My Taoist nun girlfriend is from the Republic of China era, 1942.

Chapter 177 Farm Work
It was already evening when Tang Wen was taken back to her school dormitory.

The car was quiet on the way home.

As Chen Xiaomiao watched the city lights rushing past the window, her heart remained heavy.

What happened today had a huge impact on her.

Since coming into this world, she has mostly been in contact with people like Lu Yuan and Song Jia who live relatively decent lives.

Because of the influence left by Chen Shu, even the siblings Huang Jietao and Huang Lingshu only showed her their "suffering" for a short day.

Unbeknownst to Chen Xiaomiao, she had a strange feeling that in this peaceful and prosperous world without war or famine, everyone's life seemed to be pretty good.

But Tang Wen's experience was like a resounding slap in the face, waking her from her naivety.

It turns out that 1,500 yuan can force a good-natured girl to physically harm someone.

Fortunately, Tang Wen picked up a plate; what if it had been a knife?
The consequences would be unimaginable...

When they got home, the nanny had already put Lu Yang to sleep.

Chen Xiaomiao walked into the bedroom and looked at her sleeping son, her feelings were indescribable.

Lu Yuan walked in and gently wrapped his arms around her from behind.

"Are you still thinking about Tang Wen?"

"Ah."

Chen Xiaomiao responded with a muffled sound.

“Honey… I used to think that when we came to your place, everyone would have food to eat and clothes to wear, and we wouldn’t have to live in fear.”

Chen Xiaomiao sounded bewildered.

"But today Tang Wen argued over a little over a thousand yuan... Yangyang's winter clothes cost more than that, and when I treated Song Jia to a meal at Haidilao, it cost about the same..."

Gradually, Chen Xiaomiao became increasingly numb to money and numbers, until today, when Tang Wen's experience made her realize the problem again.

Despite having survived a famine and the death of a human, he now seems to be in a state of "let them eat meat porridge" (a Chinese idiom meaning to eat meat without restraint).

Lu Yuan tightened his arms and rested his chin on the top of Chen Xiaomiao's head.

"Xiao Miao, in today's world, everyone has their own information cocoon."

"Information cocoon?"

"For example, your current mobile phone knows you better than you know yourself."

Lu Yuan picked up Chen Xiaomiao's phone from the bedside table: "Didn't you always ask why Yangyang's milk powder and clothes are so expensive?"

A single jacket costs several hundred yuan, and a can of milk powder yields the equivalent of an acre of land's harvest.

Chen Xiaomiao nodded.

"Actually, there are cheaper options too, like clothes for a few dozen yuan and milk powder for a little over a hundred yuan, there are plenty of them."

Lu Yuan swiped her phone and opened a shopping app: "But look, all the brands recommended here are ridiculously expensive?"

Why?

"Because the phone knows you have money, or rather, it knows our family has money and can afford these things."

It puts the expensive, good, and high-profit items in front of you, while hiding the cheap ones.

Over time, all you see are these things, and you even start to think that raising a child costs so much money.

This thing is like a silkworm cocoon, wrapping you up layer by layer, so you only see what it wants you to see. That's an information cocoon.

Chen Xiaomiao nodded as if she understood, and roughly grasped what Lu Yuan meant.

Lu Yuan continued muttering.

"It's not just about phones, it's the same for people."

The people you first met were, frankly speaking, my circle of friends... Song Jia, Yu Hongkai, and so on. Looking at them, you'd think that everyone was doing pretty well.

Even the worst off are like Zhao Qiang, who has a car and a house and never goes hungry.

But once you go to university, you start to have your own circle of friends.

Tang Wen, who works during holidays, is unlike anyone you've met before.

But in reality, there are thousands of people like her who would argue fiercely with others over a little over a thousand yuan, sometimes even to the point of getting their heads bruised and bloodied..."

Lu Yuan's blunt words burst the colorful bubble that Chen Xiaomiao had been building up with through her comfortable life.

She concluded with her own understanding: "Honey, is it because I've been away from the earth for too long that I've forgotten what mud tastes like?"

"You haven't forgotten."

Lu Yuan hugged Chen Xiaomiao tighter and whispered, "You just need to smell it again... Go to sleep, I'll go somewhere with you tomorrow."

……

The next day, just as dawn was breaking.

Lu Yuan drove away from the city and headed towards Tang Wen's hometown.

In the back seat of the car, Tang Wen huddled in a corner, her expression still somewhat blank.

Chen Xiaomiao sat next to her, but didn't say much to comfort her.

At times like these, anything said seems insignificant; it's better to let the person involved have some peace and quiet.

She shoved a thermos into Tang Wen's hand: "Have some hot water. I put red dates and ginger slices in it to warm you up."

Tang Wen held the warm cup, feeling a reassuring warmth at her fingertips, and whispered her thanks.

"Thank you, Xiao Miao... and Mr. Lu."

"You're welcome. You're Xiao Miao's friend, it's only right."

As the car drove westward, high-rise buildings were gradually replaced by low-rise farmhouses and fields.

After nearly four hours of driving, the navigation system finally indicated that we had arrived at our destination.

The car turned into a narrow cement village road, with fields on both sides that had been harvested and had half of the rice stubble left. In the distance, the buzzing sound of large harvesters could be faintly heard.

Tang Wen's home is located at the very back of the village. It's a two-story building that's neither new nor old, with white tiles on the exterior walls. Among the surrounding gray old houses, it's quite respectable.

As soon as the car came to a stop, a lean, dark-skinned man came out of the yard to greet us.

He was in his early fifties, wearing a faded blue work shirt with fresh mud stains on his trousers.

The man's face was etched with the wrinkles of time, but his eyes were bright. Seeing Tang Wen get out of the car, his eyes instantly filled with heartache and concern. "Girl!"

