“Grandma, someone’s here again!”

The child’s voice rang out loudly. It seemed the team leader’s house was never short of visitors.

It was Aunt Xinghua, the team leader’s wife. Seeing the two girls standing at the door, her eyes lingered on the basket they carried, and her face lit up with a big smile.

“Li Zhiqing and Song Zhiqing! What brings you here? Come in, come in!”

In the courtyard, a little boy—bare-bottomed and three years old—was sitting in a basin of water, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the visitors.

Song Wei handed the basket to Aunt Xinghua. “Auntie, I picked these mushrooms in the mountains today. It’s just a little something—hope you don’t mind.”

With her bright smile and sweet voice, Song Wei’s charm made people want to talk with her. Aunt Xinghua made a show of refusing, but soon accepted, as they weren’t especially valuable.

“You girls don’t have to be so polite! Come in, and let’s talk inside.”

Li Juan handed over her eggs, and Song Wei passed a piece of candy to the little boy, who squealed with joy.

“Why give candy to children? It’s a waste of money.” Aunt Xinghua protested lightly, though the grin on her face grew even wider. It wasn’t about the value; seeing others care for her child genuinely made her happy.

“It’s just a little treat, really. Nothing costly,” Song Wei reassured her.

Li Juan, watching quietly, was deeply impressed. She could never imagine approaching the team leader with such confidence. After all, he commanded considerable respect in the village.

As they chatted, the team leader walked out, a dark blue coat over his shoulders, pipe in his mouth, giving them a scrutinizing look.

“What’s got you two here?” he asked brusquely.

Aunt Xinghua shot him a sharp glance. “Look at you, scaring them off with that grumpy face!”

Swallowing his words, the team leader took out his pipe and cast his wife an exasperated look.

“Team leader, I just want to ask you, can we enclose a separate yard on the private plot behind the Zhiqing compound.”

The team leader frowned. The affairs of the Zhiqing compound had always been a headache for him; they came with no shortage of petty conflicts. But glancing at the basket of mushrooms and the eggs his wife held, he felt slightly pressured—having already accepted the gifts, an outright refusal would be awkward.

“What’s brought this on? Why would you want to fence off part of the yard?”

Song Wei nudged Li Juan forward and spoke passionately, recounting the day’s events and emphasizing how much effort Li Juan had put into tending that small vegetable plot.

“Imagine putting your heart and soul into a garden, only to have others come and take what they want without asking. And worse—they don’t say a single good thing but turn around and call you selfish. Who could stand that? And besides, this will only encourage laziness, with everyone relying on someone else’s work. Eventually, no one will even want to plant anything!”

Li Juan’s eyes reddened, genuinely upset, and Aunt Xinghua nodded sympathetically.

Country folk rarely tolerated laziness. Aunt Xinghua knew that if someone dared pick vegetables from her own garden and then called her stingy, she’d be furious enough to scold them out of town.

“Why are those Zhiqing like this? If they want vegetables, why don’t they plant their own?”

“Exactly! That’s why Li Zhiqing and I came to ask if we could fence off our own little spot. Otherwise, if they keep doing this, Li Juan won’t even dare plant anything, and neither will I.”

The team leader took a deep drag on his pipe, frowning thoughtfully. He hadn’t expected to hear about such an incident in the Zhiqing compound.

“Let me think about it.”

Aunt Xinghua cut in. “What’s there to think about? It’s just a small fenced area in the backyard. That space is huge!”

The team leader shot her a look. “It’s not that simple. We’d need to get the other Zhiqing’s input, and even if we go ahead, there would need to be a plan in place. We can’t just let anyone set up fences wherever they like.”

“We only want a small plot, just the three square meters behind our rooms.”

Li Juan nodded in agreement.

The team leader took another long pull on his pipe. “I’ll give it some thought. You two should go back for now.”

Since he hadn’t turned them down outright, Song Wei knew that the idea was feasible. Leaving the mushrooms behind, they bid farewell to Aunt Xinghua and headed home.

Once they were gone, Aunt Xinghua couldn’t stop smiling as she looked at the plump mushrooms.

“This’ll be enough for the family for two days! Song Zhiqing has a real way with people—the mushrooms she brought look amazing.”

None of them had gone mushroom picking in the mountains themselves yet.

The team leader’s daughter-in-law chimed in, “These mushrooms look fantastic, Mom, I will go to the mountains to pick mushrooms tomorrow afternoon.”

Hearing this, the young boy—still with candy in his mouth—bounced over excitedly. “Can I go to the mountains, too?”

“Yes, your mom will take you tomorrow,” Aunt Xinghua said with a grin.

The team leader gave his wife a disapproving look. “I’ve told you not to just take things from people.”

Taking gifts meant responsibilities, and he was already overloaded.

Aunt Xinghua rolled her eyes. “I’m not foolish, you know. Mushrooms aren’t anything precious—they grow in the mountains, after all. Besides, the girls didn’t ask for anything difficult. If they dared to, I’d throw the basket right back at them.”

She wasn’t one to let people take advantage, especially if they were making her husband’s job harder.

“As for the case of Li Zhiqing, the other Zhiqing are truly shameless. It’s just like back when our brigade had group work days; there were always a few freeloaders making the hard workers resentful. But once we changed the system to give points for work, no one dared slack off. It’s the same idea.”

Aunt Xinghua genuinely liked Song Wei and Li Juan; after all, they were sensible girls who’d shown respect by bringing gifts.

“Fine, fine. I’ll look into it tomorrow,” the team leader conceded.

“But you know,” Aunt Xinghua added thoughtfully, “Song Zhiqing really seems different after she came back from the hospital—so likable, too.”

The daughter-in-law lowered her voice, “Maybe she got scared straight?”

Aunt Xinghua chuckled. “No, I heard the whole incident about her jumping in the river was a misunderstanding. She slipped and fell in by accident. And as for her chasing after Luo Zhiqing, it turns out she’d given him a bunch of ration tickets, so she wanted her dues back.”

The daughter-in-law’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really?”

“Oh, yes. Let me tell you…”

The team leader watched the two women gossip with growing exasperation. Did these women have nothing better to do?

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