Chapter 6.1

It had been a while since Meng Yinyin asked her question, and Lu Chen still hadn’t responded. He looked as if he was facing some difficult dilemma, his brow furrowed and his expression showing clear signs of irritation.

Meng Yinyin’s heart sank. She was afraid he would soon impatiently impatiently blurt out “It has nothing to do with me” in the next second.

That would not do!

She was relying on him to help with her work points!

So, Meng Yinyin lowered her attitude even further, her tone unconsciously becoming a little more coquettish and sweet. She even dropped the formal “comrade” from his title, hoping to get closer to him.

She had sacrificed so much for these work points.

“Lu Chen, could you help me?” she asked softly, her voice almost pleading. “You know I’m not good at work. If I keep going like this, the brigade leader will scold me, and maybe even send me away…”

“Although I’ve only been here in the Nanjiao Brigade for half a month, I’ve already fallen in love with this beautiful place. I really don’t want to leave, and I think you’re a good person. It’s so enjoyable working with you. If I go to another brigade, I might not find such a good teammate…”

Meng Yinyin had this remarkable ability to lie without batting an eye, and her tone made her sound completely sincere.

Fidgeting with her fingers, she blinked her long, fluttering eyelashes—like butterfly wings—concealing any mischief in her eyes. Then, she finally voiced her true intentions.

“So, could you help me out again, like you did this morning? I’ll pay you for your work!”

When Lu Chen heard this, his thoughts finally settled. He forced himself to push aside the distracting thoughts she had stirred in him and raised his head to look at her, his expression complicated.

His eyes seemed to ask—Are you serious?

Meng Yinyin, without shame, used the events of the morning as evidence.

“Just like this morning, if you just spare a few minutes to do some work, I’ll get enough work points!”

“And since the brigade leader said I should learn from you, we’ll be working together in the future. This will make things more convenient, right? After you help me, I’ll give you the corresponding work points as payment. I promise I won’t cheat you!”

“If you’re worried about others finding out, I can stand guard outside. No one will see, and no one will know!”

Meng Yinyin almost swore to it.

Despite her thorough planning and endless pleading, Lu Chen only stared at her quietly, not giving a response.

Seeing his lack of reaction, Meng Yinyin’s face fell, and the last flicker of hope in her eyes seemed to vanish.

So, it still wasn’t going to work?

Was she really going to be sent back to her home village?

Or perhaps, would she have to marry someone here?

Though this suggestion had come from her parents, who didn’t want her to suffer too much in the countryside, they believed, given her appearance and temperament, that finding a husband would not be difficult.

At least, if she married, she wouldn’t be alone and vulnerable in the countryside. She would have someone to rely on and not be bullied.

Meng Yinyin was only eighteen years old. Influenced by her parents’ romantic love story, she, deep down, believed in the ideal of free love, where both partners are mutually attracted, get to know each other, and fall in love.

What her parents had said about her finding a good man here to marry wasn’t really about marriage. It was more about finding someone to rely on.

She wasn’t too happy about this idea, though.

If she were happy about it, then why had she spent the last half month struggling every day to earn work points? If she truly just wanted to get married and relax, she would have made a move long ago.

But now, seeing that all her previous plans had failed, Meng Yinyin was finally starting to feel desperate.

She decided to seriously think about the idea of marriage.

As she pondered this, Lu Chen remained silent.

Meng Yinyin glanced at him, assuming he had rejected her proposal.

Forget it, she thought. If marriage was the only option, so be it. She had given up struggling.

However, if she was going to marry, she certainly wanted a handsome, wealthy man who would provide for her, allowing her to live comfortably without having to work!

After coming to this conclusion, Meng Yinyin completely gave up on working and, feeling a bit rebellious, sat back down at the spot she had been earlier in the morning, distancing herself from Lu Chen.

Now that she had made a decision, it was time to act on it.

For the past few days, her mind had been consumed with thoughts of work. Aside from the educated youth group at the knowledge youth station and the brigade leader and scorekeeper, she didn’t know a single person in the entire Nanjiao Brigade.

Well, now she knew Lu Chen.

But Lu Chen wasn’t really part of her plans right now. Though he was indeed good-looking, she wasn’t in the mood to deal with him after he had so coldly rejected her proposal.

Even though she knew he wasn’t obligated to accept her request, that didn’t stop her from being annoyed.

As for the others at the knowledge youth station, Meng Yinyin couldn’t bring herself to care about them either.

The male educated youths might work harder than her, but they were so exhausted from their daily labor that they could barely earn enough work points for themselves. Taking on another person? That was impossible.

And the most important thing was, she didn’t find any of them attractive!

As for the brigade leader and the scorekeeper, both were already married and were old enough to be her father. She could never consider them. She wasn’t morally corrupt!

So for now, her most pressing task was to gather information on other unmarried men of appropriate age in the brigade, then carefully evaluate and select the right one.

The Nanjiao Brigade had a large population, and there were plenty of unmarried young men. Surely, she would be able to find someone suitable… right?

Meng Yinyin propped her chin up, letting out a sad sigh, feeling like her life was even worse than the small yellow flowers by the roadside.

Wandering aimlessly, with no support, she thought, sighing inwardly.

As Meng Yinyin turned to leave, in her angry mood, she didn’t notice that Lu Chen’s lips had moved as if he wanted to call out to her. But after a moment’s hesitation, he kept quiet and instead bent down to pick up the axe and a small bundle of unprocessed bamboo strips, walking hesitantly toward her.

Meng Yinyin caught a glimpse of this from the corner of her eye, but since she was still angry, she ignored him and deliberately hummed, as if to show him that she was still upset with him.

