Li Weidong rubbed his forehead, feeling utterly exhausted, both physically and mentally.
“How do you want to resolve this?” he asked, looking at Guo Jiandang and Ye Dakun.
Ye Dakun didn’t hesitate.
“Of course they need to pay our medical expenses.”
Guo Jiandang was just as blunt.
“We also want them to pay our medical expenses, as well as compensation for lost work. They were the ones who started the fight.”
Ye Dakun sneered.
“What a nice dream. After beating our people like this, you still want—”
The two brigade leaders went back and forth, and the argument became increasingly heated. Seeing that things were about to get out of hand, Li Weidong quickly interrupted them.
“Enough, enough. I already understand what happened. You may not belong to the same brigade, but you’re all part of the same commune. You’re all revolutionary comrades.”
“Both sides have problems. You were all too impulsive, especially the people from Maotou Village. I understand that you were worried about the harvest, and your intentions were good, but as for the water in the irrigation ditch…”
After a round of smoothing things over—giving each side a slap on the wrist and then a little sweetener—it was decided that although Maotou Village had suffered more injuries, they were also in the wrong. Each side would be responsible for the injuries of their own people.
Ye Dakun was naturally dissatisfied, but under Li Weidong’s firm stance, he had no choice but to accept it.
Li Weidong then began mediating the water-allocation issue.
It wasn’t until dawn that everyone finally headed home.
On the ox cart, Guo Jiandang looked at Luo Xi, then at Chu Yan, and asked carefully,
“You two have trained before?”
Luo Xi hurriedly waved her hands.
“No, no. If Chu Yan hadn’t arrived in time, I definitely would’ve been beaten to death. You have no idea how dangerous it was.”
Guo Yuanyuan and the others immediately backed her up.
“Exactly! Fortunately, Chu Yan arrived in time. Otherwise, we probably would’ve been beaten to death too.”
Guo Jiandang turned toward Chu Yan.
Chu Yan smiled.
“I have trained before. I’ve been training since I was little. My grandfather taught me. He said it was good for strengthening the body.”
Everyone suddenly understood.
Apparently, Chu Yan’s grandfather had some martial arts training.
Guo Jiandang grinned from ear to ear.
“Good! Training is good. You don’t have to work in the fields during the day anymore. Go guard the water at night.”
Guo Yuanyuan looked confused.
“But didn’t the secretary say that the water had been divided properly and that everyone should stop coming out to guard it at night?”
Guo Jiandang snorted.
“The people from Maotou Village are shameless. They won’t obediently follow the rules. Keep watch at night.”
“If they don’t come, even better. It’ll save us the trouble. But if they do come, we still need people to guard the water. Otherwise, they’ll definitely divert it again.”
He looked at his son’s swollen, battered face and felt a little heartbroken.
“You three don’t need to guard the water for now. I’ll arrange for other people to go.”
Guo Yuanyuan quickly shook her head.
“No, no. I’m fine. I can go.”
She had suffered the lightest injuries of the three.
After all, she’d had her little “Truth”—the stick—from the very beginning, and the other side had probably gone easier on her because she was a girl.
What bothered her was that someone had taken advantage of the chaos to touch her several times.
It was the sort of thing she couldn’t exactly bring herself to say out loud, so she could only swallow the humiliation for now.
But she’d remembered who it was.
She would settle the score when she got the chance.
Guo Aimin and Guo Guoyuan said nothing.
Their faces and bodies still hurt terribly, and it really wasn’t suitable for them to continue guarding the water for the next few days.
Seeing that Guo Yuanyuan really was in good spirits, Guo Jiandang finally agreed.
“Fine. But all three of you were injured while guarding the water, so I’ll give you three days off. If you don’t want the leave, you can work instead and get three extra days’ worth of work points.”
Luo Xi blinked.
“Brigade Leader, what about me? Do I get time off too?”
Remembering her fighting ability, Guo Jiandang shook his head.
“You weren’t injured. What do you need time off for?”
Luo Xi: “……My spirit was injured. I suffered severe psychological trauma. Does that count?”
