51.051 cannot afford to lose money.
Ning Jin waited a while longer, then stood up and waved when he heard Su Yu's voice.
Su Yu walked over and asked, "When did you get back?"
"Noon." He took off her hat and said, "The sun isn't so harsh anymore. Isn't it troublesome to wear a hat?"
Su Yu didn't snatch it away. She followed him down the mountain, saying it was to keep out the dust. There was dirt everywhere, and the wind would blow her hair full of dust. She didn't want to wash her hair every night.
When they reached the bicycle parking area, Ning Jin realized what was happening and asked, "Is it time to leave work already? It's not time yet, is it?"
"What are you pretending for? If you didn't know I could leave work early, would you have come here at this hour? It's not even five o'clock yet."
"I really didn't know that." The man waited until the woman was on the back seat before he started pedaling. "I just had nothing to do at home, so I thought I'd come and check on you. If you're doing hard labor, I can lend you a hand, right?"
Once they reached a secluded spot, Su Yu hugged the man's waist, pressing her face against his back. As the bicycle rolled over the uneven road, her face bumped against his back. "Our working hours are very flexible. We can leave early once we finish our get off work."
"What happened when you almost got into a fight with the person digging the ground?" He patted her hand, telling her not to dig around.
Su Yu chuckled twice, then stopped teasing him. "It's about the weevils, the ones you saw on the first day. They couldn't get rid of the eggs in the soil, so they resorted to desperate measures when pressured by their superiors."
Liu Quan probably knew that digging up the ground to kill the insect eggs was unreliable. He talked about it but didn't do anything. Seeing that the adult insects on the orange trees were increasing again, Qiu Fuli went to find Liu Quan. He had been present when Yu Yuan'an assigned the task and knew that Liu Quan was the one researching the insect eggs. He asked if Liu Quan had any solutions. Liu Quan's only solution was to dig up the ground. For some reason, Qiu Fuli told him to find someone to arrange it. Only those who dig up the land know the pain, especially since it was all for killing insect eggs. They were already reluctant to do it. In the afternoon, when no one was supervising, the villagers who were digging the ground were slacking off and chatting. They weren't paying attention and their hoes accidentally dug into their feet. They were immediately taken to the hospital.
Su Yu was still unclear about the specific injuries, but she saw that there was a lot of blood on the ground. Liu Quan probably saw it and was afraid of taking responsibility, so he said something like, "We were just chatting while working, and it's your own fault for digging your foot with the hoe." This immediately stirred up a hornet's nest, and he was almost beaten by the villagers.
Neither Yu Yuan'an nor Liu Quan were locals; only Qiu Fuli was. The villagers were experienced farmers and orchard growers, and they were already somewhat resentful of those who had learned their knowledge from books. It was like, "You've eaten less rice than I've eaten salt, and now you're ordering me around." This time, fueled by the lure of blood, they raised their fists.
"I didn't scold you, did I?" Ning Jin was only concerned about whether this matter would implicate her.
"No, I only manage the orchard work and don't get involved in anything else. If there's anything, just go to Manager Qiu and let him handle it." Besides, the person who injured his own foot while swinging the hoe is in the wrong. Liu Quan just couldn't handle things and said some unpleasant things, which angered people. Manager Qiu can handle this matter.
"That's fine then." Since it had nothing to do with Su Yu, he didn't ask any more questions. On the way, he mentioned that he would come to cut thatch the next morning.
"No need to cut it, I'll be home before sunset." Su Yu stopped him, saying that the grass in the wild grows quickly, and if it's cut tomorrow, it will grow back in less than a month.
"Anyway, we'll need matches at home, so I'll cut them and carry them back." Ning Jin felt more at ease cutting them off. He and his fellow drivers had encountered people who suddenly jumped out and demanded money. If they didn't brake in time and crashed into someone, they wouldn't be able to leave without bleeding. He was terrified of the tall grass by the roadside.
"Whatever you say."
