Upon hearing this, Ning Yuan’s small, round face stiffened slightly. “Doctor Rong, you must be joking. Secretary Li and I just have an ordinary comrade relationship. I can’t trouble him like this. You’re overthinking it.”
Rong Zhaonan looked at Ning Yuan and said flatly, “Is that so?”
The little spy certainly had her secrets and wasn’t telling the truth.
Ning Yuan didn’t want to get entangled in past emotions any longer.
She raised a hand and haphazardly wiped the sweat from her face. “Let’s not talk about that. Doctor Rong, the Old Branch Secretary agreed to get us some old furniture. We need to make a trip to the warehouse in the old village school classroom.”
Rong Zhaonan looked at the large flatbed cart she had dragged over and raised an eyebrow. “Alright, let’s go.”
He was curious to see how long this little spy could keep up her act.
On that end, Rong Zhaonan started pulling the flatbed cart and went with Ning Yuan to the old classroom at the village primary school.
On this end, Tang Zhenzhen returned to the Educated Youth Spot, her mind full of questions.
Before she even entered the courtyard, she saw two Male Educated Youth carrying a person with a bruised face and a blood-soaked bandage wrapped around his head back on a stretcher.
“Aiya, Jianhua, you need to be more careful next time! Don’t go rolling off the riverbank!”
“Exactly! Your head is broken and your ribs are cracked. You’ll have to rest and recover, which means you can’t earn work points!”
The two Male Educated Youth chattered and complained.
Tang Zhenzhen stared at the injured person on the stretcher with a look of stunned annoyance. Who else could it be but Wang Jianhua?
This morning, she had told him that Ning Yuan was leaving the Educated Youth Spot to live in the Cowshed.
After the cattle were led to the fields early in the morning, no one would pass by the Cowshed. If he had gone there to ambush Ning Yuan, he could have turned that slut into a bona fide “loose woman.”
But how could Wang Jianhua be so useless? Could Ning Yuan’s petite frame have beaten him into this state?
Wang Jianhua also saw Tang Zhenzhen, Huang Xuehong, and Qin Xiaoxia.
He shot Tang Zhenzhen a glare and turned his head away in embarrassment, which tugged at the wound on his head.
He grimaced in pain. “Aiya, can you two be gentler when you carry me!”
The two Male Educated Youth immediately softened their movements and carried Wang Jianhua into the men’s room.
Seeing this, Huang Xuehong counted on her fingers and muttered, “With Wang Jianhua injured, he only gets three work points a day for sick leave. We’ll have to work extra to make up for him. Otherwise, when we get our grain rations based on work points at the end of the year, we’ll all be dragged down if the points are low…”
At the end of the year, the grain for the Educated Youth Team was calculated collectively.
Tang Zhenzhen rolled her eyes inwardly but wore a helpless smile. “Alright, let’s go. We should bring him something to eat later. After all, he’s our comrade.”
She needed to go ask that idiot Wang Jianhua what on earth had happened.
Huang Xuehong shook her head and sighed with emotion, “Zhenzhen, you’re truly a good person.”
The three female Educated Youth entered their room one after another.
As soon as Tang Zhenzhen entered, she ordered Qin Xiaoxia, “Xiaoxia, don’t you still have that oil tea your family sent you? Get some, and we’ll go see Wang Jianhua together.”
Qin Xiaoxia’s expression soured.
She was from northern Guangxi and had been sent down here. She couldn’t even bear to eat the oil tea her family had sent her.
Huang Xuehong’s eyes instantly lit up. “Right, Qin Xiaoxia, take some out. We’re all comrades, don’t be stingy like a capitalist. We’ll get you the scallions, ginger, and garlic!”
If Qin Xiaoxia took out her things, they could also share some.
Stared at by the two of them, Qin Xiaoxia had no choice but to reluctantly retrieve an old biscuit tin from her trunk.
She carefully took out a small amount of puffed rice and local oil tea.
She said unwillingly, “I don’t have any meat and bone broth. This oil tea isn’t good without it.”
Tang Zhenzhen smiled magnanimously. “I have brown sugar in my trunk. I’ll get some to mix with the oil tea and puffed rice.”
Huang Xuehong immediately went to help Tang Zhenzhen drag out her trunk like a lackey. “Zhenzhen is still the most generous.”
But as soon as Tang Zhenzhen opened her trunk, she sensed something was wrong—
Her biscuit tin had been touched.
She opened it and saw that, aside from the five yuan, the entire packet of biscuits and candy inside was gone!
“My Great White Rabbit Milk Candy and Wan Nianqing Biscuits!” Tang Zhenzhen’s vision went black.
Wan Nian Qing savory scallion biscuits and Great White Rabbit Milk Candy were both high-end, scarce goods from Hushang. You needed ration tickets for them in the provincial capital, and in the countryside, you couldn’t get them even if you had money and tickets.
“It must have been Ning Yuan who stole my things!” Tang Zhenzhen’s face twisted.
She couldn’t even bear to eat that packet of biscuits herself. After getting them, she would only eat one piece a week!