Guo Jiandang: “……”
“No. But I’ll give you three extra days’ worth of work points anyway.”
The news spread at lightning speed.
By lunchtime, when everyone finished work, the entire brigade knew that Wushan Village had formed a night water-watch team.
And the night water-watch team had gotten into a fight with people from Maotou Village the previous night.
Four people—no, five people—had taken down more than a dozen people from Maotou Village.
The whole brigade was buzzing.
They were relieved, yet also frustrated, wishing they could find those people from Maotou Village and have another major showdown, beating them so badly that even their own parents wouldn’t recognize them.
“Damn Maotou Village! They think they can bully our people just because they have more men. If I see them, I’ll break their legs!”
“Exactly! They even hit a girl. They’re not human!”
“I never would’ve guessed Chu Yan and Luo Xi were so good at fighting. That’s exactly how you deal with those bastards from Maotou Village!”
“How do you think Chu Yan managed to go from sleeping in his bed to Xinshu Woods?”
While the whole brigade was filled with righteous indignation and all sorts of speculation, Shi Yanlan and Xu Qian had already arrived at Luo Xi’s house.
Seeing Luo Xi looking bleary-eyed with sleep, Shi Yanlan felt a little embarrassed.
“Did we wake you?”
Luo Xi yawned.
“No. I was about to get up anyway.”
She took her washbasin over to the well, and Shi Yanlan immediately volunteered to draw water for her.
“I’ll do it.”
Luo Xi asked curiously,
“How come you two have time to come to my place today? Don’t you have to work this afternoon?”
Xu Qian waved her hand.
“It’s because we heard you guys got into a fight with the people from Maotou Village last night, so we came to check on you. Are you okay?”
Luo Xi suddenly understood.
“It’s already spread?”
Shi Yanlan nodded.
“It’s spread everywhere. I never knew you were actually so good at fighting.”
Luo Xi waved her hand.
“No, no. It was Chu Yan who saved me.”
The moment Chu Yan was mentioned, Shi Yanlan lowered her voice.
“Do you know?”
Luo Xi: “……”
Here she comes. Here she comes! She’s brought gossip!
Shi Yanlan didn’t wait for Luo Xi to respond and continued on her own.
“Everyone is saying that Chu Yan has sleepwalking problems. Apparently, he sleepwalked all the way to Xinshu Woods last night.”
Luo Xi frowned.
“How did it turn into that? Chu Yan himself said he just happened to wander over to Xinshu Woods.”
Shi Yanlan gave her an exasperated look, as if saying, You really don’t understand.
“How could that be? Our brigade is so far from Xinshu Woods. How could someone just casually wander all the way there?”
“Now there are two versions going around the brigade. One is that Chu Yan doesn’t even know he sleepwalks. He just wandered and wandered until he reached Xinshu Woods, then the sound of your fight woke him up. Afterward, he thought he’d simply wandered there.”
“The other version is that he knows he sleepwalks but is too embarrassed to admit it, so he claimed he’d just wandered over there.”
Luo Xi didn’t even know what to say.
The imagination of the masses really was impressive.
If this continued, there would probably be more than just two versions.
That night, besides Luo Xi, Guo Yuanyuan, and Chu Yan, three more people joined the water-watch team.
They were all young, physically strong men whom Guo Jiandang had specifically chosen because they were good fighters.
Just as Guo Jiandang had predicted, not only did they show up, but the people from Maotou Village came as well.
Enemies meeting truly did see red.
However, both sides remained remarkably restrained.
After the water was properly divided, both sides settled down near the irrigation ditch and dug in.
Neither side was willing to back down, but neither was willing to make the first move either.
Several days passed like this, and everything remained peaceful.
But over at the educated youth compound, dissatisfied voices had begun to emerge.
“Hmph. Why does she get assigned such a good job? We’re all educated youth. We should take turns guarding the water at night.”
Song Xingui muttered under her breath.
A flash of jealousy passed through Liu Suya’s eyes, but she smiled as she said,
“It doesn’t matter who does it. We’re all doing it for the good of the brigade.”