"This year's grain harvest wasn't exactly a bumper crop; after paying the grain tax, there wasn't much left."

"This year's potato and sweet potato harvest is quite good, and each family will receive a little more. But don't even think about rice or wheat; the grain station mainly collects those two things."

The more the three of them calculated, the uglier their faces became. Not to mention that more than a dozen new educated youths had arrived this year. The previous batch was alright, at least they had earned some work points. But these newcomers would have to rely on the village for relief, since heavy snow was about to close the mountain passes, and they wouldn't be able to work or earn points anymore.

Thinking of the new educated youth, the brigade leader immediately thought of Gu Zuozuo and his two companions, whose appearances could not be judged by their appearances. His face immediately turned smug, which made Ma Sanhe, who looked up, cough awkwardly twice.

"Don't complain about me bringing back so many educated youths. Look, aren't Gu and the other two girls doing a great job? They're much better than the Red Star Brigade next door!"

When we went to pick up the educated youth this time, the captain of the Hongxing Brigade next door sighed a lot. The educated youth from the same batch who went to the Hongxing Brigade not only fought with the old educated youth every few days, but also argued with the commune members every day.

He's useless at everything, and he can't get enough to eat. When weeding, he treats the rice seedlings as weeds, and when harvesting wheat, he either cuts himself or hurts others. It's said that even the barefoot doctor in their village wants to quit.

Unlike his own brigade leader, who gave the village landlords a three-courtyard house to use as a youth settlement, the youth settlement next door was just a newly built mud house. It wasn't very big, and since there were too many people at the youth settlement, they had to stay at the homes of villagers. But they would complain about the food, or they would say that the children were stealing their things. There was never a moment of peace.

When I went to pick up the new educated youth this time, I saw that old guy again. Goodness, the last time I saw him, he had a full head of black hair and was full of vigor. This time, his hair had turned completely white, and his face looked as bitter as bitter melon juice.

The three men were talking in silence when the office door was suddenly pushed open with great force and slammed against the wall with a loud bang, stunning the three men inside.

Dust rained down from the roof, covering the three of them from head to toe. Duan Jianhua, who had just been praising his good judgment and luck, suddenly turned pale, gathered his strength in his dantian, and let out a loud roar, causing dust to fall from the roof again.

Qi Meng shrank back at the shout, almost raising her hand to yell back. But when she met the dark faces of the three people in the room, she gave a few awkward laughs. Wasn't she just used to kicking doors? Her stepmother always liked to lock the doors from the inside. Over time, when she saw a closed door, she would instinctively kick it, her foot kicking while her brain chased after it.

"Hey... Captain, you're all here..."

(／_＼)……

She was so weak that her words were even more unreliable. If the three of them hadn't had good hearing, they almost wouldn't have heard what she said.

"Speak, what is it?"

The village chief touched his remaining hair and the dust covering his head with heartache, and kept complaining in his heart, "If I go home and wash my hair again, how many hairs will be left?"

"Gu Zuozuo hunted five wild boars on the mountain. I'm here to inform you to move them."

"So what if you killed five wild boars? Is it worth kicking... What! Five wild boars!!!"

Hearing the sound of the village chief doing the splits, Qi Meng straightened her back, her smugness practically overflowing, almost as if she had her tail held high.

"Yes! Five big, fat pigs!"

His voice was powerful and resonant, and his expression was proud and impassioned.

Snap!

The sound of a hand slamming against the table startled Qi Meng. Turning her head, she saw the captain, Duan Jianhua, with a livid face, pointing a trembling finger at Qi Meng.

"You three educated youths, have you got some nerve? You actually dared to go and kill a wild boar all by yourself? Aren't you afraid you'll turn into a pile of wild boar dung? I won't even be able to get you out of there!"

Qi Meng didn't expect the captain to react this way. She was sprayed with spittle in her face and felt wronged.

"We didn't go up the mountain specifically to hunt wild boars, it just happened to happen while we were chopping wood..."

She didn't even dare to say that Zuo Zuo had hunted the wild boar all by herself; her sixth sense told her that if she did, she would probably be scolded to death today.