He strode over, his large hand, which had just finished farm work, reaching out to take his daughter's hand. But then, afraid of getting her dirty, he paused in mid-air before finally placing it on her shoulder and gently patting her.

"It'll be good to come back, it'll be good to come back..."

Tang Wen's father, Tang Tieshan.

He already knew what had happened to his daughter yesterday, and now that he saw her return unharmed, he felt much relieved.

Tang Tieshan then turned his gaze to Lu Yuan and Chen Xiaomiao beside him, awkwardly rubbing his hands together, his Mandarin, thick with his local accent, sounding incredibly stiff.

"You must be Xiaowen's classmates, right? Come in and sit down, come in and sit down. The house is a mess, please don't mind."

"Uncle, hello, my name is Chen Xiaomiao, and this is my man, Lu Yuan."

Tang Tieshan was stunned for a moment, then a simple and honest smile appeared on his face.

"Hey, hey, good, they're all good kids."

Lu Yuan, carrying several gifts he took from the trunk, nodded politely: "Hello, Uncle, sorry to bother you."

"You're here, why did you bring anything?"

As he spoke, he led the group into the house.

The room was simply furnished, but kept very clean.

An old wooden sofa, a bulky old color TV, and Tang Wen's childhood award certificates hanging on the wall.

"Please sit down and have some water. I'll go get you some food!"

Without saying a word, Tang Tieshan turned around and went into the kitchen.

Tang Wen went over to help, but was pushed away by Tang Tieshan instead.

"Don't worry about it, just chat with your classmate, the food will be ready soon."

Soon, the kitchen was filled with the sizzling sound of stir-frying and a rich aroma.

Chen Xiaomiao looked around the small courtyard. In one corner of the courtyard, a small vegetable garden was enclosed by a fence, where the green vegetables and radishes were growing vigorously.

On the other side, freshly washed bed sheets hung on the clothesline, exuding the scent of soap in the sunlight.

Before long, the square table was filled with food.

A plate of golden-brown free-range eggs, a bowl of homemade pickled green beans stir-fried with minced meat, a plate of stir-fried bok choy, and a large bowl of steaming fish head tofu soup.

It doesn't contain any expensive ingredients, but it's fresh and has a wonderful aroma.

"We don't have much to offer you, so please make do with what you have and don't be shy."

The meal was enjoyed by both host and guests in a warm and hospitable atmosphere, and Tang Wen's mood improved significantly after returning home.

After the meal, Tang Tieshan went to work in the fields, saying that the rented harvester would arrive in the next village that afternoon, and he needed to hurry up and dry the remaining millet in his field.

"Uncle, I'll go with you!" Chen Xiaomiao volunteered. "I can do farm work too!"

"you?"

Tang Tieshan looked Chen Xiaomiao up and down.

This girl is fair-skinned and delicate; she doesn't look like someone who can work in the fields.

"Let her go, Uncle," Lu Yuan chimed in. "She knows it well."

Tang Tieshan couldn't refuse, so he had no choice but to nod in agreement.

So, the group went to the huge cement threshing ground outside the courtyard.

A vast expanse of golden rice paddies had been laid out on the field, shimmering with golden light under the warm autumn sun.

Tang Tieshan handed Chen Xiaomiao a long-handled wooden rake and demonstrated, "Just like this, spread the millet out. The more evenly you spread it, the faster it will dry."

Chen Xiaomiao took the rake and started working without saying a word.

She worked with practiced skill and precision, rake after rake, and her stamina was astonishing. She worked back and forth for half a day without even breaking a sweat.

In the past, in Yuzhou, she dried wheat, and the process was pretty much the same.

Tang Tieshan watched in amazement, and began to look at this pretty girl from the city with new respect.

Soon after, someone came to inform him that the harvester had left and that Tang Tieshan should go back to his field to pick up the rice ears.

In the north, people often pick up ears of wheat instead of ears of rice.

This word instantly struck Chen Xiaomiao's memory.

In those hungry times, children couldn't participate in large-scale harvesting activities, so gleaning wheat ears was one of the few things they could do to help.

Back then, a single ear of rice was enough for several mouthfuls of food, and no one dared to waste it.

After spreading out the rice, Chen Xiaomiao immediately followed Tang Tieshan into the field.

Stepping on the stubble left after the harvest, Chen Xiaomiao bent down and began to pick up the rice ears left behind by the combine harvester one by one.

She moved quickly and had sharp eyes; in no time, she had a large handful in her hand.

Lu Yuan stood on the edge of the field, watching the busy figures in the field.

Under the sunlight, the girl's delicate face was slightly flushed, and a few strands of hair were soaked with sweat and stuck to her forehead.

She showed no sign of strain or discomfort; instead, she exuded a genuine focus and satisfaction.

At this moment, she is neither a pampered rich lady nor a naive college student, but a simple and resilient working woman nurtured by this land in the past.

Lu Yuan didn't stay idle after that.

Although he couldn't do those technical farm jobs, he was strong enough to help Old Man Tang carry bags of rice weighing over a hundred pounds from the paddy field to the threshing ground.

At first, he attracted curious stares from the villagers, but after all, each family had their own farm work to do, and during the autumn harvest, they had no time to care about an outsider.

"That's a wrap!"

Someone shouted, and everyone straightened up their aching backs.

Chen Xiaomiao returned to the paddy field ridge with a large, heavy bunch of rice ears, her face flushed red from the sun.

"Honey, look!" She handed the ears of rice in her arms to Lu Yuan: "This should be enough to mill half a bucket of rice!"

Lu Yuan smiled and took it; it felt quite heavy in his hand.

　Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! Wishing everyone good health and happiness!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)