"This child is so slow." Shi Rushuang had finished her meal but hadn't seen her daughter come out yet. She couldn't help but complain to her sisters-in-law: "The last time I took her back to her grandparents' house was during the Chinese New Year. I told her last night to get up early and go back for lunch today..."
"Here I come!" Gu Qingqing bit into the steamed buns left over from yesterday, combed her hair with her right hand, and said incoherently, "Mother, please help me braid a nice braid."
"Can't you finish eating first?" Shi Rushuang looked at the lady like this, took the wooden comb from her hand, and said helplessly: "Come closer, I'll braid your hair into a three-strand braid."
Gu Qingqing squatted a little to make it easier for her mother to comb her hair.
While listening to her sister-in-law's mumbling, Zhang Yuqing counted the things she was taking home, including a box of biscuits, three bottles of canned yellow peaches, a few cabbage seeds, 100 kilograms of grain coupons, and 8 taels of oil coupons.
"Our Qingqing has such good hair, it's black, shiny and smooth." She took out a can of yellow peaches and put them on the table: "This is for our Qingqing to take with her, she can eat it when she's thirsty on the road."
"Thank you, Third Aunt! You're the best." Gu Qingqing was still chewing a steamed bun, but her eyes were fixed on the canned food on the table.
"Take it back and feed it to your uncle and aunt in law. Don't feed her. My parents' home is only a morning's walk away. She won't be hungry." Shi Rushuang declined.
"I still have some here. I left them for my parents." Zhang Yuqing picked up the things and called Gu Weiguo: "Change into a pair of cloth shoes without patches, and go say hello to your grandpa and grandma. We are going back to your grandma's house."
"Okay!" A clear voice came from the backyard. Gu Weiguo had just finished watering his private plot.
Except for Gu Tiezhu, Zhang Cuifen and the others who were going back to their parents' home, everyone else went to work. Han Lianxin dug out three 15-foot cloth coupons and gave them to Shi Rushuang: "Sister-in-law, we have only boys in our family. We haven't used the cloth coupons issued by the team for the year-end settlement in recent years. You can take some cloth to the tailor shop to make some clothes for Qingqing. I heard that it's colder in the Corps than here, so you need to prepare two sets of long sleeves."
"Okay," Shi Rushuang counted the cloth coupons in her hand and said without being polite: "Wait for me, let's go to the town together."
"Don't worry, Auntie. The Red Flag Production Team will be going to the commune to deliver food in a little while. We can just take their tractor to the town."
Gu Qingqing's watery eyes flickered and Shi Rushang gently scratched her nose.
"You clever little bastard."
Gu Yuanchao carried a hundred kilograms of millet on one shoulder and followed behind his aunt, second aunt and mother. Gu Qingqing followed him and kept chattering: "Brother, do you think that the taller the tree, the tastier the green plums?"
"I don't know either." Gu Yuanchao walked without breathing, "I haven't eaten it either, how about we try it?"
"Then I'll climb the tree and you'll catch me from below?" Gu Qingqing rubbed his hands and was eager to give it a try.
Gu Yuanchao thought for a moment and said, "I'd better climb it myself. There are many insects on the tree."
"I'm not afraid!"
Shi Rushuang turned around with a headache: "Qingqing, can you be more quiet and gentle like a girl?"
Girls in the city are all pretty and delicate. Qinglie once wrote to me saying that there were many gentle girls in the army art troupe. She felt that with her own daughter's impetuous and noisy personality, it would be difficult for her to find a partner in the army.
The more resolute a man is, the more he likes gentleness. Although none of the women in the Gu family are gentle, the men in the Gu family are not that hard-hearted.
They just smile and hide your anger.
"Mom, I can't do it~" Gu Qingqing made a face at her and continued to discuss taking out the bird eggs with Gu Yuanchao.
Shi Rushuang was not without worry: "...Lianxin, I think the darling of the Gu family will probably be ruined."
Han Lianxin laughed so hard that her body shook. She hugged Zhang Yuqing's arm and said, "It's okay. We have so many grandpas in our family. We can still afford to support our darling for a lifetime."
"Yes, Dad and Mom must want Qingqing to stay with them for a while longer."
"That's what I said," Rushuang felt a little reluctant when her daughter got married, but she couldn't always keep her by her side and delay her: "Forget it, let's see how Qinglie arranges it."
Her two sons and one daughter all had their own plans, and the parents could only help.
"Hey, the tractor of the Red Flag Production Team is here!" Han Lianxin was very sharp-eared. When she heard the rumbling sound, she pulled Shi Rushuang and Zhang Yuqing and ran towards the curb.
"Uncle Yu, please give us a ride on the way!" Zhang Yuqing waved.
"Old Gu, are you going back to your mother's house with all these bags?" Uncle Yu looked at them carefully and smiled, "Come up quickly, we have to go to the food bureau to hand in our tasks today, and the food requisitioned for your production team hasn't been delivered yet, right?"
"Yes, the abacus is still counting." Shi Rushuang grabbed her nephew's hand, kicked off and climbed up. After climbing up, she sat on the tractor full of grain, and pulled her sisters-in-law and daughters up.
After they were all on board, the tractor started moving on the dirt road again, raising a cloud of dust.
Gu Qingqing had a head full of dust. She raised her hand to wipe her face, and listening to the rumbling sound, she finally understood why her father was so keen on growing cash crops.
