Chapter 168
The first educated youth to come out arrived much earlier than the time agreed upon by Liu Zhifu. When they saw the tractor parked where they got off, they climbed onto the tractor without even saying hello to Liu Zhifu.
As soon as Liu Zhifu saw the man's face, he knew that he probably didn't do well in the exam. He didn't care whether he was polite or not, and didn't ask him how he did. He looked at the stream of people coming in and out of the gate of the Education Commission. It was getting darker, and more and more educated youth from Ping'an Village came out. Their faces were in stark contrast to those who were about to leave the courtyard:
The people who were about to enter the courtyard had very nervous expressions on their faces, but their eyes were shining. The educated youth who had already left Pingan Village had dim eyes and lowered their heads a little more than when they first came.
Hu Zhongshan and Li Youguang had not come out yet, and Deng Chunlin shouted at Liu Zhifu in dissatisfaction: "Are you going back to the brigade or not?"
Liu Zhifu looked back at the car fight, carefully took out his watch from his inner pocket, took a look at it and said, "There are still more than ten minutes left." If he really listened to him and drove away, and something happened to the people who didn't turn back, that guy would put the blame on him.
Like all the members of Ping'an Village, Liu Zhifu had no feelings towards the educated youth in general, but he hated Deng Chunlin: This kid even dared to challenge his aunt during the New Year. It's good that he didn't beat her up. He felt painful if he said one more word to him.
Liu Zhifu's attitude made Deng Chunlin grumble again. Liu Zhifu didn't hear what he said, but he didn't even have the interest to ask. He turned his head again and looked at the door of the Education Commission, and saw Hu Zhongshan and Li Youguang walking out with excitement.
"Sorry to have kept you waiting." Hu Zhongshan greeted Liu Zhifu, with a smile on his face. Li Youguang nodded to Liu Zhifu and climbed into the car with Hu Zhongshan.
Liu Zhifu turned around and counted the people in the car fight with some concern. He found that the number was the same as when he came. He asked again, "No one is missing, right?"
Hu Zhongshan also turned his head and counted the people, then smiled and said to Liu Zhifu, "Everyone is here."
No one denied Hu Zhongshan's words. Liu Zhifu got off the tractor and adjusted the direction to take the educated youth back to Ping'an Village. At the moment when the tractor turned around, two suppressed cries were heard from the car fight, and soon someone else joined in, but no one was heard to persuade them.
Liu Zhifu didn't notice when the crying stopped. His stomach was growling with hunger and he just wanted to go home and eat as soon as possible.
The road from the county to Ping'anzhuang was very flat, and the tractor arrived at the intersection of Ping'anzhuang Brigade in a short while. Liu Zhifu stopped the tractor and said to the educated youth without looking back: "I'll just drop you off here. I have to go home too." The Ping'anzhuang production team was still five or six miles away from the brigade.
"The brigade asked you to send us to the county seat, why did you abandon us halfway?" someone shouted in dissatisfaction.
No one agreed with that person. Hu Zhongshan and Li Youguang got off the tractor first, thanked Liu Zhifu, and followed him to the educated youth site. The others also got off the car one after another.
Liu Zhifu secretly counted the people who passed by him and found that there was still one person missing. He turned around and saw that person still sitting in the corner of the car. Some of the educated youth who had walked a distance in front also noticed that there was one person missing. Those who were close to him turned around and shouted, "Get off. Why are you angry with him?"
Liu Zhifu wanted to ask, but he held back and just turned his head to look at the man. Perhaps his companion's call gave the man a chance to stand up, or perhaps it was because the temperature was even lower at night that he was too cold to stand up. After a stalemate of more than ten seconds, the man climbed down from the car by himself.
Ten or so seconds were enough for his companion to run back to find him. Seeing that he had already gotten off the car, he said impatiently, "Aren't you hungry? Why are you still dawdling in the car? You're not the only one who failed the exam. Everyone did poorly. So why don't you just live your life?" Then he pulled the man over, nodded at Liu Zhifu, and walked away.
"Auntie, I think that educated youth just wanted to cause trouble." When Liu Zhifu returned the watch to Xia Juhua, he explained why he ignored the educated youth: "He probably wanted to fight with me. Those educated youths might all think so in their hearts. They knew they didn't do well in the exam, so they wanted to find trouble to vent. I saw that there were more than ten of them and I was the only one, so I ignored him. You, don't you think I didn't..."
Xia Juhua took the watch and put it on her wrist, then patted Liu Zhifu: "You handled it very well. Didn't you say that there are many people and you are alone, so you will be the one who suffers in a fight. Those people are furious and will not hold back when they hit you. What if they beat you up?"
