The sky gradually brightened, and light shone into the house through the old wooden windows, adding a glimmer of light to the dark house.
He Xianqiu was awakened by the bright light. She opened her eyes, took out the small flashlight she had just bought from the corner, turned it on, and hid under the quilt to look at her watch. It was six forty-five in the morning.
She went to bed early last night and got up early today. It was not far from time to do farm work, so she simply got up and got dressed.
Then she tiptoed to open the door, walked to the water tank, scooped water to wash up, and when she was almost done, the others got up too.
The country air was fresh in the early morning. After applying the cold cream, she carefully took out the hidden meat bun, moving slowly so as not to disturb other people's sleep, and then tiptoed out of the room.
Afraid that the leftover meat buns would not last long, she fetched some water and put it in the newly bought pot and put the meat buns in.
Then I left the educated youth point happily while chewing on the meat bun, Woo woo woo woo, it’s so delicious.
Although not as delicious as Aunt Lin’s, it also has its own flavor.
Aunt Lin is the cook in He Xianqiu's family. Aunt Lin has been in He Xianqiu's house since she can remember. When she was young, she often sat aside and watched Aunt Lin prepare food for her.
The snow-white meat ball sat on the chair, her round body motionless, her big eyes watching Aunt Lin make dessert for her attentively.
Yes, when He Xianqiu was a child, she was a little fat girl. Whenever she smelled something delicious at home, she would run to the kitchen with her short legs.
Thinking of how chubby she was as a child, He Xianqiu felt embarrassed. Fortunately, few people knew about this, as it was her dark history.
She ate meat buns while walking slowly towards the mission site. The young men passing by would secretly look at her and their ears would turn red.
When they arrived at the destination, He Xianqiu found a place to put the things he had prepared for the day, and sat down waiting for others to arrive.
Soon everyone arrived. He Xianqiu listened to the team leader Lin Jianshe assigning tasks. She was assigned a smaller piece of land.
After completing the assigned task, He Xianqiu went to her land to continue planting sweet potatoes. The south has a lot of rain, which is suitable for growing rice, but the yield is not high, so the Qinggang Brigade mostly grows high-yield food that can fill their stomachs.
Sweet potatoes are easy to grow and have high yields, so most of the crops grown in Qinggang Brigade are sweet potatoes.
This is what He Xianqiu heard from Zhang Zhijuan. She had only eaten corn porridge for a few days and no longer wanted to eat it.
He Xianqiu is now looking forward to sweet potatoes, which can be roasted and eaten. They are sweet and fragrant.
It’s not that she dislikes the corn porridge because it tastes bad, it’s that the corn is not ground finely enough and it gets stuck in her throat.
He Xianqiu is already looking forward to all kinds of delicious food made from sweet potatoes, even though the sweet potatoes have just been planted.
A lot of delicious sweet potato dishes flashed through my mind, including fried sweet potato cakes, caramelized sweet potato chips, candied sweet potatoes, steamed sweet potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, and sweet potato pastries.
Various delicious foods were still playing in He Xianqiu's mind in a loop, when suddenly a roar made her come back to her senses and hurry up to work.
"You only get so many work points every day, why don't you work harder? You are still being lazy. Hurry up and work."
He Xianqiu felt uneasy, as she always felt that the captain was talking about her.
He Xianqiu quickly picked up the hoe and started digging the ground, but since she didn't rely on work points to make a living, she didn't work that hard. She dug little by little, put the sweet potatoes into the pit little by little, and then covered it with soil.
Although the movements were slow, they made He Xianqiu less tired.
He Xianqiu spent the whole morning digging holes and putting sweet potatoes in them at a leisurely pace. When he was tired, he would take a rest for a while, and then continue digging holes and putting sweet potatoes in them.
Soon it was time for a break. He Xianqiu wiped the sweat off her face with a handkerchief, found a cool place to sit down, and took out the meat buns she had brought this morning to eat.
Ever since the young men in the brigade learned that a beautiful lady had come to their brigade, they began to discuss how to get in touch with this beautiful girl.
As soon as I thought the opportunity had come, someone came up to me and started chatting with me.
She also secretly combed her hair and then walked in front of He Xianqiu.
"He Zhiqing."
He Xianqiu raised his head. The young man opposite him had a handsome appearance and his clothes were neither new nor old. But compared with other people who were wearing patched clothes and pants, his clothes were considered good.
He Xianqiu didn't know what the young man wanted to call her for, so she asked in confusion: "What do you want?"
The young man scratched his head and smiled innocently: "He Zhiqing, my name is Wu Zhiqiang. I see that you are too tired from working. Let me help you. I am almost done with my piece of land."
He Xianqiu was about to refuse when he was interrupted.
"Qiangzi, you're almost done with that piece, go help your mother! What are you doing here?"
"What can we do with He Zhiqing, who can't even lift anything with his hands or shoulders, if we marry him home? Are we going to raise him like a ancestor?"
"Your butt isn't big, so you can tell at a glance that you can't give birth to a son."
"She's so pretty, but she looks like a vixen. I can't have her. I can't have her."
The aunties living near He Xianqiu started talking about her in a sarcastic tone, looking at He Xianqiu with disgust, as if she were some kind of trouble.
Hearing these unbearable words, He Xianqiu was so angry that he stood up and retorted on the spot.
