Song Qingshan then read Wu Gong’an’s poem aloud.

“An oil poem?” Su Xiangwan, after listening, nearly laughed herself out of breath. “This is clearly an oil poem.”

Then, Su Xiangwan received a death stare from Song Qingshan.

No, actually, it was a death stare directed at Wu Gong’an.

Before the wheat harvest, Song Qingshan’s simple machinery arrived.

It was actually quite simple: he had attached a handle to the current sickle and added a large iron shovel underneath.

This way, when people harvested the wheat, they didn’t have to squat or bend over. They could stand up and harvest the wheat directly.

Under the scorching June sun, the wheat kernels cracked open, but because the sickle had a large shovel underneath, the grains wouldn’t fall on the ground, making them harder to pick up. Instead, they would directly fall into the shovel.

It was like a plow attached to a tractor. This simple yet mechanized tool greatly improved the harvest efficiency.

Originally, a member could only harvest one acre of wheat a day, but now, each person could harvest at least two acres a day.

While members from other brigades were still working hard in the fields, the people from Xiao Songzhuang had finished harvesting early. By the time the tractor was done, everything was already collected in the wheat field.

Lin Shuhong, the brigade secretary, had never paid much attention to Su Xiangwan’s work until the wheat harvest. Only then did he truly recognize her as the brigade leader.

Not only did he start valuing her, but he also brought the brigade leaders from all the other brigades to Xiao Songzhuang to learn and observe, hoping to increase the overall yield of the brigade.

In response, Su Xiangwan didn’t hold back.

She gave Lin Shuhong the fertilizer formula and even handed over the blueprints for the agricultural tools.

Although it was too late this year, next year, the entire brigade could follow Xiao Songzhuang’s model for mass production.

Lin Shuhong was so happy, he rallied the village leaders to learn from her.

He even pushed for her to be nominated and signed up to participate in the selection of the new township cultural promoter.

Cultural promoters didn’t need to work in the fields anymore, and they earned 18 yuan a month, the same as the workers.

If Su Xiangwan were to be selected, she would officially join the working class, and that would be a groundbreaking milestone.

However, on the day Xiao Jingui came over to eat, he seemed upset and kept following Su Xiangwan around.

Although Lu Dan and Gou Dan treated him like a brother, they weren’t quite at the level of sharing their mother’s love with him, nor did they enjoy his constant food-snatching.

Lu Dan kindly said, “Jin Gui, so you’ve been freeloading at my house because there’s no one at the old house. Now that your mom is back, you should go home for meals, right?”

Jin Gui answered immediately, “My third aunt left little Song Fu and ran off secretly. My grandma cries every day, and my mom cries every day too. Now, my grandpa is the one cooking, but the food’s terrible. I won’t go back. I’ll just stay here and eat at your place.”

Su Xiangwan was curious, “Your grandma cries because her precious nephew is gone, but why does your mom cry?”

Jin Gui sneaked a look and said, “Big Aunt, I’ll tell you, but you can’t tell anyone. My mom wanted to marry Wang Zhanfeng, but he secretly ran away.”

“Is your mom still vomiting?” Su Xiangwan asked.

Jin Gui nodded vigorously, “Yes, she’s been throwing up a lot.”

No need to say more—Song Qingyu was pregnant.

As for the old lady, ever since she heard that Jinhua had died, she had become completely mute.

She would always stare blankly out of the window, her eyes almost blind.

To be honest, if Song Qingshan had arrested Fang Jinhui and brought him to public trial, the old lady wouldn’t have felt so heartbroken.

She might have even said, “The eldest and second sons are officials—why didn’t they help their nephew? It must be their fault.”

But according to the news, Fang Jinhui had stolen explosives himself, and while his two uncles were surrounding him, he secretly ran up to the dam.

In the end, no one knew how he set off the explosives, blowing himself to pieces.

Step by step, the path was all his own.

In the old lady’s heart, this had become an insurmountable hurdle.

She couldn’t blame anyone, so she could only keep blaming herself.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized she had failed to raise her child properly.

It was like a dull knife cutting flesh—unable to cut cleanly at once, but always hurting.

Of course, when Fang Baoyu heard that Song Laosan was imprisoned, he quietly ran off.

Song Qingyu also quietly got pregnant, and the whole family was now quiet, bullied by others without even daring to make a sound.

This was the fate of the Song family—acting tough in front of their own, but being bullied by outsiders and quietly tucking their tails, pretending nothing had happened.

Early in the morning, Su Xiangwan stopped Song Qingyu by the main road. Seeing her wearing a headscarf, she asked, “Qingyu, you’re not working in the village, what are you planning to do?”

“Big Sister-in-law, I asked for leave from Zhao Guodong. I have something to do in town. Don’t ask me,” Song Qingyu replied.

“Are you pregnant and planning to go to the county hospital to get an abortion?” Su Xiangwan asked in return.

Song Qingyu froze for a moment, then her eyes turned red, “Big Sister-in-law, this has nothing to do with you. Anyway, I’m never getting married. I’ll just stay with Jingui.”

Before Jinhua’s death, Qingyu didn’t care much about Jin Gui’s education.

