50.050 Contradiction
The orange trees on the hill were successfully watered with the properly diluted acidic water, but Su Yu left three orange trees untouched on a corner of the north slope. She forgot to keep a sample for comparison when watering them with the acidic water the first time, but luckily she remembered when she was applying lime to the trunks.
To avoid anyone trying to erase her achievements, Su Yu didn't tell anyone that she hadn't watered the three fruit trees a second time with acidic water.
With that matter settled, she continued working on the problem of insects in the fruit trees. There were ways to treat the symptoms, but the root cause—the insect eggs in the soil—was not yet resolved.
"Liu Quan, how's the insect eggs in the soil going? Do you have any ideas? I'd like to learn from you." She climbed over two hills and found Liu Quan, who was doing something.
“What can we do? Burn it or flood it? Both will damage the roots of the fruit trees. Even Brother Yu can’t do anything about it. What can I think of?” He squatted down and grabbed a handful of soil, unable to detect any insect eggs mixed in. “Now we can only let the villagers take a break, turn over the soil, and let the sun kill them.”
"I've only ever heard of snow freezing insect eggs to death, not the sun at this time of year? And under the shade of a tree." Su Yu was convinced. With so many hills, it would take a whole year to dig and turn the soil once. He might as well just wait for the snow in winter to freeze the insects to death.
"There's nothing we can do about it." Liu Quan, mindful of Qiu and Yu's praise of Su Yu, suppressed his impatience and joked, "Anyway, we can climb the trees and shake off the insects. Shaking them once every ten days or so is fine. It's better than in previous years when some trees were infested with insects and the trees were completely destroyed."
Su Yu hummed in agreement and decided not to come looking for him anymore. This guy was the type to shirk responsibility; he wouldn't admit he couldn't do anything. Just like he said, if even Brother Yu couldn't do anything, it was normal that he couldn't think of a solution either. When faced with difficulties, he would start thinking of reasons to get out of trouble, and comfort himself that things were much better than in previous years, using this reason to convince others.
Lacking pioneering spirit, they are better suited to maintaining the status quo.
Su Yu returned to the orange orchard under her jurisdiction. In just a few days, the peach trees had already begun to lose their blossoms, while the orange blossoms here were still in full bloom.
“The hillside is covered with trees, do you have a way to kill the insect eggs?” she asked.
"Spread pesticides, spread insecticides."
“Something a bit more rustic,” Su Yu pressed.
"No, the old methods are obsolete." It said with a hint of arrogance.
"..."
She couldn't solve the problem of insect eggs for the time being, so she tried cutting a bundle of cogon grass and rice straw, mixing them together, piling them on the ground and smoldering them, burning the soil in the same way as burning farmyard manure. She burned them that afternoon, and the next afternoon after the fire went out, she asked Shumanpo if the number of insect eggs had decreased.
"There are no more insect eggs in this area, but the soil acidity has changed, and wood ash is alkaline."
Well, the acid and alkali have been neutralized.
"Could I build a fire to burn the soil and then sprinkle acid water to achieve the acidity that the orange tree needs?" She boldly speculated while sitting under the tree, but then shook her head and said no. "It would be okay in winter, but the tree is dormant and doesn't need much nutrition. Now that it's flowering and fruiting, if we burn it, all the organic matter in the soil will be burned away."
“Am I right?” she asked Shumanpo.
"Orange trees don't hibernate. Also, plants go dormant, but animals hibernate." Shu Manpo couldn't help but correct her as she tried to use unprofessional terms to speak professionally, and urged her, "Read more books. I'm embarrassed for you by what you're saying."
"You despise me? You used to call me 'Master' so sweetly." Su Yu touched her right ear, covered it, and rubbed it, punishing it on a mental level.
"What are you doing?" Yu Yuan'an looked around. "I heard you talking to someone. Are you just talking to yourself out of boredom?"
"Hey, Brother Yu, you walk so quietly, you scared me." Su Yu brushed the dust off his pants and stood up, explaining, "I was thinking about my dog at home, he's so naughty, I couldn't help but blurt it out."
