Volume 1 Chapter 0007 First Day at Work
Ding ding ding!
The sound of iron rods hitting iron sheets was heard, and this was the horn for work to begin.
Nan Yi took Liu Zhen to the cowshed of the third team.
Although it is called a cowshed, it is not actually used to raise cattle. The buffaloes in the south are all free-range. When there is no need to plow the land, the cattle are usually driven to the pond or river to soak, and they are very leisurely.
At night, the cows will be locked up. No, the word "locked up" is not appropriate, it should be "invited". The cows will be respectfully invited into the cowshed.
The cowshed is the bedroom for the cows, a storage room for farm tools, and a temporary granary for grain.
On the side, there is a threshing ground where the harvested grain will be dried and then temporarily stored in the cowshed. After the harvest is over, the members of the team will carry the grain to the big team.
At that time, the people who collect grain from the grain station should have arrived.
"Uncle Yaowei, Auntie, I'm Nan Yi, this is Liu Zhen, we've come to you to report our arrival. Uncle Yaowei, just tell us what to do."
Before he could finish his words, Nan Yi had already handed over the cigarette.
Xian Yaowei took the cigarette and put it to his ear . "Yaodong has already told me, Liu Zhen, you go cut grass for the pigs. You know how to cut it, right?"
"I know, I know. I have just taught her."
"That's good. The dung basket is in the cowshed. Go get it yourself. There are not many pigs in the team now. After cutting the pig grass, we have to go to the fields to pick up rice ears."
"okay."
Nan Yi winked at Liu Zhen and led her to the cowshed. He had to lead her for a while, as he was not sure whether Liu Zhen knew the dung bucket.
When they reached the cowshed, Nan Yi pointed at the various farm tools inside and introduced them, "That's a windmill, used to blow away the dust and unfilled grains in the millet; that's a basket, used to carry the millet; that's a plow, used by oxen to plow the land;
That plowshare is used to break up the large lumps of soil that have been turned up by the plow; that is a thresher, you hold the rice stalks in your hands and pull them upwards, and the rice will fall into the bucket below; that is..."
After introducing all the farm tools inside, Nan Yi picked up the dung basket. "At the beginning , don't fill it too full. Your shoulders have never carried anything before and can't bear the force. Carry less and make more trips. When carrying, don't walk too fast and don't let the dung basket swing, otherwise it will feel heavier.
If your shoulders hurt, don't put down the burden immediately. Grit your teeth and keep walking a few more steps; each time you should walk farther than the last time. Don't give up easily.
The load should be slightly heavier in the front and lighter in the back, with the middle of the pole on the shoulder. Even if your shoulders hurt, do not put a towel under them. Doing so will rub your shoulders, which will then cause ulcers.
The most important thing is, if you really can’t handle it, just go to the field and call me, and I’ll help you pick it.”
"Um."
"Go ahead."
How to chop pig grass, there is no need for Nan Yi to teach Liu Zhen. Although Liu Zhen may not be good at other things, he still knows how to use a knife to cook.
Watching Liu Zhen walk towards the dam, Nan Yi walked to Xian Yaowei's side again.
"Nan Yi, come with me. You have to work according to the amount of 12 work points. Yaodong has already told me this. I will assign you a task."
"Okay, Uncle Yaowei, this is it. I don't have a sickle yet."
"Don't worry, we'll give you some tools when we get to the field. You're a strong laborer, so I'm sure you'll get the tools that suit your needs."
Following Xian Yaowei to the edge of a field, Xian Yaowei picked out a sickle from a pile of sickles nearby and handed it to Nan Yi.
I tried the feel of the sickle and ran my fingers along the teeth of the sickle. Hmm, it was a good sickle.
"Here, here. If you finish mowing, you will get today's twelve work points. If you finish mowing earlier, you can leave early. If you mow more, I will give you more work points.
We in Wenchangwei don't believe in egalitarianism. The more you work, the more you get. If you can get 50 work points a day, I will give it to you."
"Well, Uncle Yaowei, you smoke."
Nan Yi smoked another cigarette, then went down to the field and stood beside his own ridge. He lit a cigarette, smoked it quietly, threw the cigarette butt into the soil, and stepped on it barefoot.
Pah, another mouthful of saliva was spat into the palm of his hand.
He rubbed it, bent down, and swished... swished...
Xian Yaowei watched on the ridge of the field for half an hour. This silly boy Nan Yi didn't even straighten his back once. Even when he was tying knots in the rice stalks, his back was still bent.
"Yaowei, what are you looking at?" Ge Cuizhu walked up to Xian Yaowei and asked.
Ge Cuizhu, the scorekeeper of the third team, is responsible for recording the work points of the team members. The scorekeeper is not a full-time position, and the score is three to five work points a day, and the team members have to work.
Needless to say, this kind of good job is not something that ordinary people can do.
First of all, you need to have a high level of education, at least you have attended third grade in primary school, and you can write the names of all the team members; secondly, if you understand, you will understand, and if you don’t understand, please continue to remain innocent.
"The new educated youth is a hard worker. There is no stronger guy in our team who is more capable than him."
"You're trying your best. You might not be able to do it any more soon."
"No, just watch. When he finishes reaping the harvest, I'll give him twelve work points. I'm going to thresh the grain."
"Go ahead."
Nan Yi got up at four o'clock. The team started work at six o'clock. By the time he straightened up, it was already seven forty.
