Zhou Cuihua immediately reached out to grab He He, using so much force that her hand clamped tightly around He He’s arm.
Chen Jingbai had just lifted his leg to step forward and help when He He swiftly shook Zhou Cuihua’s hand off.
He lowered his leg again and quietly watched He He handle it herself.
He He’s small face turned stern.
“Auntie, what do you mean by this? Why are you grabbing me? If there’s something you want to discuss, we can go to the brigade leader’s house together after today’s production tasks are finished. Don’t delay our work right now.”
“Your sickle is being repaired by Uncle Zhou. I don’t have your hoe, so don’t come after the wrong person. If you keep stopping us, we’ll tell the brigade leader that you’re making unreasonable trouble and delaying the brigade’s production tasks.”
Zhou Cuihua hadn’t expected this seemingly delicate and weak educated youth to be able to shake off her hand.
She had used all her strength just now.
How had a girl from the city managed to throw her hand off so easily?
Zhou Cuihua looked at He He with suspicion.
Before she could say what she wanted to say, she noticed that the other three educated youths had gathered around them.
Two of them were men.
If she, a woman, really started making a scene, she wouldn’t be able to overpower two men.
So she no longer dared make a sound.
Besides, this female educated youth was incredibly crafty. She knew exactly how to bring up the brigade leader.
Who didn’t know that their brigade leader favored these educated youths?
He was always saying that the young people from the city had come to support the countryside, so everyone needed to treat them well. They couldn’t create conflicts and had to get along peacefully, and so on.
Every time there was a brigade meeting, the brigade leader loved reminding everyone that they needed to get along peacefully with the educated youths.
Only the brigade leader could make it sound so nice.
Who didn’t know these educated youths had come here to take a share of their grain?
Still, no one dared go against the brigade leader.
The brigade leader was stern and fair, had even fought on the battlefield in his younger years, held seniority in the brigade, and was exceptionally capable when it came to managing production.
Who would dare offend him?
So Zhou Cuihua reluctantly said, “Aiya, I was only joking with you. I didn’t expect you to be so strong. We’ll just wait for Zhou Laosi. You all hurry along. Don’t delay production.”
He He pressed her lips together.
“Oh. You really do love joking around.”
“You!”
Zhou Cuihua clearly hadn’t expected He He to give her so little face. She was so angry that her neck strained with every heavy breath.
Zheng Xinxin immediately sided with He He.
“What do you mean, ‘you’? Don’t think we’re easy to bully.”
Zhao Dechuan stepped in at the right moment to smooth things over.
“Auntie, don’t take offense at us. Xinxin and Xiao He are still young, so sometimes they speak a little too directly. After all, Auntie, you’ve eaten more salt than they’ve eaten rice. Please be understanding toward them. We’ll head off first. If we keep talking, we’ll really delay the brigade’s production tasks.”
Zhao Dechuan had been among the first group of educated youths sent down to the countryside and was already thirty-two this year.
He wasn’t like He He and Zheng Xinxin, who were only in their early twenties.
Zhou Cuihua’s son was around the same age as He He and Zheng Xinxin. For her to fight with juniors over a sickle really was unbecoming of an elder.
Zhao Dechuan didn’t have a good attitude toward Zhou Cuihua either, but appearances still had to be maintained.
After speaking to Zhou Cuihua, he turned to the other educated youths.
“Let’s go.”
There was still unwillingness in Zhou Cuihua’s eyes.
One sentence about the brigade’s production tasks, then another about the brigade’s production tasks.
She was sick to death of hearing it.
Unfortunately, those words were exactly what could keep her in check.
If anyone really delayed the brigade’s production, the brigade leader truly wouldn’t be easy to talk to.
Zhou Cuihua was intimidated by these sharp-tongued educated youths, but she still couldn’t swallow her anger.
She shot Granny Wang a look, hoping Granny Wang could rely on her age to shamelessly make a scene and snatch the sickle and hoe back.
Seeing that Zhou Cuihua had gained nothing after taking the lead, Granny Wang was just about to rush forward when she heard that her hoe had been repaired.
She instantly forgot all about snatching the hoe from the educated youths and happily took her repaired one.
Granny Wang said, “Cuihua, my hoe’s fixed, so I’ll head off first. You wait a little longer for your sickle. It should be done soon too. Zhou Laosi works pretty quickly.”
