The mountains in late autumn are all yellow, and dense crowds of people are moving around. All the educated youth at the educated youth point are there. Starting today, the next half month is firewood-cutting day, and everyone goes up the mountain to collect firewood.

Wild animals would retreat when there were too many people around. These past few days, the mountains ahead and behind were safe. Su Qingmeng used a wood saw to cut down every branch and dead tree she could reach. Her private plot was filled with piles of firewood, enough to burn all winter.

After she had enough firewood, she continued to look for mountain products.

Several hazelnut trees were discovered today. The hazelnuts were ripe and had fallen off. Su Qingmeng went up the mountain alone. She put most of the hazelnuts into the space, leaving only a small handful in the backpack. A large area of ​​mountain products was already drying on the ground in the space.

After picking up all the hazelnuts, she continued her wanderings and found a forest of red pine trees. The trees were tall and majestic, towering into the sky. The ground was covered with pine cones. The red pine nuts were edible. After Su Qingmeng filled her backpack, she picked up two more sacks.

It was already very late, so she put the pine cones in the sack into the space, leaving only a basket of mountain products and went straight down the mountain. She took note of this place and would come back again tomorrow.

Back at the educated youth camp, Zhou Wenxi saw the pine cones in her backpack and asked, "What are you picking them for? To make a fire?" Su Qingmeng broke open the red pine cones and showed her the pine nuts inside. "Red pine nuts are edible, similar to melon seeds."

"Have you collected enough firewood?" Su Qingmeng asked.

Zhou Wenxi said, "We can pick up more tomorrow and that will be enough."

"Then I'll take you to pick pine nuts the day after tomorrow." Su Qingmeng said, just as a team-building activity with his friends.

That night, she tidied up her space and harvested the hemp, leaving the farmland empty for now. Her current supplies would last until next year, but planting required copper coins, so she decided to save them. She had a routine lottery, and today she had good luck, winning a second-class building: a water shell bed. Hmm... it wasn't going to be of much use for the time being, so she put it in the warehouse.

The next morning, Su Qingmeng dried the pine cones and hazelnuts and went up the mountain alone. Lin Xiuyao said he had something to do and hadn't come to see her in the past few days. She didn't know what he was busy with.

Su Qingmeng arrived at the red pine forest and picked up pine cones for the whole morning and put them directly into the space. Most of them were picked up from the ground, and the remaining small part was left to be picked up with his friends tomorrow.

After searching the back mountain, they found nothing. Going further in would lead to deep mountains, which would be dangerous if they entered rashly. Su Qingmeng returned to the educated youth site.

Lin Xiuyao was waiting in front of her door, a large package at his feet. "Are you done?" Su Qingmeng opened the door and let him in. "Yes, I'm done. You've gained a lot these past few days."

The ground in front of her house was covered with all kinds of mountain products drying in the sun.

Su Qingmeng's face was filled with a proud smile. "The mountains and forests in the Northeast are full of treasures. It's great."

Lin Xiuyao entered the house, opened the package, and took out two pairs of women's shoes: a pair of white sports shoes and a pair of small leather shoes. He also took out a red Nizi coat and Pechoin facial cream. "This is what I asked a friend to buy from the provincial capital. Try it on and see if it fits you."

Su Qingmeng was touched. Her boyfriend was considerate and attentive. She tried on the clothes and shoes and found they fit her well.

Lin Xiuyao looked at Su Qingmeng, who was wearing a fine coat and small leather shoes. She was beautiful and noble. This was the life she should live, not wearing coarse linen clothes in the countryside and not being able to buy anything she wanted.

Lin Xiuyao secretly clenched his fists. He would take her back to the city and give her a better life.

"Zhou Zhiqing, Su Zhiqing, is anyone there?" Zhang Fang walked in. She was envious of the clothes Su Qingmeng was wearing. "Su Zhiqing, your clothes are so beautiful." Such good clothes can't be bought here.

Su Zhiqing's boyfriend is really nice to her. Just now, Lin Xiuyao passed by the front yard with a package and they all saw it. They didn't expect that he would give her such an expensive gift.

