Chapter 65: I'm in love with someone else's daughter
She put the quilt aside, folded up the mattress and sheets, and instructed him: "Help me spread the straw."
The wheat straw under the bed was newly laid when Wen Wan arrived. It was aired at noon, so it was very soft. The straw from the large bed was moved to the small bed, making it twice as thick as before. Then, an old piece of cloth was added, and after it was laid out, the mattress was folded and laid on top, and finally the sheets. It was a little smaller, but thicker than before.
Wen Wan took a broom and swept the vacated bed, clearing away the grass that had fallen on the ground. She glanced at the bare and slightly blackened wall and said, "I'll have to go to the supply and marketing cooperative later and buy some paper to stick it on and clean it up." What if she got some on the wall while she was sleeping at night?
By the time we finished cleaning up, the sun had already set outside, Zhu Feng had not returned yet, and the door next door was still locked.
Lu Dongping carried Wen Wan's kettle, and Wen Wan held the bed warmer, as they walked home together. When they were almost at the foot of the bamboo forest, Wen Wan glanced over and saw a man standing at the edge of Zhou Mingqing's yard, not far from Lu Dongping's house. He looked a bit like Zhu Feng.
Is it Zhu Feng?
Why was he going to Zhou's house at this hour?
"What's wrong?" Lu Dongping asked.
Wen Wan withdrew her gaze and replied, "It's okay." She continued on her way. It didn't matter whether he was Zhu Feng or not. It didn't matter to her anyway.
When Lu Donglin went to bed at night, he got into bed and called him: "Brother, can you lock the whole thing for me too?"
After Lu Dongping lay down, he asked him, "Why do you want to lock it?"
Lu Donglin said: "Just like you, put the important things in the drawer and lock it up."
"You have a piece of shit."
"How come it's gone?" Lu Donglin kicked him unconvincedly from under the quilt. "Sister Wen Wan gave me a gift today. It's gloves she knitted, and I'm the only one who has them. You and my sister don't have any. So what do you think? Is this important?"
Lu Dongping snorted coldly, turned over, raised his long legs, and wrapped himself in all the quilts.
"Brother, what are you doing? I'm so cold. Give me the quilt!"
——
Lu Mingjiang's family wanted to renovate their house, so they started working on it on the second day of the Lunar New Year. Lu Minghai's whole family came to help, and they worked very hard. It took them only one day to clear out the firewood shed. The next day, many people came, and they hurriedly used pickaxes, hammers, and steel axes to lift off the originally simple roof.
Then push down the wall and break down everything that can be broken.
A group of men gathered together and started to make fun of Lu Mingjiang and Lu Dongping, making a lot of noise. Fortunately, Gao Xiulan had made a big fire in her yard early in the morning and called Wen Wan to come over and play with Shengxia.
Wen Wan called Lu Donglin over again and asked him to do homework with Lu Dongfu.
There was nothing I could do. This kid was so naughty, he was active in everything except his homework. Wen Wan looked at him for a day while he was pinning his notebook, and then the Chinese New Year came. Then he kept making all kinds of excuses and didn't do a single word for days.
The days passed very quickly, and school started just two days after the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.
Zhang Hongying instructed Wen Wan several times and handed Lu Donglin, the thorn in her side, over.
Lu Chun'e and Lu Dongfu were doing their homework, Wen Wan continued to knit, and Shengxia was reading a book. The whole yard was quiet.
Lu Donglin looked at this and then that. No one spoke and no one paid any attention to him. He pursed his lips and lowered his head to start drawing a little person on the back of the notebook. He drew a little person based on Wen Wan's appearance, with a small face, a long braid, and a few short hairs in front of the forehead.
Wen Wan's hand tapped on his hand, and he instinctively reached out to block the notebook.
"Don't block it, I can see it all. It's an ugly painting."
Lu Donglin looked unhappy: "Impossible, I drew it based on your appearance."
Wen Wan raised her eyebrows: "Are you saying that I'm ugly so you draw me ugly?"
Lu Donglin shook his head hurriedly.
Wen Wan hummed twice: "No one is born able to do one thing well, everything has to be learned. Painting requires not only talent, but also hard work and practice. Only then can you draw well. It is much more difficult than learning to write. Hurry up, if you don't know how to do math problems, ask me. Bring me the new word book and I'll give you a start." After saying that, she reached out and took Lu Donglin's math book, and marked it with a pen: "You must carefully copy the problems I marked today so that I can check them. The handwriting must be neat, and you can't do the problems casually. As for the new words, I'll arrange the beginning and you write them according to it. If you can't finish them, I won't come tomorrow. I'll go back to the educated youth site after dinner."
Lu Donglin hurriedly turned over the notebook: "Write well, I will definitely write well. Sister, please mark less, let's take it slowly." This kind of joke is not funny at all. If she really doesn't stay here, can she still save her life?
Wen Wan curled her lips and ignored him.
This child needs to be both soft and hard, a mixture of both, otherwise it's really hard to deal with him.
