Weeding 

“Meng Yuanzheng? Why are you here?” 

Lin Miaoyin rubbed her hands, trying to get the mud off them. She then pushed aside the corn leaves, and climbed up to the field. 

The place where he was assigned to work was a bit far away from here. Why was he here now, and with gloves? Those gloves were probably given to him by Zhu Wanqin. 

“Zhu Wanqin gave me a pair of gloves. You can use them.” Meng Yuanzheng handed her the gloves as if nothing had happened. 

“For me? What about you?” She took them subconsciously. 

“I don’t need them to carry buckets.”  

Today, his job was the same as the other men’s: to carry manure as fertilizer. He had to carry buckets of manure up to the fields halfway up the mountain, then spread the manure across the crops. He repeated this process until his assigned field was done. Afterward, a scorer would patrol, check the work, and record labor points. 

“Where did she give them to you?” Lin Miaoyin asked. 

“On the mountain.” 

“She ran to the mountain to give you gloves? I also saw her giving gloves to other female educated youths. Do all of you educated youth have gloves?” 

Upon hearing this, Meng Yuanzheng stopped for a moment and hummed in response. 

“Did you sneak over here?” she asked.  

“Mm, I went home to relieve myself.” 

How particular. Most people just found a secluded spot, dropped their pants, and got it over with, wiping with dried grass or leaves. Yet he specifically came back.  

“That’s really kind, thank you for this. You should hurry back to work now.” She jumped off the field ridge, waved her gloves at him, and waited until he had left before returning to continue weeding.  

With gloves, she was able to work harder. Without gloves, pulling weeds too hard hurt her hands. Thanks to the gloves, she finished clearing the field in one go, and by the time she was done, it was time for their break. 

Those who hadn’t finished their work stayed to continue, while those who were done went home to cook. The team leaders and vice leaders went around inspecting the fields. Surprisingly, Lin Miaoyin, who usually takes it easy at work, managed to finish ahead of the other female educated youths today. She hadn’t been pretending to work either, while the newly arrived female educated youths were all so tired that they leaned on each other, their faces looking pale. 

“Old Lin, your daughter did a good job today.” The vice team leader was holding a hoe and walking while checking the weeding situation in the field. 

It’s June now, the season when weeds grow wildly and corn begins to sprout. If weeding is not done properly, the weeds would compete with the corn for nutrients. 

“Hehe, she is just lazy on weekdays. If she continues to be lazy after getting married, she won’t have enough food to eat.” Father Lin walked around with his hands behind his back and found that there was something wrong with the weeds pulled by the new female educated youths. Due to their lack of experience and poor control of the strength, a lot of weeds were pulled out, but the roots remained in the ground. 

“Send someone to help them in the afternoon. This can’t continue, I already reminded them this morning to pull out the roots.” 

“Let’s go up the mountain and take a look.” 

Houtouwan is surrounded by mountains and full of hills. The vegetable fields are located on the hills. As they walked along the path, they met many people finishing work, with hoes on their shoulders, and greeted them one by one.  

The two men responded and continued to move forward. From a distance, they saw more people bending over, still busy in the fields. 

One person scooped manure water from a bucket with a gourd-shaped ladle, pouring a little at the base of each vegetable as he moved down the line. If you didn’t know it was Meng Yuanzheng, you might think he was a local of Houtouwan.  

The two were surprised and looked at him from a distance for a while. It didn’t seem like he was pretending. 

Everyone knows Meng Yuanzheng. He came from the city and looks delicate and refined. When he first arrived, he was the best-dressed among the group of educated youth, wearing a shirt with a woolen vest, leather shoes, a shiny watch, and carrying two large suitcases. 

Although it was expected that the other educated youths wouldn’t know how to farm when they first went to the countryside, it only took a few days to learn. Everyone had come in response to the country’s call to go to the countryside for re-education by the poor and lower-middle peasants. The working class is the most honorable, so how could they complain about hardship? Anyone who thought it was tough just hadn’t thought deeply enough and needed to reflect on themselves. So, everyone endured it, and after a few days, they got used to it. 

But Meng Yuanzheng was different. 

He couldn’t handle hardship, couldn’t endure the labor, and did his work poorly. If no one was watching, he would slack off.  

It wasn’t until after he married Lin Miaoyin and became a primary school teacher that he stopped bothering the leaders. 

This time, because of the incident between him and Zhang Hui, the team asked him to come back to work. They didn’t expect much from him, it was mainly to teach him a lesson. Who would have thought that he seems to be doing a pretty good job now. 

