The Red Era: Starting from a Truck Driver

Chapter 9 Li Mingjun

The educated youths gathered first and then divided into groups, male and female. They chose their own groups, which meant a combination of cooperation and division of labor as well as competition.

After gathering today, before going to work, the educated youth team leader informed us of something. Several new educated youth will be assigned to their educated youth point this afternoon. At that time, everyone should do a good job of welcoming the newcomers and let them join the production team as soon as possible.

If you lead a newcomer, you will be held back. If the newcomer is not good at his work, it will affect the progress of the entire group. However, as comrades who come to the countryside for training, you cannot have such low ideological awareness. Even if you don’t want the newcomer to be assigned to your group, you must be welcoming and positive.

So when new people come, everyone will choose the new people. When it is inevitable that new people will be assigned to your group, you will choose those who look capable of doing the job.

After the educated youth team leader announced the arrival of the newcomers, he would go to the commune office, and the others would consciously start to cooperate and work in the fields.

The male educated youth Li Mingjun brought a few people directly to Zhou Lingying and naturally discussed today's division of labor with her.

After the division of labor, everyone was on their way to work in the fields. Li Mingjun pulled Zhou Lingying aside and said, "Zhou Lingying, you still have a lot of food over there."

"No." Zhou Lingying answered directly after hearing the question.

"Lingying, didn't your family send you some money and food coupons last month? Can you lend me some?"

"I gave it to Aunt Zhao's family last month. You know what happened in her family. I lived there for several months before and they took good care of me. Li Mingjun, you don't have enough food over there." When Zhou Lingying heard that Li Mingjun wanted to borrow food coupons and money from her, she did not respond as he wished.

The lives of these educated youth were not as good as those of the local rural people no matter how frugal they were, and the work points they earned were used by one person. In addition, even if they worked hard, few of them could earn full work points regularly.

Without the help of their families, they would not see the hope of returning home. Many people would start families in the countryside. Female educated youth would marry farmers with good family conditions, and male educated youth would also marry farmers' daughters. There were some male and female educated youth living together, but not many.

Zhou Lingying was still able to get by, she still had some food, but that was calculated so that she could eat until the day when the grain was harvested and distributed. But even so, one person could feed the whole family, and there was no food left to save.

When Li Mingjun heard Zhou Lingying say that she had given the food coupons and some money to the so-called Aunt Zhao last month, his face turned unhappy, but he couldn't say anything.

However, there are new educated youths assigned to this commune this afternoon. These newly assigned people will be given some food rations directly from above. And since they just came, they will bring some things with them. Li Mingjun will have to find out the background of the new educated youths in the afternoon, and he can't be too obvious to Zhou Lingying.

"Lingying, it doesn't matter if you don't have any. Actually, I have enough food. It's just that Wang Tao and Zhang Bing, who came here at the beginning of this year, are not good at saving. I actually want to help them borrow some." Li Mingjun said with a smile.

Zhou Lingying nodded, she had no doubt about what Li Mingjun said, he really liked to help others. This also led to her not asking him to return some of the things she had given to Li Mingjun before, as a way to help everyone together.

Soon all the educated youth arrived at the place where they were to work, and they were all skilled enough to start working according to their respective tasks. Not long after they started working, Zhao Yuxia heard that Zhou Lingying had appeared at the place where she was working. When Zhou Lingying saw Aunt Zhao appear, she immediately put down her work and went to greet her, fearing that there would be bad news.

Jiang Cheng wanted to become a bus driver. Even if Zhou Lingying hadn't arranged for him to go to the countryside as an educated youth, bus drivers were still very popular in big cities and many people would be vying to marry them.

Li Mingjun also saw Zhao Yuxia appear from a distance, and felt a little angry, thinking that this rural old woman must be relying on the kindness of taking care of Zhou Lingying last year and must be asking her for help again. But now with his status, it seems that he can't interfere.

"Aunt Zhao, you're here." Zhou Lingying said to Zhao Yuxia shyly. She would never act like this towards Zhao Yuxia before.

"Yingying, you're done with work today, and come home for lunch at noon. I talked to my husband's Jiang Cheng about you last night, and he thinks you're a good guy and is willing to date you. He's going to the city in a few days, so you'd better take a couple of days off so you can be together." Zhao Yuxia said with a smile, holding Zhou Lingying's hand. If nothing unexpected happens, this will be her second daughter-in-law in the future.

After hearing Zhao Yuxia say Jiang Cheng had no objection, Zhou Lingying nodded shyly, saying that she would definitely go to eat lunch and take a few days off. As for taking leave, she would lose a lot of work points, and she still needed those work points as a driver.

If the educated youth married a local in the countryside, they would no longer be considered educated youth after marriage, because they would be registered as resident in the countryside. Even if they did not register as resident, they would still be assigned work by the production team in the commune and would not work with other educated youth.

It's not that Zhou Lingying is snobbish, but now that she and Jiang Cheng are really together, she really doesn't care about the work points she earns. Before, she would count how many work points she earned every night and how much she would get when the grain was distributed.

After Zhao Yuxia talked to Zhou Lingying, she did not disturb her from working. She was given food and money for working in the educated youth team, and she could bring all of it to the Jiang family to live in the future.

On Jiang Cheng's side, he followed his sister-in-law and nephews to pay homage to his elder brother Jiang Quan. At his grave, he also said some words to reassure him that he would take care of his sister-in-law and his children. Then, seeing that it was still early, he asked his sister-in-law to take the children back, and he went for a walk on the nearby hills alone.

Yesterday, Jiang Cheng used the ability of space to collect items to fish by the river. Today, he wanted to go hunting. It was mid-June, and although there were no large forests in some places, some large animals were not there. But on some small hills, there were pheasants and rabbits, as well as snakes and birds.

In fact, Jiang Cheng saw wild ducks on the river bank yesterday, but they flew away before he got close.

Jiang Cheng saw some animals in the mountains, but they were very alert and would be scared away by the slightest noise. Then Jiang Cheng gave up chasing and hunting and found many caves on some hillsides.

Then Jiang Cheng began to "feel" for the holes. Judging from the size of the holes, most of them were rabbit holes. If the holes were too small, they were probably snake holes or mouse holes, so there was no need to feel for them.

Jiang Cheng's so-called "touching the hole" does not mean to put his hand into the hole. Instead, he puts his hand directly into the hole. If there is something in the hole, it will go directly to his personal space.

Rabbits are used to coming out in the early morning and evening, and like to hide in their holes during the day. Jiang Cheng suddenly thought of going to the hill, and this time was right. The rabbit sleeping in the rabbit nest went directly into Jiang Cheng's personal space.

(End of this chapter)