"Sisters and aunties, please don't say such things anymore. If it weren't for your help, I wouldn't be able to help even if I wanted to."

That's what they said, but it didn't dampen anyone's enthusiasm.

When Gu An'an left the embroidery workshop, even the thick-skinned Gu An'an blushed with pride after being praised.

The village chief rarely saw her like this. "Those women were a bit too enthusiastic, but what they said was true. If it weren't for you, we would have to hibernate after finishing our work at this time."

It looks like I won't be able to hibernate this year, but that's no big deal.

It's just a job, what rural people have in abundance is the virtue of being able to endure hardship.

While chatting, the group arrived at the mountain produce quality inspection center. Zhang Cuicui was the group leader there. There were several oxcarts outside, with goods still unloaded on them.

Although the goods had already undergone a round of inspection by the village before being delivered here, Zhang Cuicui and her group did not let their guard down and checked them very carefully to ensure that the goods they received met the standards.

"How about it?"

"These were delivered from Chenjia Village. The quality is quite good. There were some minor issues, but I had them rework them on-site and weigh them again. It's not a big problem."

Village Chief Chen was leading his men to sort through one of the bags of impurities. He was furious. He had told them to check the bags before sending them over, but someone still took a chance and sent over a substandard product. Wasn't this a slap in his face?

If Wangjia Village doesn't include them because of these rotten fish and shrimp, how much money will they lose?

Fortunately, he was careful and did not mix all the goods together.

Not only that, he also marked the bag.

Chen Laoshi, you just wait and see!

You heard right, it was Chen Laoshi's family who were just filling in the numbers. They originally got this stuff for themselves, but when Wang Ting and her husband divided the family property, they took money and work points with them, which made the Chen family anxious.

Apart from Wang Ting and her husband, the rest of the Chen family members just coasted through their jobs, earning fewer work points than the more capable children.

After Wang Ting and the others moved out, the family discussed it and found that the work points they had earned were not even enough for their food for a year, let alone any money.

It's one thing to not have money, but how can we manage if we don't even have enough food? We can't just starve to death, can we?

It just so happens that the village said that any surplus mountain produce from the households could be taken to the brigade headquarters for weighing and then sold to the Xiaowang Village Economic Cooperative. At the end of the year, work points would be calculated, money and grain would be distributed together.

Although mountain produce could fill their stomachs, it was ultimately not as good as grain, so they took all their stored goods to the main force.

They brought two bags, one of which was last year's stock, and it was immediately returned.

There's only one bag left, and the bottom part is still substandard.

“I’ll take these impurities back with me later.”

The young man standing nearby asked curiously, "Why are you taking all this back?"

Village Chief Chen said viciously, "Make Old Man Chen eat this in front of everyone!"

Of course, this was largely a joke, but it was enough to show how angry he was.

As soon as he finished speaking, Village Chief Chen saw Gu An'an walk in, and his attitude changed 180 degrees, his face changing as fast as turning the pages of a book.

"Oh, Gu Zhiqing is back? Why don't you rest more? Gu Zhiqing, you really are something else."

Village Chief Chen gave Gu An'an two thumbs up. "I've publicized your contributions to our Red Flag Commune throughout the village. Now, from eighty-year-old grandmothers to two-year-old obedient children, everyone in our village knows your name so well."

The village chief couldn't stand Chen's antics and rolled his eyes, saying, "You know it all by heart, but if you don't understand, don't show off and make yourself a laughingstock."

Instead of feeling ashamed, Village Chief Chen was proud, saying, "Old Chen, that's not right. Even though I don't understand, I still have to say it. Doesn't that just show how much I admire Gu Zhiqing?"

Village Chief: ...As expected, shamelessness knows no bounds.

Gu An'an: ...These days, cadres are really something else; they're willing to go to great lengths for performance.

"Village Chief Chen, you flatter me. It was just something I did on the side."

Gu An'an was telling the truth, but Village Chief Chen felt a pang of disappointment at the mention of "just a side effect." If he had known that Gu, the educated youth, was so capable, he would have made a scene at the educated youth office and brought the trouble to their village.

"Sure enough, people say that the more capable a person is, the more humble they are, and seeing this today, it's absolutely true."

The village chief couldn't take it anymore and quickly interrupted, "Alright, alright, hurry up and pick through your things. We won't accept anything like this next time."

Village Chief Chen: ...Old Chen, you really deserve to die.

The quality inspection department has two procedures: preliminary review and final inspection. Any product that does not meet the standards is immediately rejected.

Gu An'an went to check the warehouse and found nothing wrong, which showed how careful everyone was.

"Sister Cui Cui, these are some local snacks I brought back from Guangzhou. Please share them with everyone."

There were more than a dozen people in charge of checking the moving and bookkeeping. When they heard that Gu An'an had brought them things from Guangzhou, they were all very touched.

"No need, Gu Zhiqing. You can keep the snacks for yourself."

"Yes, only little girls like to eat snacks. We, we don't like to eat those."

If she hadn't paused for that moment, Gu An'an would have actually believed her.

"Don't worry, it's not much if everyone shares it; it's just a token of our appreciation."

Zhang Cuicui took the things and divided them into two portions for each person. "Take what An'an gave us. From now on, let's work hard and not hold An'an back. That's more important than anything else."

Holding food they'd never seen before, they all smiled like flowers.

Of course, aside from the embroidery workshop having an extra serving of clam oil, everyone else got it as a snack.

Nobody really cares about that much.

After Gu An'an left, Village Chief Chen patted his old friend on the shoulder and said, "I really don't know what kind of luck you had, old man."

It's one thing to talk about the educated youth from their village, but today he also heard that the educated youth Gu found a partner who is Old Wang's nephew. He was so envious he cried.

The village chief thoroughly enjoyed that look. "Envious?"

Village Chief Chen nodded.

"Then you can only be envious! Not everyone is named Gu An'an."