"Grandma, someone's come to our house again!"
The little girl's voice was surprisingly loud; the brigade leader's family was certainly busy.
Song Wei thought to herself as the door opened.
It was the brigade leader's wife, Aunt Xinghua, who opened the door.
She looked at the two girls standing at the door, and especially when her gaze fell on the baskets they were carrying, her face lit up with a big smile.
"Li Zhiqing and Song Zhiqing, what brings you here? Come in, come in and sit down."
In their yard, a three-year-old boy, his bottom bare, was still sitting in a basin of water, craning his neck to look curiously at the doorway.
Song Wei handed the basket to Aunt Xinghua: "Auntie, these are mushrooms I picked in the mountains today. Just one more dish, please don't mind."
Her smile was sweet, and her words were sweet too; people were happy to talk to her when they saw her.
Aunt Xinghua declined a couple of times, but since it wasn't anything valuable, she accepted it.
"Look at you, why are you being so polite? Come in and let's talk inside."
Li Juan also handed out her eggs.
The little boy, his bottom bare, ran over and received the candy from Song Wei, instantly overjoyed.
"Why give candy to a child? It's such a waste of money,"
Aunt Xinghua said, but her smile grew wider.
It wasn't that she was greedy; she loved her own child, and she was naturally happy to see that others cared about her child.
"It doesn't cost much, and the candy isn't expensive."
Li Juan wasn't very good at talking, so she just stood by and watched Song Wei and the village head's wife talk, feeling incredibly impressed.
She certainly wouldn't dare speak like that to the village head; he held considerable authority in the village.
Just as they were chatting happily, the village head came out, a dark blue coat draped over his shoulders, a pipe dangling from his mouth, and looked at them.
"What are you two doing here?"
Aunt Xinghua glared at her husband. "Look at the way you're talking, who are you trying to scare with that long face?"
The brigade leader choked, took off his pipe, and glared at his wife.
"Brigade leader, I just wanted to ask you if we can fence off a separate yard for that plot of land behind the educated youth compound?"
The brigade leader frowned. He really didn't want to meddle in the affairs of the educated youth; they were always causing trouble.
But glancing at the eggs and the basket of mushrooms his wife was holding, he had a headache.
They'd already accepted the gifts, so it wasn't good to refuse outright.
"What were you thinking? Why are you thinking of framing off a yard?"
Song Wei immediately pulled Li Juan out, her expression indignant as she recounted everything that had happened that day.
She emphasized how hard Li Juan had worked tending that small vegetable patch.
"You know, you painstakingly cultivated this vegetable garden, and while others do nothing, they come and pick the vegetables. The worst part is, even after they pick them, they don't say a kind word about Li Juan; they just criticize her. Who would be happy about that?
And this easily breeds laziness in them, relying entirely on the one who's willing to do the work. If this continues, who will want to grow vegetables anymore?"
Li Juan's eyes reddened again, probably because she was touched on a sore spot.
She genuinely felt wronged, and Aunt Xinghua, who was beside her, felt sorry for her too.
Rural people are rarely truly lazy, especially when it comes to their own vegetable gardens.
Put yourself in her shoes; if someone dared to pick vegetables from her garden and then accused her of being stingy, Aunt Xinghua would be furious!
"How could those educated youths be like that? Why should they take the vegetables they worked so hard to grow? If they want to eat them, why don't they grow their own?"
"That's right, that's why Li Juan and I came to the brigade leader to ask if we could fence off a small plot of land for ourselves. If they continue like this, Li Juan won't dare to grow vegetables anymore, and neither will I."
The brigade leader frowned, puffing on his pipe, never expecting such a thing to happen in the educated youth compound.
“Let me think about it,”
Aunt Xinghua said. “What are you thinking about? It’s just fenced off a yard. The private plot behind the educated youth’s yard is already huge, it won’t be a problem.”
The brigade leader glared at her. “What do you know? This isn’t something that can be done just by talking. We have to listen to the opinions of the other educated youth. And even if we’re going to fence it off, we need to have a plan for how much to fence off, otherwise it’ll all be chaos.”
“We don’t need much, just the three-tenths of an acre right next to our backyard,”
Li Juan quickly nodded in agreement.
The brigade leader took a puff of his pipe . “I’ll think about it. You guys go back first.”
As long as they didn’t directly refuse, it meant the matter was feasible. Song Wei didn’t linger. She left the mushrooms behind, picked up the basket, said goodbye to Aunt Xinghua, and left.
After they left, Aunt Xinghua looked at the plump mushrooms and couldn’t stop smiling.
“This is enough for our family to eat for two days. This educated youth Song is quite good at handling things; the mushrooms she gave us are all of good quality.”
No one in their family had ever gone to the mountains to pick mushrooms.
The brigade leader's daughter-in-law picked up some mushrooms, beaming, "These mushrooms are growing really well! Mom, I'll go mushroom picking in the mountains tomorrow afternoon too."
"Go to the mountains, Grandma, I want to go too!" The child, with candy in his mouth, immediately jumped over upon hearing about going to the mountains.
"Alright, your mother will take you tomorrow."
The brigade leader glared at his wife, "How many times have I told you not to accept things randomly?"
Accepting things meant doing something in return; this woman thought her husband wasn't busy enough!
Aunt Xinghua rolled her eyes at him, "Do you think I'm stupid? These mushrooms are in the mountains, they're not anything valuable. And what those two educated youths asked you to do isn't anything big. If they dare to make things difficult for you, I'll just throw the basket back at them."
Country folk are thick-skinned; besides, if others dare to shamelessly ask her husband to do things difficult, why can't she shamelessly throw the things in their faces?
"As for what happened to Li, it's because the other educated youth were too shameless. It's just like when our brigade used to work together. When several people work together on a task, there's always someone who tries to be clever and slack off, which makes even the hardworking ones unwilling to work.
Look, now that we've changed the method, no one dares to slack off anymore for the sake of their work points. Isn't it the same thing?"
Aunt Xinghua quite liked Song Wei and Li Juan today, and was happy to say a few good words for them after receiving the things.
"Alright, I understand. I'll go see her tomorrow."
"But Song Zhiqing seems like a lot different since she came back from the hospital; she's suddenly become quite popular."
Her daughter-in-law whispered, "Was she upset?"
Aunt Xinghua said, "It shouldn't be. I heard the story about Song Zhiqing jumping into the water was a misunderstanding. She just accidentally fell in. And the reason she's chasing after Luo Zhiqing is because she gave him a lot of votes before, and she's still resentful."
Aunt Xinghua's daughter-in-law's eyes widened: "There's such a thing?"
"Of course! Let me tell you..."
The brigade leader, watching the two women in the family chatting animatedly, thought: ...
These women have nothing better to do all day, don't they?!