A Young Woman's Heart

"What? Does not being married mean he's not a husband? If it really doesn't work out, I can be his wife."

Mo Xueyao pinched her cheek hard as a form of retaliation against her glib tongue.

After all, when it comes to being quick-witted, she definitely can't out-argue Hua Yinyin.

"Oh dear, wake up, wake up!" Hua Yinyin immediately climbed down the ladder. Her pajamas were loose and several buttons had popped off.

Fortunately, Mo Xueyao didn't care about this at all. If it were any other girl, she would probably feel jealous because of her inferiority complex!

"Get up." Li Wanyan also got up sleepily. Although her tone was as calm as usual, she closed her eyes again after opening them for a short while.

"Pfft, Wanyan actually fell asleep sitting up?" Mo Xueyao chuckled.

"Really? Huh? Really!"

"I wasn't asleep." Li Wanyan suddenly opened her eyes, but her alertness only lasted a few seconds before her tone softened again. "I'm just a little sleepy..."

"Wake up, wake up—" Ye Wen's voice came from outside the door. She had already started knocking on each door to wake up the students.

The agricultural training base quickly became noisy again.

Although agricultural training doesn't require getting up at 6 or even 5:30 a.m. like military training, you still have to get up before 7 a.m.

Including the time for washing up, arriving half an hour early is generally a good idea.

After washing up, the three of them went downstairs together.

Because we were going to do farm work today, everyone wore the old clothes that had been prepared beforehand.

To avoid getting clothes dirty and then not being able to wash them properly.

Many people wore new clothes yesterday, but that was purely accidental.

Who knew we'd have to start farm work on our very first day? Even during the last military training, the first day was always a day of rest.

Several tables were set up at the entrance of the apartment building where you could pick up your breakfast.

There's no cafeteria or tables and chairs; if you want breakfast, you either have to go back to your room or eat outside.

Students who get up late may have to eat while walking with the group.

Breakfast consisted of steamed white flour buns, salted duck eggs, and millet porridge. The bowls used to serve the porridge were to be recycled after use.

If you don't like this kind, you can also get a sesame seed cake and fried dough sticks.

But anyway... there's not much meat in it.

"Ugh, no meat again today. I usually have bacon, fried eggs, and milk for breakfast..." Hua Yinyin said, puffing out her cheeks as if she had suffered a great injustice. "Damn it, I feel like I haven't had meat in ages!"

"Didn't we eat last night?" Mo Xueyao rolled her eyes at her. "It's only one night, and it doesn't matter whether we eat meat in the morning or not."

"Hmph... millet porridge doesn't taste good, it's tasteless."

"Hey, you're too picky. Look, Wanyan has almost finished eating."

"I need to see if the school store sells milk. Ugh, the school is so stingy!"

Mo Xueyao glanced at her sideways: "I think the school must be rich, and they're just making us eat like this on purpose, to let us experience the life of farmers, right? Besides, I think we're eating better than farmers."

"The experience doesn't have to be this perfect... I want milk, I want bacon, I want a fried egg..."

"Can't I have salted duck eggs?"

"Too salty."

"Picky Yinyin." Mo Xueyao decided to ignore her.

Of course, she eventually finished the food; after all, no matter how much she complained, she still had to fill her stomach.

The students from each class gradually gathered together, and after the homeroom teacher counted the number of students, they began a new day of agricultural learning.

Today, the instructor led them to a field where rice had just been harvested. Several large sacks were placed on the edge of the field, and it was unclear what they contained.

Despite his thick local accent, the instructor still tried his best to shout in standard Mandarin: "Students, come over here! Today we're going to plant winter... rapeseed flowers!"

"Do we still need to plant vegetables in winter?" Gao Yuan asked doubtfully. Although he was always lazy when it came to work, he always walked ahead when explaining things, and would ask his uncle questions from time to time to liven up the atmosphere.

"Of course, we can't waste any season. In winter, we plant winter rapeseed flowers. This kind of rapeseed flower..." The uncle paused, as if he had forgotten his words. His old face turned red. After a while, he continued, "It can be pressed for oil. In addition, it can also be used as fertilizer for next year's rice. That is, we bury all the parts except the rapeseed in the soil to make the soil more fertile."

Then he walked to the sacks by the field: "These are all wood ash, the ashes left over from cooking in the stove. And this isn't enough. We need to take the dried rice stalks, wheat stalks, and weeds and burn them in the field, then bury them with hoes... Let's get started!"

"Do you want to burn something?"

"Yes, it should be burned."

"Oh—!" Many people became excited.

Fear of fire should be the nature of living beings, but many people enjoy playing with fire. When they hear that they can start a fire, they all become excited.

Under the guidance of the instructor, a few people randomly formed a group and moved wheat straw, rice stalks and other materials to the middle of the field, preparing to burn them together.

"Uncle, can I have some?" Gao Yuan asked eagerly.

"Sure, sure," the uncle said with a smile, handing him the matches.

Gao Yuan tried to light two or three matches before finally succeeding. Then he threw the matches in, and the scattered sparks gradually merged together and burst into flames.

A hearty smile spread across my uncle's rough face, as if he could already see another bountiful harvest next year.

He bent down, picked up a burning wheat stalk, lit the cigarette in his mouth, and let out a long sigh: "Haha, this era is really great! You little sprouts, you should cherish it!"

