Chapter 19: The Rooster and the Hen

Although it was said to be a lottery, Teams Eight and Ten were excluded.

After all, Team Eight already had Jiang Pan Yu, and Team Ten was composed of young girls and children who couldn’t manage the Educated Youth from the city.

After the lottery, each team was assigned one Educated Youth, and under the guidance of their team leaders, they headed out to work in the fields.

Jiang Pan Yu was tasked with loosening the soil and catching pests in the wheat field. The work wasn’t particularly heavy, but she had to be careful not to damage the wheat seedlings.

Jiang Pan Yu was led by the team leader to Yang Guiying and Chen Lamei, who were instructed to keep an eye on her and teach her well. After all, losing even one seedling meant one less bowl of rice at the end of the year, and food was precious in those times.

Jiang Pan Yu smiled at Yang Guiying and Chen Lamei, both of whom she had met on the train. Yang Guiying assured the team leader, “Don’t worry, Team Leader, I’ll make sure to look after her.”

With that, the team leader left, and Jiang Pan Yu greeted the two women with a smile, “It’s nice to see you both again.”

“Jiang, I didn’t expect you to end up in our team. Here, take the tools and show us how you do it. If you don’t know how, I’ll teach you,” one of the women said.

The two women, remembering their pleasant gossip sessions on the train, were quite friendly toward Jiang Pan Yu.

Jiang Pan Yu took the tools and began loosening the soil with ease. She wouldn’t make mistakes here; she had grown up in the countryside in her previous life, helping her grandparents with farm work since she was young.

Loosening the soil was second nature to her. She hardly needed to look, and the soil was loosened without harming the nearby seedlings.

The women watched for a while and noticed that the young girl was doing quite well, even better than some of the local village girls.

Though she was a bit slow, it was understandable. As long as she completed her assigned tasks, speed didn’t matter much.

In fact, the team leader hadn’t assigned Jiang Pan Yu much work, considering her current frail appearance. If she were to fall ill from exhaustion, it would be a real problem.

Jiang Pan Yu finished her work slowly in about two hours. While others were still toiling in the fields, she couldn’t take it anymore. Her vision blurred, and she felt dizzy as she stumbled to the edge of the field and sat down. She fumbled for her water bottle and took a few sips of the malted milk extract drink she had prepared. After a while, the dizziness subsided.

Jiang Pan Yu then pulled out a small paper package from her pocket, containing a few crushed biscuits she had brought as a snack.

As she happily munched on the biscuits, she heard the sound of swallowing behind her. Turning around, she saw several children staring intently at the biscuits in her hand.

Their longing was evident on their faces, their noses twitching as they caught the faint scent of the biscuits. Yet, none of them dared to ask for any, nor did they dare to step closer to Jiang Pan Yu.

Jiang Pan Yu swallowed the biscuit and realized this was her chance to connect with the children of Lianshan Village. She extended the biscuits toward them and said, “Want some? Come and take one each!”

The children’s mouths watered at the offer, but the oldest among them glanced at Jiang Pan Yu and shook his head. “My mom said we can’t just take things from others.”

Jiang Pan Yu smiled warmly and kindly: “This is my treat for you. Your mom said that to stop you from stealing others’ things, but if someone offers you something, it’s okay to accept it.”

“Really?”

“Really, here, one piece each.”

As Jiang Pan Yu spoke, she distributed cookies to the children. The kids, no longer reserved, took the cookies and crouched below the field ridge, trying not to be seen by the working adults, and began nibbling carefully, like little mice. After a while, the small cookies didn’t seem to have diminished much.

Seeing that the team leader hadn’t assigned her any tasks yet, Jiang Pan Yu cheerfully chatted with the children: “Whose children are you?”

“My brother and I are Yang Guiying’s kids. That woman over there with the straw hat and a big mole by her mouth is our mom.”

“I’m Chen Lamei’s child. The one talking with Aunt Guiying is my mom.”

