Facing a stranger named Sun Hongmei, and the sixty yuan that might not be returned, Liu Zhishuang took a step forward uncontrollably and raised his hand to slap her. However, before his hand landed, he was stopped by Captain Sun, who was bringing Sun Hongmei to handle the formalities. Captain Sun quietly reminded Liu Zhishuang that he was about to divorce Sun Hongmei, and it would be illegal to hit her again.
Even though she had not been slapped, Sun Hongmei sat on the ground and started crying, asking the people from the commune to judge whether she could keep the man who was still cheating after being divorced.
The crowd who didn't know the truth saw Sun Hongmei crying and started to blame Liu Zhishuang, and Liu Zhishuang, who was right, became wrong. Captain Sun, who came with Sun Hongmei, couldn't stand it, so he pulled Sun Hongmei up and whispered to Liu Zhishuang: "Forget it, forget it, you are still young, you can't make a fortune with that 60 yuan, and you can't be poor without that 60 yuan."
Liu Zhishuang's heart was bleeding, how could he not be so poor? Now the production team only earned so many work points a day, without these sixty yuan he would be penniless!
He wanted to argue again, but Captain Sun motioned him to look at the crowd and continued in a low voice: "It's already like this, what else can you do with her? Just think of it as spending money to buy peace of mind. If she keeps yelling, you won't be able to get married in the future."
Liu Zhishuang wanted to ask Captain Sun, "How can I marry if I don't have any money?" However, because Xia Juhua had been raising them for many years, she always adhered to the principle of avoiding trouble and taking a step back, which made Liu Zhishuang and his brother less resolute, so he never asked the question.
In the end, Sun Hongmei patted her butt and got a divorce certificate as if she had won the first battle. People who didn't know would think that it was she who didn't want Liu Zhishuang, rather than Liu Zhishuang who took the initiative to propose a divorce.
With the divorce certificate in his arms, Liu Zhishuang felt more and more upset. When he got home, he told Xia Juhua that he was divorced, and then went back to his room and lay down. He was too embarrassed to tell Xia Juhua that he had lost his money, and he was even more embarrassed to say that he was insulted and scolded by Sun Hongmei again, and was pointed at by people in the commune.
Liu Zhishuang, as her son, knew better than anyone how much Xia Juhua didn't want people to talk about her family. The more he knew, the more he felt that he was holding his mother back. He was even more afraid that the rumor would spread to Ping'an Manor and be known by Xia Juhua.
With so much on his mind, Liu Zhishuang couldn't eat. His depression was normal in everyone's eyes - for a newly divorced man to eat and drink happily as if nothing had happened, he had to be very generous.
Liu Zhiquan did share some news at the dinner table. The production team had notified all members that they would not work in the afternoon and would go to the production team to participate in the election of the new production team leader. Xia Juhua felt that she had already had a chaotic morning, but she didn't expect that the production team was not much better than she was:
It turned out that after Sun said that she had reported him to the brigade, Liu Erzhuang thought about it carefully and discussed it with Li Daya. He felt that it would be better for him not to be the production team leader. In the past, Sun had always asked Liu Erzhuang to assign light work to Liu Sizhuang and his wife because he was the production team leader. The members of the commune did not say it to his face, but they were quite dissatisfied.
Now that the family business has been divided, Liu Erzhuang will certainly not listen to Sun anymore. By then, the old lady will sit at the door and curse or cry three times a day. It would be better for Liu Erzhuang not to be the production team leader.
So Liu Erzhuang went to the brigade himself and asked to quit his job as production team leader. The brigade leader Li Changshun scolded him but failed to change Liu Erzhuang's mind. Considering his mother and brother who were holding him back, Li Changshun had to agree to Liu Erzhuang's request.
The production team leader said that the cadres were not cadres, but their ability was related to the dividends and food of every family in a production team. Didn't Ping'an Village get the job of carrying food packages at the grain station? Other production teams had to just watch? To be a production team leader, one had to be upright and have some prestige. Otherwise, if the wife of the eastern family didn't work and the brothers of the western family didn't get along, the production team leader wouldn't be able to calm them down.
