Chapter 12.3

As the two whispered, the brigade cadres finished recording everyone’s work points and were about to leave when someone asked about the scorekeeper’s injury.

The brigade cadre first thanked everyone for their understanding, then explained, “It’s not a big deal, just bad luck. The scorekeeper tripped and sprained his ankle, so he probably won’t be able to come to work for a few days.”

Everyone was shocked.

They first expressed their sympathy for the scorekeeper’s bad luck, then asked who would take over the job of recording work points during his recovery.

While it seemed like a simple task, assigning points wasn’t as easy as it looked.

The brigade cadre was experienced in organizing and assigning tasks, but determining how many work points each task deserved required careful thought, and even then, they had to cross-check everything at the scorekeeper’s house before finalizing the numbers.

“We’ll discuss this tonight, and we’ll let you know by tomorrow morning during the roll call.”

Everyone agreed and didn’t ask further questions. After bidding the brigade cadres farewell, they headed to their dorms for the night.

Though the thought of a new scorekeeper arriving in the next few days made everyone anxious, they couldn’t help but wonder if the new person would be as easygoing as the previous one.

Meng Yinyin also had some concerns, but given her reputation for being useless among the brigade cadress, she figured it wouldn’t matter who took over the role—it probably wouldn’t change anything.

So, she let it go and quickly fell asleep.

However, what she didn’t expect was that she would have a series of strange dreams that night.

Thankfully, the dreams were clearer and more organized than the ones from the previous night, but they still left Meng Yinyin speechless.

In tonight’s dream, she found herself developing feelings for Dou Zhengrong!

What a joke! She wasn’t crazy! How could she fall for a married man? Besides, Dou Zhengrong had a broken leg—she wasn’t the type to discriminate, but she certainly couldn’t fall for a man with a disability.

What kind of bizarre dream was that?

Meng Yinyin seriously suspected that someone had cursed her, which was why she kept having such strange dreams at night.

However, after waking up, just like yesterday, she quickly dismissed the dream that had made her curse so fiercely.

During the morning meeting, the brigade leader mentioned that the scorekeeper had injured their leg and couldn’t continue working for now. Then, with everyone’s curious gaze on him, he announced the name of the new scorekeeper.

“…Given that the role of scorekeeper is demanding, requiring careful attention, patience, and good calculation skills, we discussed it and decided that for this period, Educated Youth Song Yue will temporarily take on the duties of scorekeeper. If there are no objections, we can wrap up the meeting.”

Song Yue became the new scorekeeper?

The moment the news was out, everyone in the room looked at him in surprise.

Song Yue, however, stood there with a smile on his face, calmly accepting everyone’s scrutiny.

As the brigade leaders had guessed, the others were only curious for a moment, and then quickly accepted the fact.

After all, Song Yue’s character and abilities spoke for themselves. Coupled with his status as an “educated person,” it was clear that no one would oppose him temporarily taking on the scorekeeper role.

Since the local villagers had no objections, the Educated Youths at the point were even prouder to have one of their own in such an important role. There was no way anyone would step forward to cause trouble.

Perhaps, at that moment, only Meng Yinyin wanted to raise her hand to object.

But when she looked around, seeing only agreeing faces, she realized that even if she raised both hands and feet to oppose it, this matter wouldn’t change.

She could only fume silently.

Although she wasn’t sure whether Song Yue would use his position as scorekeeper to take revenge on her, the mere thought of having to see him again made her reluctant.

At least, with Lu Chen by her side, she wasn’t as worried. As long as Lu Chen was there, Song Yue definitely wouldn’t dare bully her.

After all, Song Yue’s small frame probably couldn’t even withstand one punch from Lu Chen. Hmph!

Thinking of Lu Chen, Meng Yinyin felt at ease and full of security.

After spending a few days working together, Meng Yinyin and Lu Chen had developed a routine. Once the other brigade members had already left, they would leave together and head to their work area.

Yesterday, Lu Chen had not finished working on a particular plot of land, so they needed to go there again today.

Since she had walked the route twice before, Meng Yinyin was already familiar with it. This time, she was not on alert and walked briskly.

As they walked, she chatted with Lu Chen. The topic, unsurprisingly, was the flower crown she was still obsessed with.

“Lu Chen, I want a flower crown today! Make it bigger than yesterday’s. Can you add a few more flowers to it?”