When he got home and was cooking, he said that his two sons knew how to enjoy life. He cooked for them every meal and there were eggs and white noodles. He even fried the eggs in oil. They ate better than the landlords.
"You talk as if you've ever seen a landlord eat."
"How could I not have seen them? You must have a bad memory. I remember them all. They ate cornbread. Compared to us, they didn't work and didn't go hungry. They had plenty of food stored at home."
Su Yu realized that he was thirty years old this year, and eight or nine years old when the country was founded. "Both of us in the family have salaries, and there are only two children. It's not like we can't afford to eat eggs." Unlike later generations, when people are burdened with car loans, mortgages, and children's loans, and the competition isn't about food but about clothing, which is suffocating.
Ning Jin glanced at her, and he finally knew where the two children had learned their extravagant behavior.
"Oh, right, I poured more than two jin of oil from home to my third sister's house. She just separated from the family and doesn't have any oil coupons..."
"Here you go." He didn't take it to heart and said, "I'll buy it again when I have another chance."
"No rush. I haven't used the oil coupons from the past six months yet, enough to buy three or four pounds." Su Yu took the washed chives out to dry, planning to make dumplings tonight, something he had promised someone when he left home last time.
Ning Jin gave the two cans of meat she brought back to Su Yu that evening, telling her to take them with her for lunch the next day. She said the food in the cafeteria was terrible, and Su Yu, who used to work there, would rather cook at home in the sweltering heat than eat in the cafeteria. But now she had to eat in the cafeteria every day.
The next day, Su Yu went to work at the orchard and found that the people who were digging up the hillside were gone. Qiu Fuli compared the orange trees that had been coated with lime with those that hadn't, and decided to buy lime. He also wanted to see if he could buy some more dichlorvos to dilute with water and spray on the soil.
"Brother Qiu, how's the foot of the person who went to the hospital?" Su Yu asked.
"I hurt my instep and will need to rest for a while. Luckily, I didn't break any bones." Qiu Fuli shook his head and said thankfully, "It's also thanks to the fact that he was talking to someone and didn't swing the hoe too hard, otherwise he could have broken my foot."
"I've escaped a disaster," Su Yu said.
“That’s right.” Qiu Fuli thought for a moment and said, “If you have any questions in the future, just go and talk to Yu Yuan’an. Liu Quan…” He didn’t finish his sentence, and Su Yu didn’t press him for details. But afterwards, she rarely saw Liu Quan walking around the orchard alone anymore. He became Yu Yuan’an’s shadow, following his instructions. She only spent more time with him when she was learning from Yu Yuan’an how to judge whether the fruit trees needed water by touching the soil and learning some old fruit farmers’ experience. He became even more sullen.
At the end of May, the peaches began to ripen on a large scale, and the cannery's trucks started coming here every day, picking only the seven-tenths ripe peaches. The overripe peaches that were difficult to transport were sold to the local supply and marketing cooperative, while the oddly shaped ones and those pecked by birds were given to the people working in the orchard.
Su Yu could have just strolled around the orchard like Yu Yuan'an and left, but she couldn't resist the sight of the bright red peaches. She liked to wear a hat and wander around the orchard, picking any peaches that looked tempting and taking them home after paying a token amount.
"Mom, we're on holiday tomorrow!" Ping An rushed in first, followed closely by Xiao Yuan, who squinted. He threw his schoolbag on the table, grabbed a peach from the basin, and started eating it.
"Mmm, so sweet." Xiao Yuan chose a cracked one, broke it in half, and the peach juice was already flowing down his hand. He spread his legs, bent down, and put his mouth to suck it. In the end, all that was left on his hand was a peach pit and a peach skin without any peach flesh.
"Mom, Ping An and I will go to the orchard tomorrow to help pick peaches. We don't need to pay." Xiao Yuan picked out the reddest peach from the basin.
"How did the exam go?" Su Yu asked, bringing up a rather disappointing topic.
"No doubt about it, I guarantee you'll be satisfied." Ping An started joking again.
