Chapter 43: Putting Theory into Practice

Lu Lan saw the situation and gave him a harsh scolding, “The road isn’t even good, and you still want to go work?”

“I…”

“Enough, go back.”

“I’m fine, I can work.”

“Get lost.” Lu Lan said angrily, “If you get paralyzed, you’ll drag me and Rongrong down for life.”

These past few days, his wife had been so fierce that Feng Feng didn’t dare argue back, only saying, “Then I’ll stay home with Rongrong and cook. What do you want to eat?”

Lu Lan just smiled—a cold smile—“Eat what? With the little food we have, what choice do we have?”

That one sentence left Feng Feng speechless. After his wife went back inside, he took their daughter to the back mountain to dig for wild vegetables.

They only had that little food, so they had to mix wild vegetables with porridge to survive until the next grain borrowing period.

In the village, the men dug ditches, and the women weeded.

Feng Mian was with Lu Lan. Lu Lan worked very efficiently—she finished half a patch of soil quickly.

Feng Mian had only just started and her patch wasn’t very clean.

Feng Mian inherited the original owner’s memories and knew how to do farm work.

But knowing is one thing—that’s just theoretical knowledge. Actual practice is quite different.

She was a rich second generation—flowers and plants in her villa were regularly tended by hired help; she herself only knew how to grow succulents.

After a while of adapting, she finally got the hang of it a bit.

“Mianmian, what’s wrong?”

Lu Lan noticed she had only weeded a little and looked distracted.

Before, she wasn’t as efficient as other village wives, but she hadn’t been this slow either.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Just thinking about something,” Feng Mian said casually.

“About what?”

Lu Lan went straight to help and soon the two were chatting as they worked.

“Look at us, working so hard, yet the points we earn aren’t even enough to eat.”

“Yeah.” Lu Lan sighed, “But there’s no other way. Us rural women, besides earning work points, what else can we do? Sigh! I really envy women in the city—they can be factory workers. Mianmian, do you think we’ll ever have the chance to move to the city in our lifetime?”

“We will.”

“Really?” Lu Lan’s eyes lit up.

Feng Mian nodded firmly, “Definitely. Once the policies open up.”

Lu Lan was a bit skeptical and pessimistic, “But how do we get into the city? To be a worker, you need to pass exams and have a city household registration. I don’t have any of that—I dropped out after third grade.”

“You still have Rongrong. I think Rongrong’s smart. If she gets into university one day, she can transfer her household registration to the city. You’re her only mother; she’ll support you when you’re old, and you can follow her to move your registration.”

Actually, that’s not possible yet—but Lu Lan didn’t understand that.

When the time comes, city registrations might not even be so valuable anymore.

Telling Lu Lan this gave her something to hope for.

Once people have goals and hope, they work harder at everything.

Sure enough, after hearing Feng Mian’s words, Lu Lan was full of confidence and energy.

She quietly resolved: no matter what, she’d support her daughter’s education.

If someone like Old Lady Qian or other troublemakers came to disrupt it, she’d fight them off one by one. No one would stop her daughter from going to school.

Lu Lan saw light ahead and weeded faster than ever.

Seeing how skillful Lu Lan was, Feng Mian couldn’t lag behind and sped up as well.

But since she had just switched from theory to practice, her hands were still clumsy—and she accidentally cut her hand with the knife.

“Ah!” Feng Mian cried out in surprise.

“What happened?” Lu Lan hurried over. “Ah, how could you be so careless?”

Feng Mian shook her head.

Lu Lan sighed, “I can tell your mind is heavy. The knife is sharp—how can you be distracted? Stop it, rest over here, I’ll help you.”

Feng Mian said, “No, it’s okay. I’ll go back.”

“Huh? If you quit now, you’ll probably lose a point.”

Feng Mian thought to herself: anyway, she only got credited about six points a day; losing one or two points didn’t make much difference. Could she live off these points? Barely. Better to just go through the motions and free up some time to do something else.

“No problem. I feel cutting grass has no future. I want to do something else to earn money.”

Lu Lan looked confused.

Feng Mian went back early. Luckily, the cut wasn’t deep—she cleaned the wound and put on a band-aid.

At noon, she cooked rice, made scrambled eggs with Chinese toon, boiled some vegetable soup, and grabbed some pickled green beans from the pickle jar to stir-fry with dried chili.

The sour green beans were pickled by the original owner, but not in large quantities, so they wouldn’t last long.

Feng Mian had bought some on an online store; the stone cabinet held three large jars of pickles, two of which were freshly bought by her.

Her pickle jars contained not only sour green beans but also sour radish, pickled ginger, pickled chili, and more…

At noon, Guo Yuelin came back carrying a hoe; Feng Mian had already set the dishes on the table.

“Wash your hands and come eat.”

“Okay.”

Sitting at the table and looking at the food, Guo Yuelin frowned slightly and asked, “Do we have enough grain?”

Feng Mian was taken aback for a moment, then smiled, “Yes, plenty. I bought a lot before the New Year.”

In Guo Yuelin’s mind, she really was wealthy and had connections to get ration coupons.

If only he wasn’t such a burden on the family… sigh! Forget it, he didn’t want to think about that family anymore.

From now on, he wanted to live well with Feng Mian and make a prosperous life.

“I sold the nearly expired coupons.” While speaking, he took some change from his clothes. “Here’s the money, keep it.”

Maybe worried she wouldn’t accept it, he added, “Don’t worry, I’ll earn it back. I’m not just eating for free.”

Working and paying money too… “Okay then.”

Actually, Feng Mian thought: when you work for the production team, they only recognize me as the household head—so you’re basically just paying the food fees.

“I won’t go back to work this afternoon. I’m going to the city to see if there are any opportunities.”

Feng Mian had thought it over—she couldn’t handle this work and didn’t want to push herself too hard.

More importantly, she felt that spending so much time and effort to earn a few work points was really not worth it.

Guo Yuelin looked up at her in surprise, then his eyes fell on her hand.

She had a band-aid on her hand?

“What happened to your hand?”

“I accidentally cut it while cutting grass.”

Guo Yuelin quickly put down his bowl and chopsticks, came around the table to her side, “Let me see.”

He took her hand from her, and Feng Mian felt a bit embarrassed.

“It’s nothing, just a small cut.”

He still peeled off the band-aid and saw it was indeed a small wound and looked fine, so he relaxed.

“If the wound were serious, there’d be a risk of tetanus. When we were in the army… cough, cough, you handled it well.”

Feng Mian pulled her hand back.

Guo Yuelin said again, “Don’t work on the fields anymore. I checked—you can only work up to seven points at most, usually just six. Doing something else would be more worthwhile and less tiring.”

He even went to ask about this specifically?

Feng Mian looked embarrassed.