Tian Xinghua had also finished junior high but didn’t continue to high school because the financial burden was just too heavy.
Wu Guihua figured that the educated youths came from big cities and could share some of their knowledge and experiences with Xinghua. Girls, after all, needed insight—otherwise, they’d be easily deceived when they stepped outside.
But little did she know, while Wu Guihua was thinking positively, the intellectual youths that moved in were making her angry.
Wu Guihua vented, “Yang Hong is fine, she’s the team leader of the intellectual youths. But Bai Ling, I really can’t stand her.”
“In the morning, she doesn’t even fold her blanket, after eating, she just pushes the bowl away, and after working for a short while, she complains that she can’t handle it…”
“And that’s not all. A few days ago, do you know what she said to my daughter, Xinghua?”
Wu Guihua was really glad she kept a close watch, which helped her discover Bai Ling’s hypocrisy and selfishness early on.
“She told Xinghua that a girl can’t rely on herself, she still needs to find a good man.”
Wu Guihua was furious, “She’s from the big city, and she’s worse than me, a rural woman!”
Wu Guihua had always wanted her daughter to be independent, and while it was important to marry in the countryside, a girl should be capable of taking care of herself. It wasn’t about manipulating men but having the ability to live well.
She always used Wang Ying as an example when educating her daughter, but then a person like Bai Ling came along, with views completely opposite to hers, and even told her daughter such things!
“When I scolded her, she cried and even let Jiang Lei see her. Jiang Lei came to me and said a bunch of nonsense, telling me not to bully Bai Ling and that he’d be willing to switch places with her.”
Wu Guihua replied angrily, “I have a daughter at home, why would I let a male intellectual youth stay with us?!”
Wu Guihua added, “I can’t wait to have the intellectual youth center fixed and have all these intellectual youths sent back home.”
Wang Ying, who was grinding herbs with a small millstone nearby, smiled softly but didn’t say much.
Wu Guihua sighed, “Your mother-in-law is smart, she saw things clearly and left a room for the intellectual youths, moving out herself. This is great, out of sight, out of mind. By the way, how are the two intellectual youths assigned to your place?”
Wang Ying replied, “You mean Jiang Li and Zhang Ping? They’re fine.”
Zhang Ping came with money from the countryside, and Jiang Li is a well-behaved person. The two of them get along well. Although Zhang Ping is a little delicate, Jiang Li is accommodating.
“My mother-in-law visits them often, and they’re doing well.”
Xu Laotai’s house was an old one, built by her late husband. She was very particular about the house and often checked to make sure the young girls weren’t causing any trouble or damaging the furniture.
Wu Guihua thought about Bai Ling and felt frustrated, but when she thought about the other intellectual youths, she found a bit of gossip to entertain herself.
“Hey, did you hear? The accountant is thinking about giving Yu Pengcheng to his niece.”
Wang Ying didn’t know about this and stopped grinding the herbs. “What? Yu Pengcheng wants to stay in the countryside?”
The intellectual youths usually came with the intention of going back, especially the new ones. The disaster they encountered when they arrived made it even more unlikely that they’d want to stay.
Especially Yu Pengcheng, who wore a watch and came from a well-off family. It wasn’t impossible that, after a few years, he might even bring people back to the city. Even if not, he might not have to get married in the countryside and stay.
Wu Guihua, with a gossiping tone, said, “I don’t know what Yu Pengcheng is thinking, but he didn’t reject the idea. The accountant sees an opportunity, and for the past few days, he’s been trying to arrange for his niece to go to their house…”
“Then there’s that one, a new intellectual youth, who had a fight with an older intellectual youth. They were supposed to share a room, but the older one didn’t like washing his feet…”
“And that one, he went to the team leader to complain that someone falsely reported his food rations, asking to be switched to another person’s living arrangement…”
…
In the countryside, with no entertainment, people often talked about the intellectual youths’ matters repeatedly.
The gossip about the intellectual youths continued for almost half a month until the day Wang Ying started preparing for her exam.
That morning, Xu Shuang made breakfast for Wang Ying, tidied up the house, squeezed the toothpaste, and placed Wang Ying’s clothes on the bed.
Wang Ying woke up in a daze and wondered why Xu Shuang wasn’t going to work.
Xu Shuang replied, “Did you forget? You have an exam today.”
The barefoot doctor training had been delayed, and it was only yesterday that Dr. Wei informed Wang Ying that the assessment for her and the other three would start today.
Wang Ying checked her pocket watch and quickly got up. “It’s so late, why didn’t you wake me up!”
Xu Shuang said, “It’s not late. I’ll take you there later.”
Wang Ying asked, “What about breakfast at the restaurant?”
Xu Shuang replied, “I’ll just make some buns and dumplings and cook porridge. Xie Yuejin can handle it.”
Wang Ying quickly washed up, tied her hair, and started having breakfast.
The fried dough was wrapped with spicy tofu, and the fragrant, spicy taste was perfectly balanced with the soft dough. The stir-fried baby bok choy, cooked with a little pork fat, smelled great.
For a rare treat, she made porridge with only rice, and added red-skinned peanuts. There was also steamed egg custard, soft and tender, topped with some shrimp skin.
The breakfast was particularly satisfying.
Xu Shuang said, “I heard that the butcher has beef today. I’ll go buy some, and we can have it for lunch.”
Wang Ying was confident she would pass the exam, but Xu Shuang still considered it an important event and wanted to celebrate.
Wang Ying asked, “Beef? The butcher has beef?”
Xu Shuang replied, “A cow from the team died, and they agreed to take it to the butcher today.”
Wang Ying immediately understood. Only cows that died by accident would be sold, as it wasn’t common in daily life.
