Back to the 60s: The Struggle Career of a Charmed Wife
Chapter 454 - 0454: Trainee Life 2_1

Chapter 454: Chapter 0454: Trainee Life 2_1

Mother Cheng returned to the primary room holding a bowl of egg soup, saying to Cheng Baoguo, "Go borrow two ounces of oil from Secretary Huang’s and ask if we can borrow the pig’s ear they bought today. We’ll return it once we get one tomorrow."

Cheng Baoguo nodded, "I’ll go now, and also see what dish is available at the state-owned restaurant."

Father Lu stopped him, "Don’t go!"

He picked up a bamboo basket from the ground and handed it to Cheng Baoguo, "Aunt Cheng, we have brought a lot of grain and oil. I remember we brought an oil jar as well. Our families need not be polite, and there’s no need to borrow from outsiders. If we let you borrow, we would feel uncomfortable staying for dinner. Third Brother, you take this to the kitchen. Since Xibao is here, I can’t leave, lest that he gets scared and makes everyone uncomfortable."

Cheng Baoguo took it without any hesitation.

"Third Uncle, also bring the bag with the grains. And the dried and pickled vegetables I brought." Feng Qingxue, who had initially planned to rent a house in the city, had come well-prepared. She opened the bamboo basket and took out jars filled with oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar. Digging a bit more, she found a piece of cured meat, "Aunt Cuilan, let’s make cured meat rice for lunch."

"You’re living quite well!" Wang Cuilan recalled the items Cheng Baoguo had brought from their home.

"Thanks to the care of comrade Ajiang, who sends a good number of local products every year. Otherwise, as a lone woman, I would never have been able to get these things." Feng Qingxue laughed, "Having our own plot of land makes it easy to have vegetables."

As the weather warmed, the vegetables from the private plots were growing vigorously.

Before Father Lu left, Feng Qingxue reminded him to plant the vegetables that needed to be planted when he got home.

Father Lu said, "You can stay at your third uncle’s house with Xibao in peace and concentrate on studying. Haven’t you left the bicycle at home? When Tianjun comes to school every week, I will have him bring vegetables and grains for you and also leave the bicycle at third brother’s house."

With the arrival of spring, Lu Tianjun had started high school.

He was a great student, and with his outstanding grades, he was admitted to a high school in the city.

He went to middle school in the county town for the first year. In the second year, the Wanglou Brigade opened a school, and he returned to the Wanglou Brigade with students from surrounding villages for another year, and has since graduated from his two-year middle school.

High school required boarding because the school was too far from home.

Students with urban residency had grain ticket subsidies each month and a certain supply of food, and they bought meals at the cafeteria with their grain tickets and money. However, for peasant students like Lu Tianjun who do not have grain tickets, they could only exchange their grains for food--coarse grains for coarse foods, and fine grains for fine foods. Most peasant students brought wild vegetables, wheat bran, or even chaff from home and had it steamed in the cafeteria. Lu Tianjun secretly stashed away the brown rice he brought, not taking out a single grain.

There were not many students at the school, and it seemed somewhat desolate. Originally there should have been more than forty students in one class, but now there were only over twenty, of which seven or eight were students from rural areas.

The reason was simple, they could not afford to go to school, nor could they afford to eat. After experiencing the three-year famine, many people dropped out directly.

There was one day off each week, which was the day for rural students to go home for food.

Every Saturday after school, everyone rushed home, and the next afternoon, they returned with dry food or grain.

Lu Tianjun was like the rest, dressing similarly, eating similarly--coarse grain with pickles. He never brought fine grains from home to school, occasionally owing a cornmeal bun with grain tickets and money for a change of taste. Besides his grades, he seldom stood out, maintaining such a low profile that it almost made people forget about this classmate.