But after Jin Hua was gone and the newspapers reported every day about Song Dahuai crying, even Fang Caiqi, who used to only think about new clothes and lipstick, had lost weight and hadn’t dared to leave the house.

She just stayed inside all day.

Song Qingyu finally realized that, compared to finding herself a man, educating Jin Gui was more important.

At this time, the educated youth Wang Zhanfeng, who had been fooling around with her, had run off again.

She didn’t even think about chasing him and quietly planned to bury the matter, abort the child, and continue living her life.

“Was it Wang Zhanfeng who taught you to report us for living in the labor camp?” Su Xiangwan asked.

Song Qingyu gritted her teeth but nodded. Then she said, “Big Sister-in-law, that thing has nothing to do with me. It was Wang Zhanfeng and Fang Baoyu who did it.”

“Don’t tell me that. Just tell me, where did Wang Zhanfeng go?” Su Xiangwan pressed.

Song Qingyu said, “I don’t know. If I did, I’d at least ask him for some money to buy nutritional supplements.”

With that, she hurried away.

Of course, Song Erhua’s husband, Zhao Yuanshan, worked at the county hospital, so Song Qingyu wasn’t just going for an abortion—it wasn’t a big deal.

However, Su Xiangwan wasn’t planning to let Wang Zhanfeng off easily.

He was clearly a sly educated youth, causing trouble for young girls and young wives in the countryside.

Su Xiangwan thought it would take some time to find him.

But when Song Qingshan came back that night, she mentioned it, and the very next evening, Song Qingshan said he had found him.

“Not bad, Song Tuan, where did you find him?” Su Xiangwan asked.

Song Qingshan said, “He was skulking around outside our dam. According to Liu Xiangdang, he recently joined the Hongqi Commune, which is very close to our dam. I caught him right away and locked him in a detention room. But, do you really think he got Qingyu pregnant?”

Su Xiangwan said, “Ask your sister.”

Song Qingshan knew Su Xiangwan had always had no good feelings toward the people from Lao Fang’s family, so he said, “Fine, you don’t need to worry about it. I’ll handle this.”

“No, you need to bring him back to me,” Su Xiangwan insisted.

Song Qingshan was stunned, “What, do you want to stand up for Qingyu?”

Su Xiangwan laughed directly, “What kind of person Qingyu used to be to me—why would I stand up for her? But I’m still the village branch secretary of Xiaosong Village. As the village branch secretary, if the village’s young wives and girls are being bullied, I can’t just ignore it.”

“Then how do you plan to handle it?” Song Qingshan asked.

Su Xiangwan rolled her eyes at him, “Well, I think you’ll have to beat Wang Zhanfeng up first, make him obey, and then we can deal with him.”

In Lao Fang’s house, the old lady was somewhat revitalized when she heard that Wang Zhanfeng, who had run away, had been caught.

However, she thought that since she and Qingyu had treated Su Xiangwan so harshly, Su Xiangwan would definitely spread the word about Qingyu’s situation, causing the whole Song family to lose face.

But the old lady was mute. She couldn’t say anything, so she was frantic, walking around the threshing ground with a stick in her hand.

Meanwhile, in the village, several people who knew about Wang Zhanfeng and Song Qingyu’s relationship were eagerly waiting, guessing that Su Xiangwan would hold a criticism meeting and humiliate her sister-in-law, Song Qingyu.

Unexpectedly, when everyone gathered in the evening at the big barley field to watch the propaganda and the public criticism session, they saw Wang Zhanfeng walking out from behind the stage, wearing a small floral cotton jacket, with some rouge on his face and a flower headscarf wrapped around his head.

He walked while glancing behind him.

Of course, behind him was Song Qingshan’s fist, forcing him to move forward.

“The 18-year-old girl is like a flower. I, Wang Zhanfeng, just happen to be that flower. Because the countryside is poor and difficult, the state sent us intellectual youths, some of whom are good, some bad, and I just happened to meet a bad one…”

The crowd below burst into laughter, and Song Jianguo even shouted, “What does a bad intellectual youth look like?”

Wang Zhanfeng turned around to glance behind him, saw Song Qingshan standing with his arms behind his back, looking stern, and with a sad face said, “Good intellectual youths work hard every day, while bad ones sleep in. Good ones only want to help the elderly, while bad ones spend all day with young wives.”

The people below laughed hysterically. “Wang Zhanfeng, aren’t you describing yourself?”

“A bad intellectual youth has a sweet tongue and dirty hands. If I make a mistake, I’ll apologize to my parents and, most importantly, to the Party.” Wang Zhanfeng wept and complained, almost like a young wife.

There were a few young wives in the village, and Wang Zhanfeng had tried to flirt with several, but none of them were interested—only Song Qingyu paid attention to him.

He was still singing and speaking on stage, while the villagers below could no longer hold back, tossing their stinky shoes at the stage.

Of course, the villagers were still quite ignorant. If you lectured them with grand theories, they wouldn’t understand.

But a catchy rhyme like this, performed lively by Wang Zhanfeng, didn’t harm the reputation of the women in the village. The crowd would laugh, and soon, the children began singing in Wang Zhanfeng’s style.

Such a playful poem could easily spread and potentially save some of the women from being deceived by bad intellectual youths.