Chapter 6

Watching Song Shishi take out the purple medicine from her bag and carefully apply it to her injured wound, Xu Li hesitated for a long time before tentatively asking, “Sister, actually, Aunt Qian didn’t ask me to help, did she?”

Song Shishi gently blew on her wound, reducing her pain.

Putting away the purple medicine, she looked up and gave her a smile.

“You’re quite clever.”

Suddenly praised, Xu Li blushed in embarrassment.

But the next second, her eyes became dim, her voice also lowered, “If my aunt knew, she would only…”

At this point, Xu Li’s tears  fell on the back of her hand.

“Can you cook?” Song Shishi didn’t know how to comfort people, of course, she also understood that those comforts were useless to Xu Li.

Xu Li was stunned, she shook her head, “No, but I can chop vegetables, my aunt often asks me to help in the kitchen.”

“That’s perfect, you can be my assistant, let’s go to the threshing ground to help.”

…

At the educated youth point, Chen Hui was about to take everyone for a walk around the village, when he saw Wu Zhihua, who should have been working in the fields, running back in a sweat.

Seeing him like this, Chen Hui thought something had happened, he quickly stood up to greet him.

“Zhihua, why did you suddenly come back? Did something happen?”

Wu Zhihua gulped down a mouthful of water before explaining, “I just saw a very beautiful female educated youth making dinner at the threshing ground. Usually, it’s the village aunts who make the first dinner for the new educated youth, right? Could it be that the new educated youth just arrived and was bullied by the villagers?”

Chen Hui frowned, he turned his head and looked at the female educated youth in the courtyard.

Among all the female educated youth, Song Shishi was missing.

“It shouldn’t be, Zhang and I will go and take a look, you go back to your work, if the head of the brigade sees you, he’ll deduct your work points.”

“Okay, I’ll go back to the field then.”

Zhang Qingmei walked over and asked in a low voice, “What’s wrong?”

“Zhihua said he saw Song Shishi cooking at the threshing ground, he was afraid that she was bullied by the villagers, so he came back to tell us. You and I will go and see what’s going on.”

“Okay.”

So everyone went to the threshing ground.

When they arrived, they could smell the aroma of food from afar.

“I didn’t expect that Song comrade looks so delicate and weak, but her hands are so skillful, she can even cook?”

“That’s right, just smelling the aroma is delicious.”

“I just had a little bit for lunch, I’m really hungry now.”

“…”

Zhang Qingmei and Chen Hui exchanged glances and walked to Song Shishi, who was busy.

“Comrade Song, weren’t you going to take a walk around the village? Why are you cooking here?”

Song Shishi scooped out the cabbage and tofu from the pot and replied with a smile, “It’s the busy farming season now, I saw that the aunts were all distracted, so I volunteered to help. Anyway, these are all made for us new educated youth, right? It’s nothing, a little thing.”

Everyone heard her words, and thinking about how they only chatted after they arrived, they couldn’t help but blush.

Chen Hui waved to everyone, “Let’s all help then, we can’t let you do it alone.”

With everyone’s help, dinner was quickly prepared.

The villagers who had finished their farm work and the old educated youth also came to the threshing ground.

Everyone praised Song Shishi’s cooking.

But among these praises, there were also some discordant voices.

“Didn’t they say this meal was to welcome us? Now we have to cook it ourselves, and it’s all coarse grains and vegetables, not even a bit of minced meat, it’s too shabby.”

“That’s right, this is completely different from what I imagined about going to the countryside.”

The ones who spoke were a male educated youth named Wang Jingwen and another male educated youth named Zhong Jianmin.

Song Shishi didn’t know Zhong Jianmin very well, she only remembered that in her previous life, not long after An Jinsheng went to the Workers’, Peasants’, and Soldiers’ University, he married a woman named Chunlan in the village.

Chunlan had a relative who worked in Qinghe Town, so Chunlan’s family had always lived better than most families in the village.

Perhaps it was for this reason that Zhong Jianmin chose to marry into her family in that situation.

As for Wang Jingwen, Song Shishi disliked him very much.

He was almost as annoying as An Jinsheng.

They had been in Huaqing for less than half a year, and Wang Jingwen was exposed for peeping at female educated youth taking a bath, stealing the female educated youth’s underwear, and he also had an affair with a widowed woman in the village.

Song Shishi didn’t know if Wang Jingwen was eventually caught by the police, she only remembered that after Wang Jingwen’s affair was exposed, she never saw him at the educated youth point again.

Recalling her thoughts, Song Shishi ate the cabbage in her bowl, her gaze scanning the crowd.

She found that the ones who praised her cooking were all the old educated youth.

They had experienced hardship, so they naturally knew how difficult it was for Song Shishi to cook these ordinary dishes so deliciously.

The ones who complained were all the new educated youth who came with her.

Of course, this included Jiang Cuihua.

She didn’t know if she was mistaken, but she always felt that Jiang Cuihua looked at An Jinsheng differently.

Like… like a wolf who had found its target, staring intently at its food.

Song Shishi looked at these familiar yet unfamiliar faces like an outsider.

Seeing that the new educated youth’s mood was getting lower and lower, Chen Hui finally spoke to persuade them, “Comrades, we came to the countryside to receive re-education. Only by enduring hardship can we become a person of worth.”

“I, on behalf of all the educated youth of Huaqing Brigade, welcome your arrival, let’s all contribute our own strength to the revitalization of the country!”

In the darkness, everyone built a bonfire, gathered around to sing and dance, it was very lively.

Early the next morning, Song Shishi and Yang Huifang, who shared a room with her, rode Uncle Zhang’s oxcart to town.

Looking at An Jinsheng and Zhou Xingxue sitting opposite her on the oxcart, Song Shishi chose to ignore them.

When they arrived in Qinghe Town, after making an appointment with Uncle Zhang for the time to meet, Song Shishi wanted to go on her own, but Yang Huifang kept following her.

“Shishi, I see you brought a lot of things, is there anything else you want to buy?”

Yang Huifang was cheerful, she was one of the few people Song Shishi felt was okay, so she answered whatever she asked, without any intention of hiding anything.

“I want to buy some seeds to cultivate and see.”

“Buy seeds? But doesn’t the village have seeds?”

“Since we’re here to build the countryside, we can’t just work hard, there’s only so much we can do. Compared to the villagers, we may be a little smarter, so I’m thinking about studying to see if we can optimize the current planting techniques.”

“You… you’re so amazing, I can’t even think of that.”

Yang Huifang was so surprised that she couldn’t close her mouth.

Even if she could think of this, she probably wouldn’t be able to do it.

Song Shishi didn’t think that much, she just wanted to try her best to achieve something and get more opportunities.

She didn’t plan to stay in Huaqing for another four years, she had a lot of things to do.

“It’s just an idea, it counts when it’s done.”

In her previous life, she studied agricultural cultivation in college.

She didn’t expect that one day she would be able to put these into practice.

In the 80s, there were already better techniques for vegetable cultivation.

And those were exactly what was lacking in this era.

If she could make this happen, it would be a good deed.

Song Shishi was still thinking about where to plant these seeds after she bought them, how to do it, when suddenly a person rushed over from behind them, bumping Yang Huifang so that she stumbled.

She quickly helped Yang Huifang up, and before she could ask if she was hurt, she heard Yang Huifang shout, “Ah… thief! That person just stole my wallet!”