Chapter 38: First Update: The Pigs Gather
I originally thought that if I took a day off from work today, I could sleep a little longer in the morning.
Who would have thought that the villagers were much more enthusiastic about gathering than about going to work? At daybreak, a neighbor would walk dozens of meters to remind them to get up early.
Han Jing was busy cooking: "Uncle Wang, you came so early, have you eaten yet?"
"It's getting late, it's getting late." The grandfather waved his hand outside the door. In order to catch up quickly, his grandson got up as soon as the rooster crowed, for fear that they didn't call him before leaving.
In fact, due to the ban on speculation, the market is no longer as lively as before, but the farmers have always been staying in this mountain area, isolated from information, so whenever they go out, they feel fresh and expectant.
"I'll do it as soon as possible," Han Jing replied, rubbing the back of his head. He turned around to wake up his companions one by one. He heard someone shouting in the courtyard, "Wake up! Wake up! The meal will be ready soon."
The last sentence is not directed at any particular person, but has become a fixed pattern for waking up early to greet people.
Elm leaves:
“…”
Get out of bed, wash up, and have breakfast.
The sparrow built a nest under the eaves of the educated youth's center. Before they went out, it flew down from the nest, circled around Ye Yu and chirped twice, as if it wanted to follow them out.
"no."
Sparrows are one of the four pests. People nowadays think sparrows are no better than rats and cockroaches. The only difference is whether they can be eaten or not. They are not suitable to be seen in the town.
"Chichichi."
Ye Yu: "Store food."
"grumble."
To stop the fighting.
Hua Feifei and the others were always puzzled every time they saw this conversation. Could this be the legendary bird tamer? If they were born a few decades later and had read more foreign fairy tales, they might have called this a Disney princess?
The meeting point was in front of the village at the foot of the mountain, and when the four of them arrived, there were already quite a few people there.
Except for the children, everyone carried a large backpack like them.
However, the backpacks of the educated youth were empty, while the backpacks of the villagers contained some agricultural and sideline products, the most common of which were eggs, followed by vegetables which were becoming less and less common.
When these things are brought to the town, people either visit “relatives” to exchange them for things, or take them to the agricultural and sideline products stations, which will also collect bits and pieces of things from the farmers’ private plots.
Ye Yu also saw familiar faces in the group - his cousin Liu Hongmei and her odd-job son Liu Xiaohu.
Liu Hongmei came over enthusiastically, greeted Ye Yu warmly, and introduced herself to the others: "Hello, Han Zhiqing, Xu Zhiqing, Hua Zhiqing, I am Ye Yu's aunt Liu Hongmei, and this is my son Xiaohu."
"Auntie Hongmei, Xiaohu."
"Hey, you educated youth are all sweet-talkers and polite, and you all look good. The men are energetic and the women are charming. You are really different from those of us who just 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 mother said that I have been like a monkey since I was a child." Hua Feifei is also used to interacting with her grandmothers and aunts, and has her own set of skills. "Auntie, you are so good-looking, energetic and distinctive."
The reason why Liu Hongmei was chosen by Granny Wang 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. She must be blessed with good fortune.
The two of them flattered each other a few times and were so intimate that anyone who didn't know would have thought they were relatives.
Liu Hongmei and her son also successfully joined the educated youth team, and became the envy of the taciturn sister-in-law Guihua 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's situation in a roundabout way, and learned that Han Jing, a local of Sijiu City, became even more aggressive and told her that her little daughter was studying in junior high school in the town.
“…”
The idea has not been abandoned yet.
Han Jing, the young man, didn't understand anything and just naively agreed that studying is good.
Maybe the educated youth didn’t think about it 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 men in the team, led by a few burly men, one of whom was Wang Laoer.
This was probably Wang Lao Er'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 his legs and feet, deliberately showing off, acting like a arrogant villain.
Xu Fei felt uncomfortable and asked, "Did we drive the pigs to the town ourselves?"