However, whether it was because Lu Chen had bad hearing or just wasn’t very sharp, he seemed to ignore her actions. He simply stood in front of her, lowered his head, and began to process the bamboo strips as if nothing had happened.

At first, Meng Yinyin deliberately shifted her gaze away from him, but her attention was drawn back when she noticed that Lu Chen was still standing in the same spot, diligently working on the bamboo strips. She couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing.

Why was he working so close to her?

Could it be that he wanted to show off how good he was at working?

If that was the case, he was really being a jerk!

But then again, Lu Chen probably wasn’t that petty.

So what exactly was he trying to do?

Confused and unable to resist her curiosity, Meng Yinyin finally snapped, frowning at him and demanding, “Can you go work somewhere else? You’re blocking the wind!”

As soon as she spoke, a gust of wind blew from behind her, blowing her hair into her face.

A second ago, she had complained that Lu Chen was blocking the wind, but now the wind was coming from the opposite direction.

Meng Yinyin: “…”

Flustered and embarrassed, she pushed her hair away from her face, feeling so awkward she could have exploded.

Why was even the heavens bullying her?

Fortunately, Lu Chen seemed to not notice anything. When she mentioned blocking the wind, he silently stepped aside by two paces, making sure that his actions were still within her line of sight before he stopped and resumed working slowly.

After glaring at him for a few seconds, Meng Yinyin finally gave up and, with a sense of frustration, asked him, “What exactly do you want to do? The whole bamboo forest is so big, why do you have to work right in front of me? Are you trying to annoy me on purpose?”

This time, Lu Chen didn’t stay silent. He suddenly looked up, his brows furrowing in surprise as he looked at her, as if wondering why she would think that way.

Seeing that Lu Chen’s face showed an expression beyond his usual blank one, Meng Yinyin realized that he hadn’t meant it like that.

“Well, then what do you want to do…?” she asked, already too tired to argue with him.

Lu Chen hesitated for a moment, unsure of how to respond.

He glanced down at the bamboo strips in his hands. He had only processed two of them so far.

Considering how much time had passed since he had stood in front of her, he should have finished at least five bamboo strips by his normal pace.

Yet, he had only processed two.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to work or that he was feeling unwell, but rather, he had intentionally slowed down, deliberately working at a much slower pace than before, carefully processing each strip, trying to let Meng Yinyin see the entire process.

He was not good with words and worried that his unpleasant voice might make Meng Yinyin dislike him, so he didn’t explain in advance.

However, he never expected that his unintentional actions would be misunderstood by Meng Yinyin as showing off.

In the moment she misunderstood him, a strange discomfort surged in his heart. At the same time, for the first time, he felt an unusual urge to explain himself.

Perhaps it was because she was the first person to approach him willingly, or perhaps because she had previously praised him as a good person, he didn’t want her to misunderstand him.

As soon as this thought crossed his mind, he lowered his head, and his lips seemed to move of their own accord, slowly uttering two words.

“Teach you.”

His voice was low, but since they were close, Meng Yinyin clearly heard it.

She was taken aback and unconsciously recalled how he had handled the bamboo strips earlier. It seemed his movements were indeed slower than before.

Earlier, she had been too angry and had thought that Lu Chen was intentionally slowing down to show off in front of her.

She never imagined that he actually intended to slow down to teach her.

In an instant, the anger in Meng Yinyin’s heart was extinguished by those two words.

However, did he think too highly of her? Did he really think she could learn just by watching a few times?

Meng Yinyin quietly grumbled to herself, but when she thought about Lu Chen’s kind gesture, she still politely thanked him.

Despite her gratitude, she couldn’t help but feel curious. Since he was willing to spend time and effort teaching her, why didn’t he just accept her earlier request and do a little extra work for her? That way, he could earn some money too.

After all, it seemed that the latter would save him more time and effort, considering he was so skilled at this kind of work.

With this thought in mind, Meng Yinyin unconsciously asked him the question.

Realizing that she was no longer angry, Lu Chen silently breathed a sigh of relief. He hesitated for a moment, then, under her curious gaze, he slowly spoke again in his dry voice.

“That… wouldn’t be right.”

Perhaps because he had already spoken to Meng Yinyin twice and she hadn’t shown any disgust or dislike for his voice, after speaking, Lu Chen couldn’t help but sneak a glance at her expression while she wasn’t paying attention.

When he confirmed that she didn’t mind his unpleasant voice, a strange sense of happiness suddenly rose in his heart.

But since he was used to hiding his emotions, he maintained his usual indifferent expression, glancing over at her without any obvious sign of feeling.

Meng Yinyin didn’t think much of it, still reflecting on Lu Chen’s words.

What he meant by saying “that wouldn’t be right” was likely that he didn’t want to deceive her, which was why he hadn’t agreed to her request.

Rather than doing that, he preferred to teach her how to learn these skills so she could earn her points herself, in a fair and honest way.

Meng Yinyin was once again certain that Lu Chen really thought too highly of her.

At the same time, she couldn’t help but mutter in her heart, why was his moral standard even higher than hers?

After the muttering, Meng Yinyin decided not to dwell on it.

Her mood had already calmed, and since she had made up her mind to find another way out, she wasn’t too concerned about this anymore.

“Thank you, but I don’t want to learn anymore,” she waved her hand casually, and it was clear she truly wasn’t interested in learning these things anymore.

However, after thinking for a moment, she realized that if she just gave up like this, the brigade leader would definitely be upset.

At least until she found a marriage partner, she couldn’t keep making the brigade leader angry. Otherwise, she might get sent away before she even finds a suitable person.