“Yuanzheng, it’s time for lunch. Go back and eat, and come back to work in the afternoon.” 

Father Lin greeted him with a pleasant expression. 

When Meng Yuanzheng saw his father-in-law coming, he quickly put down the things he’s holding and stood up, “Father, Uncle Chen.” 

“Yuanzheng, you did a good job today. Who taught you?” Father Lin asked. 

“No one taught me, I saw everyone else doing it, so I just followed along,” Meng Yuanzheng answered honestly.  

Father Lin was surprised. If this kid had learned by watching others work, would he still be crying in the middle of the night? 

“Good, that’s good. If you keep up the good work, I will give you ten work points next month.” Father Lin praised. 

Meng Yuanzheng smiled shyly. 

“I saw that the work assigned to you this morning is already finished, right? This piece of land, and that one,” Vice Leader Chen pointed to two pieces of land, “Isn’t this piece supposed to be yours?” 

When Father Lin took a look, he realized that it was true. He had just been focusing on watching him work and had not noticed this problem. 

“What’s going on? Did someone deliberately exchange land with you?” Father Lin frowned and asked suspiciously. 

This piece of land is at the top, and the land assigned to him is a little lower, so he doesn’t have to carry the manure so high, which is naturally easier. There are some old rascals in the team who like to take advantage of the new educated youths in this way.  

“It’s not like that!” Meng Yuanzheng said seriously. “I have already watered those two plots. This plot was given to Uncle Zhou. I just saw that he’s getting old and hurt his back while carrying manure, so I gave him a hand.” 

“Uncle Zhou?” Father Lin raised his eyebrows. He knew the old man well. The new people wouldn’t know, but they had all lived in the same team for decades. 

Uncle Zhou is a typical old fox who is very good at pretending to be weak. He is obviously only in his early fifties, but he makes himself look like he is in his seventies or eighties. He also takes advantage of the sympathy of young people and often asks others to do work for him. 

“Uncle Zhou has gone home to rest,” Meng Yuanzheng said while bending down to pick up the bucket and starting to irrigate again.  

“I bet he just went to avoid work,” Vice Leader Chen mumbled. 

“Yuanzheng, you are not allowed to help others with work in the future, do you hear me?” Father Lin said seriously, with his hands on his hips. “If you have time, go help Miaoyin with some work. I gave you my daughter, and you can’t take better care of her?” 

“Father, I understand,” Meng Yuanzheng said sincerely. 

“Okay, take this and come back with me. Let Uncle Zhou finished the rest himself. This old man has been slacking off all day long. If I catch him avoiding work again, I’ll deduct his work points!” Father Lin walked back with his hands behind his back, and Meng Yuanzheng hurriedly picked up the bucket and followed him. 

The three of them went down the mountain and headed home. The bucket belonged to the team, so Meng Yuanzheng returned it first. Then, he went to the river to wash his hands and feet, making sure there was no smell of manure on him before going back. 

Lin Miaoyin had already made dinner when he got home—stir-fried eggplant with pickled vegetables and covered noodles.  

“Eat quickly, then take a nap.” 

Lin Miaoyin handed him the chopsticks. They were both hungry, so they ate heartily. After finishing their bowls, they washed them and then lay down to sleep for half an hour before it was time to go back to work. 

The work in the afternoon was the same as in the morning, except for a few adjustments for the female educated youths. Since Lin Miaoyin did a good job in the morning, her area was moved next to the other female educated youths, and the team assigned her to lead them in the afternoon. 

Originally, there was a team leader for the educated youths, but he was a man, and the female educated youths had different tasks. Weeding was a simple, unskilled job, so there was no need to change the morning arrangement. 

Lin Miaoyin didn’t have any objections, since she had to work anyway, but some of the young women and wives were unhappy. They grumbled behind her back, saying that Lin Miaoyin used to slack off when doing work, and now she was assigned to lead others—wasn’t that just because her father was the team leader? 

Leading others meant she could earn an extra work point. After all, she had to complete her own tasks and guide others. At the moment, Lin Miaoyin and the other female educated youths all had eight work points, while the full-time female workers had nine.  

With the team leader’s order given, everyone went to the fields and started working. 

Lin Miaoyin diligently called the newly arrived female educated youths together and prepared to teach them first. However, after calling out a few times, only two or three people, including Zhu Wanqin and Xu Liwen, came slowly, and the other two or three were nowhere to be seen.