Every time Shu Manpo spoke to her, his voice went straight to her ears. If she didn't speak, she felt awkward silently repeating what he said in her mind, especially when he was emotional. She would feel stifled if she didn't say it out loud, so she would speak a few words when no one was around.
Yu Yuan'an didn't think much of it; his daughter sometimes did the same thing, suddenly saying something that sounded like she was talking in her sleep.
"Come on, let's go for a walk in the other orchards. The grapevines are starting to bear fruit, and the watermelon and melon seedlings have also been planted."
“Come on, I’m going to learn from him.” She grabbed the hat from the ground, put it on her head, and followed him out of the shade of the trees.
"Is it harder than sitting in an office?" Yu Yuan'an teased her. She always wore her hat and scarf tightly. He still remembered that she was dressed neatly when he first met her. It had only been a few days, and she was already sitting on the ground with dust on her shoes and trousers.
"It's alright, I don't feel tired at all. I feel much more energetic." She rides her bike back and forth twice a day, going around the fruit trees. She no longer has to listen to the aunties complaining about their mothers-in-law or engage in their ridiculous whining. She feels so peaceful now. Before, in town, her life was just a routine of going between home and the cannery. She would go to work on time and leave on time. After work, she would either go to the supply and marketing cooperative to buy groceries or go home to cook and take care of her children. She also had to deal with the neighbors who would occasionally knock on the door to borrow a light.
"That's true. The more you move, the more energetic you become. If you're idle for too long, your bones will rust." Yu Yuan'an led Su Yu to the area where the melon seedlings were planted, told her what to pay attention to, and even gave her instructions on how to prune the melon vines when they bear fruit.
"Technician Yu, you've got another apprentice?" the man digging the hole asked, leaning on his hoe.
“No.” Yu Yuan’an waved his hand and introduced to everyone: “The methods of standing on the orange tree to shake the insects and brushing lime on the orange tree were all thought up by this technician Su. He is a fruit tree doctor who dares to think and try.” He borrowed Su Yu’s words to introduce their profession. Fruit tree doctor sounds better than technician. Every time someone calls him Technician Yu, he thinks of a brothel, especially since the accent here is heavy.
Su Yu took off her hat to greet them, praising their melon seedlings for being well-grown, with thick roots and lush saplings, clearly indicating they would be easy to cultivate.
"This girl is easier to talk to than Technician Liu. She's always smiling and seems easy to get along with." After the two left, the person digging the hole and the person burying the seedlings discussed this Technician Su, whom they had only heard of but had just met.
The woman squatting down to throw seedlings and bury them in the soil nodded, thinking that she would wear a straw hat to work tomorrow so that she wouldn't get too tanned.
Ning Jin returned at noon. This time, he didn't eat in the cafeteria. He asked for the time and went straight home. Before he even got to his house, he saw smoke coming from the kitchen chimney. Before he even knocked on the door, he heard scratching sounds coming from behind it.
"Xiao Hei, do you hear me coming back?" He knocked on the door and called out, "Ping An, Xiao Yuan, come open the door."
"Dad?" Ping An rushed out first, and upon hearing his father's voice, he ran over to open the door. "Dad, have you eaten yet? We're cooking."
"Since I was thinking about you two cooking, I didn't eat in the cafeteria." Ning Jin called to Xiao Hei, who had taken the opportunity to slip out the door, "Come in. With all that fat on you, you're destined to be cooked in a pot if you dare to go out for a stroll."
The dog wouldn't listen to him. It had finally found a chance to go out for some fresh air, and it ran off in a flash.
"It won't go far, never mind, it'll be back soon." Seeing that the dog wouldn't come back no matter how much he called it, the man decided to leave the door open and let it play until it was done playing.
“No, my mom said that Xiao Hei is still a virgin, and she’s pretty and has a great figure. She’ll attract unwanted attention from lecherous men as soon as she goes out.” Xiao Yuan took the dog bowl into the kitchen, scooped some oily soup from the pot, went out and banged on the bowl, calling out, “Xiao Hei, come back for dinner! Come on, dinner’s ready.”
