"Is this how you work? And you, Zhou Han, you've been racking up far too few work points lately."
Lately, no one's mind is on farm work, especially the group of educated youth who are hoping to get a job as textile factory workers. They are doing their jobs very perfunctorily.
We finally managed to get them to make up for their work points a while ago, but now they've gone back to how they were before. What kind of behavior is this, so lax and disorganized?
How many communes are there in this area, and how many educated youth are there? What makes them think they can pass the exam?
The brigade leader went to the commune yesterday and heard that they were only recruiting a dozen or so educated youth. The city doesn't have any regional restrictions; they said that educated youth from the whole city can take the exam.
To put it bluntly, that's how they all do farm work. The brigade leader would be more inclined to believe that an old sow can fly than to believe they can pass the exam.
He held the work points book, frowning as he flipped through it repeatedly. To be honest, he wished that everyone in the village could pass the exam, so that they could at least pay back the grain they owed. At their current rate, they might not even survive next year.
"Captain, we have done our best."
The educated youth also had their own unspeakable suffering. They used to take leave to go to the city's scrap yard to find books to read, but now they study in their dormitories whenever they have free time, so they naturally have no energy to do farm work in the fields.
The brigade leader refused to grant them leave, which made the educated youth resentful. Everyone hoped to change their fate, but the village not only did not support them, but also expected them to maintain the same level of labor intensity as before.
In addition, some villagers have recently been ostracizing the educated youth, feeling that these youths are highly educated and fearing they will take away their children's jobs.
Several educated youths had copied books and brought them to the fields, hoping to read a few pages during their spare time. When the villagers saw them, they all gave them a hard time.
Some made sarcastic remarks, while others simply called over the team leader and the scorekeeper, frankly saying they didn't want them to take the test.
The brigade leader saw that these educated youths didn't seem to care. He wouldn't stop them from taking the exam, but he couldn't let it affect their farm work. He looked at these educated youths and decided to pick one of them to set an example.
Unfortunately, Zhou Han caught his eye.
The brigade leader had always looked down on Bai Rongjun, the female educated youth, but he had a good impression of her boyfriend. Zhou Han worked full work points every day, was hardworking and never said a word of unnecessary words, and was simply not like a city person.
If he didn't already have a girlfriend, the brigade leader would have liked to introduce his own niece to him.
But Zhou Han has been acting strangely lately. He looks exhausted every day. He can't even guarantee his own full work points, let alone help his partner make up for lost work points.
The day before yesterday, he had only earned 7 work points, which made the brigade leader very angry. Those female educated youths could all earn 7 work points, so what had he, a grown man, done? Had he been stealing last night?
The captain was right. Zhou Han had been going out every night for the past few days. He's not made of iron, and he couldn't possibly keep up for such a long time.
However, recently those educated youths have also been listless. They all hide in their dormitories to stay up late reading books, and when they go to work, they are all listless. So he didn't stand out much among them.
"I'm sorry, Captain." Unlike the others, Zhou Han readily admitted his mistake.
He knew everyone had been reading lately, and the brigade leader probably assumed he was studying in the dormitory.
"..." The captain wanted to make an example of Zhou Han, but he didn't expect Zhou Han to admit his mistake so readily. He choked up and didn't know what to say.
"Don't think that admitting your mistakes is enough. Even if you have to stay up all night to study, you can't neglect the work in the fields."
However, considering your situation, the brigade will give you one month. During this month, each person only needs to earn 6 work points. At the end of the month, the men must have earned the full work points, and the women at least 8.
The captain left as soon as he finished speaking. He couldn't afford to offend all of them, even though he wasn't sure they would pass the exam.
The educated youth breathed a sigh of relief. Some of them had already earned four or five work points in the morning, and with plenty of time in the afternoon, they simply took out the books from their pockets and started reading.
"Everyone is studying so hard, I'm afraid I won't pass the exam." Bai Rongjun leaned closer to Zhou Han, looking worried. Her grades were only average when she was in school, and the other educated youths all saw becoming workers as a lifeline and studied desperately.
"If I don't pass the exam, I'll have to keep doing farm work." People in their fifties and sixties in the village are still earning work points, and Bai Rongjun is afraid that she will end up like them, with no end in sight for her entire life.
She was worrying about the future, but Zhou Han was absent-minded. He looked expressionlessly at the field not far away, where a group of people were gathered.
A villager who had taken leave just returned on a new bicycle. Everyone in the fields was very surprised when they saw it and rushed to his side.
"You've struck it rich, kid! Where did you buy that bicycle?"
"That must have cost a lot of money, right?"
There was a hint of envy in everyone's voices; there were only a few bicycles in the whole village, how come he managed to buy one?
Where did you get the ticket?
They're all from the same village. This kid not only made a fortune without telling everyone, but he even managed to get bicycle tickets. You know, no one in his family works, so where did he get the tickets?
"No tickets needed," the man said quietly to everyone.
Actually, everyone knows that there are people selling bicycles and bicycle tickets on the black market, so they weren't very surprised to hear him say that. They were just wondering where this kid made his money.
"What’s wrong with you?"
Bai Rongjun talked to herself for a long time, but Zhou Han did not respond. Looking over, she found him staring into the distance, seemingly lost in thought.
She felt a little uneasy. He had been acting strangely towards her lately, often spacing out and even stopping helping her earn work points.
She remembered the last time an older woman told her to be careful of Zhou Han, saying that he was going to meet someone at night. The older woman's implication was that Zhou Han was seeing someone else. She was very angry at the time and cursed back. Now she felt very uneasy.
If there weren't any clues, why would people say that?
Zhou Han seemed to snap out of his daze, "Believe in yourself, as long as you work hard, you will definitely pass the exam."
He looked at the bicycles being pushed by the villagers and felt a little worried. These bicycles were the ones that Leopard and his gang had gotten. If a lot of the same brand of bicycles appeared in the city in a short period of time, and they weren't from department stores, it would probably arouse suspicion very quickly.
He had been following them all this time, and he knew that dozens of cars had been sold. Leopard had an agreement with the buyers that they couldn't all be sold here, and that they should be transported to other cities.
How come even people from Yanghe Village could buy one if it were shipped to another place? That's too much of a coincidence.
He was so engrossed in his worries that he didn't notice Bai Rongjun, who had been completely stunned since he finished speaking; he hadn't been listening to her at all.
"What did you say?" The educated youths were all reading and didn't join in the fun. Lu Ronghui looked up and found Zhou Han looking over there with a solemn expression.
Liu Ruo was telling her about recent events at the educated youth settlement, mentioning that Zhou Han was going out at night for some unknown reason.
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