Therefore, the brigade wanted to let the members of the Ping'anzhuang production team elect a production team leader themselves, so as to avoid the brigade designing someone to go to the commune to report the wrongdoings - the Ping'an brigade had Liu Sizhuang, and Li Changshun had already lost face in the commune, so he did not want to go to the commune for a lecture for the time being.
Hearing that they could elect their own production team leader, the people of Ping An Village thought it was a new thing, and they arrived early and in a very orderly manner. Xia Juhua never came forward, and she found a corner with a shoe sole and slowly started sewing.
After a while, Li Changwang's family came over and asked, "Mrs. Liu, who do you think is suitable to be the production team leader?"
Xia Juhua looked at her in surprise and said, "It doesn't matter who is the production team leader." She was just someone who did what she was told.
Seeing her reaction, Li Changwang's family was very worried about Xia Juhua: "How can it be the same? If Liu Erzhuang is still the production team leader, you can still be credited with eight points for making mats, and we can also be credited with six points. If it were someone else, who knows if the work points would be reduced."
Xia Juhua felt that no matter who became the production team leader, Li Changwang's family would have no reason to worry - the current production team's tasks included repairing the canal and weaving mats. Whether the canal repair was useful or not would only be known later, but weaving mats could bring in cash. As long as the new production team leader was not crazy, he would not dare to offend these women who weaved mats.
If the work points are really reduced, the women may not dare to refuse to be included in the work, and they may slack off on work or take a few more days off. The accountant of the production team will settle the account for the team leader.
Soon, Xia Juhua was surrounded by several women who were weaving mats together. Everyone had the same worries as Li Changwang's family. They talked about who in the production team was willing to work hard, who was good at farming, and who was selfish and wanted to move all the reserve grain back to his home if he became the production team leader...
The women insisted that she say who was more suitable, as if they would choose whoever Xia Juhua said. Xia Juhua couldn't figure it out. She didn't join the women's topic, so why did they keep coming to her to talk about this matter? team."
Li Changwang's wife snorted in disappointment: "The brigade has decided. Since we are allowed to choose for ourselves, it depends on whether the members support it or not." She rolled her eyes and said something that made Xia Juhua uneasy:
"In fact, you are more capable than anyone else. I would say you should be the production team leader. Anyway, you have done a lot of men's work in the past. You are good at everything. You are also good at weaving mats for women. You can do the work of both men and women. No one is more suitable than you."
Originally, Li Changwang's family just said this out of courtesy, but the women who heard it looked at Xia Juhua with shining eyes: Why didn't they think of this? If Xia Juhua became the production team leader and she also helped to weave mats, she would definitely not reduce her work points for weaving mats, and she might even increase them.
The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. The women all clamored that they would choose Xia Juhua, which made Xia Juhua laugh and cry: "Please don't make it difficult for me. When a team leader is really chosen, he will hate me to death and make things difficult for me. Besides, the production team leaders in the eight villages are all men. There is no woman who can be a production team leader."
"Old people also say that women can hold up half the sky. Don't forget that you are Xia Juhua." Li Changwang's wife remembered the first sentence the most, because she always won with this sentence when she quarreled with Li Changwang. The second sentence was added by her on the spur of the moment. She had no intention of mocking Xia Juhua at all. Instead, she hoped that Xia Juhua would remember that she was no worse than men at work.
The other women gradually came over after hearing what they were saying. They were surprised at first, but then they thought it was a good idea: everyone already knew that the women who weaved mats would earn work points, and everyone wanted to earn those six work points that day, but not everyone knew how to weave mats.
If Xia Juhua became the production team leader, would she not teach someone who wanted to learn how to weave mats? Wouldn't a production team leader be selfless?