Liu Zhifu thought so because of Xia Juhua's angry response to Secretary Tang two days ago. The lady looked so majestic that day, and the young and old in Pingan Village were all encouraged. But he also encountered something that made him angry, but he didn't say a word. He was afraid that Xia Juhua would think that he was spineless for not immediately fighting back against the educated youth's malicious words. He didn't expect that Xia Juhua was worried about his safety, not whether he was brave for a moment, and was so moved that she couldn't speak.
Xia Juhua was afraid that he would continue to blame himself, so she asked, "Do you think those educated youth didn't do well in the exams?"
"I guess only Hu Zhongshan and Li Youguang did well, the rest are pretty bad." Liu Zhifu shook his head, not very optimistic about the performance of most of the educated youth.
His estimate was correct. Even though the educated youth had little contact with the members of Pingan Village, it was not difficult for Xia Juhua to find out their scores. Soon she found out that the best educated youth in Pingan Village was Hu Zhongshan, who scored 394 points. Li Youguang scored 31 points less than him, with a total score of 363 points. The rest of the educated youth did not score more than 300 points.
Although the scores were known, the cut-off score had not yet come out. In addition, based on their college entrance examination scores, only three or four educated youth could be sent away at most, and the rest would have to continue to stay in the educated youth sites until the large-scale return to the city policy was implemented, at which time the educated youth sites could be vacated.
The construction of instant noodle factories cannot wait for the policy of returning to the cities.
Fortunately, the original plan of the brigade was to use the old building of the educated youth site as a warehouse. Now the factory building has been built and is just waiting for Engineer Xue to bring the production line in. Xia Juhua decided to build a wall between the new factory building and the educated youth site, and open a door on each side to prevent dissatisfied educated youth from doing anything to affect production.
Considering that the wall would be torn down in a short time, they did not waste green bricks and directly used adobe to build the wall. For the Ping An village members who were used to using their strength, the last thing they lacked was strength. Building the wall also counted as work points, so it didn't matter what kind of work they did.
Just when Technician Xue arrived at the instant noodle factory with the production line, the college entrance examination score line for L Province was announced: 325 points for liberal arts and 354 points for science. Both Hu Zhongshan and Li Youguang passed the undergraduate line. Whether they could go to college depended on which school they applied to.
Among the other educated youth, two scored close to 300 points and still had hope of going to college, but the rest could only prepare for next year. However, Xia Juhua was not optimistic about them - soon the policy of returning to the city would be implemented, and the educated youth would return to their hometowns and face the problem of finding a job to make a living. The time they could spend studying would probably be longer than the time they spent in Ping'an Village.
If you don't have time to read and have to worry about work and getting along with your family, your chances of getting into college will be even smaller.
Xia Juhua naturally had no time to sympathize with them. Now she spent every day debugging the production line with Engineer Xue. Engineer Xue was really a talent. Even though Xia Juhua's description of the production line was very vague and the references she mentioned were far from the truth, he managed to piece together the production line and made it infinitely close to fully automatic production from the semi-automatic production line currently used in the vermicelli factory.
Because the production line is almost fully automatic, the requirements for operators are much higher than those of vermicelli factories. Thanks to the literacy classes started by the Pinganzhuang production team, which have never stopped in recent years, the team can easily select a few young men who want to learn to read to participate in the training.
With the backbone, it is not difficult to ask people to memorize the operating procedures. Engineer Xue’s training task this time is actually much easier than that at the vermicelli factory.
"Auntie, what do you think of this dehydrator?" Technician Xue focused on the dehydrator - Xia Juhua said that whether the instant noodles can have a richer taste depends on this machine. For this reason, he asked the researchers in the institute for advice and promised that the researcher who helped him the most would be listed as the inventor together with him when applying for a patent in the future.
That's right, when Technician Xue was researching the instant noodle factory production line, the semi-automatic production line of the vermicelli factory passed the patent acceptance, and the inventor was Engineer Xue. Because of this, Engineer Xue is now more valued in the institute, and what he promised is so attractive.
Xia Juhua looked at the outlet where the ingredients kept coming out, grabbed a handful, twisted it and said, "I think it can work. But you still have to soak it in water to see how it recovers." It's impossible for the dough to be soaked until it becomes soft. If you still can’t chew the vegetable buns, it’s better not to add them.
As long as you have a heart and the right direction, you will succeed one day. Soon, the first batch of instant noodles was successfully produced, and the taste was just like seafood. Engineer Xue gave a very honest evaluation: "Auntie, don't give me work points this time, just pack two boxes of instant noodles for me to take home."
Xia Juhua was amused by him and remembered the last time she gave him work points separately, so she asked, "Did you buy a house with the money I gave you last time?"
Engineer Xue burped and said, "I bought it. You told me several times. I was afraid that if I didn't buy it, you wouldn't let me come to Ping'an Village next time. But now I see, I'm glad I listened to you. Although my small yard is not big and has only three rooms, I can live alone and do whatever I want. I feel very comfortable."