“I’m…”

The children took turns introducing themselves, and Jiang Pan Yu quickly figured out which families they belonged to. These kids were all children of the women from the eighth team.

Jiang Pan Yu remembered that Yang Guiying and Chen Lamei had previously gone to the army to visit their sons. The oldest was already old enough to serve, while the youngest was still a child. Women of this era indeed seemed to be giving birth from start to finish.

After resting for a while, the team leader assigned Jiang Pan Yu another plot of land to work on. This time, as she worked, she had several little helpers eagerly assisting her.

Yang Guiying and Chen Lamei turned around and saw their own children helping someone else with the work, instantly feeling as if they had raised their kids in vain.

While their own mothers were sweating and panting from hard work, these kids were playing around with sand and peeing nearby, oblivious to their mothers’ exhaustion.

Yet, they were fawning over a newly arrived young girl. Was it just because Jiang Pan Yu looked like a child?

How could the difference between people be so vast?

Naturally, Yang Guiying and Chen Lamei didn’t know that the children had eaten Jiang Pan Yu’s cookies. Though young, the kids understood the principle of reciprocity—if you take something from someone, you should help them in return. Having eaten her cookies, they felt obliged to assist her with her work.

Yang Guiying and Chen Lamei got up to see why their children were so friendly with Jiang Pan Yu. As they approached, they heard Jiang Pan Yu vividly narrating something.

They took a couple more steps closer, and Jiang Pan Yu’s voice reached their ears: “Once upon a time, there was a village with a very mischievous rooster. He particularly liked pretty hens and often flirted with them to get them to lay eggs for him.

But the rooster’s wife, a hen, was very fierce. If she caught him, she would pluck out a lot of his feathers, so the rooster always had to be sneaky.

One day, while the rooster was playing with a hen in the woods, his wife suddenly came looking for him. The rooster, in a panic, ran up a tree.

The tree was very, very tall, and if the rooster fell, he would surely get hurt.

Someone tried to persuade the rooster to come down, but he felt he had to get his wife’s forgiveness first, or else he would still get a beating from her.

So the rooster shouted from the tree: ‘Wife, I won’t do it again!’

But because the tree was so tall, by the time the words reached the ground, they had changed to: ‘Wife, I don’t want you anymore!'”

The Hen was hopping mad, but she was afraid the Rooster might fall from the tree, so she said, “Stop talking for now and come down from the tree first.”

However, when this sentence reached the Rooster up in the tree, he heard it as, “Brave man, if you have the guts, jump down!”

The Rooster trembled with fear and shouted, “Wife, I won’t go after the Hen anymore! I’m scared of dying!”

But the Hen heard it as, “I’m going to go after the Hen! I’m not afraid of dying!”

The Hen then yelled, “Come down first, and I won’t stop you from going after the Hen!”

But the Rooster heard it as, “Jump down, and I’ll kill you first, then kill the Hen!”

The Rooster shivered and cried out, “I’ll never flirt with the Hen again! Please spare me!”

But the Hen heard it as, “I’m going to flirt with the Hen! I don’t want you anymore!”

Furious, the Hen grabbed an axe and chopped down the tree, and the Rooster fell to his death.

Before he died, the Rooster was still thinking, “I already admitted my mistake, so why did the Hen have to chop down the tree? This is so unfair!”

The children were laughing so hard they were rolling on the ground. Yang Guiying and Chen Lamei cackled with laughter. Yang Guiying turned to Jiang Pan Yu and said, “Educated Youth Jiang, your story is quite amusing. You educated folks really know how to tell a story—it’s so entertaining.”

Jiang Pan Yu blinked and said, “I’m not making this up—it’s a true story. I just replaced the people with a rooster and a hen because I didn’t want to set a bad example for the kids.”

Yang Guiying and Chen Lamei’s eyes instantly lit up with the gleam of gossip lovers. “So it’s a true story? Jiang, dear, tell us in detail what really happened!”