"Sister Zhang Fang, is there anything wrong?" Su Qingmeng was not very familiar with the female educated youth in the front yard and did not want to chat much.

Zhang Fang said, "We female comrades have agreed to go to the commune to take a bath tomorrow. Will you and Zhou Zhiqing come with us?"

"I'll ask Sister Wenxi when she comes back. I'll tell you later whether she's going or not."

After Zhang Fang left, Lin Xiuyao said, "You want to go to the commune? Ahem, take a shower? I can ride your bike to take you there." His face flushed a little. "There's too much of you to sit on the oxcart. It's so tiring to walk!"

Su Qingmeng: "I'll ask Sister Wenxi when she comes back. If all the female educated youth go, it would be so unsociable of me to be the only one not going!"

Lin Xiuyao stayed for a while, said he was still busy for a few days, and then went home. Su Qingmeng realized that he was busy speculating.

The environment is much more relaxed now, and Lin Xiuyao is a cautious person. If something happens, he can still enter the space, so there should be no danger.

When Zhou Wenxi came back and heard her say that the female educated youth were going to take a bath, she said that this was an old tradition in the educated youth site. Every year at this time, the female educated youth would go to the commune together.

Normally at the educated youth site, they could only wash and it was inconvenient to take a bath, so they would set aside a day after the autumn harvest and before winter to go to the commune together.

After breakfast, the female educated youth changed into their nice clothes and set off, chatting and laughing along the way. Only then could their smiles reveal the liveliness typical of their age, unlike the usual dusty, hopeless numbness of working in the fields.

They are in their twenties, the age when they are full of vigor and vitality, but they can only waste their time in the countryside. Fortunately, it is 1976 now, and they will be able to return to the city soon.

The bathhouse in the commune was a bit simple, with no cabinets to lock the doors. The women's bathhouse only had one large room, and everyone had to be naked facing each other.

Fortunately, Su Qingmeng had experienced this situation when she was in college, so she was not too shy.

After taking off her clothes, Tian Ke came over and touched her, "Qingmeng, your skin is so white, and very smooth."

Su Qingmeng was also very satisfied with her body, which had been carefully protected from the sun all summer. She had basically not tanned, except for a pair of small black hands, which were tanned from working in the threshing ground. Wearing gloves during those days was inconvenient, so they got tanned in a few days.

"Do a good job of sun protection, drink more water every day, eat more fruits, and your skin will become like this after a period of time." Su Qingmeng shared her experience. Tian Ke's skin is pretty good, and she just needs to take good care of it.

Tian Ke shook his head. "I can't stand it. It's so hot in the summer. I'm wearing the same amount of clothes as you. I'm afraid of getting a heat stroke."

When taking a shower, Su Qingmeng's white skin was too eye-catching. She felt like everyone was looking at her, so she had to move to a position closer to the inside, washed quickly and came out. Anyway, she washed in the space every day.

After the female educated youth came out, they went to the supply and marketing cooperative. Today, the cooperative had cotton shoes that looked very thick, so she bought a pair.

Tian Ke also bought a pair and complained to them: "I heard that winter is very cold, so my mother brought me a lot of cotton and asked me to stuff it into my cotton-padded clothes and quilts. I don't know how to do it at all. But we can't buy such thick shoes where we are, so she asked me to come over to buy some."

Zhou Wenxi frowned and recalled, "I almost froze to death the winter when I first arrived. The cotton clothes I brought with me were not warm at all. I basically didn't get out of bed that winter." Her home is in Shanghai. The south is damp and cold in winter, but the temperature is not as low as in the north.

Su Qingmeng decided to make a cotton-padded jacket when she got home, one that weighed five kilograms.

At noon, they had lunch at a state-owned restaurant. The three of them split the bill and ordered two meat dishes. Su Qingmeng was not a meat lover, so she ate two bites and stopped, leaving the meat for her friends. The autumn harvest was too tiring, and Zhou Wenxi and Tian Ke had both lost weight, which was heartbreaking.