Liu Guofeng thought secretly that after eating such precious meat buns, he would have to take better care of the girl in the future and not let her get bullied.
After eating her buns, he told her about the situation in the village. After a while, Liu Guofeng finished telling her the general situation of the village.
Su Ruoli then realized that the uncle in front of her was actually the team leader. "Uncle Captain, how do the educated youth in the village live? Can they live alone?"
"Why call me Captain Uncle? My name is Liu Guofeng, so you can just call me Uncle Guofeng! Little girl, do you want to live by yourself?"
"My name is Su Ruoli. Guofeng said I should be called Ruoli. I think it's more convenient to live alone." She has her own space. Living alone doesn't require her to be on guard all the time, and it's also convenient to prepare her own meals.
"You can live alone if you want, but there aren't that many rooms at the educated youth camp. You can live with villagers or build your own house."
Su Ruoli thought for a moment and said, "Uncle Guofeng, is there any vacant room in the village? I would like to rent a room, but building a house is too slow."
After much thought, Liu Guofeng found that there was only an empty yard near the cowshed, which was a large house made of blue bricks and tiles. However, the old landlord used to live there. Later, the old landlord was overthrown and no one was left in his family, so the house became empty.
I don’t know if the little girl minds, so forget it, I’ll just tell her first and see if she wants it.
"Yes, there is one, but it's near the cowshed. The houses are all in good condition. We can live there once we clean them up. But there are only three rooms in that yard. Aren't you afraid of living there alone? And it's near the foot of the mountain."
"Uncle Guofeng, can you tell me more about the yard? If it's suitable, I'll rent it."
“The house is well-maintained and I haven’t lived in it much yet. It’s just that it won’t be occupied for a long time, so it might be troublesome to clean up.
"But the yard has everything. The kitchen, woodshed, and toilet are all separate, and there is a piece of land at the back for growing vegetables. The most important thing is that there is a well in the yard." The educated youth who came before didn't want any of the houses because they were too close to the cowshed.
"Wow, that's great. Uncle Guofeng, I've rented it. I'll give you the rent now, but we have to make it clear that once I rent it, it's mine. During my stay, you can't force any more educated youth to come to my place."
"Okay, I guess they won't go. How about fifteen dollars a year for rent?"
Su Ruoli thought about it. It was July 1973, and there were still more than four years before the college entrance examination. One year was fifteen, and four years would make sixty.
He immediately counted out sixty yuan from his bag and handed it to Liu Guofeng, "Uncle Guofeng, I'll rent it for four years first. If I haven't returned to the city at the end of the term, I can renew the lease, okay?"
"Okay, I'll give you the money when we get back to the village. I'll write you a receipt then." The more Liu Guofeng looked at Su Ruoli, the more he liked her. This child is polite and sensible.
He finally rented out the house and generated income for the village. Otherwise, Liu Guofeng would have felt sad just watching the house fall into disrepair day by day.
After waiting for a long time, Liu Guofeng still hadn't seen any other educated youth, and he was getting impatient. Several oxcarts had already waited until the people left.
Liu Guofeng took out the list and saw that there were only five people left. Didn't they all come together? Why didn't anyone show up? He planned to wait another ten minutes. If they didn't show up, he would go back.
"Ruoli, did you see other educated youth on the train? Aren't there seven of you? Why are there only two of you here?" Liu Guofeng asked.
"Uncle Guofeng, don't you have a list? Show me who else is on it. We all introduced ourselves on the train, so I think I still have some impression of it."
Liu Guofeng handed the list to Su Ruoli, and sure enough, she saw the names of Wang Yanfen, Huang Deren, Wang Yuze, Zhu Ping, and Li Xiaoning.
Zhang Sitong also glanced at the list and said, "Ruoli, you think nothing will happen to them? They got off the bus earlier than us, so why haven't they arrived yet? Didn't they see it when they got off the bus? It's impossible, with such a big banner."
"I don't know either. Let's wait and see. But with the five of them, nothing should happen to them. Maybe some of them know the way and have already left."
After waiting for a while, Liu Guofeng still didn't see anyone, so he decided not to wait any longer. If he still didn't see anyone in the village, he would report to the Youth League Office that he had not received those people.
Just as Liu Guofeng was about to start the tractor, Wang Yanfen and others arrived carrying large and small bags.
Su Ruoli didn't say anything when she saw the few people appear, but Zhang Sitong was quick to speak, "Captain, it's them."
Liu Guofeng sat in the driver's seat of the tractor with a gloomy face. There was a tractor driver in the team, but he happened to have diarrhea today. There was no other way, so he, a half-baked driver, had to take over.
He'd made him wait for so long, and when he got back, he had to make that guy compensate him. He wouldn't be able to calm down after all. Humph!
But Liu Guofeng still asked symbolically: "Are you the educated youth who went to the Liujiatun Brigade to work in the countryside?"
Several people responded, "Yes, shall we go now?"
Liu Guofeng was still quite scary when he had a dark face. "Didn't you see we are here? You haven't come for so long."
Li Xiaoning replied: "Yes, I saw it. How could I not see it with such a long banner?"
Liu Guofeng became even angrier. "I saw you guys didn't come. What's the matter? Don't you want to go to our brigade? If you don't want to go, I can help you put a hand on the educated youth office."
Wang Yanfen rolled her eyes and continued, "We were starving after such a long car ride. Anyway, we found you guys, so we went to eat. You didn't say you didn't want to go to the countryside."
"That's right, why are you so angry? We're here now."
Liu Guofeng was so angry that he didn't want to say anything.
Su Ruoli looked at the few people. She had never seen such idiots. They had just arrived at someone else's territory and were still refusing to obey.
She originally thought that Li Xiaoning was a smart person. He seemed to have good organizational skills on the train, but she didn't expect that he was also confused. When he saw her, he should at least say hello before going to eat. It's a bit rude to make him wait for you for so long.
He offended the captain as soon as he arrived. Isn’t he afraid that others will make things difficult for him in the future?
Liu Guofeng was furious at the sight of the men standing there. He said in a very aggressive tone, "What are you still doing standing there? Are you waiting for me to carry you up?"
Several people hurriedly climbed into the car in a hurry. Su Ruoli had already taken advantage of the luggage to take out two headscarves from the space, handed one to Zhang Sitong, and quickly covered herself with the other.
Zhang Sitong looked at the headscarf, "Ruoli, what do you want this for?"
"Come around, you'll thank me later."
"Okay!" Zhang Sitong followed Su Ruoli's example and covered herself as well.
Wang Yanfen's distinctive clip-clip sound rang out, "Tsk, it's like everyone wants to see you, yet you're still covering yourself up so tightly. What are you pretending for?"
Su Ruoli looked at Wang Yanfen as if she was a fool.
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