雖然父母平反後房子被還了回來，家裏不是他一個孩子，兩個哥哥各自成家都有了孩子，住在一起十分不方便——其實兩個哥哥單位都分了房子，不過他們不知咋想的，都說孩子需要母親幫着照顧，沒搬到自己分的房子住。
薛工程師沒有結婚，研究所只給分了個兩人間的單身宿舍，放點貴重東西、洗漱啥的都不方便。直到拿到平安莊給的三千塊錢“工分”，加上他自己存下的工資，買下一個小院子，他才算有了自己的私人空間。
能在這個時候買到京城的房子，還是獨立的小院兒，不管位置好壞都虧不了。夏菊花聽了也替他高興，說：“給你帶兩箱方便面回去也行，不過這東西是油炸出來的，長吃不好，你可別天天吃。”
薛工程師就不幹了：“用油炸出來的還不好，那啥好。嬸子你是不是心疼方便面，怕我要多了？”
夏菊花這才發現，自己又把上輩子的記憶，與這輩了的實際情況脫離了：現在大家肚子裏都缺油水，能有油炸的東西可吃，是一種幸福，還不到把方便當成垃圾食品的時候。
不過這也給夏菊花提了個醒，那就是她既然是頭一個把方便面生産出來的人，完全可以讓防腐劑不出現在方便面之中。
雖然從保質期衡量，有難度，也可能會造成一些浪費，不過夏菊花認為值得。至于油炸食品是不是健康，還是等到了大家為減肥發愁的時候再讨論吧。
有了新的想法就要實施，反正酸辣粉裏也沒有防腐劑，經過一年多的試用，除了調料包外，粉團并沒出現變質的現象，給了夏菊花很大的信心。
夏菊花調整方便面調料的配方後，制做調料人手不足的問題再次出現。幸虧這一次方便面廠選人時，已經招收了一半的女工，主要從事包裝、封塑等不需要太大體力的工序。
為了管理好這些女工，夏菊花不得不把安寶玲調到方便面廠，在自己不在的時候協調管理。現在她一個人忙不過來，還不直接拉着安寶玲跟她一起處理調料的配比？可謂歪打正着。
随着生産線投入正式生産，她們兩個人一起動手，還是有些力不從心，迫切的需要再有人加入進來。可是平安莊編織組的人不能再動了——編織組全都是婦女幹活，家長裏短的事兒更多，張翠萍幾個人分任三個組組長，還得紅翠不時從旁邊幫着點兒呢。
“大隊長，我有點事兒求你。”一向有眼色的常會計，這次仿佛看不到夏菊花着急一樣，突然跑到方便面廠來找她。
夏菊花與他這幾年相處的一直很好，常會計也從來沒拿自己的私事求過她，此時一聽他說有事兒，忙問：“咋啦，是家裏出啥事兒了？”
常會計嘆一口氣：“唉，說起來我都覺得恨得慌。”
原來是他閨女常春芽自嫁人了之後，日子過得也就那樣。因為兩年還沒孩子，婆婆早開始在家裏打雞罵狗的鬧騰。她向男人訴了訴委屈，結果男人一句不向着她說話，還埋怨她不知道讓着點婆婆，竟然背後講咕長輩。
常春芽也是個有脾氣的，覺得自己在婆家再呆下去，早晚得氣死，直接收拾包袱回了娘家，聲明自己在婆家過不下去了，以後要在娘家長住。
常會計兩口子覺得閨女都嫁人了，哪怕跟婆家生氣回娘家呆兩天，等姑爺來接人的時候，自己和兒子震唬他兩句也就過去了。嫁都嫁了，哪能說在娘家常住就留在娘家的，別說自己心裏難受，家裏也讓人議論不是。
不想過了半個多月，姑爺竟然都沒露面，似乎真當沒這個媳婦了。常會計心裏再窩火，還是覺得這事閨女做得欠考慮，便讓大兒子去閨女婆家莊上去了一趟，不想帶回的消息是，人家早放出風來，說是常春芽愛回不回，住娘家還能給他們家省下糧食呢。
常春芽的婆婆還跟人說，常春芽這個兒媳婦，仗着娘家有錢，不光看不上他們家，還看不上他們生産隊，老是嫌棄生産隊的工分值低，路不好走，沒通電……
可能常春芽的确抱怨過這些話，那也一定只是在自己最親近的人面前說——自家姑娘雖然要強，可也不是不分輕重的人——不想她婆婆竟然都說給生産隊的人聽。
別管她婆婆是咋知道的，只說這話一跟別人說，整個生産隊的人咋看常春芽，以後她還咋見那個生産隊的人？
常會計聽到兒子學的話，當然火冒三丈，立時要沖到親家生産隊問問姑爺和親家母，這是有多看不上他閨女，一點活路都不給她留？要是真不想要自己閨女給唐家當兒媳婦，那就直接說句痛快話。
