After discussing this gossip, Xu Ningyan listened to Chen Fangfang's plans for the new year. Taking advantage of his extensive knowledge from his later life, Xu Ningyan offered a few suggestions.
Chen Fangfang was extremely grateful.
As it was almost noon, Chen Fangfang said goodbye and went home. No matter how much Xu Ningyan tried to persuade her to stay for lunch, she did not stay.
After seeing Chen Fangfang off, Xu Ningyan realized that Chen Fangfang had come to wish her a Happy New Year, firstly to express her gratitude, and secondly probably to tell her gossip about Xu Zhenzhu's family.
She's someone who's calculating and using this to curry favor with me.
After Chen Fangfang left, no one else came to visit, since everyone was busy visiting relatives these past few days.
Those educated youths did have some free time; I saw them going to the back mountain several times when they had nothing to do. However, Xia Wei and the others had experienced too much suffering before, so now those educated youths avoid this small courtyard.
After having lunch on the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, Xu Ningyan and Gu Zhiyuan loaded all the packed items onto the oxcart.
We had already arranged it with Old Yang. He fed the cows well in the morning, hitched up the cart, and parked it in the cowshed after breakfast.
The two brought back quite a few things, and even more things to the county town.
In addition to various cured meats and dried vegetables, there were also fresh vegetables from the garden.
The vegetable garden that Aunt Xie helped manage was better than the small vegetable patch that Xu Ningyan had cultivated in the county. Not only were there more varieties, but probably due to the soil and water, the vegetables grown by the Tuanjie Brigade were of better quality.
Therefore, before leaving, Xu Ningyan did some picking in the vegetable garden.
There were two or three snakeskin bags filled with things like cabbage, spinach, cilantro, celery, radish, garlic sprouts, and lotus root.
If you don't peel off the outer layers of leaves, the cabbage can last for half a month in this weather.
The lotus roots were dug up by the brigade leader after the pond was drained and the fish were distributed before the New Year. He gave Xu Ningyan two large ones, which had about ten sections. They were all covered with mud from the pond, so as long as the outer skin wasn't broken, they could be preserved for a long time.
The other vegetables were also buried with their roots and soil. After returning to the county town, I dug a shallow hole in the yard and buried them in the soil, which helped preserve them for a longer period of time.
Moreover, there are a few families I know. If it's not appropriate to send meat during the first month of the lunar year, sending some of their own vegetables is quite welcome.
In addition, dried fruits and other grains produced in the mountains, as well as the grain distributed before the New Year, all had to be taken to the county town, making the scene even more frightening than when they returned.
After arriving at the agreed location with the transport team, we waited for about an hour before the convoy arrived.
After loading the items into the car and thanking Old Yang, Gu Zhiyuan, Xu Ningyan, and their henchmen obediently squatted in the back of the car again.
This time, Xu Ningyan was more experienced. She dragged over two bags containing clothes and luggage, placed one under each of them to sit on, and put the lackey between them so that she could appease him at any time.
After a bumpy ride, we arrived in the county town, and it was almost dark.
The house had been uninhabited for over a week, and the atmosphere was rather stuffy, so the two of them busied themselves opening the windows to let in fresh air and cleaning.
We just had a quick and easy dinner.
The next day, the two of them carried large and small bags to pay New Year's greetings to Li Jianguo.
Li Jianguo is the head of the supply and marketing department. His home is naturally lively during the Spring Festival. Unfortunately, when they went there, other people were also coming to pay their respects, and the house was packed with people.
The two men didn't stand on ceremony with Li Jianguo. Seeing that his family was entertaining other guests, they simply put down their things and prepared to leave.
Li Jianguo didn't ask them to stay, only telling them to come for dinner the next day, and then saw them off at the door.
Seeing that it was still early, the two went to the Lin family to offer New Year's greetings.
Lin Honglai opened the door, and upon seeing the two people, she immediately smiled and ushered them into the house.
Lin Hong must have had a good year; her face looks rounder.
There were no guests at the Lin family's house today. After exchanging a few pleasantries with the two men, Lin's father led Gu Zhiyuan and his second son, Lin Feng, into the inner room.
Lin Hong dragged Xu Ningyan into her room, closed the door, and piled a large amount of food on the table. While urging Xu Ningyan to eat, she whispered, "I'm going on a blind date during the New Year holiday—"
Xu Ningyan glanced at Lin Hong in surprise. Lin Hong had a smile on her face and seemed quite satisfied with her blind date.
And he had this attitude of, "Ask me quickly, ask me quickly, and I'll tell you."
Xu Ningyan suddenly became mischievous and asked Lin Hong what she ate for the New Year, whether she made new clothes, whether she received lucky money, and how her visits to relatives went.
I asked her about everything except how her blind date went.
Lin Hong's face turned red from holding back her anger. Every time she tried to speak, Xu Ningyan deliberately changed the subject. After two or three times, she realized that Xu Ningyan was doing it on purpose and would tickle her whenever he grabbed her.
After laughing and joking around for a while, Lin Hong couldn't wait to share with Xu Ningyan.
It turned out that on the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month, her mother arranged for her to go on a blind date with a veteran who had just returned from military service last year and was now a criminal investigator in the county public security bureau.
His name is Zhou Zi'an, and he is 25 years old.
He is the youngest child in his family, with an older sister and an older brother who have been married and have their own families for many years.
Both her parents worked for the county government, so they were considered a good match for the Lin family.
The two had a good impression of each other when they first met.
When Lin Hong spoke of Zhou Zi'an, her eyes lit up and her cheeks flushed; it was clear she was smitten.
Xu Ningyan was initially a little worried, but when she heard that Zhou Zian had brought gifts to the Lin family to pay New Year's greetings on the second day of the Lunar New Year, and that the Lin family parents were quite satisfied with Zhou Zian, she immediately felt relieved.
It was introduced by someone Lin's mother knew, so they must have known her well and wouldn't betray their own daughter.
Judging from Lin Hong's appearance, it's likely that she'll be attending another banquet soon.
Xu Ningyan and Lin Hong were having a private chat.
Inside the house, Lin's father had a serious expression on his face: "The factory has received a notice that there is a new design task. As you know, there are already harvesters and threshing machines in the central region, but these two machines are only suitable for large-scale wheat planting areas, and they are specifically designed for harvesting and threshing wheat."
"Most of the crops in our province are rice. Harvesting rice by hand is hard work and inefficient for farmers. So, designing a harvester and threshing machine suitable for harvesting rice is our most urgent task right now! If you can design one and get approval from above and mass production is possible, you will be directly transferred to Jingzhou Heavy Industry and become designers at the provincial heavy industry."
"Of course, even if you can't design a new harvester and threshing machine, you can still be rewarded for improving the existing harvesting and threshing machines!"
As soon as he finished speaking, Lin Feng's eyes lit up.
Jingzhou Heavy Industry, or rather, the largest machinery research and production plant in the central and southern regions of the country, independently developed an excavator two years ago. Although it is only a small excavator compared with the international standards, it is already quite remarkable.
I recently heard that Jingzhou Heavy Industry is researching some kind of loader, and it seems they're about to start production.
Those who can get into Jingzhou Heavy Industry are all top-notch talents. His lifelong dream is to get into Jingzhou Heavy Industry. He never expected that the opportunity would come now.
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