When school ended in the afternoon, the teacher announced that there would be a holiday for the busy farming season. Jiang Qiao was overjoyed. She had been sitting for a long time and her bottom was getting tired. A holiday was great. She could go to the countryside to see her grandfather.

Not only was Jiang Qiao happy, but all the classmates were happy, as they could have a few more days of fun.

Li Ling, however, asked Jiang Qiao about his plans.

Jiang Qiao pretended to think, "I have to go up the mountain with my grandpa to dig for wild vegetables. Don't you have to?"

Li Ling paused for a moment, then smiled and nodded. "Of course, we also eat wild vegetable buns at home. I mean, if you have time, you can come to our house to play."

Jiang Qiao shook her head dejectedly. "We spend most of our time on the mountain, except when we go home at night. We'll visit you sometime in the future."

Li Ling pulled Jiang Qiao outside, and Chunming and Zhao Jianjun happened to walk by.

Chunming was very excited to see Jiang Qiao.

"Joe, let's take a break from the busy farming season. Come on, let's go home. We can finally have some fun these few days."

Jiang Qiao patted him on the shoulder and said, "Still playing? What are you playing for? It's a holiday, you need to hurry up and get some wild vegetables. You have to help Auntie San, otherwise she'll be exhausted if we rely on her alone. We also need to gather firewood."

Li Ling looked at Jiang Qiao and the others in surprise. "Ah, you still have to go get firewood? Isn't that something only country folk burn?"

Her gaze shifted to Zhao Jianjun, her questioning look deepening. Zhao Jianjun replied dismissively, "We don't cook that at home. Only Chunming's family does. They use a big pot, but Chunming's mom's cooking is delicious too."

Jiang Qiao glanced at Zhao Jianjun. This guy really is something else; he manages to offend neither side and play the good guy.

I don't want to dwell on this topic. If Li Ling suddenly loses her mind and decides to eat at Chunming's house, wouldn't that drive Chunming's mother crazy?

"Alright, let's hurry up and go. It's a rare holiday, I really need to get a good night's sleep when I get back, I'm exhausted every day."

Chunming thought about how Jiang Qiao had skipped a grade, and he figured she must have learned all that knowledge by staying up late into the night. The boy felt sorry for her.

"Let's go, let's go. We can talk about it tomorrow."

However, Zhao Jianjun dawdled behind them, and Li Ling didn't seem to be in a hurry to leave either.

Jiang Qiao glanced at them, clearly sensing something fishy was going on. Chunming, unaware of this, urged Zhao Jianjun to hurry up.

"Chunming, I need to borrow a book from Li Ling. You guys go ahead."

Chunming nodded, didn't ask any further questions, and left with Jiang Qiao.

"Brother Chunming, what's the deal with Zhao Jianjun? Borrowing books? What kind of excuse is that?"

Chunming gave a wry smile. "Why do you care so much about them? As far as I know, the two families have quite close ties privately, and their parents know each other. Who knows, maybe there's something else going on? But this is none of our business. Let's go—"

Jiang Qiao thought about it and agreed. Why should she care about people who have nothing to do with her? She should just mind her own business.

As soon as Jiang Qiao returned home, she saw several letters on the table in the room. She picked them up and found letters from her father, Lu Zhiyuan, the old soldiers in the compound, and Ning Hao. She didn't know what was written in them.

Qiao Jie came over after seeing a patient next door. "Girl, school's out. Your dad wired you some money. I just picked it up and put it in the drawer. Check it yourself. There are also some letters, probably from your relatives or friends."

Jiang Qiao glanced at the money in the drawer, then opened the envelope, which contained quite a few bills. She had no idea how her parents had saved up so much; there shouldn't have been that many. Before she could even read the letter, she counted the bills and money in her hand, took out a few, and handed them to the old man.

"Grandpa Qiao, keep these for you to buy snacks. If there's anything you want to eat, go buy it yourself. I'll give you more when you run out."

The old man waved his hand and said, "I haven't finished spending the money you gave me last time. I'll ask you for it again when I've spent it. There's no need for us to be polite. Besides, we have all kinds of snacks at home, so I really don't need this."

Jiang Qiao nodded. "Okay, it's nothing to us. Grandpa Qiao, you rest for a bit. I'll go cook in a bit. Tomorrow we'll start our busy farming holiday. Let's go to the countryside for a few days to visit my grandpa. It's so hard to even get meat here."

Qiao Jie had no objection. "Okay, hurry up and read the letter. I don't know if your father has something urgent to attend to. If it is, we can talk about it later."

Upon seeing the letter from her parents, Jiang Qiao sighed deeply. Luckily, she had mailed some things to them. She had actually guessed right about the couple; they were too selfless.

In the letter, Gu Zhengfeng also mentioned those brothers, who all thought he had mailed the items to them, and that's why they all wrote to express their gratitude.

The tickets in the letter were mailed to him by his brother because those people had nowhere to spend their money, and even if they wanted to buy them, they couldn't. It was better to just give them to Gu Zhengfeng.

Without hesitation, Zhengfeng mailed everything to Jiang Qiao. He and his wife were both in the military, so it wasn't of much use to them. But it might be very useful to their child, their daughter, so he didn't need to worry about that.

In fact, neither Gu Zhengfeng nor Jiang Qiao expected that the things she mailed this time would really solve a big problem and save many people, although Jiang Qiao was unaware of it yet.

“Girl, in a few days, I’m going to lead a group of people on a training exercise. Your uncle will be leading the team. We’re going to the seaside. I’ll come to see you when I have time. Get ready too. We can talk about some things when we meet.”

In the letter, Gu Zhengfeng didn't say when they would come. Jiang Qiao sat in her chair and pondered for a while, then suddenly laughed. Her father was really quite adorable, actually finding such an excuse to try and improve everyone's lives. She guessed that he was probably influenced by her seafood business back then.

Come to think of it, even putting aside the military area, the family quarters are in a tough spot. After the autumn harvest, it's almost the end of the year, so they have to come out and look for something.

She didn't have time to read the other letters; she'd save them for later that evening. She quickly tidied up and went to the kitchen to cook.

Just as the fire was lit, a commotion broke out in the yard. Since it wasn't her own house that was in trouble, Jiang Qiao didn't bother to go out and continued to cook her meal slowly and methodically in the kitchen.

But the old man inside couldn't sit still. Not only him, but all the other neighbors ran out of their houses and into the backyard, because the noise was coming from there.

Jiang Qiao's meals were simple. Since she couldn't stir-fry meat, she would make the meat into fillings and make vegetable pancakes. It was so simple, with rice and vegetables. She would also cook some millet porridge and add some pickled vegetables, and that would be all she needed.

She had already finished cooking, but the noise in the yard hadn't subsided, and the old man hadn't returned. She wondered, even if they were arguing, shouldn't they be done by now?