Back to the 60s: The Struggle Career of a Charmed Wife
Chapter 1096 - 1095: Seize the Opportunity 5

Chapter 1096: Chapter 1095: Seize the Opportunity 5

The farming busy season meant early departures and late returns, awakening before dawn to head to the fields and coming home after dusk.

This year, the Wanglou Brigade was exceptionally busy for two reasons. First, a bumper harvest had increased yields, naturally requiring more labor, and second, no teachers or students from the city were available to help. With classes suspended, many teachers had fallen on hard times and it was difficult to replicate the progress of the previous two years. The one consolation was that youth like Lu Tianzhi could now shoulder nearly as much work as an adult laborer.

During the clear weather, all the elders and folks of the Wanglou Brigade were toiling in the fields, sweating profusely as they reaped wheat, tied bundles, loaded carts, transported crops, threshed, and spread out the grains for drying. They were so busy they barely knew if they were on foot or horseback.

Elderly folks who were particularly advanced in years and young children unable to perform physical labor were tasked with picking up wheat spikes in the fields.

They had but one wish, to swiftly gather the fully ripe crops into the barns before the capricious nature of the weather—with sudden changes from sunshine to rain—could delay the harvest, essentially denying them food.

Lu’s father, too busy to look after his grandson, sent the boy to stay with his daughter-in-law and gave him the task of practicing calligraphy.

"I guarantee to complete the mission!" the little fellow saluted like a soldier.

Pregnant and with a not-so-steady fetal position, Feng Qingxue was kept from doing fieldwork by her whole family. Thus, she took on the tasks of washing clothes, cooking, and caring for her pair of children. Feng Qingyun took on lighter chores like flipping the wheat that had been threshed or gathering it into piles before nightfall, which would turn black after two or three days in the sun.

Fubao noticed it and was so scared that she refused to leave the house, even making sure to wear a straw hat when going to the yard to relieve herself. However, she failed to notice that her exposed arms and hands had darkened more than the skin beneath her clothes.

Kids, naturally, aren’t so detail-oriented.

Feng Qingxue found a bottle of children’s sunblock for her, and although the little girl thought it was merely cream, she was overjoyed, planting non-stop kisses on her mother’s face with a chirp, "Mama, I love you the most."

Feng Qingxue was about to respond when she suddenly heard a knock at the door.

"I’ll go answer it!" Xibao, growing impatient with his calligraphy practice, put down his brush, zipped over, and raced to the door as fast as a rabbit.

Upon opening the door, he looked up at the stranger standing at the entrance, a middle-aged woman fanning herself with a straw hat, and Xibao solemnly asked, "Hello, who are you looking for?"

"Is this the Lu family?" the middle-aged woman asked, lowering her gaze to meet the eyes of the stern-browed, bright-eyed little boy.

"Yes, it’s the Lu family, like ’land, sea, and air’ Lu!" Xibao nodded.

Feng Qingxue, hearing the voice of a stranger, came out from the house, "This is the Lu family. May I ask who you are, comrade?"

"Hello, hello, you must be the auntie, Feng Qingxue, who adopted Guan Cheng and Guan Yu, right?" the middle-aged woman said enthusiastically as she moved forward to shake hands, "I’m Wang Daniu, a daughter married out from our Wanglou Brigade. I should probably call your uncle ’Uncle,’ hehe!"

Feng Qingxue felt puzzled inside but did not let it affect her invitation to the visitor to come inside.

"Sister Wang, what brings you to our house during such a busy farming period?" Feng Qingxue asked as she poured a cup of water for her guest. While Feng Qingxue recognized some Wanglou Brigade daughters who had married in recent years, she did not know many who had married before then, except for Hongling’s mother who married into Caohu.

Wang Daniu smiled and said, "It’s good news, not bad."

When Feng Qingxue inquired what the good news was, Wang Daniu cheerfully replied, "I’ve come to propose an excellent match for your Guan Cheng. Isn’t that good news? The girl is quite exceptional, and I’m sure she’ll make your family very happy."