Back to the 60s: The Struggle Career of a Charmed Wife
Chapter 160 - 0160: Injured and Amnesiac 4_1

Chapter 160: Chapter 0160: Injured and Amnesiac 4_1

Cooking is no easy task.

This thought occurred to Feng Qingxue on her first day of work.

Strong laborers from seven or eight production teams had turned up to work. Despite only having to cook for her own team, and with the help of two other women, her workload was sizable.

The team from Caohu was represented by Feng Qingxue, her aunt, and Feng Shuanzhu’s wife.

In addition, Feng Qingxue also brought along her sister.

She had initially wanted to send Feng Qingyun to school, but they refused her due to her young age. Moreover, Caohu’s primary school was closed, so if they wanted to continue school, they would need to walk to the well-off Wanglou Brigade.

While the laborers toiled, they dug up wild vegetables and plucked young leaves from the trees, cleaning and preparing them for their soup, which was served as a comfort for the workers.

As Feng Qingxue dug for vegetables, she noted the labor scene along the riverbed. Some laborers were immersed in water up to their legs, filling large wicker baskets with the soil they dug up. Another group would transport these soil-filled baskets up to the embankment for dyke construction.

Small pushcarts were useless here, and everything depended on the strength of human labor - carrying loads on shoulders, bearing on poles, or hoisting together in pairs.

Her grandparents had once told her when she was a child about baskets that could hold six to seven hundred kilograms of soil. Larger ones could hold up to a thousand kilograms. Often, the laborers shouldered these gigantic loads or bore them on poles. And the time when these tasks took place was always during the winter, the only time in the year that was not busy with farming. Many laborers burned themselves out from their labor in the icy water, consequently suffering from chronic ailments in their old age.

Yet, many able-bodied laborers were willing to work.

The first reason was to fulfill their work points, with ten work points awarded for a full day’s work. The second reason was to conserve their house’s food supply. Because the work was laborious, those in authority were not stingy with food. Each person was given two rolls of a three-grain blend for each meal.

The rolls, a blend of fermented bean paste, sorghum, and black flour, came out looking dark when steamed. Eating them felt better than the coarse everyday meal at home. The cooks always ate half and saved the other half. Many laborers also ate one roll and saved the other, keeping it in their pockets to bring home for their children and wives or their elderly parents.

People from the Wanglou brigade had also come to work. Upon seeing Wang Zhengguo, Feng Qingxue rushed over. "Uncle, you’re back? The last few times I was at Wanglou, you and my aunt were out. I asked my mum, and she said you were visiting relatives."

She also didn’t mention or ask about Wang Jiao’s situation.

Wang Zhengguo and Miao Fengqin’s family had kept Wang Jiao’s departure a secret, and she certainly wasn’t going to bring up the topic.

"Oh, Qingxue? You’re here too? Good, you can’t just sit around. You need to earn work points." Seeing his niece, Wang Zhengguo was especially delighted. "I took my cousin to visit relatives. The trip was long and took quite a bit of time."

Upon hearing that Wang Jiao was back, Feng Qingxue’s tension eased, and a smile appeared on her face.

"Is auntie and my cousin well? Traveling far is tiring."

"Your aunt is fine. Your cousin, though, wasn’t too cautious while walking and ended up falling. She lost half a year’s worth of memories due to the fall. So, your aunt has stayed home to take care of her."

Upon saying this, Wang Zhengguo let out a real sigh of relief.

For the past half-year, his daughter’s antics had been a headache for him. She suffered an injury and forgot about some of the incidents that occurred during this time. She had lost all the things she had taken from home. But now, she wasn’t odd anymore and was just as willful as when she was a child, throwing a tantrum when unhappy. However, she didn’t remember her desire to marry Lu Jiang. When she passed by the cowshed, she even looked down on the Lu family for their bad social class, saying she shouldn’t have helped the Lu family in secret.