After Yang Dazhong’s wife finished washing her clothes and left, Aunt Hu from next door finally said,
“Dazhong’s wife looks down on educated youths and refused to let her daughter marry one. She claimed that Educated Youth Zheng was seducing her daughter, so she hurriedly married the girl off to a village near her maternal family’s home. Now her daughter refuses to come back, so she’s ended up hating all the educated youths.”
It turned out that Yang Yun, the eldest daughter of Yang Dazhong’s family, was the same age as Yang Tao’s eldest sister.
Because their home was located right beside the educated youth residence, the older children in their family naturally had more contact with the educated youths.
Over time, Yang Yun and Zheng Youcheng, one of the educated youths who had arrived several years earlier, became a couple.
When her family discovered the relationship, they strongly opposed it and forcibly broke them apart.
Yang Yun was then married off to a village where her maternal grandmother lived.
As a result, Yang Yun came to resent her natal family.
After getting married, she refused to return home even during holidays and festivals.
Dazhong’s wife had already disliked educated youths because of her daughter’s relationship.
Now that her daughter wouldn’t come home at all, her hatred for them had only grown stronger.
Rumor had it that she no longer allowed any of her children to interact with people from the educated youth residence.
By the time Yang Tao finished washing her clothes, she had already learned a mountain of gossip from the village aunties.
For example:
Which widow was secretly involved with which man.
Which family didn’t grow enough vegetables and had been stealing produce from other people’s plots.
Which family’s daughter was discussing marriage with which family’s son.
Who planned to take a wife this year.
Which mother-in-law and daughter-in-law couldn’t get along.
Which household had secretly raised a few extra chickens.
…
In short, there wasn’t a single matter in the village, big or small, that escaped their notice.
No wonder people in the twenty-first century joked online that the aunties gathered at village entrances were the equivalent of the imperial secret police and the most powerful intelligence agency on Earth.
Yang Tao was convinced that the women of Yang Family Hollow were every bit as capable as those legendary village aunties of the future.
The speed at which news of her marriage to Educated Youth Chen—and their plan to build a blue-brick house—had spread was proof enough.
Their information-gathering abilities were truly terrifying.
Yang Tao firmly believed that while perhaps not one hundred percent of the village knew she was getting married yet, at least ninety-eight percent did.
As for the remaining two percent…
Those were probably babies still being carried in their mothers’ arms.
When she returned home, it was nearly time to prepare lunch again.
After hanging the washed clothes out to dry in the courtyard, Yang Tao went to the vegetable plot and picked some water spinach and cucumbers.
She also pulled the newly sprouted weeds from the garden, chopped them up, and fed them to the chickens.
After a moment’s thought, she headed over to the chicken coop.
The previous day, she had seen her grandmother collect several eggs.
Sure enough, there were eggs inside.
Unfortunately, there were only two.
Stretching her arm inside, Yang Tao retrieved both eggs and carried them to the kitchen.
She cracked them into a bowl, planning to make cucumber stir-fried eggs for lunch.
Otherwise, once her grandmother returned, she definitely wouldn’t be willing to eat them.
As expected, when Grandma Yang came home and saw the eggs already beaten in the bowl, she gave Yang Tao a thorough scolding.
In those days, most families relied on selling eggs to buy necessities like needles, thread, and other household items.
The family had very little cash income throughout the year.
And only a few days earlier, the eggs they had painstakingly saved had been given to the team leader’s family as a gift of thanks.
At present, there weren’t many eggs left in the house at all.
Even though she was thoroughly lectured, everyone still enjoyed lunch.
The cucumber stir-fried eggs and water spinach were especially popular.
After learning how those eggs had ended up on the table, little cousin Yang Ping seemed eager to try something similar herself.
However, before she could put any plans into action, Grandma Yang made an announcement.
From now on, she would personally collect all the eggs.
No one else in the family would be allowed near that job again.
Yang Tao wasn’t sure whether her grandmother was still upset about the two eggs she’d used at lunch.
But that afternoon, Grandma Yang told her to go work in the fields.
Although Yang Tao didn’t want to assume the worst about her grandmother, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being punished.
After all, it hadn’t even been ten days since she had injured her head.
So she reasonably suspected that Grandma Yang wanted her to earn a few work points to compensate for those two eggs.
Fortunately, her grandmother had likely spoken to the team leader beforehand.
Instead of assigning her to demanding jobs like pulling seedlings or transplanting rice, he assigned her to cutting pig fodder.
Compared to the other tasks, it was relatively easy work and clearly meant as consideration for her status as a recovering patient.
Of course, the work points were correspondingly lower.
Even if she filled an entire load of pig grass during a half day’s work, she would only earn two work points.
As a result, this job was usually given to elderly people, those in poor health, or anyone unable to perform heavy labor.