After all, Xiulan was different from all the people in this era. She would either not get married in the future or she had to find someone she really liked that she would marry. It was impossible to find someone casually to just make do with it for a lifetime.
Jianguo was not her type. She was not interested in him and she did not want him to waste his time on her.
She smiled and replied to him, “Brother Jianguo, there’s no need, you can use it yourself. My hands are very rough and not that delicate.”
Jianguo felt a little lost when she rejected him. On one hand, he didn’t want her to be polite to him, and on the other hand, he felt distressed that she would injure her hands.
Lijuan on the side had a face full of jealousy. “Brother Jianguo, you lent the sickle to Xiulan, but I didn’t see you lending it to any of us. Since she doesn’t know what’s good for her, then you can lend it to me instead! I’ve been pulling the rice stalks all morning, so my hands hurt so much now. I can’t take it any longer. Look at my hands, there are a lot of blisters now.”
Jianguo looked at her with some embarrassment. He only wanted to lend his sickle to Xiulan because he liked her. As for lending it to Lijuan, he had no such plan.
But when Lijuan said that, he couldn’t manage to refuse.
Xiulan secretly complained that Lijuan was cheeky. She looked at Jianguo and thought that he was probably embarrassed to reject Lijuan.
If he agreed, it would be a total waste for Lijuan.
***Original translation is from enchantesstranslations.com. Please read it on the translator’s website.***
Xiulan put her hands on her hips, pointed at Lijuan, and yelled, “Lijuan, Brother Jianguo was lending it to me and not to you. He only wants to lend me a sickle because he knows I work neatly and work so hard. The sickle is not of much use in your hands. It will be a waste to let you use it.
“I don’t want Brother Jianguo’s sickle not because I don’t know what’s good and what’s bad, but it’s because I know Brother Jianguo is efficient and only if he uses the sickle can he cut more rice, which will benefit our production team.
“Your work efficiency is even lower than mine, so where did you get the idea of asking Brother Jianguo to give you the sickle?”
When Xiulan and Lijuan were talking, Jinhua happened to be there as well. Ever since Xiulan rescued her son, Gou Dan, she had always been grateful to Xiulan, and now, she has the opportunity to help this girl more naturally.
After Xiulan finished speaking, Jinhua followed suit and said, “That’s right! Lijuan, you can’t just think about yourself. You just feel that working hard is tiring. You should learn from Xiulan. This kind of ideological awareness is for the sake of our production team.
“The overall interests of the production team must be put first, and the interests of individuals must be put second.
“The sickle, just like what Xiulan said, should be used by Jianguo. It’s one thing for Jianguo to lend it to Xiulan on his initiative. But for you to take the initiative to ask for it, then you are considered to be lazy and hedonistic. You should be criticized and educated because your thinking is not correct!”
When she said that, the people who were working together looked at Lijuan immediately with some strange eyes.
Many of them even whispered and criticized Lijuan, thinking that she does have a hedonistic style, not only that day because she used to work very little in the production team and earned fewer work points than others.
It was considered very serious for anyone to have a hedonistic style and you would likely become a ‘bad element’ if you were not careful during this time.
Lijuan felt like crying when she saw the situation develop like that. Why did she have to put it like that? It is not a good feeling to be talked about.
It’s all Xiulan’s fault! If it isn’t for her, I will not be criticized like that!
She gritted her teeth with hatred, but she couldn’t say anything to refute. So, she could only continue her work angrily, pulling the rice stalks with her bare hands.