In about eighty minutes, Nan Yi had completed more than a quarter of his work.
Nan Yi wiped the sweat off his face with the towel hanging around his neck, walked out of the field, went to the river to wash his muddy legs, put on his Liberation shoes, and walked towards Liu Zhen.
"How is it, can you handle it?"
"Brother, I can do it. Look, I've already picked half of it. After I finish, I'll go chop grass for pigs." Liu Zhen put the revolutionary grass into the dung basket with a smile on his face.
"Be careful, if the revolutionary grass falls on the ground, it will make you slip. Don't fall into the river."
"Um."
"Take your time, I'm going to go eat something."
I returned to the ancestral hall and opened the lead pot. There were still about two bowls of thick porridge left in the pot.
He took it out of the lunch box, sprinkled a little salt in it, poured a little soy sauce, and Nan Yi finished it in two minutes.
Clean the lunch box and lead pot, and slow down your pace as much as possible when walking back to the field. You can smoke a couple of cigarettes on the way to help digest the food.
…
He continued to work hard, and when he finished, he went back to the ancestral hall to eat.
…
Keep going!
At three o'clock in the afternoon, Nan Yi straightened up again and shouted to Ge Cuizhu who was not far away: "Aunt, please come over and take a look."
Ge Cuizhu walked over, looked at the bare path, then looked down and saw that there were no fallen rice ears in the field.
"Come on, Nan Yi, you're really good. You have completed your task today. Do you plan to take a rest or work on it for a while longer?" Ge Cuizhu said with a bright smile on her face.
It is a great thing for the team to have one more capable worker.
A skilled worker can at least motivate dozens of slackers, and can also add a few more grains of rice to each member's bowl.
"Haha, I won't work today. I just arrived yesterday and there are many things I haven't packed and bought. I am a fast runner, so I can go to the commune to buy some things."
"That's right. Don't walk there. Yaodong has a bicycle. Can you ride it?"
“I can ride.”
"Then ask him to borrow one and go there on the bicycle."
"Okay, thank you, Auntie."
After washing his muddy legs again, he went to the brigade headquarters to find Xian Yaodong and asked him to borrow his bicycle. Then, Nan Yi arrived at the supply and marketing cooperative in the commune.
It was the busy farming season and even the schools had closed for the holiday, so there were not many people in the supply and marketing cooperative.
One was standing at the counter, and the others...no one.
Nan Yi walked along the counter made of a mixture of glass and cement and looked at the goods on the counter and hanging on the wall. After walking back and forth, he knew what he wanted to buy.
"A blanket, the bright red one, a pound of chicken shit candy, two bottles of red lychee toothpaste, and let me see that skirt on the wall."
Nan Yi listed the things he wanted to buy as if he was naming a dish, and at the end, he pointed to a dress on the wall.
After all, he was a teller in the commune, not in the city, so his attitude was not so domineering.
As she took the skirt, she started to count the expenses. "The blanket cost 28.5 yuan, and I need two industrial coupons. The chicken shit candy cost 65 yuan, and I don't need the candy coupons. The red litchi toothpaste cost 36 yuan, and I don't need the coupons. The skirt cost 18 yuan, and I need three feet of cloth coupons."
Nan Yi looked at the skirt again and pulled the cloth to see if it was strong and whether the seams were tight.
"Do you have a smaller size for the skirt?"
"No, this is the smallest."
"Okay, I want it. Please help me wrap it."
The teller took the skirt back, folded it into a cylinder, wrapped it with a long strip of oil paper, tied it with a circle of straw paper rope, and then cut the rope with a scissors.
Then, he tied the blanket with straw paper rope and threw the rest of the money on the counter. "Forty-seven dollars and fifty-one cents, two industrial tickets, and three feet of cloth tickets."
"Here you go, thank you."
After handing over the money and tickets, Nan Yi stuffed the things that could only be bought with more than three months' salary as an apprentice into his yellow schoolbag, and carried the blanket in his hands.
There wasn’t much to see in the commune, so I just grabbed my things, got on my bike, and headed straight back.
…
Good food, it was prepared yesterday. There was only one Sansu dish for dinner, and a water hyacinth that Nan Yi brought back in the morning.
No one knows how to cook water hyacinth, so when Nan Yi came back, he hurriedly added this dish.
"Alas, I don't know when I will be able to eat meat next time." Lin Guangwei said with a sigh as he ate his rice listlessly.
"Brother Guangwei, I still have some money. Next time you come to sell meat , I'll go and cut some."
"Forget it, Nan Yi, you should save some money. We can still rely on our family, but you have to be frugal by yourself. Let me tell you, it's easy to avoid hunger in Wenchangwei, but it's hard to eat well.
Use the tickets you brought with you sparingly. Except for the oil tickets, you won’t see any other tickets here all year round. It will be difficult for you to get tickets for making clothes or buying soap in the future.”
"It's okay. I'm an easy person to adapt to. Rich people have their own way of living, poor people have their own way of living."
No, I have to move out with Liu Zhen quickly.
Nan Yi had already seen that the oil jars at the educated youth site were almost empty. A person in the countryside could only get less than three or five taels of oil a year. He estimated that the other educated youth had no oil coupons, so it was impossible for him to take out the oil coupons.
Fuel coupons are too difficult to get. If he took out a handful of them, it would be difficult to explain where they came from.
Where can a guy from the alley get so many gas coupons?
Even a fool knows that this is definitely not normal.