To prevent the fire from burning people, the uncle had the students retreat to the edge of the field, and then watched as the large fire gradually shrank until it was almost completely extinguished.

"Did you know? Places where war has been fought are very suitable for farming," my uncle said, both humorously and earnestly. "Because those shells plowed the land over and over again, it's so much better than turning the soil by hand. And a lot of people died here, their bones were buried underground, the soil is incredibly fertile. My dad said that right after the war ended, we farmers could dig up a corpse every few strokes of the earth. Back then, finding bones was... very normal!"

"Oh--"

"How dare you plant crops on such land? That's grain growing from corpses!" Mo Xueyao muttered.

"Of course we dare! Why wouldn't we?" Uncle's ears were sharp; he burst into laughter upon hearing this. "That field contains the corpses of the enemy, and the corpses of our own people, but in any case, they will all become fertilizer for this land..."

Mo Xueyao felt that using 'nourishment' might be a better way to describe it, but to correct her uncle's choice of words would be too pedantic.

"Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, everything will eventually be returned to those who come after," Li Wanyan murmured, seemingly with some emotion.

“Our martyrs, even after they died, they still made many contributions to us, and this is one of them!” Uncle didn’t feel discouraged at all. “They killed the enemy, which provided fertilizer for the crops; they died on the battlefield, which also provided fertilizer for the crops…”

Perhaps, Chinese farmers are the true pragmatists.

Mo Xueyao thought to herself leisurely.

Everything has its value. There's no need to live in the sorrow of the past. Just be grateful for the kindness they brought—no matter how it was brought.

"Alright, let's put out the fire and start turning the soil. Come on, let's get to work!" Uncle jumped off the ridge and shouted to the students sitting on it.

Below are large and small hoes. The large hoes are usually held by boys, while the small hoes are held by girls.

The hoe is very heavy; just holding it is tiring. If a boy isn't strong enough, he probably wouldn't be able to swing it to work.

Huang Yuxi, with a band-aid on her forehead, also picked up a large hoe, but it was very difficult for her. She swayed and walked only a few steps before she was so tired that she squatted down and panted.

"Xiao Xi? Are you feeling better? Hmm... your forehead...?" Sanhua Tongjue finally found him. "Where were you just now? I couldn't see you."

……

Chapter Seventy-Three: Plant Ash Fertilizer

"So, you fell... you tripped and fell this morning?... Did you apply any medicine? Don't let the wound get infected..." Sanhua Tongjue asked with concern.

"I already applied it, that's why I'm late."

"That's good... phew..." She breathed a sigh of relief. "You don't need to do any work, come with me, I'll take care of you."

"Well……"

Huang Yuxi was a little shy. He wanted to ask who helped him change his clothes yesterday, but he was too embarrassed to ask. He could only puff out one cheek and nod sullenly.

"Come over to us girls." Sanhua Tongjue said in Japanese, grabbed his small hand, and led him to the girls' side. Then they heard Mo Xueyao's energetic shouts.

"Hey—ya—!" She found an open spot, then swung the hoe high and slammed it down.

The weight of a heavy hoe alone can turn up a lot of soil; the real worry is not to hit your instep or calf.

"Heave-ho!" Mo Xueyao struggled so much that she could barely lift the hoe, but she still insisted on doing it.

Fortunately, she didn't hurt herself, because she couldn't lift it anymore by the tenth time.

"Phew...why is it so...heavy!" She leaned on the hoe, panting heavily, and couldn't help but swear a few times. "Damn...this is so fucking tiring..."

“Girls can use small hoes. They can squat down and turn the soil slowly. It’s less efficient, but it won’t be too tiring,” the instructor said to Mo Xueyao, handing her a small hoe. “Little girl, use this.”

"Phew... I know... I just wanted to give it a try..."

Actually, it's probably just subconscious male pride at play.

It was only because Li Wanyan had so naturally handed her the small hoe at the beginning that she felt looked down upon.

After all, Li Wanyan knew that she used to be a boy. Even if she wanted to distribute small hoes, she should have waited until she tried using the big hoe herself and found out she couldn't use it...

"Little Yaoyao is being serious about something strange again," Hua Yinyin said leisurely, glancing at Li Wanyan as if she had noticed something.

But that is indeed the case.

This inexplicable sense of pride is completely unnecessary.

Turning over the soil seems like a simple task, but it can exhaust even those boys who play basketball all day.

You should know that these are the most energetic people in each class.

The girls' work wasn't easy either; squatting for too long would cause back pain, and their efficiency was pitifully low.

After turning the soil over, sprinkle wood ash on it with a shovel, then turn it back over and mix it in like mixing rice.

Although Mo Xueyao had grown vegetables before, the difficulty of turning over soil in a large field was completely incomparable to turning over soil in a small flowerpot.

"Ah!" Sanhua Tongjue dug up a centipede while turning over the soil. The startled centipede actually tried to crawl up her small hoe onto her hand, which scared her so much that she quickly dropped the hoe on the ground.

A hand holding a small hoe reached out diagonally from the side and quickly cut the centipede that had fallen to the ground in half.

Even a centipede, though dead, does not stiffen.

This centipede was the same; even though it was split in two, it was still struggling and dragging its internal organs, looking particularly terrifying and disgusting.

The small hoe quickly shoveled at the centipede a few more times, cutting it into several pieces until it was finally unable to move.