Free Web NovelChapter 435: Chapter 435: Return to the City Quota
Yi Roujing held Baozi, and Xu Ancheng carried a bucket of fish. When the three of them arrived at the farm, everyone was joyfully dividing the fish.
Jiang Bomeng happily brought out the scales, weighing them one by one. In over three hours, the group had collected a total of 385 pounds of fish, 65 in total, each quite large. It was indeed a significant harvest.
Ni Yanqing, as the owner of the farm and the one who invited the intellectuals to his home, was chosen to distribute the fish. He was naturally not one to smile, "Split them in half. You take half, thirty-three fish. Boming, pack them up for them. You can return the wooden basin after you take them back."
"We, we don’t need this much." Rong and the two other intellectuals said in unison.
Their attitude made Ni Yanqing and those present even more assured that this decision was not wrong. Such understanding is worthy of interaction.
"No problem. If you can’t finish them, you can trade them for grain or meat," Ni Yanqing said. "We won’t finish them all either. The remaining ones are enough for us. More would just be a waste. It’s decided."
"Then, can we come back to pick them up tonight?" Little He whispered, echoing the thoughts of the other two intellectuals. They didn’t want today’s hard work to be taken by others.
"Yes," Ni Yanqing nodded.
"Thank you, thank you so much." The three of them expressed their gratitude simultaneously; at least there was a gain from today’s events.
"We’ll return to the village first when Tang and the others come back. We’ll come back later. Please leave the door open for us," Little He said apologetically.
"No problem." Ni Yanqing didn’t mind those minor matters.
"Thump thump thump—" Hearing the sound, everyone shifted their attention, all eyes on the gate, where Wu Guofang returned, driving a motorcycle and carrying someone with him.
"Brother." Little He seemed to have found his backbone, and even Rong and Huang rushed up.
In the sidecar, Tang was awake.
"Are you okay now?" Huang awkwardly asked.
"Yes." Tang’s eyes were swollen and red, obviously from crying after waking up. "Thanks to you all, or I would have lost my life up there in the mountains."
"Mainly thanks to Roujing and the others." Huang also took some credit, "I had nothing to do with it since I even thought about leaving you be earlier."
Huang’s words made Tang smile. "I know your nature; you didn’t want to come back to help because you wanted to get down to find a doctor faster."
Huang blushed and huffed, "Who said that? I’m not that kind-hearted."
"Where’s Chen? Did you see him in the village?" Rong asked.
Little He’s face immediately fell, and Tang lowered her head, but despair and disappointment were evident all over her.
"What happened?" Huang frowned and asked, "Leader, just say it. Even if you don’t say it now, we’ll know once we get back to the village."
"Chen is going back to the city." Little He said softly.
"Return to the city? Where do you mean?" Huang exclaimed. "Is there a list of people going back to the city? Why weren’t we notified? Even if there are spots, it shouldn’t be him, Chen Youdao."
"The villagers know about us sneaking up the mountain. We didn’t follow the community rules by going into the deep mountains, so we lost our eligibility." Little He explained.
"But he, Chen Youdao, went too, didn’t he? What does he mean by not admitting it and telling the villagers about us going up the mountain? Did he calculate this from the start, enticing us into the deep mountain?" Huang unwittingly hit the nail on the head.
"Did Chen have anything to do with Tang getting bitten by the snake?" Huang asked angrily, as if about to go down the mountain and confront Chen Youdao.
Tang shuddered slightly. She hadn’t thought much before, but now, remembering it, the snake bit her right after Chen suddenly shouted loudly and threw a stone, claiming it was to scare it away, but ended up provoking it, and it bit her.
Little He signaled Huang with a look, glancing at Tang, clearly meaning not to say such things in front of her.
"Tang Jinru, you can’t really be obstinately refusing to see the truth, can you? He managed to get that spot back to the city without telling anyone. He doesn’t care about you at all. Can he take you back to the city?" Huang exclaimed in exasperation.
"Enough, stop talking." Little He pulled Huang to stop her.
"But how did Chen get this spot? Even if we are excluded, there’s still Huo, right?" Rong asked, puzzled.
"Chen with Ni Qingyan..." Little He looked at Tang’s increasingly pale face, swallowed what he was about to say, and changed the topic, "We only heard about it, no proof, it doesn’t hold up."
"Since the whole village knows, it must hold up." Wu Guofang chimed in. "Cut it off when you should, or you’ll only hurt yourself."
Wu Guofang’s words made Tang tremble.
"Tang, you just got back from the hospital, have a seat." Little He quickly helped her.
"Ni Qingyan?" Ni Yanqing didn’t react at first hearing the name.
"Brother, it’s Yaozu’s younger sister." Yan An replied, "Last year when we came, didn’t we all have dinner together?"
"I forgot." Ni Yanqing never wasted his mind on unimportant, indifferent people.
"Let’s go down together." Ni Yanqing said. "Brother Wu, would you mind driving Tang down? We’ll go straight to the team leader’s house. I will explain your situation; you weren’t in the deep mountains."
Little He was a bit surprised, but after processing, thanked him, yet hesitated a bit, "Would it not be good for you?"
"The ones in trouble should be them. If things proceed by proper procedures, all will be well, otherwise..." Ni Yanqing left the sentence unfinished, but his dissatisfaction was clear.
The current leader of the Daihe Village Brigade has family ties with Ni Yanqing’s household, within the third degree of kinship. The team leader addresses his grandfather as a granduncle. His grandfather’s father and the team leader’s grandfather were biological brothers. Of course, back then, they weren’t the only siblings, but only those two reached adulthood, maintaining a good relationship. It’s just that his granduncle passed away ten years ago.
Even after his granduncle’s passing, the grandfather still took care of that family a lot; Ni Dahong, this cousin could become the team leader of the production team. His eldest son, Ni Guangzong, could join the army, his second son, Ni Yaozu, got a job at the commune office... all instances of their family’s face.
If they are genuine and progressive, Ni Yanqing wouldn’t bother with them. But if things are over the top, it’s not good. He came this time under his grandfather’s instructions to investigate this cousin’s family, not allowing them to become the loophole through which others would grab onto the Ni Family.
