Chapter 38: First Update: Chasing Pigs to the Market
I originally thought that if I took a day off from work today, I could sleep a little longer in the morning.
Unexpectedly, the villagers were much more enthusiastic about going to the market than going to work. At daybreak, neighbors would walk dozens of meters to remind them to get up early.
Han Jing, who was busy cooking, said: "Uncle Wang, you came so early, have you eaten yet?"
"It's getting late, it's getting late." The old man outside the door waved his hand. In order to go to the market, his grandson would get up as soon as the rooster crowed, for fear that they didn't wake him up before leaving.
In fact, due to the ban on speculation, the market is no longer as lively as before, but the rural people have been staying in this mountain area and have been isolated from information. Whenever they go out, they feel fresh and expectant.
"I'll be there as soon as possible," Han Jing replied, rubbing the back of his head. He turned to wake up his companions one by one. Suddenly, someone in the courtyard called out, "Wake up! Wake up! Dinner will be ready soon."
This sentence at the end is not directed at anyone, it has become a fixed pattern for waking people up early in the morning.
Ye Yu:
“…”
Get out of bed, wash up, and have breakfast.
The sparrow built a nest under the eaves of the educated youth's residence. Before they left, it flew down from the nest and chirped twice around Ye Yu, as if it wanted to follow them out.
"no."
Sparrows are one of the four pests. People nowadays think sparrows are no better than mice and cockroaches. The only difference is whether they can be eaten or not. They are not suitable to show up in the town.
"Chirp, chirp."
Ye Yu: "Store grain."
"grumble."
Lay down your flags and drums.
Hua Feifei and the others were always puzzled every time they saw this exchange. Could this be the legendary bird tamer? If they had been born a few decades later, and read more foreign fairy tales, perhaps they would have called this a Disney princess?
The meeting place was in front of the village at the foot of the mountain, and there were already quite a few people there when the four of them arrived.
Except for the children, everyone carried a large backpack like them.
However, the educated youths’ backpacks were empty, while the villagers’ backpacks contained more or less some agricultural and sideline products, the most common of which were eggs, followed by a decreasing number of vegetables.
These things are taken to the town either to visit "relatives" to exchange for things, or to the agricultural and sideline product stations, which will also collect odds and ends from farmers' private plots.
Ye Yu also saw familiar faces in the group - his aunt Liu Hongmei and her handyman son Liu Xiaohu.
Liu Hongmei rushed over enthusiastically, greeted Ye Yu warmly, and introduced herself to the others: "Han Zhiqing, Xu Zhiqing, Hua Zhiqing, hello, I am Ye Yu's aunt Liu Hongmei, and this is my son Xiaohu."
"Aunt Hongmei, Xiaohu."
"Hey, you educated youth are sweet-talkers and polite. You all look good, men are energetic and women are charming. You are really different from us who dig for food in the fields. Xiaohu, learn more from your brothers and sisters." Liu Hongmei is the one who really speaks sweetly.
"Xiaohu is much more obedient and sensible than us. My mom said I was like a monkey since I was little." Hua Feifei is also used to playing with her mother-in-law and aunts, and has her own set of skills. "Aunt, you are so good-looking, energetic and distinctive."
The reason why Grandma Wang chose Liu Hongmei was that she was not only good at dealing with people, but also had an appearance that conformed to the current aesthetic standards, with a round face, big breasts and a big butt, and she was blessed with good fertility.
The two of them flattered each other a few times and were so close that anyone who didn't know would think they were relatives.
Liu Hongmei and her son also successfully mixed into the group of educated youth, and became an enviable contrast to the taciturn Guihua sister next door.
Ye Yu didn't know what Liu Hongmei wanted to do at first, until she asked Hua Feifei about Han Jing and Xu Fei in a roundabout way. When she learned that Han Jing was a local of Sijiu City, she became even more excited and told her that her youngest daughter was attending junior high school in the town.
“…”
The idea hasn't been abandoned yet.
Han Jing, the young and ignorant man, didn't understand anything and just naively agreed that studying was good.
Maybe the educated youth didn’t think of going there at all, and Hua Feifei and Xu Fei didn’t hear it either.
Ye Yu reflected for a second whether he was not pure enough.
After a while, the four pigs were driven out by a dozen young and strong men in the team, led by several burly men, one of whom was Wang Laoer.
This is probably also Wang Laoer's highlight moment.
He raised his neck, walked with his feet lifted high, and even turned around in front of the captain who had injured legs and feet, deliberately showing off, acting like a arrogant villain.
Xu Fei felt very uncomfortable and asked, "Do we drive the pigs to town ourselves?"
"Wangjiagou is in the mountains, and there is at least half a mountain road. Tractors or other machines can't get in, so we have to do this. The land in several brigades close to the town is flat, and people from the agricultural and sideline product stations go to harvest it themselves." Liu Hongmei was envious when she talked about this. The brigades close to the town commune have many conveniences, and this is just one of them. Because of this, those brigades are relatively richer.
Ye Yu: "If you want to be rich, build roads first."
"We can't even get enough to eat, so where's the money for road repairs?" another villager chimed in, his words echoed by many others. "This mountain road isn't untravelable. How can driving a pig be that difficult? There's no need to go to all that trouble."
"There will be." Ye Yu remembered that Yeguo had been an infrastructure maniac for a long time.
Soon, a dozen people were chasing or carrying pigs in the front, and the market-going team followed closely behind.