Besides, Xia Juhua is a woman, and people are more tolerant towards women. If I want to ask for leave, it would be more convenient to tell her than to the male production team leader.
Just like that, the women unexpectedly came to the same conclusion. Some of them even secretly told their husbands to choose Xia Juhua as the production team leader.
When Liu Zhiquan and Liu Zhishuang heard the news, several members had already agreed to their women's request. The reason was that they had worked with Xia Juhua before and knew that she was proficient in all kinds of farm work, no worse than male laborers, and was a decent person with no selfish motives. Instead of choosing someone with strong selfish motives, it would be better to let Xia Juhua be the production team leader:
If Xia Juhua does not meet their expectations in any way, they can still say that a woman knows nothing and should just listen to them. Wouldn't that be like them becoming the production team leaders themselves?
The Liu brothers looked at each other in bewilderment. Their mother wanted to be the production team leader, and few of them objected? But their mother was a woman, and it was fine for her to be the head of the family, but could she be the head of a production team?
When the brigade cadres heard the members say Xia Juhua's name one by one, they were stunned. They wondered if the members of Ping'an Village were crazy to choose a woman as the production team leader.
As more and more people proposed this, those who were not used to women being production team leaders gradually became silent, and everyone waited for the team to make a decision. Li Changshun's face was very unpleasant, and he directly called Xia Juhua's name:
"Xia Juhua, everyone has chosen you to be the production team leader. Can you do it?"
Whether it was Sun Zhaodi or Li Changwang's family, they were all nudging Xia Juhua with their elbows. Xia Juhua herself was very unsure. She looked up at Li Changshun and Liu Liqun who were smoking behind the table and asked pitifully, "Can I do it?"
It's not okay at first glance!
Li Changshun had never dealt with Xia Juhua. He had only heard about her separation from the Liu family and her nickname "Xia Xiaohuo". Now he saw that she couldn't even speak a complete sentence. She shook her head and said, "Xia Juhua herself thinks..."
"How about I give it a try?" When Xia Juhua was asked to be the production team leader at Li Changwang's house, the first thing she thought of was not the many troubles, but the drought next year. If she became the production team leader and asked everyone to prepare early, perhaps more people would believe her.
She had experienced hunger before, and knew too well that when a person is extremely hungry, he or she would not care about face or shame in order to have a bite to eat. Petty theft was nothing, but during those three years, someone was even beaten to death for a piece of steamed bread.
Xia Juhua knew that the drought next year would be nothing compared to those three years, but others didn't know that. The memory of hunger during those three years was engraved into the bones of those who had experienced it, and the slightest sign would make people desperate to grab and rob. She didn't want to see that scene again, so Xia Juhua, who had refused to stand up for two lifetimes, tentatively said, "I'll try."
When she said these three words, Xia Juhua was really just trying it out. If the team disagreed, she could tell herself that she had tried hard but it was the team that disagreed. After she said it, she actually hoped that the team would agree.
It's just work, she can do it!
Xia Juhua suddenly felt proud: Compared to her last life, many things in this life are getting better. Maybe they will get even better. If they get worse, how could they be worse than taking medicine in her last life?!
Xia Juhua refused to admit that she had earned more work points by teaching the women how to weave new mats. Seeing that the women who had criticized her in her previous life were now protecting her so sincerely when her grandsons' family were causing trouble for her, she could not bear to watch them worry about a piece of cake or a sweet potato.
Li Changshun thought he had misheard and asked, "What did you say?"
Xia Juhua's voice became firm: "Since everyone trusts me, I want to give it a try."
The whole place fell silent, including the women who had just been clamoring to nominate Xia Juhua as the production team leader. The brigade cadres present may not know that the members have been dealing with Xia Juhua for more than 20 years since she married into Pingan Village, and they all know how reluctant she is to cause trouble.
Except for the year when Liu Dazhuang died, she left the old Liu family with her two sons and a few tattered bags, and it was rare to hear her speak so toughly.
