The poor girl from the 1970s was forced to kiss by the damp educated youth.

Chen Zhi, you've been abandoned.

This was something everyone in the village knew about, but it was the first time someone had brought it up in front of Chen Zhi.

When Chen Xiuzhen said those words, everyone present changed their expressions.

Li Zhou'an suddenly stood up, grabbed Chen Xiuzhen's hand, and walked outside without turning his head, saying, "Sorry, she's had a bit to drink and isn't thinking clearly. I'll take her home now, and we'll get together again next time."

Chen Xiuzhen kept shouting that she wouldn't leave, but when she saw Li Zhou'an's ugly expression, she was so frightened that she shut her mouth.

Holding Li Zhou'an's hand the whole way, she said resentfully, "I'm talking about her, why are you angry? What right do you have to be angry? I'm your partner, shouldn't you be on my side? You feel sorry for Chen Zhi? I'm asking you, do you feel sorry for Chen Zhi?"

"Shut up!"

Li Zhouan released Chen Xiuzhen's hand, his handsome face cold and stern. "Go back and tell Dad what you said. Xiuzhen, I know you don't like Chen Zhi, but you shouldn't have stabbed her in the heart. As a woman myself, I thought you would sympathize with her, not be so malicious. I'm very disappointed in you for your hurtful words."

After saying that, Li Zhou'an strode home.

The Chen family had finished eating and were sitting and chatting to digest their food.

Li Zhou'an went home first, greeted his family, and sat down.

"Where's Xiuzhen?" Chen Jun's wife asked.

Before Li Zhou'an could answer, Chen Xiuzhen rushed back, shouting angrily, "She, Chen Zhi, was dumped by Xi Lang, why can't I say so!"

"shut up!"

This time, the person who was angry was not Li Zhou'an, but Chen Jun.

The Chen family was also stunned, looking at Chen Xiuzhen with complicated expressions. Even Chen's mother, who loved her daughter dearly, looked at Chen Xiuzhen with disapproval.

Chen Xiuzhen felt even more aggrieved. "Dad, why are you also taking Chen Zhi's side? What did I do wrong?"

Chen Jun: "Is this how I taught you to reopen old wounds and stab people in the heart?"

Tears streamed down Chen Xiuzhen's face. This was the first time her father had spoken to her in such a stern tone since she grew up.

What hurt her even more was that even after she cried, her family still didn't come up to comfort her.

So she cried even harder.

Chen Jun felt a headache coming on. "Weren't you two curious about what happened the day you went into the mountains to look for the cow? Let your mother and brother tell you."

Inside the educated youth settlement, everyone looked at Chen Zhi with worried eyes.

Zhao Jinbao was very angry. "Don't invite them next time."

Yang Wenyu repeatedly admitted his mistake, "I only mentioned it when we met on the road. I originally only intended to call Li Zhou'an, but I didn't expect Chen Xiuzhen to come along too. It's my fault. Next time, I won't mention Chen Xiuzhen, and I won't call Li Zhou'an either."

Li Zhou'an is a brother, but Chen Zhi is their savior. In terms of daily life, they now rely on Chen Zhi more.

For the sake of profit, we have no choice but to temporarily abandon our brothers.

"It's okay." Chen Zhi remained calm. "I know what I'm doing and won't get angry over a single sentence. The barbecue was delicious today. Let's get together again next time. It's getting late, I'll go back and rest now."

Chen Zhi is gone.

Zhao Jinbao and the others looked at each other in bewilderment.

Zhu Yuan: "I don't know if Li Zhou'an will regret marrying Chen Xiuzhen in the future."

Zhou Zhengping: "He was living a pretty good life, so what is there to regret?"

Yang Wenyu: "If Chen Xiuzhen continues to treat him with a condescending attitude, a person as proud and arrogant as him will definitely have many conflicts with him in the future."

Zhao Jinbao: "Do you think Xi Lang will come back in the future?"

Everyone fell silent; they didn't know either.

The next day, Chen Zhi continued to dig mouse holes wherever he saw them, and every evening, the children would spontaneously gather around Chen Zhi.

Cai Hongmei took twelve mice first, six for herself and six for Chen Zhi, and then let the children take their own.

Chen Zhi saw Zhu Yuan and Zhao Yiqing again, and they both smiled at her.

To Chen Zhi's surprise, the Chen family also arrived. Chen Ye, along with her nephew Chen Dongqing and niece Chen Meihua, were also in the queue. Chen Ye pretended not to see Chen Zhi, but Chen Dongqing and Chen Meihua couldn't take their eyes off the mouse in Chen Zhi's hand.

Chen Zhi didn't speak to them and walked straight past them.

Cai Hongmei: "I heard you gave the Chen family four hundred yuan, and then you severed ties with them?"

Chen Zhi nodded; the news had already spread throughout the village.

Cai Hongmei curled her lip, "They really dare to ask for that much."

Chen Zhi remained silent; she couldn't be happier to buy it out for a few hundred yuan.

Before Cai Hongmei could say anything more, a scream and a hen's scream suddenly came from not far away.

"The eagle stole my chicken!" Aunt Qingfen shouted.

As the eagle soared higher and higher, Aunt Qingfen's eyes were filled with sadness and reluctance.

Suddenly, a pebble shot into the sky, and before anyone could see what was happening, the eagle plummeted straight down from the heavens.

An eagle and a hen crashed to the ground. The eagle was dead, and the hen was seriously injured and probably wouldn't survive.

The eagle's head was smashed to pieces, leaving only a layer of skin attached to its curved and sharp beak.

Everyone looked at Chen Zhi, who had put away his slingshot, and gave him a thumbs up, exclaiming, "Awesome!"

Chen Zhi picked up the mouse from the ground, shook her head, and said, "Practice makes perfect."

