The roasted rabbit that Lin Mo used to exchange for cloth and gave to Chen Gang before noon.
Now it has been turned into bits of bone and meat, and mixed into the large pot of porridge to cook together.
The villagers mostly ate in the production team. Those with young children would eat as they ate, saving some food from their own teeth to take home for their children.
Lin Mo spotted his mother and went to her, who was slurping porridge.
The porridge in her enamel mug contained only bits of meat and bones; there wasn't much meat or bone in it, but at least a little.
Other villagers also ate whatever they could find, regardless of whether it was meat or bones, and swallowed it after chewing it for a while.
Lin Mo originally thought Chen Gang would secretly enjoy the food alone, but who would have thought that this man was actually a pedantic scholar who had no selfish motives at all.
"Scores have been recorded."
Before finishing work, Chen Gang, as always, came out with his notebook.
"Miao Zhuang 12 points, Wang Dashu 12 points, Liu Fengshou 11 points, Wu Dafu 12 points..."
"Lin Mo scores 0 points, deduct 12 points."
"Miao Wang has 4 points, deduct 12 points; Wang Junjun has 3 points, deduct 12 points."
"Miao Qingsong 0 points, deduct 12 points."
As soon as the words were read aloud, Miao Qingsong lowered his head.
Lin Mo's mother rubbed her face with a pained expression, counting on her fingers how much would be left after this deduction, given that Lin Mo already had a negative score and now it was her turn to have it.
Miao Wang and Wang Junjun, however, were not happy about it.
"Captain, we were only absent for half a day, why should we be docked a whole day's pay?" Miao Wang protested.
Chen Gang glared at him with a dark face:
"With the effort you put into dawdling all morning, the wheat harvest was a mess. You didn't accomplish much, but you caused a lot of trouble for the team. I even gave you 4 points."
"You still have the nerve to talk back to me like that?"
Miao Wang's temper flared up, and he became even more defiant:
"What do you mean by 'helping but hindering'? We're doing it by the hour! How can you pick and choose by piecework if it's by the hour? That doesn't make sense!"
"We don't accept it!"
The two started arguing with Chen Gang, and during the argument, Lin Mo went home again.
They kept only two pieces of the cleaned and slaughtered fish, and carried the rest in bamboo baskets to the production team's canteen.
With a "thud," the basket was thrown to the ground, attracting a large number of curious onlookers.
"Captain, I went fishing today, and Miao Wang and Wang Junjun came with me. We caught quite a few. So, the three of us can be considered to have contributed to the team, right?"
"If we hand in our harvest, will we be able to avoid losing points?"
Chen Gang spotted the tender, white fish pieces, and the villagers spotted them too.
Their eyes immediately gleamed as if they were soaked in oil.
Upon seeing the fish pieces, Chen Gang was immediately filled with astonishment, exclaiming "Holy crap!" and "My goodness!"
But the surface is still as black as the bottom of a pot:
"Work points are linked to the output of public grain, and have nothing to do with anything else. They don't count, and points will still be deducted if necessary."
Lin Mo didn't understand this:
"So, it means that even if I hand over this fish, it's all for nothing?"
“No, that’s not it,” Chen Gang quickly replied.
“If you can exchange the supplies allocated by the supply and marketing cooperative, and you take some goods, other villagers won’t be able to buy them.”
"The team will marinate the fish. Anyone who wants to eat it can bring their ticket and money to the supply and marketing cooperative to buy it."
This sounds like an unprofitable business deal—no, wait, a barter trade. How could Chen Gang say something so shameless?
Besides oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, meat, coal tar, and soap—essential items that villagers had to exchange—the supply and marketing cooperative had very little else.
Besides, if work points can only be earned by doing farm work, then farm work...
Everyone's just slacking off, so how much output can they possibly produce? It's not something that can be increased just by him coming to work.
Wow, so many old fish...
"Lin Housheng, there are so many fish in the river! Can you take us fishing tomorrow?"
More and more villagers, their oily eyes gleaming, were looking at Lin Mo, and more and more were tempted to go hunting with him.
Lin Mo smiled knowingly and mouthed "Of course" quietly.
"Aunt Lin still owes the supply and marketing cooperative three hundred catties of grain," Chen Gang said deftly, placing the basket on the weight scale and quickly weighing it in several portions.
"It weighs about 23 jin in total. If we calculate based on 1 jin of fish being equivalent to 5 jin, then it's 115 jin."
"Still 185 jin (92.5 catties) are needed."
With just a few words, the fish were gone, but the famine was over.
Lin Mo felt a pang of heartache.
"Go ahead and deduct my points, but it's clearly unfair to deduct points from Miao Wang and Wang Junjun. They were only absent for half a day, why should they be deducted a whole day?"
Chen Gang glared at him, then glanced at the unusual fish.
It seems there are villages in the county that accept other things as payment for grain tax, maybe salted fish too?
Once this harvest is sent to the county, I'll ask about it while I'm at it; it should be fine.
So he silently scribbled a couple of lines on the notebook, and then his lips moved a couple more times:
"Miao Wang 4 points, deduct 6 points; Wang Junjun 3 points, deduct 6 points."
The three Miao brothers were pleasantly surprised to find that they could persuade Chen Gang, who was like a wooden fish, to change his mind.
But that didn't stop the fish from being confiscated, and the three brothers felt a pang of regret.
They heard that Lin Mo voluntarily handed over the money so that he and his brother wouldn't lose more points.
"Lin Housheng? What time are we going fishing tomorrow? Let's set a time!" Old Liu was in a hurry to make a deal with Lin Mo.
"We want to go too!" Soon, a chorus of voices erupted around them.
Seeing so many people harboring wicked intentions, Chen Gang's face darkened even further.
If so many people skip work and instead go fishing, when will the crops ever be harvested?
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