Chapter 1386 Broken Engagement 35
Chapter 1386 Breaking off the Engagement 35
In the following days, Yuanchun traveled between the village and the county town. No matter where she lived, she was never idle. There were mountains and places to go fishing in the suburbs of the county town.
She chopped wood during the day and went fishing in the afternoons and evenings.
When she lived in the county town, she would send any delicious food she made to the food factory for Shen Yuandong and his classmate Guo Wenzhong.
On weekends, when Shen Yuandong returned home, he would invite Guo Wenzhong and Yuanchun to go to the mountains to chop wood or go to the beach to catch seafood.
If they picked up a lot of seafood, the three of them would make a pot of seafood at Shen's house, cook a pot of rice, and drink a cup of millet wine brought out by Yuanchun.
Time passed quickly, and in the blink of an eye, it was the 22nd day of the twelfth lunar month.
It was the day to slaughter pigs in Xiangqian Village. After having breakfast, Yuanchun took the wooden barrel and stood under the courtyard wall, calling Aunt Erniu and Taohua and her daughter to go to the brigade gate to get the pork.
When the three men arrived, there were already many villagers watching the fun in the brigade square. The brigade leader's wife and a few village women were boiling hot water in a big pot.
The team leader, along with a few sturdy men, were helping Butcher Wang to hold down the live pig.
The village accountant and the village secretary sat at a table with a pile of small paper slips on it.
Zhang Erniu took Yuanchun to the table and said with a smile, "Secretary Li, Accountant Chen, have the first few lots been drawn?"
In the past, when Sun Jianye was the team leader, every year when it was time to distribute pork, Sun Jianye would arrange for his relatives and friends to receive the pork first, taking away the good ones, and leaving the bad ones for those who had a bad relationship with him.
This year, Wang Jianguo took office newly. In order to ensure fairness and justice, he specially set up a lottery to arrange the order of priority, and the people who drew the lots also included several village cadres.
His action immediately won praise from all the villagers.
Secretary Li smiled and said, "The first place was taken away by your Zhang Laosan."
Zhang Erniu laughed out loud, "My third brother is lucky. Taohua, you come and draw the lot. You have fair hands, so you will definitely draw a lot at the front."
Taohua found it quite fun to draw lots for the first time. She said carelessly, "Mom, if I draw the lot at the back, you are not allowed to scold me."
"You haven't drawn one yet, why are you saying such discouraging words? Hurry up and draw one."
Taohua reached out her hand nervously, picked up a small piece of paper and handed it to Secretary Li.
Secretary Li opened it and took a look, then wrote down, "Twelve Lots, Taohua girl has good luck, she is ranked at the top."
Zhang Erniu was so happy, "Yuanchun, it's your turn, come and draw a card."
There was too much pork in Yuanchun's space to eat, and she didn't like fatty meat. She liked to eat spare ribs, pork intestines rice noodles, spicy fried pork liver, pork tripe and chicken, double pepper lung slices...
So Yuanchun drew the last lot.
Zhang Erniu was very disappointed. "Why is your luck so bad? You got the last lot. You must not have washed your hands thoroughly when you came here. I asked Taohua to wash her hands three times with soap before she came. You should wash your hands more often before you come to get the pork next year."
Yuanchun smiled and agreed.
After Secretary Li wrote down her signature number, he folded the small paper signatures and threw them into a paper bag. The bag contained the signatures drawn by the villagers. They were to be kept for next year's drawing to avoid wasting paper to make signatures.
Accountant Chen told Yuanchun the amount of pork she needed to collect.
"Three pounds and thirty ounces of pork."
The amount of pork is calculated based on the work points of each household. The more work points a household has, the more pork it gets, and the fewer work points a household has, the less pork it gets.
The original owner earned a lot of work points last year. After Shen Yuandong graduated from high school, he stayed in the village for three or four months and also earned a lot of work points.