Xie Ming, who was lagging behind, was unjustly arrested by that group of people. When Xu Rongqing arrived with the police, not only was his package stolen, but his hand was also broken.
Back in the village, Xie Ming suffered a great loss and held his anger in his hands, ignoring Xu Rongqing.
Xu Rongqing lowered his stance, acting as if he wouldn't hold a grudge against Xie Ming. He even took great care of him, doing everything himself, which earned him a lot of praise at the educated youth settlement.
He humbled himself and took meticulous care of her. Xie Ming saw this and his heart softened. He convinced himself that he couldn't blame the other person entirely, and later he forgave his so-called childhood friend.
Just as he was rebuilding trust, Xu Rongqing decisively and without hesitation conspired with Zhu Meihong to scheme against him.
Meanwhile, Xie Ming, having shaken off those people, continued to run forward at an accelerated pace.
Upon arriving at the train station, Xie Ming immediately spotted the figure chatting and laughing enthusiastically with the people around him. He rushed over to the scoundrel, grabbed him by the collar, and slapped him three times across the face, then punched him in the stomach.
Before Xu Rongqing could react, Xie Ming gave him a good beating.
"Why are you hitting people?" A middle-aged man standing next to them immediately came over to stop them.
Xie Ming released Xu Rongqing's hand and pressed it against his forehead. "Can you feel it? I have a high fever, yet someone insisted I come to pick up the educated youth going to the countryside. This, this so-called good comrade, found an excuse at the station and left me alone in the wilderness to be exposed to the northwest wind. Look at me, with this fever, can I withstand the wind in the wild? After being exposed to the wind for half a day, my head is getting more and more painful, and suddenly I realized that this person might want to kill me! Chairman Mao sent us to the vast countryside to build the motherland, but also to strengthen our bodies. But now someone is using Chairman Mao's words to try to kill others. Isn't this kind of person with ulterior motives a black sheep? A parasite among the people?"
Another old man, not believing it, reached over and touched it. The burning temperature made him exclaim, "Oh dear! Young man, you need to go to the hospital!"
The middle-aged woman next to her, wearing a red armband, also reached out to test the temperature, and was immediately startled, shivering involuntarily.
Some educated youth did suffer greatly in the countryside in previous years, but the country has introduced many policies in recent years. If someone dies, it will be very troublesome.
She couldn't help but look Xu Guoqing up and down, thinking to herself, "Knowing that someone is sick, yet still dragging them out to suffer, then this person must have malicious intentions."
If things go wrong, someone might die, and the educated youth office will be in trouble too. Is this young man trying to incite internal strife among the people? They know things aren't as peaceful as they seem. If hostile forces seize the opportunity, things could get really bad.
Oh dear! She realized the seriousness of the situation as soon as she thought about it. The woman slapped her thigh and told someone to quickly take Xie Ming to the station clinic.
Xu Rongqing was dumbfounded. Why had Xie Ming suddenly gone mad? Wasn't he perfectly fine before?
Moreover, he planned to go to the police station as soon as he picked up the people. Those people were obviously after money, and he would probably get a beating after giving them the items!
Is it necessary to be so fussy?
Besides, didn't he come back safe and sound?
Xu Rongqing was filled with a million questions and stood there in a daze.
Meanwhile, after the older women and others saw Xie Ming off, they immediately turned their attention to Xu Rongqing.
"Do you know he's not feeling well?"
"Hmm~"
Everyone has minor illnesses and pains, right? Just bear with them and they'll pass. They're only here to pick up one person, it's not tiring for them. Besides, there's a package at the post office, maybe even some money inside. They won't feel at ease until they get it back, so they have to come.
Thinking of the package, he also thought of Xie Ming arriving empty-handed, and cursed him inwardly for being useless, unable to even protect the contents.
"What 'uh-huh'? If you know, you know; if you don't know, you don't know."
The woman's voice turned cold, immediately drawing people's attention back to the original topic.
"I was feeling a little unwell, but I didn't expect it to be this serious."
"Hmph! Then we do have it! Come with us!"
"Where to?" Xu Rongqing panicked.
"The Educated Youth Office!"
The woman in the arm sleeves was the son of an educated youth. Today, some new educated youth came, and she came to help her son maintain order. She never expected to encounter such an accident.
Xu Rongqing became even more anxious. He knew that if he were truly labeled as such, he might be reassigned elsewhere, or even sent for reform through labor. These were not the things he wanted.
"Auntie! It's really a misunderstanding. That's my good friend, everyone in our brigade knows! Really, I was just in a hurry to pick up the new educated youth..."
"Don't try to deny it. How could we not care about him when he's so sick, given how good our relationship is?"
"This, this..."
In the end, Xu Guoqing was pushed and shoved by the old woman to the educated youth office.
As for the new educated youth that the two were supposed to pick up, the old lady had them all taken to the station clinic.
Lingxia Village is a village built halfway up a mountain. It takes almost half an hour to walk from the foot of the mountain to the village, and that's only if someone familiar with the trail leads you. If a stranger comes, it will take them one or two hours to walk there.
Unlike villages with flat terrain where houses are easy to build everywhere, the houses here are quite far apart, and it takes about 5 or 6 minutes to walk from one house to another.
From above, the village appears exceptionally large, though in reality there are only a handful of households. However, the villagers have made their living here for generations, making them exceptionally united.
After more than a decade of living together, the villagers and the educated youth all went their separate ways and did not disturb each other.
Li Liangcai, a close friend of Xie Ming's uncle, was the village head of Lingshang Village. It was because of this connection that Xie Ming had some influence in the village.
Xie Ming couldn't see the secret before, but after coming here again, he understood. The ancestors of Lingshang Village must have been tomb keepers, guarding the dragon vein of the previous dynasty.
However, as the world changes, the people here have gradually forgotten their former mission.
Today, there are seven or eight villages in the surrounding mountains. They are all related by marriage, and their farmland is in the same valley, so they are quite close.
When the town encouraged educated youth to go to the countryside, it took these factors into consideration, so it built the educated youth settlement and school together in the nearby villages.
All the educated youth who came were uniformly arranged to live in Lingxia Village. Now, there are no fewer than 50 educated youth living in the educated youth settlement, which is quite a lot. It is also the largest educated youth settlement in the world during the era that Xie Ming experienced.
The educated youth settlement and school they lived in were three large mud-brick and tile houses built with government subsidies a few years ago.
The male and female educated youth each occupied a mud-brick house, and four or five educated youths squeezed into one kang (a heated brick bed) in the same room, so the living conditions were still quite tight.
The remaining building was the school for a nearby village, and the teachers there were taken turns being sent-down youth.
There were so many educated youth at the settlement that no one wanted to work in the fields. When a school was built in the village, everyone wanted to get a spot, and eventually the village got fed up with the noise and made that decision.
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