Cannon Fodder Husband Ch.37-38

Chapter 37 – First Day of Work

Currently, there were a total of 18 educated youths at the educated youth spot, so they formed pairs and rotated every 9 days.

Lu Xia was paired with Shen Qingqing, and she secretly felt relieved that she wasn’t paired with the female lead.

She glanced at Shen Qingqing and noticed the shy girl smiling at her, so Lu Xia returned the smile.

Gu Xiangnan and Jiang Junmo were paired together, but they couldn’t cook. They asked Sun Shengnan for help, and Jiang Junmo mentioned that he wouldn’t be able to do too much work, so he could give them his work points instead.

The others looked at his expression but didn’t say anything.

Once the arrangements were settled, the cooking rotation started today.

Then the group followed the old educated youths to the threshing ground in front of the brigade headquarters, waiting to be assigned today’s tasks.

While no one was paying attention, Lu Xia filled her water bottle with the spiritual spring water and joined everyone.

By the time they arrived, there were already many people at the threshing ground. Everyone knew that new educated youths had arrived in the village, so they curiously looked at them.

The most eye-catching among them were Gu Xiangnan and Su Man. Although they were dressed in ordinary clothes for work, their temperament and appearance didn’t resemble ordinary people.

Naturally, they attracted the attention of the villagers, especially the young men who were fixated on Su Man, while the young girls blushed while looking at Gu Xiangnan.

Of course, there were also many people looking at Jiang Junmo, but with his weak and pale appearance, it was evident that he wasn’t in good health and couldn’t work.

In the countryside, if someone couldn’t work, it was difficult to survive, so people just looked at him and weren’t particularly interested in him.

The new educated youth felt a bit embarrassed under the scrutiny, and some aunts even approached them to assess them.

“Oh my, the new educated youths are so good-looking. They’re sure to dazzle the young men and women in the village!”

“Look at this handsome young man. The young ladies and daughters-in-law won’t be able to walk properly when they see him!”

The comments were too straightforward, and even Gu Xiangnan, with his thick skin, felt a bit embarrassed.

Fortunately, the village chief arrived soon after and instructed the brigade leaders to assign tasks to the educated youths.

The current task in the fields was weeding the crops.

So the female educated youths were assigned to pull out the weeds, while the male educated youths not only had to weed but also transport the pulled out vegetables.

Lu Xia followed Sun Shengnan and the others to their designated area and began pulling out weeds from the corn seedlings.

The task was straightforward, but Lu Xia soon realized it wasn’t easy.

Firstly, the corn seedlings weren’t tall at the moment, only reaching up to her knees.

Regardless of whether she squatted or stood, she would accidentally touch them. The corn seedlings had tiny hairs that were particularly prickly, and even if she accidentally brushed against them, her hands would turn red.

Fortunately, she was wearing long sleeves; otherwise, her arms would have been in pain.

Secondly, her back became tired from constantly squatting. Remaining in a squat was tiring, and standing up and squatting down again was even more exhausting. It would have been great to have a small stool to sit on.

But since no one had one, she couldn’t make any special requests.

Furthermore, after working for a while, the sun gradually grew hotter, and she was covered in sweat. It was so uncomfortable!

It seemed like she needed to prepare a straw hat for later.

Lu Xia noticed that at some point, Su Man had taken a towel and covered her head. Maybe she should try it too. Later, she could wet the towel to cool herself down.

Weeding was truly a tiresome task. Looking at the small size of the weeds, Lu Xia heard Sun Shengnan mention that they had already pulled them out once before, but they had regrown. After pulling out the weeds this time, they would grow back, and they would need to continue pulling them until the corn grew tall enough and the newly grown weeds wouldn’t affect the corn anymore, at which point they could stop pulling them.

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Chapter 38 – Other Jobs

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Upon hearing that they had to pull weeds so many times, Lu Xia felt dizzy. Wasn’t there an easier way, like using pesticides?

By this time, pesticides should have been invented, right? Why weren’t they being used?

Had they not been widely adopted yet?

Well, she was overthinking it.

After all, they came to the countryside to work, and if it wasn’t this task, there would be others. They wouldn’t have much free time anyway.

Lu Xia worked for over an hour and was extremely tired. Her legs and waist felt like they didn’t belong to her anymore.

Zhuang Hongmei deliberately dragged her feet, occasionally going to the restroom or resting by the side of the field.

Su Man had the same pace as Lu Xia. It seemed she didn’t want to work either, but she knew she had to make a good impression since they had just arrived.

Lu Xia felt parched and glanced up at the blazing sun. She stopped and took a sip from her water bottle filled with spiritual spring water. Instantly, she felt much more comfortable and was glad she brought the water bottle.

After a short rest, she continued working. She had already fallen far behind Sun Shengnan and the others, and it wouldn’t be good to have too large of a gap.

Finally, they endured until noon, when they heard the village leader’s signal, indicating that it was time to finish work. Lu Xia finally breathed a sigh of relief.

If they had to keep working, she didn’t know if she could continue.

Walking back with the old educated youths, she noticed how exhausted they all looked, unable to straighten their backs. Sun Shengnan comforted them, saying, “This is how it is in the beginning. You’ll get used to it. Our workload can’t compare to the villagers’, but it can’t be too far off either. Otherwise, we won’t earn enough work points to eat.”

Lu Xia and the others pretended to agree and nodded, each with their own thoughts.

Especially Su Man. Money wasn’t an issue for her, and she joined the workforce to avoid standing out too much. After all, she had just arrived in the countryside, and she couldn’t be too different.

However, working was too exhausting. She could barely hold on after just a few hours in the morning. Looking at her sunburned skin, she felt it was necessary to change jobs.

So she thought for a moment and asked, “Sister Shengnan, aren’t we educated youth coming to the countryside to promote rural development? Aren’t there other jobs of value? Like being a teacher or something?”

Upon hearing this, Sun Shengnan glanced at Su Man as if understanding her intention.

“Of course, there are teachers. There are currently three educated youths working as teachers in the village’s elementary school. However, they became teachers after marrying locals.”

As she said this, Lu Xia and the others understood. They hadn’t expected the villagers to be so exclusionary.

Su Man furrowed her brows. “So in order to have a different job, we have to become locals?”

Hearing her direct question, Sun Shengnan sighed. “Maybe it’s because there have been too many educated youths coming to the countryside in recent years, and it has led to some negative consequences. So the villagers have a negative impression of us. In their eyes, educated youth represent trouble. But if we marry locals and fully integrate into the community, things will be much better.”

Pausing for a moment, she continued, “Currently, besides the three teachers in the elementary school, there’s also a general assistant in the health clinic who married a local. Apart from that, a worker, peasant, and soldier college student who was recommended two years ago from our educated youth spot got married to the daughter of a village leader.”

Upon hearing this, Lu Xia and the others felt a sense of heaviness.

It seemed that this village was even more exclusionary than they had thought. It would be quite difficult to find a better job under these circumstances.

The group’s expressions turned sour, especially Zhuang Hongmei, who directly asked what the previous educated youths had done to leave such a negative impression on the villagers.

But Sun Shengnan didn’t say anything.

Zhuang Hongmei could only curse in her heart that the old educated youths did too much trouble, causing them to be implicated.

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