Seeing Granny Wang abandon her so quickly, Zhou Cuihua could hardly bear to look at her.
She snapped irritably, “Go, go. All of you, just go.”
Once only she and Zhou Laosi were left at the tool shed, Zhou Cuihua grew even angrier.
But she had nowhere to vent that anger and could only bottle it up.
She waited for what felt like forever before Zhou Laosi finally finished sharpening her sickle.
Zhou Cuihua was furious.
“You’re so damn slow. Even sharpening a sickle takes you forever.”
Zhou Laosi good-naturedly said, “Slow work produces fine results. I sharpened it really well for you. I guarantee you’ll cut grass faster than everyone else—”
Zhou Cuihua’s mouth turned downward.
Without saying anything else, she left.
She didn’t have time to stand around listening to Zhou Laosi ramble nonsense.
She hurried to the fields.
By the time she arrived, the brigade members had already been working for who knew how long.
The work-point recorder frowned at the late-arriving Zhou Cuihua.
“Why are you so late? You’ve already delayed things by fifteen minutes. This is your warning for today. If it happens again, half a work point will be deducted.”
The work-point recorder wasn’t someone who could be easily fooled.
He was even fiercer and stricter than the brigade leader.
He didn’t care what had caused the delay.
Late was late.
He showed no favoritism whatsoever.
It was precisely because of this iron-faced impartiality that he’d been chosen as the work-point recorder.
Zhou Cuihua didn’t dare offend him.
She hurriedly put on a smiling face and briefly explained what had happened before taking her bellyful of resentment into the fields to work.
When work points were calculated that afternoon, she’d already lost some time and had also been distracted by other thoughts.
As a result, she failed to complete her assigned task and had one work point deducted.
When Zhou Cuihua returned home and saw her son lying on the bed like a cripple, her face fell even further.
Wang Xiaojun had never stopped making her worry since he was little.
Life had been perfectly fine, yet he’d gone running off to a gambling den again.
Then, on the way home, he’d been beaten into this miserable state by the people from the gambling den.
He couldn’t even get out of bed for a week and could only stay home wasting rice.
She couldn’t stop herself from nagging.
“Junzi, look at you. Why did you have to keep fooling around with your cousin? Now you’re hurt so badly you can’t even earn work points. Do you still want to find yourself a wife or not?”
Wang Xiaojun and Zhou Dahe were paternal cousins, and their families lived close to each other.
They had played together since childhood.
They had been mischievous when they were young, and now that they were grown, there was no rotten thing they wouldn’t do.
Zhou Cuihua truly couldn’t stand the sight of this son of hers.
But she still had no choice but to take care of him.
“Enough, Mom. Go make dinner. I’m already hurting like hell and you’re still saying all this.”
Even the slightest movement made Wang Xiaojun’s entire body hurt unbearably.
He spat viciously.
Those bastards from the gambling den had been fucking ruthless.
He’d only won some money.
Did they really need to beat him half to death?
Once his injuries healed, he was definitely going to settle the score with those people from the gambling den.
Fortunately, he and his cousin had been smart enough to hide the money in their underwear, so that person hadn’t managed to steal it.
Thinking back to that night filled Wang Xiaojun with hatred.
If his cousin and Gouzi hadn’t still been able to move and drag him back, he might really have lain on that road until the next day, with no one knowing whether he was dead or alive.
Out of the three of them, he’d been injured the worst.
It had to be because he’d won the most money and those people from the gambling den were jealous.
Thinking about his winnings, Wang Xiaojun began chuckling quietly again.
Getting beaten once was worth it if he got money out of it.
His luck had been incredible that night.
He’d won fifty yuan!
Fifty yuan was two or three months’ salary for a city worker.
No wonder those people from the gambling den wanted to rob him.
They were just jealous because he’d won so much.
But he wasn’t like those idiots who’d won money before him and hadn’t hidden it properly, only to have it stolen on their way home.
Seeing her son suddenly start laughing again, Zhou Cuihua found it baffling.
“Junzi, what are you laughing about? You’re confusing your mother.”
Wang Xiaojun suppressed his smile.
“Nothing. Hurry up and make dinner. Dad will be home soon too.”
He had worked hard to earn that money.
It was for him alone.
Why would he possibly tell Zhou Cuihua about it?
