Watching the little girl skip happily into the distance, Jiang Tao was still grinning foolishly.
Unable to bear looking at him anymore, Lin Guanghui smacked him on the back of the head.
Jiang Tao instantly snapped back to reality and covered the back of his head while looking accusingly at his superior.
“You fool, your dumb luck is unbelievable. This savior practically fell from the sky!”
“Hehe…”
“Well, now I don’t have to worry about you anymore. Take me to see Old Du and Gangzi.”
“Alright!”
Meanwhile, Tang Tang happily skipped all the way home.
This deal had truly been an unexpected bonus.
She lacked neither money nor supplies and had never intended to sell anything in the first place. She simply couldn’t bear seeing soldiers she respected struggle so much.
Since it was within her ability, she was willing to help.
And her efforts weren’t wasted either.
In this era, being a factory worker seemed to be an extremely desirable occupation. Since she planned to settle down here long-term, naturally she had to prepare more for the future.
By the time she leisurely wandered back home, she suddenly remembered the housing issue still hadn’t been solved.
Tomorrow, she absolutely needed to find time to talk to the village chief.
Living in a house that didn’t belong to her was inconvenient, especially with the educated youth station right next door.
What if she suddenly wanted to eat a luxurious meal?
That would be awkward.
The next day, Tang Tang followed everyone else to work in the fields.
The autumn harvest had already begun, and today they were harvesting sweet potatoes.
Because of the drought, most of the sweet potato vines had already withered.
The men worked at the front, pulling up the vines first. Then all kinds of tools came into play—shovels, hoes, four-pronged digging forks. Some dug, some pried, some overturned the soil to pull the sweet potatoes out from underground.
The people behind them squatted down to wipe the dirt off the potatoes before loading them into woven sacks. Each sack could hold around a hundred jin.
While working, Tang Tang glanced around at the lively, bustling scene and couldn’t help sighing.
The enthusiasm of this era was truly something future generations could never replicate.
After work that evening, Tang Tang went directly to the village chief’s house.
Without beating around the bush, she explained her idea.
She wanted to buy a house in the village, preferably somewhere near the edge. If that wasn’t possible, buying land and building a small house would also work.
The village chief…
Were educated youths nowadays all this wealthy?
After the previous incident with the milk powder, he had absolutely no doubt about her ability to buy a house.
After thinking for a while, he remembered that there really was a small house near the foot of the mountain at the edge of the village.
It wasn’t very large, only around sixty square meters, but it was a rare brick house built extremely solidly.
Several years ago, it had served as the village grain storage building.
Since it directly concerned everyone’s food supply, the villagers had worked especially hard when constructing it, so the quality was excellent.
The only issue was that it was just one large room without interior dividing walls.
Seeing Tang Tang’s interest, the village chief simply brought her there to look at it.
It was exactly as he described, though the windows were rather high since the building was originally meant for storing grain.
Even so, Tang Tang was very satisfied with the place.
After discussing things with the village chief, they agreed that after the autumn harvest ended, workers would come build partition walls inside.
She didn’t want to stand out too much, so having the same layout as other village homes would be enough.
Including the partition walls, changing the front and back windows, enclosing a large surrounding area of land for her, and building courtyard walls, the total cost came to one hundred yuan.
Tang Tang thought it was an excellent deal.
The village chief himself, however, blushed from embarrassment, feeling that he had taken advantage of her.
If the property hadn’t belonged to the village collective, he wouldn’t have charged so much.
Feeling guilty, the village chief repeatedly promised that he would personally supervise the work to make sure everything was done properly.
As they walked back toward the village together, Tang Tang casually tested the waters.
“Village Chief Uncle, I heard there are many factories in town. Does anyone from our village work there?”
The village chief sighed.
“Getting city grain rations isn’t that easy.”
Nowadays, if a family had even one factory worker, the whole family would feel honored.
The village chief also dreamed of someday having someone from the village become a factory worker.
But the village had no city connections, no information, and no relationships.
City factories certainly wouldn’t take the initiative to recruit from such a poor rural place.
“Oh.”
Tang Tang silently understood the situation.
Just as they reached halfway back, a tall figure approached from the opposite direction.
The sky had only just begun to darken, so she could only make out that the person was very tall.
Tang Tang didn’t pay much attention.
But once he got closer—
“Why are you here?”
Good heavens, this was shocking.
She had met this person in town yesterday, and now she saw him again today.
Even dressed in rough cloth clothes, he still carried an undeniable presence.
“Are you very surprised?”
There was even a hint of amusement in his voice.
Truthfully, he himself was also surprised.
He never expected that the first girl who had ever caught his interest would belong to the same production team as him.
“Dad, let’s go home for dinner.”
“Alright, let’s go.”
“Village Chief Uncle, this is… your son?”
“My third son, Lin Guanghui. He’s been serving in the military all these years and just returned after being discharged. Haha!”
What a ridiculously dramatic coincidence…
Since everyone involved was already standing here together, and the village chief was present too, Tang Tang decided to ask for leave for the day after tomorrow directly.
The village chief readily agreed, though he reminded her that not working meant no work points.
Lin Guanghui glanced at the little girl.
Did she look like someone who cared about losing a few work points?
Obviously not.
This was also the first time he had ever seen someone spend money so boldly.
“Do you want me to accompany you the day after tomorrow?”
“No.”
She rejected him cleanly and decisively.
If he came along, how was she supposed to secretly operate everything herself?
After two days of harvesting sweet potatoes, all the potatoes had already been packed into sacks by the second afternoon. The only remaining task was transporting them back to the production team courtyard.
The men carried the sacks one by one on their shoulders.
The women who couldn’t carry them alone worked in pairs to lift a sack together.
Tang Tang, however, simply grabbed one sack in each hand and walked off with them.
Everyone was stunned.
And so, the topic of the entire day became:
Little Tang the educated youth was apparently a super strongwoman.