The tone of Xia Juhua's words just now was exactly the same as the tone of the words she said before leaving Old Liu's yard. At that time, everyone who heard it thought that Xia Juhua was sulking, and it would not be long before she would either push the two children back to Old Liu's house and go back to her parents' home, or take her two sons with her to beg for food.
Ten years had passed, and in the eyes of the people in Pingan Village, Xia Juhua's family was not the best, but it was no worse than other families. Yes, her youngest son had just divorced, but that was Sun Hongmei's fault, and had nothing to do with Xia Juhua.
Everyone who thought of this thought that what Xia Juhua said about giving it a try seemed feasible. Then someone on the other end of the line shouted, "I think we should let Xia Xiaohuo give it a try."
Liu Zhiquan and Liu Zhishuang turned their heads around to see who was calling out, but it seemed that the people around them kept calling out "Xia Xiaohuo". How could they find the person who called out first?
But can their mothers do it?
The two Liu brothers thought Xia Juhua was incompetent, and the brigade also thought that letting Xia Juhua be the production team leader was a joke. Li Changshun slammed the table with a gloomy face and shouted, "Be quiet, be quiet. The production team leader is just joking. The production task is so heavy, we have to repair the canal in the middle of winter. How can Xia Juhua, a woman, arrange the production?"
"Captain, Xia can do it. She didn't go to repair the canal because she married two daughters-in-law this year. In previous years, she helped us repair the canal."
"She not only knows how to repair canals, but she can also plow the land, build ridges, plant seeds, and read the weather. Xia knows how to do it all."
"The supply and marketing cooperative gave Xia Xiaogong an extra fifty cents per mat for the new mat he made, so he ordered two hundred mats from our production team."
"Miss Xia is really good at calculating. Her family is well-off in every way and their lives are getting better and better. Maybe if she becomes the production team leader, we will all get better and better as well."
Liu Liqun moved around the production teams every day. Because of Liu Dazhuang, he had been paying attention to the Liu family and knew a lot about Xia Juhua's situation. While everyone was praising Xia Juhua, he went to Li Changshun and told him about it.
Li Changshun still had some doubts, and asked unhappily: "What's the use of just calculating your own family's life? How can a small family be compared with a production team?" Ping'an Village is not big, but there are about a hundred households. Can Xia Juhua, a woman, support it?
Downstairs, Li Changwang's family was still gossiping about Xia Juhua, wanting her to show her determination to Li Changshun again so that Li Changshun would agree that she could really be the production team leader. But Xia Juhua fell silent again, just looking at Li Changshun who had already stood up and was circling around the table in a hurry.
"We just want Xia Juhua to be the production team leader, no one else can do it." Seeing that Li Changshun had been disagreeing, someone else shouted something in a tantrum, and surprisingly got a unanimous response.
Li Changshun looked at the members with a dark face, and the people who were making trouble gradually stopped talking: The production team leader took the work point card for the members, and the brigade's stamp determined whether your children could join the army or recruit workers. Even to issue a marriage certificate, you had to get the brigade's stamp. If you offended the brigade leader, he would not stamp it for you, and you would see what you would do.
"Xia Juhua, do you think you can really be a good production team leader?" Li Changshun looked at the watch on his wrist and felt that the selection time for the production team leader of Ping'an Village was a bit long, so he kicked the ball to Xia Juhua's feet again.
Xia Juhua still said the same thing: "If everyone believes in me, I will give it a try."
Li Changshun gritted his teeth and said, "Okay, I'll let you try. We've agreed that if your production team can't complete the task of repairing the canal, we'll choose someone else."
Anyway, canal repair is a winter job, and work points are based on the amount of work to be done. Even if a production team in Pingan Village fails to complete the task, the cadres of other production teams will keep a closer eye on it, and it will not have much impact on the amount of work to be done by the entire team. Now that everyone in Pingan Village has recognized Xia Juhua, let them know that not everyone can be the production team leader.