他大兒子想的明白，拉住了常會計說：“爹，我覺得人家就是要拿咱們家一把，逼着你把唐七斤安排到粉條廠上班。你去了，他們家當面提出來，要不就讓七斤上班，要不就不讓他們過下去了，你咋辦？”
常會計雖然話不多，可腦子好使着呢，剛才因為生氣親家母糟蹋自己閨女，怒火沖昏了頭，被大兒子一提醒就醒過勁來：
說不定姑爺家就等着自家人上門呢——自從到粉條廠上班掙錢的消息傳遍十裏八鄉之後，七斤就逼着常春芽回家求過一回，不過被常會計以上班的都得是平安莊大隊的社員拒絕了。
自那以後常春芽再回娘家，都是一個人回來，姑爺連個人影都不見。常會計哪怕知道姑爺對自己心裏有看法，可為了兩人的日子順遂，沒問過閨女一句，還暗裏給閨女塞過錢，讓她給姑爺買點好吃的，緩解一下他對丈人家的意見。不想那東西都喂了狗！
可閨女老留在家裏真不是個事兒，首先她結婚後戶口啓到了婆家，口糧就成問題。以常會計家的收入，倒不缺買糧食的錢，可這不光是買糧食的事兒！
常會計可不光有常春芽這個閨女，還有兩成了家的兒子呢。因為常會計的關系，兩個兒子、兒媳婦分別在粉條廠、方便面廠和編織組上班，一時還不會說啥，時間一長的話就不是那麽回事兒了。
眼看着常春芽已經在家裏呆了一個多月，兩兒媳婦臉上不時會帶出些情緒來，常會計看得見，常春芽自己也看得見。她好幾天吃不好睡不好的，不是沒動過自己回婆家的念頭。
可跟親娘一說，就被親娘給按住了——兩口子鬧架，鬧到媳婦回娘家的地步，如果男人不來接自己回去，以後在婆家更別想擡頭了。更何況她婆婆在生産隊那麽敗壞春芽，唐家不來人接的話，咋提條件讓她婆婆收回自己說的話？
為了讓閨女在娘家住的安心，常會計今天才不得不舍下老臉，來求夏菊花，看能不能讓閨女也到哪個廠子上班。
夏菊花聽常會計期期艾艾說完，氣得不輕：“春芽剛結婚兩年，她婆婆就嫌棄她不生孩子？咱們大隊還有結婚四五年才生頭胎的呢，那人家還不過日子了？”
常會計又嘆了口氣，啥也沒說。夏菊花便問：“要是讓春芽到廠子裏上班，她婆家又來接人咋整？”
常會計咬着牙說：“他們家這麽搓磨人，就算來接我也不讓春芽回去了。”
安寶玲聽了一驚：“你想讓他們離婚？”
“倒不是想讓他們離婚，可這唐家這事讓人惡心——誰家兩口子生氣媳婦回娘家，過個三天兩天的男人不上門接？這都過了一個多月了，唐家連個人毛都不見。他們要是有啥要求，明說了我還高看他們一眼，可這又想要又想讓人求着的做派，是正經人家幹出來的事兒？”
“這回我要是低了頭，下回不定還使啥招呢。我不是只有春芽一個閨女，也得替兩兒子想想。我想好了，就算他們唐家來接人，也得讓說清楚了，回去就讓春芽他們分家單過，春芽哪怕天天跑呢，也得回來上班。”
常會計算了這些年的帳，自己家的帳也算得很清楚，給閨女想的主意不謂不狠。夏菊花和安寶玲聽了，并不覺得常會計這麽做有啥不對，反而都跟着點頭。
安寶玲用膀子碰了碰大嫂：“嫂子，正好咱們還缺人手，讓春芽來呗。她年輕心靈，來了以後能替換替換你，省得公社開會你都得請假。”
“常會計，春芽來上班也行，不過她現在戶口不在平安莊了，這工資不能跟平安莊社員一樣，至少頭一年不能一樣。要不我對社員也不好交待。”夏菊花想了想對常會計提了個要求。
常會計現在只求閨女能有個散心的地方，能把自己的口糧錢掙出來，當着兩兒媳婦的面交到他們老兩口手上，不讓兒媳婦先挑出禮來就行。
Accountant Chang had no objection to Xia Juhua's request, and immediately arranged for Chang Chunya to come to work at the instant noodle factory the next day. After he left, An Baoling said angrily, "I never thought that Chunya would marry such a man. If I had known earlier, I would have found a husband for her in our production team."