Mianchu, having been kindly reminded by others, knew that if she went back to find her and things escalated, she would lose face in the brigade. She gritted her teeth and held back her tears.

She now hates Sun Yingying and Li Mianmian. If it weren't for one of them buying so many things, causing her to miscalculate the accounts, and the other not telling her about the discrepancy and making her secretly make up the difference, instead going to the leader instead, she would hate them both. Neither of them are good people, and she hates them.

I didn't get to eat lunch, and when I got back, I didn't rush to unpack; I just cooked and ate first. After lunch, I wrote several letters to my older brother and his family, telling them about what happened at the supply and marketing cooperative that day, including their addresses and stamps. I'll ask Grandpa Huang to help me deliver them to the post office tomorrow when I visit him.

The weather outside is getting colder every day, and so is inside the space. I'm worried that the chickens, ducks, geese, and other animals I keep there will freeze to death.

I happen to have nothing to do tomorrow, and since I bought some extra mud bricks when I built the house and fence, I plan to build a bigger chicken coop in my space tomorrow.

I plan to build a row of chicken coops near the south wall. They don't need to be very big, but they must be tall enough. I'll also build a fire wall against the south wall. Anyway, there's plenty of firewood in the space and in the yard, so we can just use that.

So I started building chicken coops one meter above the ground. To prevent the chickens from getting sick, I didn't dare to keep all the chickens in several coops. Instead, I separated each coop by half a meter, keeping only two or three chickens in each. I also made a stove door in each separated coop so I could burn firewood inside.

Fearing the firewood wouldn't burn quickly enough, they tried to burn some charcoal every time they cooked, to save for roasting the chickens over a fire at night.

At the same time, he secretly looked for a book of traditional Chinese medicine to see if there were any prescriptions to treat the chickens. Unfortunately, he couldn't find any.

There was no other way, so I could only start by improving the chicken coop's hygiene. I cleaned the coop every day and disinfected it afterward. I don't know how it works, but the space is surprisingly well-ventilated. Since that's the case, I didn't use bleach (84 disinfectant) but instead used mugwort fumigation.

This is what I prepared to use to repel mosquitoes in the summer. I prepared a lot, so I'm not worried about using it. Besides, there's plenty of this at the foot of the mountain or by the river, so I'm not afraid of running out of it.

Less than three days after the grain was distributed, the production brigade issued a notice to start husking corn. This work wouldn't last long, maybe half a month. To prevent anyone from slacking off, the brigade didn't calculate work points based on the number of corn cobs husked, but rather by weight, with one work point for each kilogram, and no upper limit. Why? Because they wanted to finish the work later so they could go home and warm up on their heated brick bed!

Hearing this, Chen Enpeng and I were very excited. After all, half of our grain is now bought. Also, we're strong and can work faster than others. If I work slowly, people will complain.

So this method is good, and it's fair too, isn't it? After the three of us figured it out and learned that peeling 10 jin (5 kg) of fruit earns one work point, the three of us started working hard. On the first day, I earned 15 work points, and Chen Enpeng and Chen Junjie earned 12 work points each.

After finishing the work, our hands felt like they didn't belong to us. We had no choice but to soak them in hot water when we got home, but even then, the pain kept us awake all night, let alone the next day. On the second day, I earned 9 work points, while Chen Enpeng and Chen Junjie each earned 7. This continued for the next three days until the sixth day when we finally got used to it. By then, I could earn 12 work points a day, and Chen Enpeng and Chen Junjie could each earn 10.

Only the three of us worked so hard. Everyone else worked like usual. Older men could earn 8 work points, women 6, most men 10, and female colleagues 8.

However, children can also do this job. Five- or six-year-olds can earn work points. They can earn 2-3 work points a day. For children aged 11-12 and above, they can earn just as many as adults. The most they can earn is 10 work points, and the least they can earn is 6-7 work points!

Under these circumstances, the entire brigade, young and old, men and women, pitched in and finished threshing all the corn in the brigade in just half a month. They recorded the harvest and waited for the grain to be distributed during the New Year.

Overall, the past two weeks have been pretty good. I don't know how other people keep track of their work points, but from the first day I started working in the countryside, I've been keeping track of the work points I earned each day.

Moreover, he even found a special notebook to record everything, including the exact date, the location of the work, and the points earned.

The work points earned from husking corn in the past two weeks are also counted towards this year's work points. I've earned 171 work points in the past two weeks, plus the 500 work points left over from the last grain distribution, so I now have a total of 671 work points.

With less than 700 work points, I plan to take 217 work points worth of wheat and the rest of the corn kernels. That's 81 jin of wheat and 200 jin of corn. That's quite a lot; the two together make about 260 jin of flour. It's really not a small amount. Add to that the grain I just received a few days ago, and what I bought myself. Even without considering the subsidies I can exchange for, I have enough grain for next year, with some left over. That's great.

In the past two weeks, I have also received packages and letters from the military region, the military hospital, Uncle Han, my elder brother and others.

The letter was mostly about thanking them for sending them New Year's gifts, and telling them that they didn't need to keep them for themselves.

They also praised me for integrating into the group in such a short time. They said it was remarkable that I could plan for my future, and they were proud of me and my parents. They also told me to be careful when I go into the mountains; they don't need anything I send, they just want me to be safe and sound.

They also gave me a series of instructions, telling me to maintain good relations with the villagers, not to wrong myself, and to write to them or send telegrams for anything that couldn't be resolved on its own.

She also analyzed some people for herself, how to deal with them, and what would be more beneficial for her in letting go. She also said that if she encountered an emergency that she couldn't handle, she should take out her parents' martyr certificates, which would be very useful in such a situation, and keep them safe.

Along with the letter came a detailed list of everything they had prepared in the package, which I was asked to check against.

Looking at the list of items and the things laid out on the kang (heated brick bed), I felt I didn't want to be sent to the countryside to suffer; on the contrary...