"Okay!" the person who loved to stir up trouble shouted again. Everyone looked in the direction of Xia Juhua with laughter and clapped their hands, as if they sincerely welcomed Xia Juhua, the new production team leader.
Li Changshun sneered: "Well, let Xia Juhua tell everyone how she will be the production team leader." He wanted to rush the duck to the shelf. Didn't Liu Liqun say that Xia Juhua was taciturn? He had to let her go on stage and say a few words, and let the members of Ping'an Village see what kind of person they chose as their team leader.
When everyone thought that Xia Juhua would decline and dare not step forward, Xia Juhua actually walked to the table step by step, looked around at the members, and immediately lowered her head. It can be seen that she was trying to calm herself down, her face was a little red, and her voice was trembling:
"Old people say that women hold up half the sky. I don't dare to say that I can hold up half the sky, but I am willing to work with everyone to improve production, live a good life, harvest more food, and pay more public grain."
Li Changshun looked at Xia Juhua in surprise, and seeing Liu Liqun also looking at her, he asked in a low voice: "Is she using the old man's words to pressure me?"
Liu Liqun shook his head, thinking that Xia Juhua didn't have that many thoughts. Listen, what she said now was: "Everyone insisted on electing me, so I thought I couldn't let you down and gave it a try. Since everyone elected me, they trust me. In the future, whether I assign work, let who does what, or have two work points with the accountant, everyone can supervise me, but you can't say I'm unfair, right?"
This made Liu Liqun a little uncertain, but Li Changshun found it quite unexpected - where does the prestige of a production team leader come from? The most important thing is fairness, and the most difficult thing to achieve is also fairness.
There is no such thing as true equality in the world, and absolute fairness has never existed. Especially in the production team, the work is fragmented and heavy, and everyone feels that their work is tiring and wants to get two more work points, but there is still more tiring work, and if they get too much, it will be a mess when it comes to the year-end bonus.
Xia Juhua used the members' recommendation to talk about her, which was to put the members in the air: If you don't believe in me, why did you choose me? Since you believe in me, you have to listen to what I say.
Li Changshun understood what Xia Juhua meant, and so did the other members. The troublemaker was the first to shout, "Don't worry, young man Xia. We'll listen to you."
The mat weaving women were all excited, shouting even louder than the people who were making the noise: "We'll listen to you. If anyone doesn't listen to you, we'll talk to him together."
After speaking a long paragraph, Xia Juhua seemed to have said everything she could say. She stood in front of the table without saying a word, nor looking at the members below her, nor at the team leaders. She lowered her head and remained silent as if she was waiting to be beaten.
Look at what they have pushed her into. The members have the same idea in their hearts. They all think that it was because they had just recommended Xia Juhua, and she did not want the members to leave a bad impression on the brigade cadres, so she was forced to agree to be the production team leader.
Otherwise, Xia Juhua can get ten points for the same work as the production team leader, and she doesn't have to take any responsibility. Why does she want to be the production team leader?
Li Changshun was also reflecting on whether he had said something too harsh. He coughed and said, "Okay, you guys selected the people, and you guys were the ones who said to listen to the production team leader. If one day your team leader says someone doesn't follow the instructions, don't blame the team for being rude."
Xia Juhua looked up at Li Changshun in surprise, then quickly lowered her head, but Li Changshun still saw her look of disbelief. He felt even more embarrassed and waved his hand and said, "Then let's stop here. Your production team leader will assign you tasks tomorrow." After that, he glanced at Xia Juhua and left the Ping'anzhuang production team with Liu Liqun.
The accountant and Xia Juhua were the only two people left at the table, but the members did not leave and no one spoke. They just looked at them.
Accountant Chen Qiusheng saw that it was not a big deal and asked quietly, "Captain, how much time do you think we have left?"
"Ah?" Xia Juhua raised her head and forced a smile at the members, saying, "Since you said you won't be working in the afternoon, then go home and get busy. Everyone should be on time tomorrow and give me some face and no one should be late."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