She had taken the wilted flower crown back home yesterday, intending to keep it as a memento. However, when she looked at it this morning, she saw that the wilted flowers had started turning black and stinking. Naturally, she couldn’t keep it near her pillow, so she had tearfully sent the crown down the river to let it return to nature, which she thought was a beautiful end.

Lu Chen didn’t understand why Meng Yinyin was so interested in the inexpensive flower crown, but since she wanted it, he decided to make another one.

Because Meng Yinyin had mentioned some extra requests, Lu Chen picked a few different flowers along the way.

When they reached their work area, Lu Chen first made a new flower crown for Meng Yinyin. After receiving a look of surprise and admiration from her, he finally started working.

Meng Yinyin had planned to continue slacking off, but she didn’t expect that just as they arrived, Song Yue would show up with a notebook in hand.

The moment she saw him, Meng Yinyin stood up angrily, staring at him in shock and disgust.

“What are you doing here?!”

Song Yue still wore his usual smile, but he raised the scorekeeping book in his hand.

“I’m here to do my job, to supervise the work of the villagers.”

Meng Yinyin: “!!!”

Meng Yinyin’s heart sank. I knew it! This guy has bad intentions!

She clenched her teeth, angry enough to jump, but she knew very well that she couldn’t do anything to stop Song Yue.

At that moment, Lu Chen quickly approached from the field. He stood calmly in front of Meng Yinyin, blocking her behind him, and looked warily at Song Yue.

Song Yue chuckled lightly and finally turned his attention to Lu Chen, innocently saying,

“Comrade Lu Chen, there’s no need to be so cautious. It’s broad daylight, what harm could I do? I’m just here to supervise the workers.”

Lu Chen’s expression darkened involuntarily, and he glanced at Meng Yinyin with concern.

He didn’t have any reason to make Song Yue leave.

Seeing Lu Chen’s concern and then looking at Song Yue’s smiling face, Meng Yinyin huffed in frustration and said, “If he wants to watch, let him. Hmph, let’s go over there!”

She then took Lu Chen’s hand and dragged him to a spot far from Song Yue.

Once they stopped, she let out a breath of frustration, puffing her cheeks and telling Lu Chen, “He’s definitely trying to use this as an excuse to make me work in the field. That black-hearted guy! I won’t fall for it. Worst case, I’ll give up my work points!”

After all, she didn’t even have any share of the work points to begin with.

More importantly, she didn’t want to keep dragging Lu Chen into this. Once they were officially together, she wouldn’t care about such things. But if anyone found out now, it wouldn’t be good for either of their reputations.

Especially someone like Song Yue, who was two-faced. Who knew what kind of rumors he might spread?

So Meng Yinyin finally decided that she would just slack off openly this morning, and if she got zero work points, then so be it!

There was no other choice. In the end, Lu Chen had to give in, and she pushed him to get back to work.

As for Song Yue, he was standing not far away, watching them closely, ensuring that Meng Yinyin and Lu Chen had no chance to engage in any secretive actions.

The whole morning passed in frustration for Meng Yinyin. When it was finally time for the morning tasks to end, she watched helplessly as Song Yue wrote zero work points next to her name and gave her a meaningful smile. Meng Yinyin was about to explode with anger.

After shooting Song Yue a death glare, she called for Lu Chen and turned to leave. She felt that if she stayed another second with Song Yue, she might end up shouting at him.

When they finally returned to the Educated Youth point, Meng Yinyin was so angry that she barely ate any lunch before retreating to her room to rest.

On the other side, Lu Chen was also frowning, troubled by what had happened with Song Yue and not sure how to handle Meng Yinyin’s feelings.

Before he could think of a solution, he saw Jiang Guihua standing in his yard. When she saw him, she immediately called out.

“Lu Chen, why are you so late? I’ve been waiting for you for so long!”

Lu Chen remained silent, looking at her with a neutral expression.

Jiang Guihua had long since gotten used to his expression and continued talking on her own. “Hurry up and pack up, then come over to our place. Your older sister and brother-in-law are back, and they have some things to ask you. Just answer them honestly.”

Things to ask him?

Lu Chen paused at her words. He didn’t think he had much to talk about with his eldest cousin, Lu Xiujuan, other than their weak family connection.

But after thinking for a while, he still went next door.

When he went to the next door, he didn’t expect to see that in addition to Lu Xiujuan and her husband, there was another strange man in Lu Dashan’s house.