If you keep coaxing him with nice words, he'll be all cocky after a while. If you force him, he'll appear to be obedient but not really be. That's how difficult it is to deal with him.
After being threatened by Wen Wan, Lu Donglin was quiet for a while. Wen Wan went to explain the questions to Lu Chun'e and Lu Dongfu, and the afternoon passed quickly.
By the time she finished knitting Lu Dongping's gloves, Liu Changqing and Wang Jianmao, who had gone home for the New Year, also returned to the team.
There was no sign of joy on his face. His face was exhausted from the journey and looked disheveled.
Wen Wan only found out from Lu Dongping that the two of them were careless when they came here, and their luggage was robbed by vagrants at the station on the way.
When Wen Wan and her group came here, they were hundreds of people, and the entire train car was filled with educated youth from the other side. The road was relatively safe, so she had no idea how chaotic it was. Especially when the train stopped at the station, the platform was completely out of control. People outside took advantage of that moment to rush onto the train, stealing things, children, everything.
Liu Changqing and Wang Jianmao went back every year, so they were aware of the situation. They were extremely careful along the way, but they were still robbed on this trip back to the production team. All the food and supplies they had brought from home were gone.
Wen Wan could only sigh twice and couldn't say anything else. Soon, the fifteenth day of the first lunar month was over, and with the start of school, the team became busy.
All the cows in the cowshed were out in the fields. Lu Minghai led seven or eight skilled tillers from the team to start plowing the fields. The rest of the team also began to get busy. The cow dung that had been stored in the cowshed all winter, the pig dung that had been stored at the pig farm, and the members who had been assigned to work the pigs all began to use hoes to break up the fermented manure bit by bit and carry it to the fields.
The manure carried by each family must be registered with the scorer, and Zhou Lanhua is busy there.
The remaining women and elderly people gathered on the dam outside the warehouse, took their own small stools and kitchen knives, got baskets from the warehouse, and began to cut potato seeds.
Wen Wan didn't have a kitchen knife, so she took one from Lu Dongping's house. Zhang Hongying took the knife she used to cut pig grass at home. Although it was a bit heavy, it was sharp enough and could be cut quite quickly.
Potatoes are a high-yield crop, and like sweet potatoes, they're considered the team's staple food. They're planted in winter rotation, even on drought-prone sandy and gravel fields. Potato seeds are weighed out before the first year's rations are distributed. They come in all sizes, with small ones planted in a single nest. Large ones are cut apart to avoid wasting seeds. Each seed only needs a single opening for budding; it thrives well.
Zhang Hongying took a potato and taught Wen Wan how to cut it. After she taught her, she started to cut it. Wang Mingfang laughed at her, "Oh, these two mothers are so good. If you don't know them, you would think they are real children. I saw that you didn't have this much patience when teaching Chun'e in previous years."
Zhang Hongying glanced at her and said, "Wenwan is Wenwan, Chun'e is Chun'e. How can they be the same?" Wenwan didn't know anything, but she was very clever. She might not be good at manual labor, but she could easily learn anything that interested her. Zhang Hongying's initial reservations had been completely erased after spending time with her. They were going to be a family anyway, so if she taught them now, they would benefit from it.
Wang Mingfang said, "That's different. One will be brought in and become a family member, while the other will be sent out and become a member of someone else's family. It's not the same."
Several women immediately burst into conversation after hearing this, all of their conversations were focused on Wen Wan and Lu Dongping. One even asked Wen Wan directly, "Wen Zhiqing, are you and that Lu Dongping really dating? How's it going?"
Wen Wan had been here for over two months, and she could almost understand what the people here said. Even if she did, she pretended not to understand. She glanced blankly at the person asking the question, her eyes full of "What are you talking about?"
Then he lowered his head and continued to work, his face burning.
Zhang Hongying said sullenly, "You women, you are all so careless with your words. Wen Wan is still a little girl. Stop saying those shameless things. Talk less and work more. You will die of suffocation."
"Oh my! They're already protecting me before we even get in." The women were so used to joking that they didn't take her words seriously and kept chattering away. Fortunately, Wen Wan didn't say anything, and neither did Zhang Hongying. She knew the nature of these women on the team: the more they talked, the more excited they became. If they kept quiet, the conversation would wear off and they'd just turn around and find something else to talk about.
However, this topic still revolves around the educated youth points.
Only then did Wen Wan realize that she had not mistaken the person on the first day of the new year. The person standing in Zhou Mingqing's yard was Zhu Feng.
Zhu Feng went to live with Zhou's family.
According to the women working there, he had seen Zhou Mingqing's daughter.
Zhou Mingqing's daughter, Zhou Lanhua, was a relatively familiar figure. She was a scorekeeper, a common sight at work. Slightly taller than Wenwan, she was a well-behaved girl, only seventeen years old. She had been to school for a few days and could read, so she became a scorekeeper.
Zhu Fengshangtian was still trying to persuade himself earnestly, and when he talked about Lu Dongping, he kept calling him a mountain man and a peasant with a look of disdain on his face. But how come he was getting along with him in the blink of an eye?
It's a rumor, right?
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