Wang Ying, who was also watching the little drama from a distance, sighed and thought to herself that if she hadn’t known for sure that Bai Ling was a reborn person, seeing this scene would have made her wonder if she had somehow ended up in a Qiong Yao drama centered around these three people.
It was a textbook drama plot.
And Jiang Lei… His actions just now? Tsk tsk, it seemed like he’d completely lost his chances at courting during his time down in the countryside.
A brand-new brain, sure to fetch a good price.
Jiang Lei, heartbroken, dropped his sickle and left.
He was heartbroken.
Bai Ling had moved on, and he was heartbroken.
Jiang Lei wandered like a lost soul towards the accountant’s house.
He left, but left behind a group of youths being pointed at by the villagers.
“What are these young people doing, rehearsing something?”
“What? They’re just arguing, a real fight.”
“Wow, this girl really has skills, she got two young men to fight over her.”
“Such a pity they didn’t end up fighting…”
…
Yu Pengcheng, listening to the gossip, also looked increasingly grim. Bai Ling, shyly handing over her handkerchief, timidly said, “Thank you, if it weren’t for you… I really would’ve been scared and cried.”
Yu Pengcheng straightened his chest: “It’s the least I could do.”
He paused and said, “Comrade Bai, I didn’t make things clear to Comrade Jiang just now—he probably misunderstood the nature of our relationship. After work today, I’ll explain it to him again. You don’t need to be afraid. We, the educated youth, are like a big family. Everyone helps one another. Since we’ve come to the countryside, it’s our duty to contribute to society. We shouldn’t shy away from hardship or place personal emotions above our responsibilities. What Comrade Jiang did—quitting work because of his emotions—is unacceptable. We must not follow his example. Food security is of utmost importance. We must keep pace with the villagers and be reliable, selfless intellectuals…”
Bai Ling: “……”
Bai Ling clenched her teeth and agreed, putting away the handkerchief and picking up the sickle again.
Comrade Yu continued praising her, “Comrade Bai, that’s the spirit! We are the proud sons and daughters of China. We came to the countryside to build the nation. No job is beneath anyone, and hard work knows no distinction between urban and rural. You can do it…”
Help.
Bai Ling finally understood why Yu Pengcheng was always alone.
The man was full of nothing but lofty ideals!
Bai Ling kept moving her hands, not daring to stop.
Now that she had severed ties with Jiang Lei, she hadn’t yet won over Yu Pengcheng. She couldn’t afford to leave a bad impression on him.
Her arms ached, her back was close to breaking, and sweat glued her bangs to her forehead. But she didn’t dare show even a hint of fatigue. Instead, she forced herself to appear full of energy and kept working with everyone else.
Back in the day, she would’ve at least tricked some guy into helping her even if she wasn’t slacking off.
Now, though, she had no choice.
Yu Pengcheng was completely different from Jiang Lei. She couldn’t use the same tricks.
She just had to grit her teeth and suffer through it.
The drama among the educated youth remained the hot topic of conversation for days, even until the end of the wheat harvest.
Some pesky little kids even ran around reenacting the whole thing:
“Bai Ling! You must give me an answer! Will you marry me or not?!”
“Comrade Jiang, don’t slander people without reason!”
…
Children loved repeating phrases they heard, and with Wu Guihua organizing child performances recently, it only fueled their eagerness to act. They had no idea what drama had occurred between the educated youth—they just mimicked what they heard.
The adults laughed, but the educated youth looked like they were all suffering from constipation.
It was so embarrassing.
With those few people around, the reputation of the seventh brigade’s educated youth took a nosedive.
The entire wheat harvest lasted nearly half a month. Thankfully, it only drizzled twice, and there were no heavy rains. All the grain was successfully brought in.
Over those two weeks, aside from Wang Ying, everyone else got deeply tanned. Fortunately, the brigade had been generous this year and butchered a pig early on. Every household got some fat or meat to eat, so no one was worked to the point of collapse.
As for injuries—there were quite a few. People got pricked by wheat stalks or cut by things in the field. Some kids got hurt playing or gave themselves stomachaches from eating wild fruits on the mountain.
But it was all minor stuff, nothing serious.
The brigade had paid for alcohol and some hemostatic powder Wang Ying had mixed herself. Since it was funded by the brigade, everyone was happy to have somewhere to treat wounds.
When the last batch of wheat was harvested, everyone finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Actually, once their brigade was halfway done, neighboring brigades began harvesting too.
However…
“The wheat in the Fifth Brigade—not only is it sparse, but it looks like there’s a lot of empty husks.”