"Auntie, why are you talking so much? Are you going to be gossipy? I'm so good-looking, of course I have to marry her and make her my ancestor. Otherwise, I'll just have to suffer. And what does it have to do with you whether I give birth to a son or not? Besides, what's the good of giving birth to a son? You have to save money to build him a house, to marry him off, and to help him take care of the children. You'll have to save up for most of your life. It doesn't matter whether you give birth to a boy or a girl. Your ideas are feudal and will get you mad."
"Also, I never curse at anyone, because those I curse are not human beings."①
As He Xianqiu spoke, he grinned, revealing his little fangs, looking very innocent.
Several middle-aged women's faces turned red after being scolded by her. Who could have thought that this teenage girl was such a tough guy.
"Who would dare to marry you when you are such a shrew at such a young age? After all, we are your elders."
"Then you have to be worthy of being your elders, auntie. You are so gossipy, gossiping about other people every day." He Xianqiu retorted with a sneer.
“You you…”
The aunt who was criticized was so angry that she pointed at He Xianqiu and her voice began to tremble.
When Wu Zhiqiang's mother saw this, she hurried over and took him away.
Wu Zhiqiang was still reluctant to leave, but was dragged away. His mother scolded him fiercely, "You want to die? Hurry up and leave."
He Xianqiu felt so unlucky that these middle-aged women were just looking for trouble.
She sat on the ground again and picked up the bun to eat. Seeing that she looked like someone who was not to be trifled with, the others dispersed.
After He Xianqiu was full, he covered his face with his hat and leaned against a tree to take a nap.
She has always adhered to the creed that I will not offend others unless they offend me, but if someone offends me, I must strike back hard.
The break was not long, as she wasted some time arguing with others. Just as she dozed off for a while, the whistle sounded to remind people to get back to work.
He Xianqiu opened his eyes, stretched, then stood up and patted the sawdust off his pants.
He Xianqiu tidied her clothes and walked back to the fields to work. When she passed by an old lady whom she had just retorted to, she glared at her fiercely.
This didn't hurt He Xianqiu at all. She walked over without even looking at the other person, picked up the hoe and started digging the ground.
He Xianqiu dug a row of holes, skillfully put the sweet potatoes in, and then filled the holes with soil.
The sun was very strong in the afternoon and the weather in June was extremely hot. She was dressed tightly, leaving only her eyes exposed, and even gloves were put on.
And wearing gloves while holding the hoe prevented her hands from feeling as painful as if they had touched the hoe directly.
Although it was a bit hot wearing so many clothes in such hot weather, He Xianqiu tried his best to avoid getting tanned.
He Xianqiu devoted herself to the three steps of digging a hole, putting in sweet potatoes, and covering with soil. Time passed quickly. When the whistle for a break sounded, she was stunned. Time passed so quickly.
Overall, she worked for the whole afternoon. Although she took a break from time to time, she would go back to work as soon as she had rested enough.
Although only a small piece of land was completed, it was the result of He Xianqiu's day's work.
He Xianqiu sat on the ground and listened to the scorer counting the points. She still got two points like last time, and was also able to get some sweet potatoes.
It’s not bad, He Xianqiu said with satisfaction.
When the captain announced that it was time to leave, she stood up and hammered her neck with her hand. She had been bowing her head for too long and her neck was very sore.
He Xianqiu was about to leave when Zhang Zhijuan called her from behind. She turned around after hearing it.
"Xianqiu, the weather is good now, and wild vegetables are growing well. The educated youths in our educated youth camp think we can go to the mountains to pick some wild vegetables. Do you want to go?"
He Xianqiu nodded and responded: "Okay! Do you need to bring a basket or something?"
"No need, just tie it up with long strips of grass when the time comes."
"good."
This is a group activity, so He Xianqiu feels it is necessary to go.
It's impossible that others go to the mountains to pick vegetables with great difficulty, while she goes back to the educated youth camp alone to be lazy and eat the vegetables they bring back to cook.
There were a total of twelve people in the educated youth site, including He Xianqiu himself, six men and six women, and four old educated youth, including two female educated youth and two male educated youth.
But the male protagonist Chen Changping was still lying in the house because of his injured foot, so now there were eleven people going up the mountain.
The eleven people swarmed up the mountain, and an old educated youth who was familiar with the Qinggang Brigade led the way for them.
When they reached halfway up the mountain, Song Wenzhong, the elder brother of the educated youth point, asked everyone to stop.
"Just go halfway up the mountain. Most of the wild vegetables at the foot of the mountain have been picked by children, so we have to go a little further. But don't go deep into the mountain. There are ferocious beasts there. Last time, someone in the team encountered a tiger."
Everyone nodded to show that they understood. Song Wenzhong introduced everyone to several commonly eaten wild vegetables and then let them find them on their own.
"Okay, these are the wild vegetables. I wouldn't recognize any more. These took me a long time to figure out. It wasn't easy." Song Wenzhong spread his hands helplessly.
Everyone burst into laughter after hearing what he said, and He Xianqiu also laughed.
"It's enough to know that many. If there are more, we won't know how to cook."
"Okay, okay, let's hurry up and look for it, otherwise it will be dark soon."
After hearing this, everyone went to find places to pick wild vegetables.
He Xianqiu also randomly found a place close to everyone and started looking for wild vegetables.
She carefully identified the edible wild vegetables and clumsily broke off their roots.
After she finished searching in this area, she moved to another area with abundant wild vegetables.
He Xianqiu lowered her head and broke the roots of wild vegetables one by one. Suddenly, there was a movement in the unknown weeds, and the loud movement caught her attention.
He Xianqiu didn't know what was inside. When she thought it might be a snake, she screamed in fear.
"Ah, there's something in the grass."
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