the way back that he mentioned working together that night. So the three of them looked at him with confusion.

Zhu Yang didn't waste any words and went straight to the arrangements for tonight.

“The veteran educated youth all know what our task is today, or rather, for the next two days. Now we just want to tell you four new educated youth.”

“What to plant and when to plant on our private plots is always decided by the brigade.”

"Now that the brigade is digging up the ground to plant cabbages and radishes, our land needs to be dug up too."

Zhu Yang explained it very clearly: he wanted to plant vegetables that could be eaten during the winter.

But it seems like there are a lot of vegetables planted by the brigade. Aren't they enough to eat?

Zhang Jiayang was the first to ask the question: "Hey Zhu Zhiqing, I heard the brigade leader say today that our brigade has a lot of land for growing cabbage and radishes. Isn't that enough for us to eat?"

The newly arrived educated youth could not accurately estimate the yield of these farm works and crops.

If you planted only cabbage and radishes on fields meant for harvesting corn and wheat, the entire brigade would never be able to eat them all.

The former educated youth were used to this situation; they had had the same question before.

Therefore, Zhu Yang patiently answered their questions.

"Actually, everyone knows that the grain we grow is all handed over to the government, and the cabbages and radishes we are planting now are the same."

"The grains and vegetables we eat in the city are all grown by people in the countryside."

"We don't have vegetables to eat in winter, and neither do city people."

"So when it's about to snow, the cabbages and radishes in the fields of the brigade will be harvested, some will be handed over to the government, and then distributed to everyone."

In other words, these vegetables, like grains, are not all grown for their own consumption.

In addition, people in Lingbei often make sauerkraut in large vats with cabbage right after the first snowfall in winter.

As a result, the vegetables that everyone received were simply not enough to last the entire winter.

Moreover, most households would plant vegetables in one part of their private plot and corn in the other.

The land has been empty since the corn was harvested.

It's perfect for planting cabbages and radishes.

Other vegetables planted in the fields, such as eggplants, cucumbers, and green beans, can still bear fruit, so there are vegetables to eat in September and October.

Their private plot of land at the educated youth settlement was a large area in the backyard.

When the owner of this courtyard built the house, he enclosed the entire courtyard and the hill behind it with a wall.

But because the land in the backyard was barren, after the owner of the house died, no one wanted to travel so far to cultivate a piece of land that didn't produce much.

So all the land here has been abandoned.

When the land became publicly owned, people naturally stopped mentioning it.

When the brigade decided to use this courtyard as a settlement for educated youth, it was already stated that the land behind the courtyard would be the educated youth's private plot.

However, they cannot clear all of it for planting.

One plot of land per person, no more, no less is fine.

When the educated youth first arrived, they were already exhausted from working in the brigade, so how could they possibly have the chance to cultivate their own private plots?

If we didn't have our own plot of land, we wouldn't have any vegetables to eat, and buying vegetables all the time would be very expensive.

So some educated youth who didn't have much money took the lead in clearing out their private plots.

Those educated youth who had money would ask other educated youth to help them reclaim wasteland.

In this way, the private plots of the educated youth settlements were basically formed.

Back then, everyone ate together, so they also grew vegetables together.

However, they were not united, and the vegetables were planted sparsely.

It is only because the people at the educated youth settlement this year were able to maintain a semblance of peace that they were able to grow vegetables so well.

It's time to plant cabbages and radishes now, so I'm letting everyone know so we can make arrangements.

After hearing Zhu Yang's explanation, the group understood that the vegetables grown in their private plots were the main source of their vegetables during the winter.

"Alright, shall we go dig now?"

Zhang Jiayang figured he had to complete the task anyway, so he figured he might as well get it done sooner rather than later and immediately headed to the backyard to get to work.

Everyone took their handy tools from the educated youth settlement and went to the backyard.

Their task for today is simply to dig. Once it gets dark, they'll rest, regardless of how much they've actually dug.

However, there were only ten educated youth in the past, so each of them could only have one mu of private land.

Now that four more educated youths have arrived, we can get an additional four fen of land.

Shen Muling and Chu Mingxu, two of the most capable people among the educated youth, were assigned to dig up land that hadn't been planted for a year.

They were then assigned two weeders, as well as two strong laborers, Zhu Yang and Zhao Chuan, to dig this four-tenths of an acre of land together.

The others were responsible for digging up the empty spaces where corn had previously been planted.