Go back to the prosperous days and become a layman

Chapter 845 844 Taking the Lead for Xiao Yu

This morning, when Yu Ying heard from Sister Chen about the arrangements made for her by the escort department, she cried like a child.

Yu Ying accepted a new task: raising chickens. Although her family hadn't raised many before, it was still a piece of cake for her.

As for the failed blind date, Yu Ying was a little bothered, but then she thought that she was not a native of the area and not many people knew her, so it was no big deal to be embarrassed. She then felt at ease.

Yu Ying was not a talkative person to begin with, and after this incident, she seemed to have become even more taciturn in the eyes of others.

The chicken coop will be renovated in the next couple of days, but the chicks won't hatch that quickly. After lunch, Yu Ying, who was free, volunteered to help clean the stove and prepare vegetables for the afternoon.

"Xiao Yu, don't take it to heart. You're still young, there are better opportunities ahead of you." Tang Zhitong looked at Yu Ying, who was engrossed in her work, and couldn't help but offer her a few words of comfort.

"Brother Tang, I didn't take it seriously. I want to dedicate my life to the farm!" Hearing Tang Zhitong's words of comfort, Yu Ying raised her face, her slightly swollen eyes narrowed, and she gave a smile that was not so charming but bright.

"What are you saying? Would the farm stop you from getting married? How can you grow up without experiencing some things in life? You need to strengthen yourself through trials."

"After I'm done with this, I'll teach you pinyin. Get rid of your illiteracy first; you have a long life ahead of you, and better days await you."

Tang Zhitong thought that Yu Ying's swollen eyes were because she had been taking this matter to heart, so he encouraged her.

Love is simple these days; sometimes a single glance is enough to recognize someone. What's more, Yu Ying was already in a relationship when her boyfriend's parents forcibly broke them up.

If this were decades from now, it would at most be called a vague liking, not even a romantic relationship, but right now it's a hurdle.

"I know, thank you, Brother Tang. I will definitely study hard! I cried not because of him, but because Sister Chen said I could stay on the farm, and I'm happy." Seeing that Tang Zhitong had misunderstood her, Yu Ying explained the reason for her tears honestly.

"That's good. Study hard, get rid of illiteracy as soon as possible, and then go to a part-time vocational school. You'll become a cadre when you graduate." Tang Zhitong was speechless. He thought Yu Ying was heartbroken over a love that withered before it could bloom, but he didn't expect her to not care at all.

It's understandable to cry tears of joy at being able to stay on the farm. From the precarious existence of the past to now being a temporary worker on the farm, not only can I eat my fill, but I also get a monthly wage of ten yuan. It's a world of difference, and it's not an exaggeration to cherish it.

As for becoming a cadre through study, it's not impossible, but she won't be assigned to an important position, since her whole family has already died in their hometown due to insufficient food.

"If you ask me, it's that guy's mother who's blind. She can't even appreciate such a good girl like Xiao Yu. I really don't know what kind of girl she's looking for. Just wait and see, once she finds out that Xiao Yu has become a temporary worker on the farm, she'll be begging for her attention." Although Fu Caiyun was also a girl, she had unique insights into people's hearts.

"Xiao Yu, listen to your brother Tang, study hard, get rid of your blindness as soon as possible, and then we'll find a formal job. There are still a lot of single young men at the security escort office." Shu Qing also cheered Yu Ying on from the side.

"A permanent job? I wouldn't dare dream of that." Yu Ying glanced at Shu Qing and quickly shook her head. Right now, even the members of the production team looked down on her. She didn't dare to aspire to a higher position. She was content with just staying at the farm and making a living.

"What's there to be afraid of? Although the children will have to be registered under the woman's household registration, this is a farm after all. We have quotas and wages. If I weren't married, I would want to come here to work as a temporary worker." Shu Qing said, half-jokingly.

Tang Zhitong smiled without saying a word. Su Qingxiang had arranged for Yu Ying to work as a temporary worker on the farm. Her household registration was temporarily under the production team, but her grain ration was under the farm.

Although there is a ration in name only, the farm basically provides enough food to eat.

The postal and telecommunications system employees didn't just stop working after the wheat harvest; people from other departments came to work in shifts afterward.

According to Fang Yuan, the grain from the farm is not directly distributed to the individual employees' food bags, but is instead distributed as a subsidy to the employees through labor and guaranteed food.

Living in the suburbs of Beijing, with unlimited food and a salary, even though the salary is a bit lower, the guaranteed food alone is enough to make it better than most urban residency permits.

This kind of job would probably be coveted by freelancers, but Tang Zhitong knew that temporary workers were just that—temporary workers. After a few years, the farm would be taken back into the commune, and the temporary workers would return to their status as commune members.

For now, Yu Ying is just nominally employed by the production team, and her rations don't go through the production team, which the production team can accept. But if her rations are distributed from the production team later, it's hard to say what might happen to her.

In the afternoon, Tang Zhitong took some time to teach Yu Ying some pinyin. Pinyin is indeed a great tool for literacy, but due to the heavy nasal sounds unique to the Loess Plateau, Yu Ying had a lot of trouble learning some pinyin.