“Sigh, my cousin from my mother’s side came sneaking over in the dark a few days ago, asking me to lend her some grain.”
“Did you lend it?”
“No… Mainly because our brigade hadn’t divided the grain yet—how could I lend any?”
“This doesn’t look good. Maybe we should persuade Youfu to divide the grain early.”
“I agree. If we get our share, we’ll all feel more at ease.”
“Let’s go, let’s talk to him together—ask Youfu to hurry up with the grain distribution!”
…
A crowd set off together, unaware that Tian Youfu was already thinking along those lines.
He wasn’t a regular laborer. During that time, aside from working in the fields, he had also borrowed Xu Shuang’s bicycle and quietly rode around nearby communes. He didn’t go far, just checked out the surrounding ones—and what he saw made his heart sink.
In most of the nearby communes, the crops weren’t looking good—at best, they’d yield half to two-thirds of what they did last year. The worst ones were down to a third of their usual yield.
Don’t underestimate that missing third—farmers lived off the land, and it was everything to them.
With a third less, would they still be able to turn in the required grain? If not, would they owe it the following year? And the ones with the worst crops—would they need to apply for relief grain? Would it even be approved?
Tian Youfu felt incredibly fortunate. He was glad he’d made the decisive choice to replant when he did. The brigade had almost completely exhausted its grain stores, rushing to replant. And although this year’s yield was slightly less than last year’s, it was still within a normal range.
That was already a great outcome.
Tian Youfu made the decision: “Distribute! Today we turn in what we owe, and tonight we divide the rest—under the cover of night!”
He borrowed a flashlight from Wang Ying’s family. “The sooner we finish, the sooner it’s all over.”
So much grain sitting in the storehouse made him nervous.
And so, that day, the seventh brigade began loudly and enthusiastically delivering grain and turning it in. Tian Youfu even delayed going to the commune office to report.
The commune didn’t say anything, but Youfu could tell from their attitude they weren’t exactly pleased. He quickly finished and returned to the brigade.
The grain was delivered without issue, and that night, they divided it by flashlight.
Luckily, it was a clear night with a bright moon hanging high in the sky. Everyone was excited about getting their grain and didn’t mind the late hour.
They continued distributing grain well into the middle of the night. Even the coarse grain they received in exchange for the fine grain they turned in had been delivered. Everything that needed to be distributed was handed out, and only a small portion was left in the warehouse—the rest was all given out.
Since Wang Ying’s family had fewer people working in the fields, they received less grain. After discussing it with Xu Shuang, Wang Ying ended up making up the difference in cash under her own name.
Grain was much more valuable than dead money sitting in your hand.
Wang Ying carefully stored all the grain she received. Tian Youfu must have sensed something was off, so he went ahead and distributed in one go what was originally supposed to be handed out in two batches for the year.
Their household suddenly had a significant amount of grain.
Wang Ying went down into the cellar to check. It was packed to the brim with dried vegetables, cured meat, dried goods, and grain.
She climbed back up feeling content. The apocalypse had given her a habit of stockpiling supplies. Take now, for example—just seeing all that grain made her happy.
Wang Ying was pleased, but over on the other side, Wang Lingling was furious.
As the wheat harvest approached, both the city and countryside had already begun to notice something was wrong with this year’s grain supply.
Wang Lingling hadn’t stockpiled much—after all, compared to the major black market speculators, she had only hoarded around a thousand jin of grain.
But when Wang Lingling went to the Li family home and opened the side room door, she was stunned.
The storage room that had once been packed full now had a noticeable gap.
In that empty spot, there had originally been her stash of white flour.
Wang Lingling had limited capital, so the types of grain she stockpiled were carefully calculated. Coarse grain was her main focus—after all, when grain shortages hit the city, people’s first instinct was to buy coarse grain for emergencies.
Fine grain normally sold best on the black market. After all, the people who dared to shop there either weren’t short on money or were desperate for fats and nutrients. And fine grain was obviously more nutritious than coarse grain.
But once all grain prices went up uniformly, the advantages of fine grain disappeared. So Wang Lingling focused mainly on coarse grain.
She had only stockpiled about 200 jin of white flour.
But now?
The white flour that had once been there was more than half gone!
Wang Lingling was furious—nearly driven mad. She stared at her noticeably plumper sister Wang Pingping and the Li family members, her gaze blazing with fury.
“Give me an explanation! That was grain I planned to sell! You people ate over a hundred jin of it—just like that!”
And it was all fine grain!
