Xu Ming didn’t get angry. He smiled and stuffed the eggs into his pocket. A youth next to him rolled his eyes.
“So what if he’s a college student? We’re all here to help build the border. Having education doesn’t matter here. Besides, does studying a lot really make you better? Not necessarily.”
This comment was full of sourness and jealousy.
Xu Ming wasn’t bothered by it and remained serious.
The person who spoke grew angrier. “Being good-looking doesn’t help you eat, who wants to follow him and suffer?”
This remark was almost directed at Xu Ming himself, but no one supported him. Everyone spoke up for Xu Ming.
“Xiao Zhuang, what are you talking about? Xu Ming is better than you. He can fix machines and read foreign languages. Can you do that?”
“Exactly! Xu Ming is good at everything. Whoever follows him won’t suffer.”
“You’re just jealous because Xu Ming is popular with the young girls.”
…
Xu Ming remained silent, but the people around him made Xiao Zhuang so mad that he was nearly about to explode.
“What did I say wrong? Isn’t he just here because he made a mistake?”
Xu Ming’s background wasn’t a secret at the farm. Everyone knew that he had been sent here due to a mistake.
Xu Ming wasn’t happy hearing Xiao Zhuang go on and on, so he spoke up.
“You don’t need to worry about where I came from or how I got here. Since we’re all here to build the border, if you have a problem with me, go talk to the team leader and see if I should be here. Worst case, just send me back.”
Xu Ming was quick-witted and immediately silenced Xiao Zhuang with his words.
The group continued working outside for a while and then returned to their dorms in a line.
Just as they arrived, the messenger carrying a large package appeared.
Someone with sharp eyes spotted it. “Xiao Zhuang, your family sent you something again!”
They said with envy, “Your parents are so good to you. You’ve been here for almost three months, and they’ve sent you something every time. And this time, it’s such a big package.”
Xiao Zhuang, who had just been scolded by Xu Ming and others, was in a bad mood. But when he saw the package, he couldn’t help but feel a bit smug.
Among all the educated youths who came to the border, his parents were the most concerned about him. They were the ones who sent him the most things every year.
“It’s so annoying. They sent such a big package. Probably more grain again. I’ve said before that there are places here where you can exchange for grain. There was no need to send all this…” Xiao Zhuang muttered loudly, clearly trying to one-up Xu Ming.
This was the only area where he felt he could beat Xu Ming.
Xu Ming had everything going well, except for the fact that his family didn’t contact him. He was among the educated youths with no family backing.
Xiao Zhuang, on the other hand, was different. His family was always in touch with him and had promised to bring him back soon.
As the postman got closer, Xiao Zhuang immediately smiled and greeted, “Old Tang, you’re here so early today…”
But Old Tang didn’t hand him the package. Instead, he gave him a strange look and shouted toward the dorm, “Xu Ming, your package.”
Xu Ming stopped sewing and replied, “Mine?”
Old Tang said, “Who else could it be? Hurry up and come get it. It’s so heavy. If it weren’t for the fact that there’s so much stuff inside, I’d be the first one to get it to you guys.”
Even without looking, Xu Ming could guess that Xiao Zhuang’s face must be extremely unpleasant right now.
Xu Ming took the package—so heavy it nearly pulled him down on the spot. The people nearby were startled and quickly came over to help.
When Xu Ming looked up again, he saw that Xiao Zhuang had already disappeared from the doorway.
Xu Ming opened the parcel. Inside was a large, fragrant bag of roasted flour, along with some dried goods and rabbit meat. Just looking at it made Xu Ming feel deeply moved.
Everyone around him came over to see.
“Wow, looks like Xu boy’s family isn’t doing too bad! Look at this fine grain—they sent a whole big bag!”
Xu Ming scooped out a bit of the roasted flour.
“Then let’s all have a taste, shall we?”
He put a spoonful into an enamel bowl, added hot water, and the result was both fragrant and filling.
After eating and drinking his fill, Xu Ming picked up his pen to write a letter back to his younger brother.
Though he hadn’t expected his brother to send anything this early, at least now they were back in contact. Xu Ming selectively wrote about his situation.
As it turned out, being sent here had actually been arranged with the help of his professor. The professor had pulled a lot of strings to ensure Xu Ming’s political “background” wouldn’t appear in any official documents, and had advised him to apply for a position supporting frontier development. Life wasn’t easy here, but it was manageable.
Most importantly, Xu Ming’s official status here was “educated youth”—a very safe designation.
Xu Ming relayed all of this to Xu Shuang in the letter and asked him to reassure Grandma Xu not to worry.
As the days warmed up, the family dining table finally became more abundant.
With vegetables being harvested from their private plot, Xu Shuang immediately began drying and pickling: dried veggies, sour pickles, salted goods.
