At this moment, Yumei continued to talk about things with the baby in her womb.
However, Xiulan retorted, “Auntie Mei, my father just told me yesterday that I need to continue to carry on the spirit of camaraderie. I don’t help people just to get something from them! If I accepted that, I don’t know what the other people will say!
“I’m afraid that some people will think that I have this purpose of saving people, and making up unpleasant words will have an impact on my reputation, and it will also have an impact on my father’s reputation.
“You can go and tell my father, but I’m certain that he will be on my side too!”
Yumei didn’t expect Xiulan to speak like that.
Since Xiulan fell into the river, she realized that Xiulan had suddenly turned into a different person.
Xiulan’s words blocked her, so she didn’t know how to argue and could only stare at Xiulan angrily.
Good… this shrew is really capable now ah! We’ll see, once I complain to Weiguo, I’ll let him sort you out!
Xiulan didn’t bother to pay attention to her stepmother anymore, so she cleaned up and went directly to the paddy field.
Many people were already waiting for the team leader to assign tasks when she arrived.
After a while, the team leader took the workbook and assigned tasks one by one.
Because Xiulan did a ‘good thing’ yesterday, she was praised by the team leader. In addition, her health was still not very good, so the team leader specially assigned her a relatively easy job again, which was herding cattle.
There were a few oxen in the production team and herding them should be the easiest job. You could just pull them wherever you see grass and let them eat.
***Original translation is from enchantesstranslations.com. Please read it on the translator’s website.
However, because the work was relatively easy, the work points you would earn were relatively low. Generally, it was only worth two work points a day, so it was still better to do some heavy tasks and earn more work points.
For this kind of task, some people who could endure hardships and wanted to earn more provisions were unwilling to do it, as this would just be a waste of time and could not give them much rations. Only those who liked to be lazy looked forward to doing this kind of task.
Gensheng obviously noticed this and said to her, “Xiulan, you go and herd the oxen, and I will give you five work points later.”
Just like yesterday, Gensheng recorded more work points for Xiulan. Gensheng’s usual two-work point task was now more than doubled, which was more than the other heavier tasks.
Xiulan was not an ignorant person either, so she held the two rope-ends of the oxen, said some words of gratitude, and then herded them.
The large-scale steel production had damaged the environment severely for a few years, and there were very few places with lush vegetation in the production team. Xiulan led the oxen and searched for a while before she found a place to stop and let them eat some grass.
She had nothing to do while the oxen were grazing. She found a lawn to sit on and began to think about how to live in the future.
She had a lot of foodstuffs in her space, but she had to find a legitimate reason to take them out. Of course, she couldn’t take out too much. In addition to arousing suspicion, the most important thing was that she didn’t want to be taken advantage of mother-daughter pair at her home.
While she was thinking deeply, a voice came in. “Xiulan, what are you thinking?”
She looked up and found that it was Jinhua, so Xiulan smiled and greeted her.
Jinhua was assigned the job of cutting hogweeds, and when she found some nearby, she also saw Xiulan, so she called out to her.
Because Xiulan saved Dan, the more she looked at Xiulan, the more cordial she felt.
She was not in a hurry to cut the hogweeds, so she sat down next to Xiulan and chatted with her for a little while.
It just so happened that it was not easy for Xiulan to ask others about some things. After having a friendship with Jinhua, Xiulan was ready to set things up after hearing Jinhua’s opinion and prepare for her future days.
“Auntie Jinhua, I would like to ask, apart from working in the production team to earn work points and provisions, is there any other way to get foodstuffs and other things that we can eat?”