"Wangjiagou is in the mountains, and at least half of the road is blocked by a mountain road. Tractors or other machines cannot get in, so we have to do this. The land in several brigades close to the town is flat, so people from the agricultural and sideline stations go to harvest the crops themselves." Liu Hongmei was envious when she talked about this. The brigades close to the town commune had many conveniences, and this was just one of them. Because of this, those brigades were also relatively wealthier.
Ye Yu: "If you want to be rich, build roads first."
"We can't even get enough to eat, how can we get the money to build roads?" Another villager interrupted, and his words were echoed by more people, "This mountain road is not unpassable. How much trouble can it be to chase a pig? There is no need to worry and work so hard."
"Yes." Ye Yu remembered that Yeguo had been an infrastructure maniac for a long time.
Soon, a dozen people were walking in the front, carrying or lifting the pigs, and the gathering team followed closely behind them.
The villagers walked almost as if it were flat ground, even with their eyes closed, stumbling all the way. Although Hua Feifei, Han Jing, and Xu Fei had walked this way two or three times before, 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 might have slipped and fallen into the bushes accidentally, looking very desperate.
Hua Feifei's popularity and wide network of contacts are closely related to her excellent memory. She would wave her hands 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 were shocked.
Such a big group of people!
If Hua Feifei hadn't been jumping around with a bright smile, they would have definitely 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 even pulled out a few chopstick 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?
"Excuse me, uncle and auntie, you are so nice," Hua Feifei thanked her sweetly, then turned around and asked, "Xiu Xiu, Chun Jiao, are you going to the town as well? Where are the others? Why can't I see them?"
Yang Xiuxiu and the other person finally came to their senses, glanced at the curious and enthusiastic villagers, and seemed to want to say something but stopped themselves, 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 really read the air, and they just thought that these educated youth were the same as Han Jing and his friends. They curiously asked, "Which team are you from? Aren't you going to the agricultural and sub-station to deliver pigs today? How much do your pigs weigh?"
"Red Flag Brigade," Yang Xiuxiu smiled awkwardly, "About a hundred pounds?"
"Hey, 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 very winding and a tractor definitely cannot go up the mountain.
But the geographical location of the Red Flag Brigade is a bit special, close to the mountain and close to a road in the next town, and it is also one of the best villages in Pingquan Commune. Their village is not close to Pingquan Town, but they have their own tractor, and the pigs only need to take the tractor to go a long way to Pingquan Town.
It’s much more convenient than Wangjiagou.
"These two lesbians are as thin as Feifei, why don't they just go and hitchhike?"
Yang Xiuxiu and Zhao Chunjiao smiled awkwardly.
Many people have guessed that the educated youth in the Red Flag Team probably did not get along very well with each other.
Hua Feifei invited them to go on the journey 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 a reserved person.
Zhao Chunjiao is usually an outgoing person, but she has suffered enough in recent days and has to remain silent. Once she starts talking, her grievances will burst out like a flood after a dam is opened.
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, and should visit Hongqi Society more often, and she would definitely give her a warm welcome when the time comes.
Unexpectedly, life in the brigade was completely different from what they had imagined.
Even though the Red Flag Brigade was famous in Pingquan Village, it was still a mountain village after all, and there was still a lot of work to do in the fields. Even if there was light work, it would not belong to them from the beginning, as they were receiving so much free food!
The conflict between the two sides started from then on. They had many quarrels, and the worst one even ended in physical combat.
The educated youth once sneaked away to the town to file a complaint, but the people in the commune thought that they were making trouble unreasonably, and after they had sneaked away before, the leader of the Red Flag Commune 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 not 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 me 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 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 to work in the fields. I cried on the first day. We have 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 flying dozens of meters away."
When telling certain stories, the villagers laughed as if they had hit a joke, and even helped to add details. The children also gestured to tell 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 the way Hua Feifei and the others got along with the villagers, they couldn't tell at all.
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.
Elm leaves:
"Why are you looking at me?"
Oh, maybe their village is missing a leader who can lead the team!