February 12, 2022

Chapter 31: Is Zhao Xiulan Being Lazy on Purpose?

Xiulan might have been born from a family of scholars before, but now she lived in the countryside because of her family situation.

She didn’t tell them, keeping a little bit of reserve for them was nothing more than being vigilant. Many things were more sensitive and cannot be said casually at this time, otherwise they would cause harm to themselves.

Cheng fell into contemplation for a while and became a little more interested in her.

On the other end, Xiulan quickly walked back to her home with a basket on her back.

When she was on her way back, she took out some corns from the space, and also put some sorghum flour into the basket.

Not much, just one kilogram of each.

For the country folks, it was not bad to beg for several grams of foodstuffs. Even if you earned work points in the production team, at the end of the year, you might not be able to earn so many work points.

Especially in the natural disasters that began last year, the foodstuff harvest of the production team was not as good as before. When the provisions were distributed at the end of the year, the foodstuffs received by each family were not enough for the family’s rations for a year.

In the spring, if it wasn’t for the people in the production team, who could dig some wild vegetables or think of other ways by themselves, it was impossible for a few families to be able to survive the year with the little foodstuffs distributed in the production team.

When Xiulan came back, the production team had just finished the morning’s work. Everyone rested at home for a while at noon, and they had to continue to work in the afternoon.

In addition to the busy agricultural seasons, when working in the production team, people were especially in a hurry to catch up with the harvest. In the seasons that were not particularly busy, the team members would be given time to rest.

People were not machines, so they had to have time to rest.

Upon seeing that Xiulan had came back so early, Lijuan was eccentric again and said, “Xiulan, how was it? Did you go to the county seat and didn’t get something to eat? You came back so early, so it seems that you held back and didn’t ask for anything from others, right?

“Heh! You didn’t bring anything back and was just so lazy the whole morning without going to work to earn work points!”

Lijuan didn’t have to work, but because of Xiulan, she went to work again starting today.

Under the bright sun, her skin hurt to death and she was so tired.

She blamed Xiulan for all of this. If it wasn’t for her cheap mouth, her stepfather wouldn’t have let her go out to work.

So, when she saw Xiulan coming back at this moment, she immediately berated her.

After being targeted, Xiulan looked at Lijuan who looked like an idiot.

“Lijuan, why don’t you shut up?! You said that I am lazy, but who is lazier, don’t you know it in your heart?

“You have been lazy at home for so long and you haven’t done any work, but you haven’t heard me talk about it. I went to beg for foodstuff and spent the whole morning on that, but you said I was just lazy? Where did you get a face to say this?”

Yumei came out of the room and helped her daughter. “Lijuan is taking care of me, so why is she called lazy? At least today she worked all morning, but you didn’t do anything. You wasted the time to earn work points, you’re definitely a failure.”

Weiguo heard them, then he coughed lightly before speaking, “Okay, stop talking. What are you arguing about?

“Didn’t Xiulan go there just to try it and see if she can get some foodstuff? If she can’t, then forget it, but she doesn’t need to go back next time. It’s just one morning. If you feel distressed that Xiulan earned so little today, it’s better for Lijuan to work harder and earn a few more points to make up for it.”

In the past, he favored Lijuan and would never speak up for Xiulan.