Chapter 7: Chapter 7: Labor is the Most Honorable

In the countryside, trying to survive on your own can be both easy and difficult. The method is simple—if you have strength, that’s enough. But this is exactly what Shen Qiao lacks.

She’s naturally thin and weak, with little physical strength. Over the past few years, she hasn’t had much chance for exercise, and she’s still only managing three or four work points per day.

According to last year’s standard, with over two hundred workdays, to earn the 360 kilograms of grain needed for the autumn harvest, she would have to work every day, without taking frequent sick days as she had done before. If she wanted to have some extra money to buy daily necessities, she would need at least six work points a day.

To be honest, it was a difficult situation.

In the countryside, there are no idle months. Guangming Brigade is located in the south, surrounded by mountains, and this is the perfect season for clearing new land.

The soil beneath the fields is filled with rocks, and the villagers use tools to dig them up, throwing the rocks into baskets.

What seems like a simple task is quite difficult for Shen Qiao. Wearing protective gloves, she starts by squatting, then shifts to kneeling as she realizes she isn’t strong enough to dig properly. It feels like she’s pushing a boulder, straining all her muscles just to lift one rock.

Shen Qiao used to do lighter tasks, as work points are calculated by the amount of labor completed, and no one cared much about her. But after coming back from her visit home, she was pushed into heavier labor, and this did attract attention. No matter what excuses she made, it was obvious to others—especially when she couldn’t keep up with the work.

Someone would inquire, “Shen Qiao, what brings you here? Everything okay?”

She would smile and say, “I need to get stronger.”

She wouldn’t answer any further questions. After all, her reputation in the village wasn’t the best.

This was something that had happened a few years ago.

Although most educated youth were told not to form relationships locally, many still chose to marry due to the pressures of life and emotions.

Marriage, at times, felt like buying meat at a butcher’s—everyone had to pick and choose.

In the countryside, someone like Shen Qiao, who couldn’t do much physical labor, wasn’t that popular. However, she had two advantages: she was beautiful and her family provided support. Many families were still eager to propose to her.

But Shen Qiao was firm in her decision to return home. No matter who came to ask, she rejected them, and her refusal wasn’t very tactful, as she was young.

At just sixteen or seventeen, she didn’t know much and turned away several suitors. As a result, rumors about her—about how she wasn’t interested in local men—started to spread, often exaggerated with detail.

Moreover, she didn’t socialize much with the others in the village, which only reinforced these rumors.

Guangming Brigade was a large collective, and most people were related to each other, especially the Zheng family, who made up two-thirds of the village. The village cadres were all part of the Zheng family.

Such a place could be quite exclusive, and it wasn’t difficult for Shen Qiao to become the subject of gossip.

However, this was just the behavior of individuals because the head of the brigade, Zheng Chong, was a righteous and capable leader.

Let’s note here that “Zheng Chong” is his full name, not a sentence-ending particle.

Shen Qiao didn’t socialize much with the others in the village partly because of a warning from the brigade leader, which she had never mentioned to anyone.

On her first day in the village, the brigade leader privately told her, “You’re too beautiful, and even in the most innocent of places, there are bad people. You must never be alone.”

She was only fifteen then, newly separated from home, and everything felt uncertain. The warning frightened her, and for several nights, she couldn’t sleep, always turning back to look as she walked, afraid of what might happen.

She took his words to heart. Every time she went out, she made sure to stay safe—locking her doors and windows at night, even bracing the door with a chair.

Whether it was caution or just the local customs, she had remained safe to this day. Other places had occasionally had bad rumors, but Shen Qiao was fortunate.

Despite all the uneasy thoughts swirling in her mind, her work pace slowed even more. Holding a wooden stick for half an hour, she couldn’t pry up a single stone. She had no choice but to dig around the edges, taking her time.

At times, large tools weren’t helpful. She couldn’t afford to break anything—it was public property, and she didn’t have the means to repay for any damage. So, she resorted to using a homemade wooden piece, working bit by bit.

The sound of wood against stone was grating to her ears, almost sending shivers down her spine. But now wasn’t the time to be delicate. Her hands were beginning to blister, and she wasn’t sure how to continue the work in the afternoon.

As she expected, the next day was even harder. She could barely move her feet, as though they were weighed down by lead. Her hands were in no better condition, and after a morning’s work, she had barely earned three work points.

It was early spring, and the work hours were from 6 AM to 11 AM, then 1 PM to 6 PM. This amounted to a full five hours of labor.

The hours weren’t strictly fixed, as long as you informed the recorder. But for the people here, work points were crucial to surviving, so they would rather spend all their time working in the fields.

Shen Qiao had no such luxury and felt every minute drag on. Each hour felt like a day, and whenever she checked her watch, only a few minutes had passed.