Su Yu wanted to laugh when she heard his tone and said, "Okay, come with me tomorrow. If your exam results don't satisfy me, you'll have your allowance deducted every day next semester."
Without much hesitation, the two looked at each other and agreed in unison.
Ping An and Xiao Yuan were already up to Su Yu's chest. She couldn't ride the bike because she was sitting on the front bar. The two boys squeezed in and out, but the back seat still couldn't fit two butts.
"Get down, stop arguing about who's in front and who's behind." Su Yu took a piece of wood from the kitchen, tied it to the back seat with a rope, making it longer than the back seat, just enough to fit the two of them.
"You two hold on tight, or I won't be responsible if one of you falls off," Su Yu warned Ping An, who was sitting in the back and reaching for the roadside grass.
"I want to hug him too, but Xiao Yuan won't let me. As soon as I put my arm around him, he squirms like a maggot." Xiao Yuan is ticklish, like he has ticklish weeds growing all over him. He can't even stand having his shoulder touched.
"When we come back, you sit in the front and let him carry you. Now hold on to the back seat. If you move around again, don't come with me next time." This kid is getting more and more unruly as he gets older.
"Oh." Ping An became obedient.
When Su Yu arrived at the orchard, she was covered in sweat. Even the cool morning breeze couldn't relieve her. She thought to herself that she should buy another bicycle. Riding a bicycle while carrying two children who weighed more than her combined was really tiring.
"Hey, is this your son?" Qiu Fuli ran into the three people who were going up the mountain as he came down. The boy was well raised, with bright eyes, one honest and the other mischievous.
“Yes, he came to help us pick fruit in the orchard during his holiday, so I brought him along. Why not use a free worker?” Su Yu patted the two children and told them to call him Uncle.
"No wages, just peaches. Fill your stomach as much as you want, just don't get an upset stomach." Qiu Fuli replied with a smile, pointing at Xu Yuan and saying to Su Yu, "Is this your youngest son? He really looks like you, fair and clean-cut."
"The mayor, the eldest takes after his father, the youngest after me."
"Brother Qiu, I'm going up first. These two are eager to get to work, we can't hold them back." Su Yu saw that Ping An wished he could transform into a monkey and leap up the mountain, so she ended her conversation with Qiu Fuli.
All day long, the two children really did spend their time picking peaches in the orchard. The more the fruit-picking workers praised them, the more enthusiastic they became. They were good-looking, so they picked the peaches; they were agile, so they climbed the trees; they were polite, so they helped carry the baskets. Su Yu couldn't stop them.
And then there's eating peaches. We eat them when we're thirsty, when we're tired, and we hear that the ones pecked open by birds are the sweetest. So we keep eating.
When I got home in the evening, I lay down on a chair and said I couldn't eat. My mouth was watering. When I asked if I wanted to throw up, I said no. Okay, I guess I just ate too much and was too full.
Su Yu cut off a piece of cured pork, chopped it into minced meat, and stir-fried it with garlic sprouts to make a topping. She also cooked two bowls of noodles, and made the two of them sit in chairs to watch her eat. After she finished eating, she watched Xiao Hei eat.
"Mom, my mouth is watering! You're making these noodles again tomorrow night." Ping An squatted on the ground watching Xiao Hei eat the noodles with vegetable oil, regretting that she had eaten too many peaches during the day. But peaches were free, so eating them was a bonus.
Su Yu ignored him and asked Xiao Yuan, who was rubbing his stomach, "Are we going to the orchard again tomorrow?"
"Go away, I haven't had enough peaches yet." Even though she was so full she couldn't eat anymore, she still wanted to go.
"I didn't hold back your words, did I? How come it's like I let two hungry wolves out?" How embarrassing.
"These peaches are free, Mom! When the pears are ripe, Ping'an and I will go pick some more. I heard there are also watermelons, cantaloupes, and grapes. We don't need to be paid." But he thought to himself, "We have to get our money's worth."
You idiot!
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