"I say, Pah, Pah, Pah..." Liang Shengdi ate a bitter melon seed and spat several times.
"If you want to continue farming, then keep doing it. After all, everyone only gets half an acre of land. If you want to farm, farm your half. If you don't want to farm, rent out your half. Isn't this a simple matter? Why is there such a fuss?"
Anyway, she didn't want to farm at all. Liang Shengdi took another piece of candy and put it in her mouth. The melon seed she just ate was really bitter!
"Grandma!" Lin Shumei complained softly, "I only took out five candies! You've already eaten four!"
"Why don't you go back and get it?" The sweetness of the candy eased the bitterness on her face. "By the way, can you bring me another pot of water? This candy is too powdery and it's stuck in my throat."
Lin Shumei: ...
The grandfather and grandson chatted as if no one was around, completely unaware of how much of a commotion Liang Shengdi's words had caused among the group of people in the field.
That's right! The land is collectively owned, not held by any particular elder. The land was actually distributed per head, not per household, and rented out, not per household.
Didn't Ma Dexiang say that? If their own fields are stuck between fields they want to rent out, they can just move them somewhere else. If they want to rent out their own fields, as long as they agree, it's done!
"Hey! If you want to plant, just plant it yourself. Don't worry, we won't touch your one acre of land!" Sanni said to the grandparents in the field with a smile, "Anyway, we don't want to plant anymore. During the spring plowing and autumn harvest, those two acres of land will be enough for you to be busy, so don't worry about anything else."
After the autumn harvest before the New Year, she went to Bu Street every day to report, and she actually got a few translation jobs. One of them was from Xu Fadada, who made a lot of money and paid generously. The other two companies didn't pay as much as Xu did, with a hundred yuan at a time.
But 20 yuan per time was enough for Sanni to do odd jobs for a month.
Those old men and women had never thought that there would be such an operation. It was equivalent to dividing the land at home into pieces. Those young and middle-aged people didn’t want to farm anymore, and the children’s land would definitely follow their parents.
The only people who stayed behind were middle-aged people in their forties and fifties, with the majority being elderly people in their sixties or older. They couldn't do much outside, so they decided to stay home and farm.
In the end, there were nearly 200 acres of land in the entire Sihe Village that wanted to be rented out, which far exceeded the contract scope of the large agricultural household. Ma Dexiang was also stunned.
So what? He went around the village and saw so many families arguing from morning till night. Finally, he told them that he only needed 100 mu of land. If you can't rent it out, why don't you go back to farming?
He was afraid of being beaten to death, really.
Finally, he paid for it himself and brought gifts to the contractor's house, saying, "Brother, why don't you just order more? The more you order, the more you earn!" Right?
You say you can't afford the rent all at once? No problem, no problem. Our village will guarantee you. You can pay the rent after you've harvested the crops and sold them.
Of course, if possible, it would be best if you could give priority to selling grain to our village when selling it.
Oh, you said there's a government subsidy for selling it? That's fine, but you have to make money first, right? Our village? I'll tell them about it! Don't worry!
Ma Dexiang was still sighing to himself on the way back.
They say there's collusion between officials and businessmen. Why is it that a small-time official like him, who earns very little, has to pay out his own pocket? Why doesn't anyone give him gifts?!
But at last the matter was resolved. Those villagers had been envious of the outside world for a long time. Who said they wanted to go out and build houses for others? They said they could earn 60 yuan a month just moving bricks at the construction site.
After hearing this, Ma Dexiang wanted to go move bricks, really!
Ever since registering to rent land with the village committee, Liang Shengdi has completely let herself go.
Originally, she had to worry about grain seedling cultivation after the Chinese New Year, but now, all she had in her mind were the bamboo shoots on the mountain and the fish in the river. She wanted to go out and have fun on the eighth day of the lunar month.
"Mom...it's still a little too cold right now. You can sit and bask in the sun, but if you row the boat out into the cold wind, you'll freeze to death."
Lin Guoqing didn't want her to go out on the river and enjoy the breeze on a day like this. She was already 63, couldn't she please consider her health? What if something happened to her...
"Don't worry, I'm a thousand-year-old turtle, I won't freeze to death." Liang Shengdi quickly sorted out her fishing nets and walked towards the river where the boat was moored. "I'll get sick if you let me lie at home every day."
Lin Shuchao sat on the doorstep, chewing on the biscuits he hadn't finished eating during the New Year. He looked at his father in confusion, "Dad, I remember my eldest sister said that grandma used to lie in bed at home every day?" It seems that she didn't seem to be sick, right?
Lin Guoqing: “…”
"It's been a thousand years, so it has to hibernate."
"……oh……"
Chen Chunhua rested properly for about three days. She went up the mountain on the first day, had dinner on the second day, and went to the mushroom house and farm for a tour on the third day. Then she came back and lay down for a day, saying that she wanted to make up for the time she had not slept before.
Liu Ni would go to feed and water the chickens, ducks and geese at fixed times in the morning, noon and evening, no matter whether it was New Year's Eve or the first day of the new year. She even complained to Lin Yulan at one point, why did they always have to celebrate holidays?
People celebrate the festival, but poultry don’t. People are eating here and there, so what should we do with the chickens, ducks, and geese?
Lin Yulan was so worried that she kept complaining to Chen Chunhua that her son Lao Liu had become obsessed with raising chickens.
You can't really eat and sleep with chickens every day, right? She still smells like chicken even after she changed into new clothes during the Chinese New Year.
Chen Chunhua covered her face. To put it bluntly, it was because there were not enough people and the technology was not advanced. If there had been enough people to take turns, or if there had been fully automated feeding like the one that was later, Liu Ni would not have ended up like this.
But there was no other way. This was not something that could be accomplished in one go. All Chen Chunhua could do was to post the job advertisement again on the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, and then dive back into the mushroom house to study her mushrooms.
On the seventh or eighth day of the New Year, Sun Chuanguo and Liu Guoping both came to work. They happily wished Chen Chunhua a Happy New Year, and Liu Guoping also brought a jar of wine.
"Madam, this is the wine my father asked me to bring. We don't have anything else to give as a gift. Take this home and drink it with your family."
It was the most traditional earthenware wine jar, not small. Liu Guoping held it in both hands. It looked like it could hold three or four kilograms. Chen Chunhua did not refuse and took it with a smile.
"Oh, your father brewed the rice wine himself?"
"It's not rice wine," Liu Guoping said with a grin. "It's medicinal wine. I soaked a snake in it. Didn't you say your mother-in-law often goes to the river? My father said this snake wine is the best for curing rheumatism!"
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