That shameless little slut not only seduced the man she had her eye on, but she also stole her things!
Huang Xuehong also furrowed her thick brows, filled with righteous indignation. “She really has become corrupted and degenerate after getting close to that ‘element’ sent down for re-education. Now she’s turned into a thief!”
Qin Xiaoxia, who had just been forced to take out her things, now muttered under her breath, “Weren’t those biscuits and milk candies sent by Ning Yuan’s family?”
But she didn’t dare say it out loud.
Huang Xuehong said indignantly, “Zhenzhen, let’s go report her to the village team! Thieves have to wear a sign and be paraded through the streets!”
The political movement had just passed, and in the countryside, it was still customary to parade thieves through the streets to be publicly shamed. For an Educated Youth, it would be recorded in their file.
Tang Zhenzhen gritted her teeth and stood up. “I heard Deputy Secretary Li Yan is here. Let’s go, we’ll find him and have him uphold justice!”
She would absolutely not let Ning Yuan off. Today, she would force Li Yan to deal with Ning Yuan with his own hands.
…
After a whole afternoon of scrounging, Ning Yuan and Rong Zhaonan finally returned to the dilapidated little hut at the Cowshed, dragging a cart full of “junk” they had salvaged from the village school’s old storage room.
She held a large stack of old newspapers, watching as Rong Zhaonan single-handedly and effortlessly pulled the large flatbed cart loaded with broken cabinets, broken tables, and rotten stools beside her.
“He’s so strong…” Ning Yuan muttered under her breath.
This man looked tall and thin, like a weak scholar who didn’t get enough to eat, yet he possessed such great strength.
Rong Zhaonan placed the cart in front of the hut and adjusted the black-framed glasses on his nose. “Should we move the things inside now?”
Ning Yuan shook her head. “Let’s paste the newspapers and fix the roof first. This furniture needs to be taken apart, pieced together, and repaired before we can use it. The space inside is too small to work.”
Rong Zhaonan watched as Ning Yuan carried the newspapers into the house, then came out and proficiently took out the repair tools she had borrowed from the village team.
He narrowed his eyes. “You know how to do repairs?”
While rolling up her sleeves, Ning Yuan nodded. “A little. Let’s fix it first and see.”
Rong Zhaonan said, “You’re quite the daring thinker and doer…”
Halfway through his sentence, he suddenly raised his eyes sharply toward the small path in front of the Cowshed, a wary, cold glint flashing in his eyes. “Someone’s coming.”
Ning Yuan happened to see the cold, blade-like aura on him, and her breath hitched subconsciously.
But the next moment, Rong Zhaonan lowered his head and stepped behind her, instantly reverting to that silent, unnoticeable, weak scholar.
Ning Yuan almost suspected she was hallucinating. Before she could react, she heard footsteps.
She looked toward the end of the path.
Sure enough, Tang Zhenzhen, Li Yan, Huang Xuehong, Qin Xiaoxia, a few of the Red Armbands she had seen at noon, and even some gossiping villagers were following along.
Ning Yuan’s delicate brows furrowed. “They actually came together.”
Li Yan was actually mixing with Tang Zhenzhen’s group.
Huang Xuehong had always been Tang Zhenzhen’s vanguard. Seeing the furniture on the cart next to Ning Yuan from a distance, she started shouting—
“See, see! I told you she was a thief, didn’t I? Look, not only does she steal from us Educated Youth, Ning Yuan also steals from the team! Isn’t that an office desk and an office chair?”
Li Yan said nothing, merely walking closer to look at the cart of items.
Although they were all broken, they were indeed desk and chair-type objects.
The Red Armbands and villagers who had followed along also began to whisper among themselves upon seeing this.
Tang Zhenzhen looked at the cart of things and sneered inwardly. So she really is a thief?
She put on a helpless expression. “Aigh, Ning Yuan, how could you start stealing public property from the team just because you’re with a bad element? That’s a crime punishable by prison.”
Ning Yuan looked utterly baffled. “What are you talking about? I borrowed all this discarded office furniture from the team. The Old Branch Secretary has a loan receipt in black and white. I even promised to return them after I fix them!”
A villager who had come to watch the commotion also spoke up. “We did see the village accountant Lai go with Ning Yuan to the village school warehouse this morning.”
Li Yan was instantly relieved and looked at Tang Zhenzhen. “I told you Ning Yuan wasn’t that kind of person.”
Tang Zhenzhen choked, looking aggrieved. “I just misunderstood after hearing what Xuehong said.”
Meeting Li Yan’s gaze, Huang Xuehong’s dark, chubby face flushed, and she instinctively cursed at Ning Yuan, “Well… well, it’s because you stole Zhenzhen’s money and things that we misunderstood you!”
Suddenly, Ning Yuan grabbed the large water ladle nearby and fiercely flung a ladleful of stinking water, flecked with cow dung, directly onto Huang Xuehong’s dark, chubby face.
It was the dirty water from washing the cattle that Rong Zhaonan hadn’t had time to clean up that morning.