The villagers walked almost as if it were flat ground, even with their eyes closed, and they were stumbling along the way. Although Hua Feifei, Han Jing and Xu Fei had walked this way two or three times, they were still not familiar with it. Fortunately, there were many people helping them.
The educated youth in other villages were not so lucky.
On the way, they met two female educated youth who were climbing up the slope by clinging to the weeds on the ground. They may have slipped and fallen into the bushes accidentally, looking very embarrassed.
Hua Feifei's popularity and wide network of contacts are closely related to her excellent memory. She waved vigorously from a distance, "Xiu Xiu, Chun Jiao, here, here!"
After Yang Xiuxiu and the other person made sure they had stood firmly, they looked up and their hearts skipped a beat.
Such a big group of people!
If it weren't for Hua Feifei jumping around with a bright smile, they would have run away.
When the villagers of Wangjiagou enthusiastically pulled Yang Xiuxiu and Zhao Chunjiao up the hill and hung their backpacks on the team's donkey cart, and someone tore off a few pieces of bamboo leaves for them to wipe their hands and faces, the two seemed even more confused.
Who are they?
Where are they?
Are they helping them?
"Sorry to bother you, uncle and auntie. You're so kind," Hua Feifei thanked them sweetly, then turned around and asked, "Xiu Xiu, Chun Jiao, are you going to town too? Where are the others? Why didn't I see them?"
Yang Xiuxiu and the other two finally came to their senses, looked at the curious and enthusiastic villagers, and hesitated to speak, and repeated this many times before finally speaking: "Brother He and the others are in the village!" They asked for leave from the team, but the team leader did not approve it.
The villagers couldn't quite read the atmosphere; they just assumed these educated youth were all the same as Han Jing and his group. Curious, they inquired, "Which team are you from? Aren't you going to the agricultural and sideline product station to deliver your pigs today? How many kilograms do your pigs weigh?"
"Red Flag Brigade," Yang Xiuxiu smiled awkwardly, "About a hundred pounds, right?"
"Wow, the Red Flag Brigade!" a villager exclaimed.
"The Red Flag Brigade, one of the best brigades in our commune. They have their own tractors, right?"
The mountain road is winding and a tractor definitely cannot go up the mountain.
But Hongqi Brigade's location is somewhat unusual: close to the mountains and a road to the next town, it's also one of the most prestigious villages in Pingquan Commune. While their village isn't particularly close to Pingquan Town, they do have their own tractor, so the pigs only need to take the tractor for the long, detour to Pingquan Town.
It’s much more convenient than Wangjiagou.
"These two women are as thin as Feifei, why don't they just go and hitchhike?"
Yang Xiuxiu and Zhao Chunjiao laughed awkwardly.
Many people have guessed that the educated youth in the Red Flag Team probably didn't get along very well.
Hua Feifei invited them to go on the road together. Eating melons is probably an instinct ingrained in many Ye people, and many people pricked up their ears to eavesdrop on their conversation.
Yang Xiuxiu is an introverted person.
Zhao Chunjiao is originally an outgoing person, but she has suffered a lot these days and has to remain silent. Once she opens her mouth, her grievances will surge out like a flood.
There were four educated youths, two men and two women, who came to Hongqi Commune. They were quite happy at first because Hongqi Commune was one of the best communes in Pingquan Team.
On the day of saying goodbye to Hua Feifei, Zhao Chunjiao said that Hua Feifei could not bear the hardship in Wangjiagou, so she could visit Hongqi Society more often, and she would definitely welcome her warmly then.
Unexpectedly, life in the brigade was completely different from what they had imagined.
Even though the Red Flag Brigade is famous in Pingquan Village, it is still a mountain village after all, and there is still a lot of work to do in the fields. Even if there is work with light punishment, it is impossible for it to belong to them from the beginning. They receive so much free food!
The conflict between the two sides began from then on. They had many quarrels, and the most serious one even involved physical violence.
The educated youth once sneaked away to the town to file a complaint, but the people in the commune thought that they were being unreasonable, and after they had sneaked away, the team leader of the Red Flag Society would not easily agree to their request for leave from work.
If many people in the village had not asked for leave today, and if Yang Xiuxiu and Zhao Chunjiao were not both women and had been crying in front of their team leader, they would probably not have been able to get out.
With things like this going on, there's no chance of getting a ride on the village's tractor!
It's good enough that they were allowed to come out. The two male educated youth were assigned to pick up manure for composting today!
Yang Xiuxiu and Zhao Chunjiao were both very curious about how Hua Feifei and the others got along so well with the villagers of Wangjiagou. They talked and laughed with each other as if they were from the same village.
“This…”
"It's really hard working in the fields. I cried on the first day. We've been to the town, but not the commune. Hehe, mainly because I wanted to go home, so Han Jing and the others accompanied me."
"We've had arguments before, and fights before, with people being thrown more than ten meters away."
When telling certain stories, the villagers laughed as if they had hit a joke, and even helped to add details. The children reenacted the legend of the Science Flyer for the Nth time.
The more Yang Xiuxiu and Zhao Chunjiao listened, the more confused they became. This development was not much different from theirs, but looking at how Hua Feifei and the others interacted with the villagers, it was completely impossible to tell.
Why exactly?
Not only Hua Feifei, Han Jing and Xu Fei, but the people in Wangjiagou Village also turned their eyes to a certain corner.
Very unified.
Ye Yu:
"Why are you looking at me?"
Hey, maybe their village is missing a leader who can lead the team!
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