"Once you can pronounce these words I just taught you smoothly, your pronunciation will be basically fine." Seeing that it was time to hand out popsicles again, Tang Zhitong wrote down a few phrases in his notebook, thoughtfully marked them with pinyin, tore them off, and handed them to Yu Ying.

Tang Zhitong combined teaching with learning. While teaching the initials and finals, he also used the following phrases to test Yu Ying's pronunciation and correct her pronunciation: "wind rises and clouds surge," "good fortune flows through the garden," "spring bamboo shoots after rain," "spring soars in the community," "stewed frozen tofu," "fully utilize," "step by step," and "rolling red dust."

Yu Ying knew these words were a bit difficult, but she still accepted them with both hands as if they were precious treasures, nodded heavily, and promised, "Brother Tang, I will definitely try my best to learn them."

"Well, it's inevitable that you'll be a little slow at first. If you encounter any problems later, just ask the substitute teacher at the local elementary school for help. I'll let him know in a bit." Tang Zhitong smiled, stuffed the pen and notebook back into her bag, got up, tied up the popsicle box, and headed to the wheat field.

The primary school in the commune was different from that in the city. In the city, students did not have holidays unless there was a break, but in the commune, classes would be suspended during the busy farming season so that students could go home and finish their busiest work before classes resumed.

From an educational perspective, this approach is definitely not feasible, but the teachers can't go against the parents' wishes. Even if the education department intervenes, the students will still be busy with farm work.

It's not yet time for "mastering physics and chemistry to go anywhere in the world without fear." In the eyes of most rural parents, being able to pay their children's tuition and school fees is already the greatest support for education. Taking an extra half a month or twenty days each year to take good care of the land is no big deal.

After distributing the popsicles, Tang Zhitong made a special trip to the substitute teacher, asking him to take extra care of her with the pinyin, and successfully finished off two boxes of Daqianmen popsicles.

When Tang Zhitong returned to the temporary camp with the empty suitcase, she saw a young man pulling and tugging at Yu Ying.

Yu Ying just kept backing away without shouting. It was obvious that this was the male member with whom Yu Ying had feelings for each other.

"What are you doing? In broad daylight!" Tang Zhitong wasn't going to tolerate him; her voice arrived before her bicycle.

The young man was startled by Tang Zhitong and loosened his grip.

"Brother Tang!" Yu Ying felt as if she had found her pillar of support, and hid behind Tang Zhitong when he arrived.

"Well! I didn't expect you to be so unfaithful. You've already climbed the social ladder and found a strange man in just one day!" The young man blushed when he saw Yu Ying's actions and started cursing at her without even asking what happened.

"Go to hell! Who do you think you are? Trying to act like an elephant just because you stick a scallion up your nose?!" Tang Zhitong wasn't going to tolerate him. She stood her bicycle upright and stepped forward, immediately suppressing the young man's arrogance with her physical presence.

"I...I'm her boyfriend!" The young man took a step back, his neck stiff as he spoke defiantly.

"No, no! When your mother throws a tantrum, we're done for!" With Tang Zhitong around, Yu Ying became bolder and completely disregarded the young man's words.

Fu Caiyun said this morning that the man would come back to beg Yu Ying to get back together, but unexpectedly he came in the afternoon. However, instead of begging for reconciliation, he forcibly dragged her away!

Tang Zhitong wasn't about to let the young man get away with it. She rolled up her sleeves, looking ready to fight, and started spewing insults:
"What kind of girlfriend is this! You're giving Yu Ying the popsicle I gave you, so you think you can get a wife for free without spending a penny?"

"Take a good look at yourself in the mirror! You must have been blind to have ever been interested in Xiao Yu!" "Xiao Yu gave you a chance, but what did you do? You couldn't make decisions for your mother, letting her throw tantrums in front of our two leaders. What's wrong? Now that Yu Ying is getting a government job, your whole family wants to come and take advantage of her, is that it?"

"You've managed to bring together a dream that even a toad wouldn't dare to have?"

"I'm telling you this right now, Yu Ying is the sister of all the employees in our postal and telecommunications system. If you dare to bother her again, let alone whether Yu Ying's other brothers and sisters will spare you, I, as the eldest brother, will break your legs first!"

After saying that, Tang Zhitong lowered his head and started looking for bricks, looking like he was about to smash someone with a brick as soon as he found one.

The young man was so frightened by Tang Zhitong's fierce appearance that he almost wet himself and turned to run away.

Tang Zhitong picked up a clod of dirt and threw it at the target.

Of course, they couldn't really fight. The clod of dirt hit the ground next to the young man, shattering into pieces and kicking up a cloud of smoke.

This made the young man run even faster.

"Xiao Yu, you'd better keep your eyes open in the future. How could you fall for such a piece of trash? Listen to this kind of person, marrying him will only bring you misery." Tang Zhitong said with exasperation.