Datunzi Village and Dagouzi Village cover a large area, most of which are uncultivated wasteland and hillsides. The area of the neighboring Hongqi Production Team is less than half of theirs, but various plantings are in full swing, and the work value per worker reaches 60 or 70 cents, ranking first among all production teams.
The Red Flag Production Team had two tractors, its own rice mill and cotton processing plant, and an oil press, and the collective economy was thriving.
Not to mention other things, their production team had to use ox carts to pull the summer grain to the grain bureau several times, unlike the Red Flag production team, which could just use a tractor to rumble twice and be done.
Her father is jealous of the tractor!
A tractor can be used for plowing, transporting, digging ditches and irrigating. Having such a treasure can save the production team a lot of manpower.
"Your production should be good this year, right? The weather is good this year, with sunshine and rain, unlike previous years when there was either drought or floods." Uncle Yu looked ahead and continued, "Among the dozen or so production teams in our commune, your Invincible Production Team has the most farmland, more than 2,000 acres!"
No matter how thick-skinned Gu Qingqing was, he still felt a little uncomfortable when he heard the name of the production team.
When Master Xu first took office, he was full of energy and had the tendency to leave all the production teams behind, so he reported this name.
As a result, the name was too loud and the grand ideal died halfway. Among the fifteen teams, the Invincible Production Team competed with the Leap Production Team for the last one or two places every year.
The teams at the top were the Red Flag Production Team and the Red Star Production Team. The Invincible Production Team had never made it into the top ten.
"Although your production team doesn't have much arable land, the points are high." Shi Rushuang shook her head and sighed, "We have a lot of land and can eat enough, but we don't have any money at the end of the year. You can earn three or four days' work points for one day, and you raise silkworms, do textiles, and plant fruit trees, so you can get a lot of dividends at the end of the year."
"That's right." Uncle Yu laughed, "The cadres of our Red Flag Production Team are all very powerful."
Listening to the conversation of her aunts, Gu Qingqing held the sack under her buttocks with both hands. The breeze blowing in her face was refreshing and cool. She squinted her eyes and enjoyed it. She wondered when their Datunzi Village and Dagouzi Village could live a prosperous life like the Red Flag Brigade.
However, her father, Uncle Qin and Uncle Yang are very capable, and with the help of Brother Mengnan and the others, as well as the hardworking villagers, she believes that such a day will come soon.
"We're here." After a bumpy ride, Uncle Yu dropped them off at the bus stop and waved.
A puff of black smoke came out from the back of the tractor. After a burst of roar, the tractor loaded with grains sped away towards the grain bureau.
There are only two buses in the town, one runs short distances, that is, within the province, departing at 8 am and returning at 5 pm.
There is also a long-distance vehicle, which starts at 8:30 in the morning and returns at 2:00 in the afternoon the next day.
Gu Qingqing and her friends were lucky. As soon as they got off the tractor, they saw an oncoming bus.
Shi Rushuang and Zhang Yuqing's parents' homes were both in the neighboring city. Gu Xiong helped Gu Yuanchao put the grain up there and reminded him, "Take good care of Qing Meizi and don't let her wander around in the deep mountains and old forests. There are wild boars on the mountain over there where your aunt lives. You should also be careful not to get bullied."
"I know, I know. Brother, please bring back some walnuts. I haven't eaten them for a long time."
"Okay." Gu Xiong patted him on the shoulder, "Get in the car."
Gu Qingqing sat by the window and waved to Gu Xiong and Han Lianxin. Gu Yuanchao sat next to her and took out a handful of fried soybeans from his pocket for her as a snack.
Seeing that the seats were full, the conductor signaled the driver to drive. She came over with a black nylon bag slung over her shoulder to collect the money and a stack of square bills in her hand.
"Little girl, two cents." The ticket seller lowered his head, pulled down a ticket and handed it to Gu Qingqing.
"Sister Dahong, these are my daughter and nephew. We are together." Shi Rushuang and Zhang Yuqing sat together, while Gu Weiguo sat alone in the back.
She affectionately called the ticket seller by her nickname. Zhang Dahong was stunned for a moment, then smiled: "Oh, I really didn't notice, this is Qingqing! She's so pretty, I almost didn't recognize her."
There were only two buses in the town, and almost everyone knew the conductor. However, Zhang Dahong was from the Red Flag Production Team, so he was also an acquaintance of Shi Rushuang.
"That's right. This child only goes back to her grandparents' house once a year to take the bus. It's normal that you can't recognize her."
"Hey, girls change a lot when they grow up." Although Zhang Dahong was chatting, her hands never stopped collecting money and buying tickets.
Shi Rushuang counted out a dime from the cloth bag and passed it over. No matter how far away the person was in the province, each person would get two cents.
Zhang Dahong glanced at Gu Qingqing, who was crunching beans on Gu Yuanchao's shoulder, and gave her five tickets. "Rushuang, your Qingqing is about 17 or 18 years old this year, right? Is she dating someone?"
"Not yet." Shi Rushuang took the ticket and put the change back into her pocket.
Zhang Yuqing wanted to give her sister-in-law car money, but Shi Rushuang refused to accept it.
Seeing that Zhang Dahong was about to speak again, she glanced at her niece who was talking to her son with her head tilted, and added with a smile: "But it will be soon."
Upon hearing this, Zhang Dahong fell silent and felt a little regretful.
The Gu family's conditions were really good, and they were well-known for their kindness in the area. In addition, Shi Rushuang's two sons were both very capable, one was in the Corps and the other in the Air Force.
The children of the Gu family are all very popular.
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