Chapter 36 Passerby A in the 1970s Rural Life Story 10
After this incident, things calmed down in the production brigade. The educated youth stopped causing trouble, and with the New Year approaching, everyone was busy with New Year preparations and had no time to think about anything else.
This year, Jiang Yue, Li Mengqi, and Liu Ruyan had agreed to spend the Spring Festival at Jiang Yue's house. Since they had eaten Jiang Yue's cooking a few times before, they decided to rely on her. Liu Ruyan said she would prepare all the dishes, and Li Mengqi said she would wash the pots and pans and dishes. Jiang Yue only needed to cook. Seeing that they had gone to such lengths, Jiang Yue agreed.
These past few days, Liu Ruyan has been bringing things to Jiang Yue's house every day. Li Mengqi also occasionally finds things, which Jiang Yue probably takes from her spatial storage. Li Mengqi is unlucky; she has plenty of gold and jewelry in her spatial storage, but can't exchange them for much food.
At first, Li Mengqi thought of going to the black market, but in this small place, there was nothing to eat at the black market. You could buy some grain, but if you wanted to find something else, you were dreaming. So Li Mengqi, the richest man in Jiangjiaba, could only eat cornbread every day.
Liu Ruyan thought she had hidden it well. Jiang Yue knew all along, but what about Li Mengqi? The doomsday boss, the thing that she couldn't buy with gold, where did she get it from? The two people around her already knew, but they tacitly kept quiet. After all, they had a good relationship, and Li Mengqi had secretly covered for her countless times.
Little child, little child, don't be greedy, after the Laba Festival comes the New Year.
Today is the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month. The three of them have almost finished preparing vegetables and meat. Jiang Yue also took out two bottles of pear wine from her space, because there are pear trees on the mountain here, but it's not too out of place.
These past few days, the three of them also went to the commune with the villagers. The commune provides some meat during the Spring Festival, but each person can only buy one pound, and they might not even be able to buy any. They bought some candy and red paper, which they gave to the children when they paid New Year's visits. The red paper was for pasting couplets.
You can't buy ready-made couplets anymore; you have to cut red paper and write the couplets yourself. So I went and bought a bottle of ink and some red paper.
After buying almost everything, Jiang Yue went home. The next day, she took out the couplets, thought for a moment, wrote one, and pasted it on the door.
On the morning of Lunar New Year's Eve, Li Mengqi and Liu Ruyan arrived at Jiang Yue's house and their eyes lit up when they saw the couplets.
"I didn't realize, Yueyue, your handwriting is so beautiful," Li Mengqi praised without reservation.
"Of course, look who it is," Jiang Yue said proudly.
"Alright, alright, you two stop flattering each other. Hurry up and prepare lunch," Liu Ruyan interrupted them with a smile.
The three of them worked together, washing, chopping, and cooking the vegetables, busy and happy. Before long, a sumptuous dinner was ready.
"Wow, it smells so good!" Li Mengqi couldn't help but exclaim.
"Come and try my braised pork!" Jiang Yue greeted warmly.
The three sat around the table, enjoying the delicious food and chatting in a warm and harmonious atmosphere.
After dinner, they lay together on the kang (a heated brick bed), relaxing for a long time. They did nothing and didn't chat. Then Jiang Yue heard Liu Ruyan crying, probably missing her family.
By evening, Liu Ruyan had recovered and adjusted her mindset. The three of them reheated their lunch, ate, and then Liu Ruyan and Li Mengqi washed the dishes before going home.
The first day of the Lunar New Year.
In the morning, Jiang Yue got up very early, put on her new clothes, and went to pay New Year's visits. After walking around, some elderly people gave Jiang Yue some red envelopes.
Jiang Yue returned home and opened the door, which meant that someone was home and could come to pay New Year's visits. After a while, the village children also arrived one after another.
Jiang Yue smiled and gave each child a red envelope and some candy. The red envelopes contained only a penny, and the children cheered happily when they saw them; they had pocket money again.
Later that evening, Liu Ruyan and Li Mengqi arrived. The three of them exchanged New Year's greetings and then went for a stroll in the streets together.
Along the way, they saw that every household had put up brightly colored Spring Festival couplets and hung red lanterns, creating a strong festive atmosphere.
The villagers greeted us warmly and offered their New Year's blessings, saying they would go home to sleep when the weather got too cold.
The next day, some of the children returned from their New Year's visits, and a few more children came to say hello. Jiang Yue had finished giving out the candies, and just as she was about to eat, the two of them came over to freeload again. Jiang Yue thought to herself, "Don't these two think I'm their chef?"
Around the fourth or fifth day of the Lunar New Year, some of the educated youth who had gone home for the holiday returned. They planned to have a meal together, and according to Liu Ruyan, the meal went fairly well; at least no one caused trouble.
Since the Su Yao and Wang Zhiqiang incident, the people in the educated youth compound have become much more well-behaved, probably because many of them were frightened.
After the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, the commune organized some cultural and artistic talents, as well as some educated youth with special skills, to perform for the villagers. There was one show every morning and one show every afternoon. Jiangjiaba Brigade even sent an educated youth to perform. After he returned after the fifteenth day of the Lunar New Year, the brigade leader went to the educated youth settlement to praise him and gave him an extra five work points every day.
A few days later, when the spring breeze blew, the countryside began its first busy day of the year.
Before spring sowing, the first thing to do is to apply farmyard manure to the fields. At that time, chemical fertilizers were scarce, so farmers would use horse-drawn carts to haul river silt (dried pond mud) and well-rotted farmyard manure to the fields and spread them out in heaps. Then, the essential farm work of spreading these heaps of manure evenly was to "spread the manure."
There's no skill involved in "spreading manure," all you need is brute force. It's nothing for young and strong laborers. Some educated youth didn't care about the wind direction and just kept throwing it around, ending up with their faces covered in manure.
Fortunately, Jiang Yue's job didn't require her to work in the fields. During the spring planting season, Jiang Yue's job also changed. She had to check the sowing situation to prevent any land from being missed or over-sown. Throughout the spring, Jiang Yue didn't find a single missed or over-sown plot.
When talking to the captain about this matter, the captain smoked a cigarette and said to Jiang Yue, "Xiao Yue, you have to know that every regulation has a reason. It's not because of me or the higher-ups that these seemingly useless regulations are added, but because a big mistake has happened in real life, which is why these seemingly unreasonable regulations exist."
After hearing this, Jiang Yue understood. She had heard many bizarre rules in her modern life, such as: "Don't yell 'Boss, change the disc!' when watching a movie in the multimedia classroom." Jiang He almost died laughing when he first heard about this rule. It seems that such rules still exist now; it's an old tradition.
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