“Tch, even those city folks have to come down to the countryside to work now!”
After several days of shoveling pig manure, Feng Baoru felt as if her entire body had been soaked in a cesspit. Every day when she came home, her father would dump a bucket of water over her head before letting her in.
When she asked him why,
the family explained matter-of-factly,
“You stink too much! The smell’s unbearable.
If you come straight inside, we won’t even be able to sleep tonight!”
Thinking about it made her roll her eyes in anger.
She thought viciously, The more people sent to the countryside, the better!
That way, all these new educated youths could do the work instead.
What “educated people”? Hmph, they’ll be shoveling pig manure just like me soon enough!
“They’re only coming here temporarily,” said another girl around Baoru’s age, trying to explain.
“Hmph, even so, they’ll have to stay quite a while before they can go back!”
Several village women, seeing the educated youths arrive, were already calculating in their heads before even meeting them.
“Hey, look at that girl over there—she’s a good match for my son Ziming!”
“Oh, the one with the short hair? She does look nice—tall and fair. Quite a looker!”
“Right? I’ll tell Ziming to show off and work hard in front of her. That’ll do it!”
The two women chatted as if they were royal matchmakers choosing brides for their sons—picking whichever looked pleasing to the eye and seemed like a good child-bearer.
Su Jin, who was standing nearby, couldn’t help clicking her tongue in amusement.
People really do get strange when they have too much time on their hands…
Then someone suddenly shouted in surprise from behind,
“Ah! Look over there!”
“What is it?”
“Look, there are girls on the truck—wearing skirts that only reach their knees!”
“Seriously? How bold! Do city people really dare to dress like that?”
“Of course! City people sure know how to have fun. I went to the city once and saw a movie poster on the wall outside the cinema. Guess what was on it?”
“What?”
A few women leaned closer together, their voices full of curiosity.
Su Jin listened half-heartedly.
It’s just a movie poster. What’s so interesting about that?
“It was a man and a woman!” The storyteller raised her voice dramatically, eager for the entire village of gossiping women to hear.
“Ohhh~”
“And then?”
The woman lowered her voice mysteriously.
“They were kissing!”
“Ew~~~!”
“Aiya~~~!”
The women gasped and shrieked in exaggerated tones, as if they’d just heard something scandalous.
“Tsk tsk, I’m telling you—city folks really know how to play!”
Su Jin: Wait, what??
One truck after another unloaded the new arrivals, and soon the village had gained dozens of new faces.
Several female educated youths stepped down, wearing polka-dotted floral skirts—the most fashionable style at the time.
As they got off the truck, they felt extremely uncomfortable under the villagers’ openly curious gazes.
“Look at the way those villagers are staring! Typical country bumpkins, never seen the world.”
“Exactly! They won’t stop gawking at us!”
It was understandable—after all, being sent from the city to a remote countryside like this was a huge shock. Their pride and mood were bound to suffer.
The village chief led them toward the educated youth quarters.
“From now on, the men will live at one end of the village, and the women at the other,” he said, pointing toward a brick house not far from the entrance.
Su Jin looked at it. Compared to her own mud-brick house, it was actually quite nice—at least it was made of real bricks!
But the female youths didn’t even bother to hide their disdain.
“What? We’re supposed to live here?”
“That’s right,” the chief replied.
“It’s just a shabby house! There are fifteen of us girls—fifteen! Are we all supposed to cram into one room?”
The chief widened his eyes, clearly taken aback.
“This house was just built when we got word that you’d be coming! What’s shabby about it? It’s made of bricks! Do you see many houses in our village made of brick and plastered with cement?”
The girls looked around—indeed, there weren’t many.
For a moment, none of them dared speak.
One of the male educated youths then asked,
“Do the men get the same amount of space?”
The chief replied honestly,
“The men’s house is a bit larger—by ten square meters or so.”
“What? Why?”
That immediately ignited tension.
“Village chief, are you looking down on us women? Even the Chairman said that men and women are equal in this new era! You can’t discriminate like this!”
The chief waved his hands quickly.
“The men’s quarters are down by the far end of the village—there’s more open space there. Besides, there are ten more men than women. And if you girls live that far out by the mountains, it’s unsafe! There aren’t many households nearby. What would we do if something happened?”
“…”
Hearing that, the girls couldn’t argue further.
The chief scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
“Things are tough everywhere these days. Please bear with it for now. There’ll be a notice when you can return to the county—you won’t be staying here forever.”
“Hmph! As if we’d want to stay here!”
One long-haired girl in a collared dress—Tao Xinyue—lifted her chin so high it nearly reached the sky, her attitude dripping with disdain.
But the old chief, having seen all kinds of people in his life, only smiled and said nothing.
After settling the women, he led the male educated youths to their house near the edge of the village.
That one, while larger, wasn’t as well built—but it had more space around it.
Once everyone was assigned rooms, a bookish-looking young man stopped the chief.
The chief looked puzzled. “And you are?”
“Oh, I’m Wang Chenye. Thank you, village chief, for your arrangements.”
Ah—he was expressing gratitude.
The old man sighed in relief. If all these “young masters and ladies” decided to complain instead, even ten mouths wouldn’t be enough to appease them.
“No trouble at all. I’m just following orders,” the chief said with a kind smile.
Wang Chenye nodded. “Mm.”
“Brother Chenye, why bother thanking him?” another male youth scoffed. “With conditions like this, I can’t even look at it!”
“Don’t talk like that!”
Wang Chenye shot him a sharp warning glance.
“Brother Chenye!” the boy protested.
“Even here, the conditions are already quite decent. Go somewhere else and you might be sleeping in a pigsty! You talk too carelessly. Where did all the manners and discipline from your books go?”
The scolded youth, Fang Zhijie, had just turned eighteen. His mother in the city had cried herself dry when sending him off to the countryside.
He wasn’t very mature—he followed Wang Chenye’s lead in everything, treating his words like law.
With the new arrivals, the quiet village suddenly became lively again. Children ran around shrieking, playing, and stirring up dust everywhere.
