"That's right. Being able to live separately is already the best treatment the production brigade has given us educated youth. We can't be ungrateful."
"Jiezi, let's go back. It looks like we can't go in to gather firewood this afternoon. I think I just heard Li Zhiqing chopping firewood at home. Let's go back and chop firewood too, otherwise it'll be too cold to do it in the yard in winter."
You mean it?
Then the group of educated youth just watched as the two of them went into their own courtyards, without offering to help them with their luggage or anything.
At this point, everyone stopped looking at each other and rushed to check out every single room, hoping to find one as soon as possible. But after they finished looking, they realized that they were all the same and there was nothing to choose from, so they just picked one at random.
After moving all the luggage into the house, I almost collapsed when I saw that the outer room was a clay stove and the inner room was just a clay kang (heated brick bed). How could anyone live in this place?
Not long after, while I was chopping wood in the yard, I heard someone say, "I want to go home, I want to go home, I don't want to wait here."
Immediately afterwards, they heard knocking on the door of the neighboring courtyard, and then heard Chen Enpeng say, "Who is it? Is it again?"
"Hello, I'm Bai Jiaming, a new educated youth. I wanted to ask if it's possible for a few of us to share a room since our room is uninhabitable."
After hearing his words in the courtyard, Chen Enpeng opened the gate with a livid face and said:
"Comrade Bai, do we know each other? We're even sharing a room. Are you blind?"
Every room is the same size. How can we share a room? And why can't anyone live in a room anymore? When the team leader receives new educated youth coming to the village, he has already had the villagers clean every room and inspect the houses for you, just in case the heavy snow in winter collapses the houses.
"You're saying it's uninhabitable now? Weren't you oblivious when you first came to the brigade? Every household here lives in houses like this. There aren't any big brick and tile houses like in the city. If you wanted to live in a big brick and tile house, why did you go to the countryside as an educated youth?"
Without waiting for a reply, he closed the door.
Standing outside the courtyard, Bai Jiaming never expected the other party to speak to him like that. What kind of attitude was that? But he didn't dare to fight with the other party, so he could only slink away.
Peeking through the crack in the door, the female educated youth who had been keeping Ruan Yuanyuan company said after a short while:
"Let's go to the brigade leader's house and ask if anyone in the village has extra kang mats and cabinets. Otherwise, we won't have anywhere to put our luggage. We can't just lie on the kang like this to sleep!"
"And another thing, I just saw that there wasn't even a pot in the kitchen, let alone any food. How are we going to eat?"
"Liu Wenwen is right. Also, the brigade leader just said that we need to go to the brigade headquarters to collect this month's rations."
So her name is Liu Wenwen! She does look quite quiet, but she sometimes speaks in a roundabout way. You can tell from what she said to Ruan Yuanyuan just now that she is a very deep person. She always lets Ruan Yuanyuan take the lead in everything. We need to observe this person closely.
After they left, he quickly shouted at the top of his lungs, "They're all gone! Hurry up and start a fire to cook! Otherwise, we might have nothing to eat or they might not know how to cook and we'll have to wait on them."
"Okay, Mianmian."
"knew"
While they were away, the three of them quickly cooked a meal. Just as they finished, they heard voices outside: "These country bumpkins are so ignorant. They can buy so much stuff for a dollar."
Hearing this, I thought to myself, "They're probably the ones who're clueless! Who knows who's outsmarting whom!"
When the people in the two neighboring courtyards heard that they had returned, their first thought was to eat quickly, lock the door after eating, and go out, returning after dark.
Not long after, Chen Junjie's voice was heard: "Chen Enpeng, Li Zhiqing, it's not dark yet. Hurry up and take your baskets to the foot of the mountain to gather firewood, otherwise how will you get through the winter?"
"They're here."
"They're here."
Thinking that this was a good excuse, I didn't care whether they could cook or not. I wasn't home, so they could do whatever they wanted. With that, I picked up the basket that was placed at the door of the woodshed, locked the door, and went out.
When the newly arrived educated youth saw the three of them going out at this hour, they all thought they were fools. But when they went into the kitchen and saw the pots and pans, they were dumbfounded. They didn't know how to use the stove, let alone how to cook. What to do? In the end, they had no choice but to go back to their room without eating, and could only eat the snacks they had brought.
When the three of us each carried a bundle of firewood back, we saw that the neighboring educated youth's courtyard was deserted, clearly indicating that they hadn't done their job. What did it matter to the three of us? We looked at each other, said nothing, and went home separately.
As we were gathering firewood, we mentioned that the autumn harvest is just around the corner. Since those few people are going to town tomorrow, we should quickly make some steamed buns and cornbread, and put them in the sun to dry. Once dried, they can be stored for a long time, so when the autumn harvest comes, we can just heat them up in a pot and eat them.
You can also dry more noodles, whether they are made from white flour or a mixture of two or three types of flour, try to make as many as possible.
That way, I won't have to worry about cooking during the busy farming season. What I fear most is that they will have to cook for me, and I won't know if they know how. I don't want to be exhausted every day and then have to come back and serve a few ancestors.
So the three of them went home, put down the firewood, and didn't rush to do anything else!
Instead, I wash my hands, start kneading and rolling the dough, then roll out the noodles and put them in a winnowing basket. That way, I can take them out to dry in the sun the next day, and they'll be ready in two or three days. Then I ferment a few more bowls of dough, and after I get home from work the next day, I steam some cornbread.
Sure enough, early the next morning, Chen Junjie heard several people from the neighboring educated youth compound heading to the county town together. He quickly shouted, "They're gone! Let's get to work!"
"OK"
"There's still about an hour before we start work, so we can at least steam a pot of buns. We can cook the rice first, and then steam the buns. That way, the buns won't be cooked yet, and the rice will be finished. We can add some firewood to the stove and then take the noodles we prepared last night out to dry in the yard."
Once the steamed buns are cooked, take them out of the pot and put them outside.
In the afternoon, after Chen Enpeng and the others finished work, they saw that the gate of the educated youth compound next door was locked, so they said to Chen Junjie:
"Go back and quickly steam some buns or cornbread. I estimate they won't be back until after six o'clock, so I need to hurry while they're at it."
Okay, I understand.
Chen Junjie had just taken the last batch of cornbread out of the pot when he heard several educated youths from next door return, and he heard:
"This Fusong County is so poor, there's nothing there, you can see the whole thing from one end to the other, it's really boring."
"Who can argue with that?"
"By the way, we start work tomorrow. What kind of work do you think the team leader will assign us?"
I don't know.
"If you ask me, just follow those three."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com