Several more peaceful days passed.
The incident of Wang Xiaojun and the other two being beaten so badly they couldn’t even work in the fields was mocked by the brigade members for a while before the discussion gradually died down.
Once the excitement passed, the brigade had almost finished transplanting all the rice seedlings as well.
The busy farming season was nearly over.
Yet He He still hadn’t managed to win Chen Jingbai over.
In fact, she felt that lately there was always a faint, almost imperceptible coldness in the way Chen Jingbai treated her.
The rice transplanting had been progressing quickly recently, so they returned to the educated youth station earlier than before.
That evening, it was Chen Jingbai’s turn to cook.
While the other educated youths were all in their rooms, He He cornered Chen Jingbai in the woodshed where he was cooking.
The faint evening glow filtered through the trees covering the mountains and then through the wooden-framed glass window.
It fell across the hard lines of Chen Jingbai’s profile, covering him in streaks of warm red light.
He He stood still for a moment.
Then she quietly walked closer.
Seeing that the dish in the wok was almost finished, she decided to wait a little longer and let Chen Jingbai finish cooking it first.
After Chen Jingbai finished stir-frying the vegetables and turned to get a plate, he finally noticed from the corner of his eye that He He had entered at some point.
He had no idea how long she’d been standing there.
Since He He didn’t move, Chen Jingbai pretended not to see her.
He calmly picked up a plate, scooped the vegetables from the wok onto it, then placed it on an empty part of the stove.
Seeing Chen Jingbai prepare to cook the next dish, He He finally poked his arm and stopped him.
“Chen Jingbai, I have something I want to ask you.”
These past few days, no matter how much she praised him, Chen Jingbai remained unmoved.
She had wanted to ask him for a long time why he’d suddenly started pulling away.
The distant golden light fell across Chen Jingbai, making his usually aloof appearance seem gentler.
Looking at Chen Jingbai’s slightly reddish thin lips, He He swallowed.
The words she had intended to say became stuck in her throat.
From the very beginning, she’d been attracted to Chen Jingbai’s exceptionally good looks.
Even back when she’d learned that Chen Jingbai would become a major figure in the future and immediately decided she wanted to become the female lead of his story, a large part of the reason had been that Chen Jingbai perfectly matched her standards for how her future partner should look.
As if possessed by some inexplicable impulse, the words He He had always kept in her heart suddenly slipped out.
“Chen Jingbai, can I kiss you?”
He He’s voice wasn’t particularly loud, but Chen Jingbai heard her clearly.
And because he’d been staring at her lips in order to understand what she was saying, he’d read the words clearly as well.
Chen Jingbai’s heart skipped several beats.
Disbelief flashed through his eyes.
“Do you know what you’re saying?”
Chen Jingbai’s voice snapped He He back to her senses.
Only then did she belatedly realize what she’d just blurted out.
Her cheeks instantly burned.
“I… I…”
Chen Jingbai looked at her reddened face without saying a word.
The atmosphere abruptly turned cold.
He He raised her head and looked at the indifferent Chen Jingbai.
That faint coldness she’d sensed from him over the past few days once again surfaced in her mind.
Throwing caution to the wind, she stared firmly into Chen Jingbai’s eyes.
“I said I want to kiss you.”
Chen Jingbai gave a soft laugh.
“What kind of relationship do we have? You think you can kiss me just because you want to?”
Ever since he’d seen her being intimate with Cheng Sulin behind the house last time, he’d calmed down.
His attitude toward He He had returned to what it had been before.
Now, He He’s frivolous words were like a tiny piece of firewood thrown into a pile of dry grass.
With a crackle, they jolted him fully awake and sent an inexplicable anger surging through his chest.
What exactly did He He take him for?
Why could she say things like this so casually?
Why wasn’t being so close to Cheng Sulin enough?
Why did she still have to come and provoke him?
Without giving He He any chance to speak, Chen Jingbai continued like a string of exploding firecrackers, veins appearing on his forehead.
“If you’re going to be so close to Cheng Sulin, then stop coming to me and saying things like this.
“What exactly do you take me for?
“Do you genuinely like me, or do you just think it’s fun to toy with me?
“Who taught you to be so fickle and treat people so frivolously?”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The cold war is about to begin. Tough-Talking Guy held it in for so long and finally said it out loud 😎