Chapter 45 Digging sweet potatoes and fetching water

Digging sweet potatoes is a skillful job.

Ding Zhongjiang imitated Captain Tang and dug with a hoe, but what he brought out was two half-cut sweet potatoes.

"Aren't you wasting food? Didn't you see my demonstration just now? You can't dig up the sweet potatoes in pieces. Cut sweet potatoes are difficult to preserve. You should do it like me. With one hoe, you will see that the sweet potatoes will be brought out." Captain Tang demonstrated again.

When Ding Zhongjiang dug the field with his hoe, he only brought out half a sweet potato.

Captain Tang frowned. This kid from the city really didn't know how to work. Even though he had demonstrated it so well, he could still hoe the sweet potatoes.

"Let me try." Ma Weiguang was full of confidence. In her opinion, digging sweet potatoes should be a very simple job. The reason why Ding Zhongjiang couldn't dig them well was simply because he was too useless.

Ding Zhongjiang made way for him.

Ma Weiguang dug out the sweet potatoes with a confident hoe, but they were all rotten, even worse than Ding Zhongjiang's.

Ma Weiguang's face turned slightly red. Fortunately, the female educated youth were assigned to other tasks and did not see his embarrassing appearance.

“Haha, Mu Bai, you also dug up the sweet potato.”

Mu Bai looked at the sweet potato that was broken in half, and instead of being embarrassed, he thought about it carefully and started digging again. With another hoe, a whole sweet potato was dug out, and no more two halves appeared. Ma Weiguang and Ding Zhongjiang thought he was lucky, but they didn't expect that the next hoes would bring out whole sweet potatoes.

"Mu Bai, how did you dig it?"

"Hehe, Mu Zhiqing did a good job. You two should learn from Mu Zhiqing. Okay, Mu Zhiqing, you take them to dig sweet potatoes. I will have to keep an eye on the progress of others." Captain Tang gave the order.

Captain Tang went to visit the female educated youth.

The job assigned to the female educated youth was to grow vegetables. Although they worked clumsily, it was much better than the male educated youth. Captain Tang nodded reluctantly.

They were both digging sweet potatoes, but Mu Bai was able to do it well and quickly. The people around him had almost finished and went back to eat. Ding Zhongjiang and Ma Weiguang looked at the broken sweet potatoes on the ground and didn't know how to explain it to Captain Tang.

Captain Tang came over with a frown on his face, wanting to scold them. But these were the newly arrived educated youths, not his own members, whom he could scold at will. He said with a gloomy face: "Take all these sweet potatoes back and use them as your future rations. You can count the weight of these sweet potatoes with the accountant later and pay them back with your salary later."

"There are so many sweet potatoes that even the two of us can't finish them all." Ma Weiguang and Ding Zhongjiang looked at Mu Bai with sad faces.

"With so many sweet potatoes, if you count carefully, they are almost enough to eat. The 30 kilograms of sweet potatoes we received yesterday are not enough. Or you can exchange the sweet potatoes for other coarse grains in the village. Although these are out of stock, it should still be possible to exchange some of them." Mu Bai said lightly.

The sweet potatoes were dug by the two of them, and Mu Bai didn't want to eat them all winter.

Finally, Ma Weiguang and Ding Zhongjiang each carried a large bag of sweet potatoes back to the educated youth site.

When they returned to the educated youth point, Shu Lijuan and Yang Pingfang were talking when they saw Ma Weiguang and his partner carrying sweet potatoes over.

"Has Captain Tang distributed new food to us? Why are all these sweet potatoes out of stock?"

Seeing that Mu Bai didn't say anything, Ma Weiguang and Ding Zhongxing had to tell him again how they had dug up all the sweet potatoes in the morning.

"We still have to dig sweet potatoes in the afternoon. What should we do if we dig another big bag?" Ma Weiguang said with a sad face.

"You want it, but Captain Tang is not willing to give it to you? I guess Captain Tang will assign you two to other tasks in the afternoon." Mu Bai said lightly.

"Any kind of work is fine, except digging sweet potatoes!" said Ding Zhongjiang.

"The three of us learned how to grow vegetables this morning, and now our educated youth site has also been allocated private plots. The three of us discussed cleaning up the private plots and growing some vegetables. We asked for cabbage and radish seeds, which are just the right time to plant them."

"Three female comrades, you are really capable and thoughtful. This way, we will have vegetables to eat in the winter," Ding Zhongjiang praised.

"It's nothing, it's serving the people! But let's have lunch first, and then we can work on the vegetable garden together when we come back in the afternoon." Yang Pingfang said with a smile.

For lunch, we had sweet potato porridge without any vegetables. The rice was brown rice that everyone bought from the grain and oil store by pooling their food coupons and money.

In the afternoon, Captain Tang really didn't dare to let Ma Weiguang and Ding Zhongjiang go to dig sweet potatoes, so he sent them to plant vegetables. The first day of labor for the educated youth in the countryside passed just like that.

"Don't mention it, growing vegetables is not an easy job. I worked all day and my back and waist ached." Ding Zhongjiang complained. It was so tiring that he didn't even want to grow a vegetable garden.

"You're fine. Comrade Mu Bai has been digging sweet potatoes for the whole day. He must have worked even harder." Shu Lijuan said, "Let me make something delicious to nourish you in the evening. I have a sausage. I'll cut it up and cook it in the evening."

"Then I'll give you a can of meat." Mu Bai said.

Shu Lijuan's eyes lit up. She hadn't eaten meat for a long time. It seemed that Mu Bai's family conditions were indeed well off.

The rest of the people also contributed something, except Qian Damei.

"I, I didn't bring anything good."

"It's okay, it's just a token of my appreciation." Shu Lijuan said, "When we work on the vegetable garden later, you can just put in a little more effort."

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With delicious food as motivation, everyone worked enthusiastically in the vegetable garden. The six of them helped each other and soon half of the crops were planted.

"We are a little far from the well at the entrance of the village." Ma Weiguang said. The water tank at the educated youth site was the water from the old well in the village that the three male educated youth went to yesterday. The road was long. The water in the tank has been used up for watering. If you want to eat vegetables in the future, you must water them frequently.

"How about we take turns fetching water in the future? Who will go first today?" Ding Zhongjiang really didn't want to move. He was already tired enough. He just wanted to wait for dinner.

"I'll go. I heard yesterday that Shen Xiangdong's family in the village dug a foreign well. It should be closer." Mu Bai stood up.

"Then thank you for your hard work, Comrade Mu."

Mu Bai carried an empty bucket and asked a villager for directions, and found Shen Xiangdong's home.

There was a crisp knock on the door.

"Who is it?" The person who opened the door was Shen Ruoqing. When she raised her eyes, she met those deep eyes. It felt like her heart skipped a beat for a moment.

"Mu Zhiqing, what are you doing in my house?"

Mu Bai didn't expect that this was the home of this pretty little girl. He was a little surprised, and after a while he said, "I came to borrow some water."

Shen Ruoqing moved a little to let Mu Bai in.

"The water pump is right there, you can do it yourself."

Seeing the girl leave, Mu Bai had an indescribable feeling in his heart, and felt a little bit lost.

"Okay, thank you."

(End of this chapter)