Just as Chen Zhi was about to leave, Aunt Qingfen quickly picked up the eagle's carcass and ran over, stuffing it into Chen Zhi's hand. "You shot it down, so it should belong to you. Luckily you shot it down, otherwise my chicken would have been gone for nothing. Thank you so much."

"Auntie, you're too kind. It was nothing." Chen Zhi accepted the eagle.

Upon learning that Chen Zhi had shot down an eagle, Zhao Jinbao and several other educated youths made a special trip to her house to watch.

Zhao Jinbao: "Chen Zhi, could you give me a few feathers?"

Chen Zhi: "Pick whatever you want."

Yang Wenyu: "What do you need this feather for?"

Zhao Jinbao: "It's a souvenir, or you can make a shuttlecock from it. It was my first time touching an eagle."

Chen Zhi opened the kitchen door to heat up the pig feed. When the door and window were opened, everyone was stunned to see the kitchen filled with cured fish.

Chen Zhi ignored them, and while heating the pig feed over the fire, she burned off the fur of the six rats. She didn't want to eat rats today; she planned to pickle them first, then smoke them, and keep them for herself later, or sell them at the market.

"Chen Zhi, may I get a closer sniff of these preserved fish?" Yang Wenyu asked, swallowing hard.

Chen Zhi: "Sure."

Zhou Zhengping: "I want to smell it too."

Zhao Jinbao: "Me too."

Even if I can't afford to eat it, just smelling it is nice.

But the closer you get, the more you realize how incredibly fragrant the cured fish is; it's so tempting!

Yang Wenyu: "How about we pool our money to buy some things when we get our share of the year-end bonuses?"

Zhou Zhengping and Zhao Jinbao nodded vigorously.

Yang Wenyu then asked Chen Zhi, "Do you sell preserved fish?"

Chen Zhi: "Sell."

Chen Zhi dug sweet potatoes for eight days, rested for two days, and then dug potatoes for seven days. By the time he finished, it was already late December.

She didn't go to town for two trading days.

She was cooking when Shi Xin drove up after work that day.

"You haven't been to town for over ten days, and your uncle, aunt, and sister-in-law were worried, so they asked me to come and check on you," Shi Xin said.

"I forgot to tell my sister-in-law about digging sweet potatoes," Chen Zhi said with a look of annoyance.

Shi Xin: "It's good that you're alright. There's less than a month until Chinese New Year, so I'll bring you some New Year's gifts in advance."

"So early?" Chen Zhi asked in surprise.

Shi Xin waved his hand, "It's not early, it's not early. New Year's goods are bought little by little, not all at once."

Shi Xin brought quite a lot of things this time. In addition to two bags of rice bran, one bag of flour, about five catties of glutinous rice flour, five catties of soybean oil, about two catties each of sesame seeds, brown sugar and white sugar, five catties each of oranges, apples, pomelos and bananas, as well as some dried seaweed, dried squid, dried scallops and the like.

"The seaweed can be used directly to make egg drop soup. The dried squid and dried scallops need to be soaked first. After soaking, they can be used to make soup or stir-fried. Try them first and see if you like them. If you like them, I'll send you more next time," Shi Xin said.

Chen Zhi wrote everything down, her expression helpless. "I live alone, so please don't prepare too much for me, you and my sister-in-law."

"Not much. You gave us quite a lot too. The preserved fish and mandarin fish you sent were really delicious, and they helped your older brother a lot." Shi Xin was telling the truth. In previous years, he had given many gifts, but they were ignored and treated like strangers the next time they met. This year was different. Those people received the gifts, remembered him, and even asked him if he had any.

Chen Zhi: "If you think it's good, just take it. It's hanging in the kitchen."

Shi Xin didn't stand on ceremony with her and immediately went to the kitchen to take a look. He found the whole house filled with smoked meat, with thirty or forty cured fish hanging high up. Underneath the cured fish were a dense swarm of smoked rats, about a hundred of them.

Shi Xin was dumbfounded. "Where did this come from?"

"The fish were caught in the underground river in the mountains, and the rats were dug up from the ground." She's probably going to wipe out all the rats in the fields of Sandong Village.

Shi Xin wiped his face. "That's an astonishing number. And what are those two birds? They're huge."

Chen Zhi: "Eagle."

Shi Xin swallowed hard. "You can take whatever you want from all of these?"

"You can take them all." She was planning to go into the mountains tomorrow anyway, and with the kitchen emptied, she could smoke some more. There was still some time before the New Year, so she had plenty of time.

"Then I'll take them all. I plan to make them into gift boxes and sell them, and we'll split the profits 50/50," Shi Xin said.

Chen Zhi shook her head, "A 40/60 split, I'll take 40%."

Shi Xin didn't argue with Chen Zhi, since she didn't know how much it would cost anyway, so she would just calculate the price for her at 50/50.

Shi Xin: "It's almost the end of the year, and meat is in short supply. If you can get any fish, live or smoked, I'll take it all."

Chen Zhi thought about it and realized that she might be able to earn some money by the end of the year.

"Then come over tomorrow night, around 2 a.m.

"OK."

Chen Zhi didn't go anywhere the next day; she harvested corn in her own vegetable garden.

Although she planted her corn late, it grew exceptionally well. Each ear was thick and long, with plump and glossy kernels, even better than the corn harvested by the entire brigade in the summer.

Two full baskets were harvested from a small plot of land.

Chen Zhi pulled up the corn stalks, turned the soil over with a hoe, then poured on farmyard manure, some wood ash, and covered it with a layer of withered grass and leaves. Finally, he watered it. After that, he watered it every day, and after five or six days, he turned the soil over again, and it was ready to be used for planting vegetables.