Chapter Sixty-One: Reporter Interview
"Brother Tao, have you heard? The foreman of Workshop Two was arrested last night!"
After saying that, she lowered her voice and asked anxiously, "Then Lin Erlang... can he still be fired?"
Bi Yuntao snorted: "What's the panic? The director's down, so the factory has to find someone to take the fall. Lin Erlang is involved in this machine tool thing, so he's a perfect scapegoat. The factory director has to push him out to clear himself of any wrongdoing. Besides, your uncle pulled a lot of strings behind the scenes..."
He paused for a moment, then said, "After I finish work the day after tomorrow, I'll go with you to your uncle's house. We'll try to pull some strings and see if we can get you a job at the machine factory as an office clerk. Isn't that better than being a peasant?"
The main thing is that connections don't have to expire. Zhao Xiaoyu's uncle values her highly. If she can also become a worker, then their family will have two people with stable jobs, and their lives will be much better then.
Lin Baozhu squatted on the wall and overheard their whispers clearly. Through the half-open window, she saw two naked people inside and felt nauseous.
Those bastards! Her second brother was targeted by that scumbag Director Zhang at the factory. It turns out it was all those two beasts' doing behind the scenes.
Okay, very good. Originally, she only planned to empty their house again tonight, but now, she has a better idea to deal with them...
*
Lin Baozhu returned home, closed the doors and windows, and then slipped into the space.
"Chirp chirp chirp..."
"Huffing and puffing..."
A chorus of crowing roosters and grunting pigs reached her ears. Looking in the direction of the sound, she saw a speckled hen strutting proudly through the space, followed by a line of newly hatched chicks, their fluffy yellow feathers melting on their skin. Looking at the eggs in the corner, there were more than double the number she'd seen last time! At this rate of reproduction—chickens laying eggs, eggs hatching into chickens… she needed to find a way to deal with a batch as soon as possible, otherwise the space would become a plague sooner or later.
The situation is even more exaggerated with the wild boars. The first litter of piglets that the sow had brought has now each given birth to new piglets, and the herd has grown quite large. They are huddled together in the pen, grunting and squealing. If this continues, their territory will probably expand into the vegetable planting area.
After casting off the piglets one by one, she went to the small bamboo grove in her space and cut down a lot of bamboo. Then she split the thick bamboo sections in the middle, turning them into natural seedling pots. Next, she filled the bamboo troughs with space soil, poked rows of small pits with her fingers, evenly scattered watermelon seeds and strawberry seeds, watered them with diluted spiritual spring water, and then covered them with a thin layer of fine soil.
Finally, move all the bamboo tubes outside the space and let them sprout naturally.
After finishing with the seedling cultivation, she took out paper and pen and sketched out a draft of the greenhouse from memory. In those days, the technology was backward, and a greenhouse with a steel frame required industrial vouchers to apply for, which was not only troublesome, but also not worth the effort for her small plot of land. Using pillars as a frame would be more durable.
After finishing these tasks, she pulled some weeds in the field and fed the livestock. It was only because the plants in the space grew so quickly that, otherwise, given how often she entered the space, all the livestock and poultry would have starved to death.
*
The next morning, right after breakfast, Lin Baozhu took her handwritten contract to the brigade leader.
"Baozhu, what are you doing here instead of working?" the team leader said while slurping water from an enamel mug.
"Signing a contract is better than nothing, even though it's only nine-tenths of an acre. It's just to prevent anyone in the village from making trouble about it later."
The brigade leader took the contract, glanced at it, and chuckled: "Heh, it looks pretty convincing. Come with me to the village branch and let those people be witnesses and put their fingerprints on it."
"Why!"
As soon as the contract was in hand, Lin Baozhu immediately divided her forces into two groups: she sent her third brother to the mountain to cut the thick bamboo poles needed for building the shed, while she urged the brigade leader to make a trip to the commune to try and get some plastic film back—it's hard to get in touch with people if you want to buy this stuff in large quantities.
Around noon, Lin Baozhu was hoeing the ground when she suddenly heard the team leader's voice coming over the loudspeaker: "Hey! Hey! Attention everyone! Attention everyone! Everyone, get your spirits up and work with all your might!"
"A reporter is coming to our village today! Everyone get ready! Don't embarrass our brigade! Hey! Hey! Attention everyone, attention everyone..."
Lin Baozhu paused, "An interview?"
She then smiled slightly, thinking that those people weren't coming, but she hadn't expected this...
In another field, Zhao Xiaoyu listened intently to the broadcast, her eyes gleaming. She quickly moved to Bi Yuntao's side, her voice low but her tone smug: "Brother Tao, they're definitely interviewing me! I submitted an article to the town's tabloid a while ago, about my experiences working in the countryside. It's been half a month, and I thought it had been forgotten. I never expected... they would take it so seriously and send a reporter to interview me!"
Grandma You paused in weeding, and a glint of light immediately appeared in her cloudy eyes: "An interview with you? Really?"
“Mom, is there any need to say that? Xiaoyu is an educated youth sent to the countryside. In our village, who is more educated than her? And we haven’t heard of her submitting articles to the newspaper.”
Grandma You slapped her thigh suddenly: "Hey, let's see who dares to laugh at us now! This old woman is going to be in the newspaper."
With a smile on her face, Grandma You patted Zhao Xiaoyu's hand and said, "She's truly my daughter-in-law. She's much better than those peasants. Now let's see who dares to laugh at our family. Getting published in the newspaper is a great honor for our ancestors!"
Zhao Xiaoyu pouted. Who are you trying to insult?
How could a local newspaper possibly be published nationwide? That's what she thought, but her face betrayed her joy as she laughed, "Mom, Brother Tao, it's fine as long as you're happy about this. Just don't tell anyone. What if... what if the reporter has other assignments? We'd be making a fool of ourselves!"
Despite saying that, her steps became lighter: "Brother Tao, I'm going home to change into some bright clothes."
"Yes, yes, yes! Let's change! Let's all change!" Grandma You exclaimed enthusiastically. "If it's in the newspaper, the whole country will see us, right? We have to dress smartly!"
The family rushed home and rummaged through drawers and cabinets to find their most treasured clothes to change into.
Looking at her half-shaved head in the mirror, Old Lady You gritted her teeth and shaved the other side as well. In the end, she put on a fake opera costume on her head. It was a bit strange, but it was better than having a bald head.
Old Mrs. You couldn't help but feel smug. Ever since she was forced to shave her head in a shaved-body style, labeled a "loose woman," and dragged off to be criticized, she had never been able to hold her head up in the village. Now, her son and daughter-in-law were doing well; they were going to take her to the newspapers to show off! So what if she was a "loose woman"? Humph, those self-proclaimed innocents couldn't even dream of such glory! No way, she had to go out and show off!
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