After harvesting the wheat, it was time to plant corn. The Seventh Production Brigade quickly became busy again, barely taking a break.
Since the wheat was harvested late this year, the time window for planting corn was tight. Every household was scrambling to get started.
However, this was also the hottest time of the year. After treating three heatstroke cases in one day, Wang Ying simply began selling medicine. She gathered a few herbs from her own medicinal field and picked honeysuckle from the mountain, then boiled a big pot of it. She bottled a little for each day to prevent heatstroke and disease.
Everyone who tried it had nothing but praise.
She charged twenty cents per dose. The herbs could be reboiled many times, enough to get through the hottest days. Soon, every household was buying her herbal remedy.
Wang Ying didn’t think selling it for twenty cents was too low—after all, the ingredients were cheap and from the mountain, and it didn’t take much effort.
Especially the honeysuckle—there were vast patches of it on the mountain, growing wild and thriving.
Cheng Yu was still surprised that this common plant was actually a medicinal herb. She said eagerly, “Sister Ying, why don’t we grow this specifically? It seems really easy to care for.”
Wang Ying nodded. “It is easy to grow. Mark down the locations of the nearby honeysuckle. In a while, we’ll try transplanting them into a concentrated area.”
Wang Ying hadn’t forgotten her earlier idea. The Shengli Commune was too poor. Despite having great mountains and rivers, it was still impoverished. One reason was poor transportation, and another was the lack of a clear development focus.
The mountainous terrain wasn’t suited for grain production. Compared to provinces specialized in food crops, their landscape was inherently a disadvantage. Take the Seventh Brigade for example: they had only a few areas suited for grain farming. It took lots of time and labor, irrigation was difficult, and every year they had disputes with other brigades over water. It was only because of this year’s poor harvest that there hadn’t been any water conflicts.
But the mountains were full of treasures—they could grow herbs and fruit trees. Places by the river could be used for aquaculture.
Take honeysuckle—it was easy to cultivate and didn’t require much maintenance. It was widely distributed, could be grown from seeds or cuttings, and would yield harvests by the second year. It could be picked in both spring and summer.
Moreover, honeysuckle wasn’t just for clearing heat and dispelling evil; it also had antibacterial and anti-inflammatory effects. In folk remedies, people often drank honeysuckle water to kill germs and stop diarrhea.
Wang Ying said, “If we manage to grow it well this year, I’ll bring it up with the brigade leader before winter. Then we can try planting it officially next year.”
Wang Ying’s medicinal field didn’t just have one type of herb. After experimenting, she selected several that were best suited for local cultivation—honeysuckle was one of the top choices.
Cheng Yu understood what Wang Ying meant and quickly nodded, patting her chest to promise that she would take good care of the medicinal field.
After the harvest rush, Cheng Shufen didn’t join the others for fieldwork but went back to collecting manure. Cheng Yu, as always, took the goats up the mountain each day.
It had been nearly six months since they started raising the three goats. Since Cheng Yu brought them to graze on the mountain every day, they grew fast.
Wang Ying was mentally calculating when the goats would be ready to eat. Meat was incredibly scarce—there were only a few limited meat coupons. And in the dead of winter, nothing was better than a bowl of lamb soup.
Lamb hotpot, lamb noodle stew, lamb dumplings…
She had been craving lamb for days. Seeing this, Xu Shuang made her a bowl of knife-cut noodles.
Wang Ying muttered, “How is this the same…”
She’d been craving noodle stew, not knife-cut noodles—they were completely different. But they were still delicious, she admitted.
The kneaded dough was sliced with a special knife—knife never leaving the dough, dough never leaving the knife—each slice about six inches long. The thin-edged, thick-centered noodle pieces fell into the pot like little fish.
The cooked knife-cut noodles were topped with chili flakes and hot oil, then mixed with seasoning. The red, fragrant bowl smelled heavenly.
Since the household’s pork was gone and Xu Shuang hadn’t gone into town recently, she hadn’t been able to get meat coupons from her master. So she reluctantly made a topping with diced rabbit meat. Wang Ying first had a bowl of chili oil knife-cut noodles, then couldn’t resist getting another with rabbit meat topping.
The noodles were chewy and the more she ate, the better they tasted. Wang Ying then requested stir-fried knife-cut noodles for dinner.
Xu Shuang had never made stir-fried knife-cut noodles before, but under Wang Ying’s guidance, she stir-fried a pan with tomatoes, eggs, onions, and bean sprouts.
The stir-fried noodles brought back strong memories for Wang Ying. Back in her past life when she was studying medicine, there was a shop by her university’s east gate that sold only stir-fried knife-cut noodles. They used lamb to flavor the wok, added various ingredients, and served huge bowls—for only eight yuan.
Her longest record was eating it for half a month straight. In the end, she got sick of it and never went back.
When she returned during graduation year, the owner actually remembered her and made her a bowl of stir-fried knife-cut noodles with extra meat…
As Wang Ying ate, her mind began to wander.
