Chapter 14 Raising Money to Buy Meat
In the evening, the educated youth returned, and Xu Jiajia and Lu Xun, along with a few others, indeed brought back quite a lot of things.
Taking advantage of the fact that everyone was present, Liu Jun asked everyone to come out and have a meeting.
"The harvest will start in a couple of days. The old educated youth all know that the harvest is really tiring. We will try our best to make sure the food is good during those days, otherwise we really won't be able to hold on."
This is the first time the new educated youth have encountered this situation, so you should be mentally prepared.
The reason I've gathered everyone here is to tell you something. In previous years, around the time of the harvest, we would pool our money and ration coupons to buy meat and improve our meals.
Of course, people who usually can't afford to eat meat will want to buy it at this time, so meat is hard to buy. But today we can pool our money and tickets.
Tomorrow morning, Xiaomei, Sun De, and I will go to queue up first thing in the morning. Besides buying meat, if they have eggs, we'll buy some too; eggs will count as a meat dish then.
After everyone listened, no one had any objections.
Then everyone who had money contributed money, and those who had tickets contributed tickets. Liu Jun would record all the amounts, and they would make up the difference once the meat was purchased.
However, after the meeting, Lu Xun pulled Liu Jun aside and said that he had a way to buy pork.
Lu Xun also met the black market boss of Xiangyang Commune by chance, which made it much easier for him to buy meat.
They ate at a state-run restaurant today and didn't buy any meat.
Liu Jun was overjoyed and entrusted the task of buying meat to Lu Xun, asking him to buy as much as possible.
The next day, Lu Xun indeed brought back 5 catties of pork glistening with oil, the kind that people currently prefer—more fat than lean.
There was also a small basket of eggs, which looked like more than 30. Liu Jun also got more than 20 eggs.
Everyone was overjoyed. In the evening, we cooked rice, rendered some fat from the pork to make oil for stir-frying vegetables, and then just stir-fried them without any vegetables.
And tonight's vegetarian dishes were cooked with a lot of oil, so they were quite oily.
When there are many people and little meat, the meat is cut into thicker and larger slices with uniform thickness. When serving the rice, the meat is divided equally among the people.
Although it's a bit more troublesome, it can avoid many disputes caused by unfairness.
Ning Xuan accepted this well. After all, cooking for so many people in a large pot is not easy. She had already cooked a large pot of rice once in the past few days, and she felt tired just from flipping the spatula.
So no matter who cooks or how it tastes, Ning Xuan doesn't mind. If she can eat it, she will; if she can't, she will quietly put it away and not comment on it casually.
The food was so good today. Everyone knew we were going to have meat, so they all asked for extra rice in advance. Ningxuan also followed suit and had a little extra.
The plates were completely clean after dinner. After the meat was divided, everyone took the rice from the pot and fried it again before serving the rice.
There was no meat the next day, but they started eating eggs.
To increase the oil content, the eggs were fried sunny-side up, which used more oil, but it was worth it.
When everyone was having a special meal, Ningxuan would secretly add an extra boiled egg for herself, along with milk powder, steamed buns, and all sorts of other delicious treats.
After only three days of rest, the harvest began. The team leader had already mobilized the troops before the holiday and seriously reminded them not to take leave easily, and that everyone who could work should go to the fields.
Ning Xuan then realized why both the team members and the veteran educated youth had said that weeding was a relatively easy task.
Because harvesting is really tiring!
Moreover, no one could slack off or be lazy anymore. Everyone took the harvest very seriously. The team members didn't even need the team leader to keep an eye on them; they all spontaneously supervised those around them. Neither the team members nor the educated youth could be too obviously lazy.
In just half a day, Ning Xuan really felt like her back was about to break.
After work in the evening, everyone was exhausted and hungry, and they were still tired even after eating.
But I still have to endure taking a shower and doing laundry.
At this moment, Ningxuan especially missed modern showerheads and washing machines, so she could comfortably wash the dishes, throw the clothes into the washing machine, and then go play on her phone.
Now I'm so tired I can barely lift my arms, but I still manage to carry a basin of water to the bathroom to shower. Afterward, I have to scrub my clothes, which are dirty and sweaty from all the work.
It took a week just to harvest the wheat, and then there were other tasks such as threshing, winnowing, and drying.
However, the slack-off work is done by the male laborers. When the wheat has been mostly harvested, the male laborers will begin the slack-off work.
The task of drying the leaves was then left to the elderly to watch over the children.
Even after the wheat is harvested, there's no time to rest; the stubble must be cleared before planting a round of soybeans.
After planting soybeans, they started harvesting corn. Ningxuan found this work particularly tiring; not only was it tiring, but touching the corn leaves and husks would also cause itching.
It took more than a month from the wheat harvest to the corn harvest, and finally there was no more urgent work to do.
Finally, I can catch my breath...
Those educated youth who still had some money and ration coupons quickly treated themselves to extra meals.
People like Xu Jiajia, Lu Xun, and Zhou Zhipeng would go directly to state-run restaurants to improve their meals.
Those who stayed longer would exchange food with the team members, such as cured meat or eggs, for a snack.
Ning Xuan took the opportunity to openly sell the raw eggs she bought in the back of the warehouse, so that the cook would conveniently boil an egg for her every day as an extra meal.
To avoid mixing up their eggs, the older educated youth reminded each other to label their eggs. Ning Xuan admired their good habit of avoiding disputes at all times.
After a couple of days of respite, the brigade arranged for some elderly people and women to thresh the corn, while the able-bodied men were to do heavier work such as plowing the fields.
Ning Xuan and several other female educated youths went together to peel corn kernels.
Huang Xiaomei and the other older educated youths were doing alright; their hands had developed calluses, so shelling corn kernels was a relatively easy task for them. They could sit down, just move their hands, and chat while doing it.
Ning Xuan and Xu Jiajia couldn't keep up; after peeling for a while, blisters started forming on their hands.
Then the two of them didn't dare to use too much force, and carefully used tools to poke a hole in the corn. They didn't dare to peel it with their fingers, but used their thumbs to break off the thicker part.
Even without comparing themselves to their teammates, Ning Xuan and Xu Jiajia were far less efficient than the older educated youth.
Huang Xiaomei knew that they had blisters on their hands, and reminded them not to pop them, otherwise it would hurt a lot.
My hands were tired and blistered, but I could bear it. I was huddled with the other women in the team peeling corn. Every now and then, the women would ask about the families of the female educated youth and make jokes.
Ning Xuan isn't the type to be particularly talkative or outgoing, so when faced with this situation, she just mumbled "uh-huh" and "yeah" to get by.
The short-haired middle-aged woman asked, "Ning Zhiqing is so thin, is there a lot of food in her family and not enough to eat?"
Ning Xuan: "Well, at least we won't starve to death."
The long-haired middle-aged woman said, "You were all too thin before, especially you, Ning Zhiqing. You're still young and may not understand yet, but women need to have some meat on their bones and big hips so they can have more babies."
Ning Xuan: "Auntie, if you have any extra meat and eggs, could you share some with me in exchange?"
Then the older woman stopped chatting with Ning Xuan.
However, when the group of middle-aged women started talking about childbirth, they exchanged knowing smiles, and then the conversation began to veer in a suggestive direction.
Ning Xuan wanted to pretend she didn't understand, but unfortunately she wasn't a real eighteen-year-old girl. She had seen everything while surfing the internet in modern times, so she often understood instantly.
She couldn't help but marvel at the openness and fighting spirit of the married middle-aged women.
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