First came the dried vegetables. After harvesting the string beans, they were cooked and sun-dried, then packed into large woven plastic bags and stored somewhere dry. Eggplants were sliced lengthwise and sun-dried into strips. Sesame leaves were dried to add to noodles in the winter to boost veggie intake. There were also daylilies and dried radish…
Xu Shuang didn’t make too much sauerkraut yet—it was still too early in the year for that major task—but he did pickle a few jars of sour cucumbers and cabbage.
The house quickly filled with stored food. Indoors and outdoors were lined with all kinds of dried vegetables.
Wang Ying stared in disbelief. “There’s only the three of us for the winter—do we really need this much?”
There were nearly three full woven bags of dried veggies. Would they even be able to eat it all?
Xu Shuang replied, “It’s not just for us. I’m preparing some for my master too.”
Wang Ying immediately understood—some of it was for delivery to the county. No wonder Xu Shuang had not only used the veggies from their own garden, but had also arranged to swap produce with her cousins on her aunt’s side.
Xu Shuang wiped his face. “What should we eat for lunch?”
Wang Ying’s nose was filled with the aroma of dried vegetables. “Let’s go with eggplant.”
Lard went into the wok, and eggplant was stir-fried until fragrant. Add salt, sugar, soy sauce, and a bit of homemade soybean paste. The result was a richly colored eggplant stew.
That stew went on top of piping hot noodles—eggplant noodle stew.
Just as Wang Ying was about to call Grandma Xu from next door, she saw her coming in with a sour expression.
Wang Ying asked, “Mom, what’s wrong?”
Grandma Xu snapped, “It’s those educated youth again!”
Ever since Bai Ling came looking for Wang Ying, trying to guilt her into letting all the educated youth live in their house—only to be firmly shut down—Wang Ying had reported the whole incident to Grandma Xu.
After all, Grandma Xu was the head of the household, and Wang Ying was worried Bai Ling would try to go around her.
Bai Ling didn’t directly confront Grandma Xu, but instead started working on the other educated youths.
After Grandma Xu gave Wang Lingling a good spanking, her name got around the village. Bai Ling seemed to have been scared off and behaved herself for a while.
But recently, the issue resurfaced.
Grandma Xu was fuming. “I mean, how can these young people be so self-righteous? This is my house—the brigade never confiscated it. Why on earth should I be forced to give it up so they can all move in?”
What really got her was that it was Jiang Lei and another male educated youth who had come to talk to her—two grown men, completely shameless.
They even acted like it was perfectly reasonable.
Grandma Xu wasn’t having any of it. She gave each of them a cold glare and walked away.
She cursed, “It must be Bai Ling stirring things up! That Jiang Lei and that other boy have been getting close to her lately. That girl is so manipulative! It’s not enough she wants to move in herself—she wants to drag all the others in too!”
Wang Ying frowned. “I heard from Auntie Guihua that since Bai Ling moved into her place, she’s been complaining nonstop. Says the bed isn’t comfortable, the room’s too small—clearly she wants her own bed.”
Grandma Xu was incredulous. “Even if she did move in here, I’m not going to prepare a bed just for her! Zhang Ping and Jiang Li have their own beds because there happened to be a spare couch. If she moves in, why on earth should I buy another one?”
Wang Ying replied, “We don’t need to worry about her. If she can’t move in, I’ll go talk to the brigade leader. We already agreed each household takes in a few educated youths. The arrangements are set. Now they want to stuff all of them into one house? That’s ridiculous.”
Hearing her daughter-in-law say that, Grandma Xu felt reassured. But she still couldn’t swallow the anger.
“Jiang Lei is such a fool. That Bai Ling is clearly stringing him along while cozying up to someone else, and he’s still buying her things every day.”
When someone is stupid enough, even people who don’t care about them start to find them unbearable.
That’s exactly how Grandma Xu felt about Jiang Lei now—completely unimpressed.
Ever since Bai Ling moved into Wu Guihua’s home, she had been getting close to another male educated youth. Grandma Xu had seen her more than once always sticking close to Yu Pengcheng.
“She never even saw Jiang Lei as anything. Yet he acts like he’s her boyfriend.”
To some extent, Wang Ying could understand Bai Ling. That woman wasn’t in it to find a partner—what she really wanted were tangible benefits.
Bai Ling had probably already squeezed all she could out of Jiang Lei, so naturally, she wasn’t going to stay hung up on him.
Just talking about Bai Ling irritated Grandma Xu, but it also made her feel relieved that she hadn’t let Bai Ling move into their house. Someone with so many schemes was bound to stir up trouble if they lived together.
The three of them were happily eating their eggplant noodles when someone suddenly started pounding on the door.
Xu Shuang went to open it, and saw two people being carried in. Helping hold the stretcher was none other than Yang Hong.
Yang Hong said, “Doctor Wang Ying, can you take a look? These two got into a fight, and one of them fainted.”
Wang Ying took one look—and sure enough, one of them was Jiang Lei.
If it weren’t such a serious moment, she would have had to ask, “How old are you?”
How is it you again?