Xu Shuang asked, “Not good?”
He took a bite himself and found it pretty decent. While it wasn’t his usual cooking style, the flavor was savory with a hint of sourness. The noodles were first boiled, then stir-fried, and the texture held up well. Hmm… maybe he could consider adding this dish to the restaurant’s menu.
Fortunately, Wang Ying only got a little emo for a moment, then returned to eating and drinking as usual.
After dinner, Xu Shuang and Wang Ying packed up their things and went to sleep at the edge of the fields.
Yes, sleep at the field’s edge.
Why sleep there when the grain was already harvested?
Because other brigades had run into a food crisis.
The two brigades closest to the Seventh Brigade were in rough shape. That wasn’t too surprising—they were mountain-adjacent too, and it was the peak of summer. These two months would be tight, but as long as they foraged in the mountains for edible plants and planted an extra round of vegetables, they could get by. Once that period passed, news from above would likely come down.
But other brigades weren’t so lucky.
In previous years, autumn grain was handed over first and then distributed. But this year, a problem emerged.
There wasn’t enough grain. Should they hand it over first or distribute it to the people?
At this point, Tian Youfu was very glad that he had already handed over the grain and distributed the rest. Everything was sorted out, and he didn’t have to worry or get hassled by other brigades or the commune.
Heh. While the commune’s stance was still vague, some brigades couldn’t wait. Some had handed everything over; some had distributed everything.
Those who had distributed it were as slippery as eels—from the brigade leaders down. Their attitude was: “It’s already divided, and you can’t take it back.” Though each household might not have received as much as in past years, at least no one would starve. And as for punishment? How would you punish? The grain was already handed out. It wasn’t just one leader who did it—what, were they going to arrest everyone? Obviously not possible.
As for the brigades that handed everything over—well, that’s where things got bad.
Some households were already living hand-to-mouth before the harvest, surviving on wild greens and barely getting by. They had been waiting for the grain division to make it through the coming months. Now that wasn’t happening.
This month and the next, they might survive on foraged greens. But what then?
In just two months, they’d need to start preparing for winter. No money and no food—how would they make it through?
Wang Ying heard from others in the brigade that things were already starting to fall apart in some places. No one had died—yet. But people were anxiously guarding their grain. Poorer households, unable to bear the hardship, were starting to act out. There were constant disputes between relatives, family feuds, and quarrels.
The struggling sought help from more fortunate relatives; daughters married off came back to their parents for aid; families that had split still leaned on each other. For a time, during what should have been a joyful harvest season, the surrounding communes were abuzz with tension.
Wu Guihua was even busier now. In the midst of everything, she had her daughter Xinghua—who had just returned from training and passed the midwife exam—go to Wang Ying to ask for luohan fruit.
Xinghua gestured, “My mom’s throat is hoarse, and she’s got a huge sore on her lip.”
Borrowing grain wasn’t easy. Especially in times like these. Even the Seventh Brigade, which wasn’t starving, only had just enough. There weren’t many households that could afford to lend grain.
So, disputes were inevitable. Some even knelt at the doorsteps of relatives and refused to leave unless they were given grain.
Wu Guihua was so busy running around she hadn’t even had time to organize the kids to put on plays lately.
If disputes over borrowing grain were just internal family matters, then grain theft was something that affected the whole brigade.
The Seventh Brigade had hurried to sow corn, hoping for one last harvest before winter—just like every other year. But this year’s timing was tight, so the yield likely wouldn’t match previous years.
Still, planting something was better than nothing. They couldn’t survive on just the distributed grain until next year.
Looking across the nearby communes, those who managed as smoothly as the Seventh Brigade—harvesting and replanting without delay—were less than one-fifth.
Once the corn was sown, people in the brigade felt relieved.
Though this year had been harder and more exhausting than any before, they hadn’t missed the wheat harvest or the corn sowing.
But just a few days after sowing, something felt off.
Someone had come in the night and dug up the seeds!
And not just a small patch—over half an acre near the brigade’s border was affected.
Everyone was furious.
“It must be the Fifth Brigade! They’re the closest to us—definitely them digging up our seeds at night!”
“So shameless! Just can’t stand that we’re doing better than them.”
“I heard someone’s vegetable patch got raided too! Quite a bit!”
“I planted peanuts in my own garden and someone dug them up too. I don’t think it was any kids from our brigade.”
“We don’t have anyone like that. But hey, why are you planting peanuts now? Isn’t it peanut harvesting time?”
“I ran out of oil! What else could I do? I cleared a small patch in my garden to grow peanuts.”
“Why would they steal our seeds, though?”
“Who knows? Those corn seeds were treated with pesticide—can’t even eat them.”
…
Tian Youfu was already completely exhausted. When he heard about the seed theft, he didn’t even bother trying to find out who did it.
Instead, he simply ordered people to sleep at the edge of the fields.
There were too many disaster-stricken areas, and every brigade had its own issues. You couldn’t track down who stole the seeds anyway.