The saying "a daughter-in-law who has endured many years of hardship becomes a mother-in-law" is not just a saying; beatings and scoldings are commonplace, and her status in the family is even lower than that of an animal.

The further you go into rural areas, the more serious this situation becomes.

"Hmm." Yu Ying blushed and lowered her head like a child who had done something wrong, obediently accepting the scolding. Tang Zhitong said she was blind, but she did not refute it because she herself felt that she was also blind. She thought that others would be sincerely good to her for a lifetime if they gave her a little bit of sweetness.

"What's going on? What's going on?" Some people at the temporary camp heard Tang Zhitong arguing and ran over with shovels, hoes and other tools.

"The guy Xiao Yu was looking for came over looking for trouble, and I chased him away." Tang Zhitong dusted off his hands, turned around, and smiled.

"He must have heard that Xiao Yu had become a temporary worker at the farm, and thought he was qualified to climb up to their family and come here to take advantage of them," Fu Caiyun concluded after standing on tiptoe and glancing in the direction the young man had fled.

"You have a good eye for people!" Tang Zhitong gave Fu Caiyun a thumbs up; this girl is very perceptive.

"A widow dreaming of a ball, just daydreaming!" Qu Yi spat at the useless shovel in his hand.

Upon hearing Qu Yi's words, Tang Zhitong almost burst out laughing. Some of the female employees immediately started laughing and scolding Qu Yi for being vulgar, and for a moment the air was filled with a peaceful atmosphere.

"Xiao Yu, the wheat harvest will be over tomorrow. You can help out at the canteen for a while. When you have free time, I'll teach you to read. The head chefs here take turns on duty. When the next chef comes, I'll tell him that it won't delay your learning to read." After being criticized by the female colleague, Qu Yi waved his hand and successfully turned the tables by promising Yu Ying.

With many women around, news spreads quickly.

During dinner, Fang Yuan and Sister Chen also heard about Yu Ying's experience that afternoon.

Sister Chen really liked this down-to-earth and hardworking girl, and she was very angry after hearing this.

Yu Ying was young and all alone. Looking around, she had no relatives left in the world. This girl was being schemed against. Her uncle could tolerate it, but her aunt could not.

"Sister Chen, don't be angry. I'll go find the production team leader right now and tell him to discipline that family strictly and not allow them to come looking for Yu Ying again." Fang Yuan saw that Sister Chen had picked up a wooden stick and was about to confront the family, so he quickly stopped her.

It's one thing for ordinary employees to argue with each other, but if someone like Sister Chen does something like this, regardless of whether she's in the right or not, she might not come out on top in the end.

"Let's go, let's go together. I want to see what kind of captain could raise such a family of bastards!"

With these two leaders involved, everyone else could relax and enjoy the show. Before long, the topic shifted from Yu Ying to her summiting Mount Everest.

"One of our telegraph operators from Beijing went to Mount Everest to provide communications support. He'll at least get an award for being an advanced worker when he comes back."

"Wow, we have such a capable person here? Is he the only one who went?"

"Three people went in total: one from here, one from Tianjin, and one from Shenyang. I heard it's tough there. The wind is strong all the time, and the temperature is low. They don't even want to eat the popsicles we ate today. They wish they could sleep with a stove next to them every day."

"There are no stoves there. I've heard that the altitude there is high and it's difficult to bring fuel up. In temperatures that are tens of degrees below zero, you can only turn on the fire when cooking. The rest of the time you just have to tough it out."

"That must be awful, with temperatures dropping to tens of degrees below zero, wouldn't people freeze to death?"

"That's right, many people's toes and fingers are frostbitten, and their ears ooze fluid when touched."

"It's so cold, how are we going to relieve ourselves?"

……

Well, Tang Zhitong was relieved to hear that the employees shared the same thirst for knowledge as Xiao Wang. It seemed that it wasn't Xiao Wang who had a peculiar way of thinking, but rather that everyone was curious.

While the workers discussed how the mountaineers relieved themselves on Mount Everest, Tang Zhitong carried his own Type 565 and went to the wheat field.

Tonight is my last night here, so I have to do my best on this last shift and not let anything slip.

More and more haystacks surrounded the threshing ground, forming a thick wall of straw that enclosed it.

In the middle of the threshing floor were unthreshed wheat ears and piles of wheat left overnight.

Looking at the tall piles of wheat, Tang Zhitong recalled a song he often sang in his childhood—"Listen to Mom Tell Stories of the Past".

"We sat beside that tall haystack, listening to Mother tell stories of the past..."

Released in 1957, this song accompanied the childhood of several generations.

The lyrics are narrative, telling the story of the poor, miserable, and inhumane lives of the people before liberation, who were exploited by landlords.

Tang Zhitong felt that it was probably because most of the survivors had experienced that inhuman life that they had not developed extreme thoughts during the difficulties of the past few years. After all, everything is afraid of comparison. Once you compare, hey, the landlords of the past also suffered from hunger and thirst. So it doesn't matter. Let's go to the fields and the streets to find some substitute food.

(End of this chapter)