The bowl was almost broken from being banged so hard before the dog finally entered the yard. Ning Jin grabbed it by the neck, ready to hit it, saying, "If you dare to run away and cause trouble again, I'll tie you up in the yard until you die." Just looking at the black dog's plump body, no one would believe that the family was struggling financially.
Ping An brought another egg from the main room and sat down by the stove to continue tending the fire. He and Xiao Yuan were having noodles for lunch. The vegetables were washed, the two eggs were fried, and the water was almost boiling.
Ning Jin washed his hands, took the spoon from Xiao Yuan, looked at the things on the stove, and asked, "Making noodles? You're doing well." The eggs were sizzling with oil, and when he lifted the lid, he saw that the water in the pot was also covered with a layer of oil.
What a spendthrift! He's drinking oil!
He picked up the oil can and looked inside. Oh no! The ten or so pounds of oil he bought last winter were almost gone. In just five months, he had used up two years' worth of someone else's oil.
"Dad, it's time to cook the noodles," Xiao Yuan reminded him, as the water in the pot was already bubbling vigorously.
The man responded, took out a handful of black noodles from the cupboard and put them in the pot, then added half a handful of white noodles amidst Ping An's babbling.
"I don't want to eat buckwheat noodles." Ping An scooped the black noodles out of his bowl and put them into his dad's bowl, saying with disdain, "I won't eat buckwheat noodles that weren't made by my mom."
Su Yu adds a lot of ingredients to her buckwheat noodles, such as chili oil, vinegar, peanuts, and crispy lotus root, but she doesn't make them often. She still hasn't finished the black noodles she bought at the beginning of the year.
"You deserve a beating for your mouth, so I'll throw you into the Great Famine to gnaw on tree bark." Despite saying that, he picked the black noodles from Xiao Yuan's bowl and put them into his own.
After dinner, Ning Jin washed the clothes he had brought back and hung them on a bamboo pole. He put the canned meat in the cloth bag in his and Su Yu's bedroom without letting the two boys see it. He noticed that Ping An was unusually talkative now, and he could keep talking about it while eating. If he saw that there was still canned meat, he probably wouldn't be able to concentrate on school.
At 3 p.m., Ningjin locked the gate and headed out of town. On the way to the orchard, he observed the environment along the road and noticed that some of the thatch was too tall, making it impossible to spot people hiding inside. He planned to bring a sickle the next morning to cut it down and dry it so he could carry it back as kindling.
When he arrived at the orchard, he immediately spotted the orange trees that Su Yu was in charge of; they were so conspicuous, covered in bright white lime.
"Who are you? What are you doing here?" Someone saw Ning Jin, recognized his unfamiliar face, and stopped him to ask.
"I'm looking for Su Yu; I'm her lover," he introduced with a smile.
"Oh? Then wait here for a while. She's not in the orange grove right now. She's talking to Technician Yu and the others. She'll probably be back when she's done."
"Okay, I'll sit down and rest for a while." After he finished speaking, he squatted down to the side, picked a foxtail grass and chatted with people about all sorts of things, talking about how tired he was from driving long distances.
"Hmph, sitting still in the car is tiring? But even if you're tired, you can't be as tired as us." The man's anger was evident. He spat and said, "We still have to put up with this nonsense. It's easy for you to talk big, but we laborers deserve to be worked to death."
“Aren’t all leaders like this? Our leader is the same. He sits in the office and tells you how long you have to run around, without ever thinking about the possibility of your car breaking down on the way.” Ning Jin followed up on his words, asking, “What kind of jerk is your leader?”
"That wasn't a leader, just someone who'd read a few books and was giving orders haphazardly. He made us dig up the hill where the orange trees were planted, and he was rushing us. I almost got beaten up just now." As he said this, there was undisguised joy on his face. Then, remembering that the man in front of him was Technician Su's wife, he added, "I'm not talking about Technician Su. She's a good-tempered person."
When Ningjin asked him again, he stopped talking.
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