“Buy more.”
Wang Ying felt it was a rare opportunity to eat beef and wanted to have as much as possible.
Now that the weather had warmed up, there were more varieties of vegetables. The earliest tomatoes were ready to eat, and there were rows of peppers planted.
Boiled beef, tomato beef brisket, beef meatball soup…
Wang Ying couldn’t help but swallow, “I’m definitely going to pass!”
Xu Shuang took Wang Ying to the exam, and Wang Ying was still curious when she sat down.
Because today, there were five people taking the exam.
Zhao Di, whom Wang Ying hadn’t seen in a while, was sitting calmly in the room, holding the pencil end Wang Ying had given her.
Sun Ertao had a dark face. She wasn’t worried about Zhao Di doing better than her, but she just found it annoying.
A few days ago, Zhao Di had a bunch of issues and clearly didn’t respect the barefoot doctor role. Now she was back, wasn’t it just to make things difficult for Sun Ertao and get under her skin?
The other two girls in the room were also in a tense standoff. At this point, it was just a matter of who would be selected.
Wang Ying didn’t mind. She leisurely ate a small snack that Xu Shuang had prepared, a meat stick, and casually drank some water.
Dr. Wei entered and directly handed out several blank sheets of paper.
“We’ll start the exam now. I’ll tell you what to write.”
Dr. Wei first asked about the medications for various conditions, then asked about the properties of several medicines, and finally asked about some formula prescriptions. The last part was about emergency treatment methods.
After the written exam, there was also a practical test.
Dr. Wei led them to the clinic and found a few patients with minor skin injuries for them to treat.
They were all superficial wounds, and Wang Ying quickly finished her task. The others were a bit clumsy, but overall, they didn’t make any major mistakes. Only Zhao Di was a bit off. She hadn’t been there for so long and didn’t remember what had been taught, so her work was a bit sloppy.
Dr. Wei had already made up his mind and brought the group back to the main room.
Not long after, another doctor came in to announce the results: Wang Ying and Sun Ertao were selected as barefoot doctors, and the others were not chosen.
Wang Ying had expected this and just smiled.
Sun Ertao, however, was overwhelmed with joy, not knowing how to express her happiness.
The other two girls, who had competed until the end, weren’t selected either. Now, they didn’t care about the rivalry. They rushed up to the doctors, crying and asking questions.
They had delayed so long and hardly managed any household chores, and this was the result?
They couldn’t accept it!
Wang Ying and Sun Ertao happily left. Zhao Di curled her lip but didn’t go up to ask for an explanation. After all, she hadn’t shown up for a while, so she couldn’t really complain.
She casually turned around and left earlier than Wang Ying and Sun Ertao.
Sun Ertao gave Wang Ying a knowing look. “Look at her!”
Wang Ying replied, “She probably knows she didn’t pass.”
It was obvious she wasn’t really paying attention.
Sun Ertao said, “Of course. She’s married to someone in the town now.”
Wang Ying asked, “So soon? How long has it been?”
Sun Ertao made a complicated face and replied, “Her situation is a bit complicated…”
Sun Ertao shared what she knew about Zhao Di’s situation. To put it simply, Zhao Di’s partner had been a widower with a child. However, she didn’t know whether it was good or bad luck—this man had gotten caught up in a treasure hunting case from a while ago and had been sentenced to several years in prison.
Sun Ertao continued, “We all thought it was going to fall apart, but who knew Zhao Di was ruthless? She went to visit him, saying she still wanted to marry him and would take care of his child after marriage.”
Wang Ying was surprised, “But he couldn’t have agreed, right? He’s in prison, and now she’s taking care of his property and his kid? Isn’t he afraid he’ll lose everything?”
Sun Ertao said, “Who knows what Zhao Di said, but somehow, she convinced him. Now, Zhao Di is married to him, living with the man’s son, without any job or income, and not earning work points. I don’t know what she’s after.”
Wang Ying was amazed. If it weren’t for Zhao Di’s normal appearance, she would suspect that Zhao Di, like Wang Lingling, was a reborn person.
Sun Ertao shrugged, “Forget her. I passed! I’m going to go home and tell my mom the good news!”
Sun Ertao and Wang Ying had become closer, and Sun Ertao asked, “If I’m unsure about something in the future, can I come to you for advice?”
Wang Ying replied, “Of course.”
After all, they lived close to each other.
When Wang Ying returned home, Xu Shuang had already bought the beef—a big, blood-red chunk of it.
Wang Ying, excited, said, “Let’s make some tomato beef brisket, then some braised beef, and also stew potatoes with beef for a potato beef rice bowl!”
Nothing is more satisfying than eating, eating, and eating!
While Wang Ying was enjoying herself, Wang Lingling was in a dilemma.
The more she thought about it after returning, the more she felt something was wrong. She felt that her family wasn’t normal, so she asked around and found out that it was Wang Ying who had saved Qian Juhua and found her a job.
Cheng Shufen was also taken care of by Wang Ying, which was why she was doing well.
So Wang Lingling had a guess in her mind.
If she could be reborn, could Wang Ying also be reborn?
Wang Lingling felt uneasy and didn’t even want to go back to the Seventh Brigade.
Every time she saw Wang Ying’s face, her heart raced.
Wang Lingling thought, no matter whether Wang Ying was reborn or not, she was already married to Zhao Jun, and everything was settled.
As long as she kept her distance, wouldn’t life go on as usual?
The urgent matter was to find someone to hoard grain.
Wang Lingling knew full well that she didn’t have enough capital, so she had to find someone to partner with.
The Zhao family wouldn’t do, and her own family had scattered.
Her only choice was Wang Pingping.
