From the day Song Wei shared the news about the college entrance exam with them, the educated youths were no longer adrift.
Everyone devoted themselves to studying after completing their daily tasks. They even formed a study group that gathered in the communal bed room at night to learn together, helping each other with questions and solving problems collectively.
Though Song Wei wasn’t planning to take the exam, she occasionally dropped by to check on them.
She could even offer Lin Ping’an some extra tutoring.
When it came to studying, Lin Ping’an’s attitude was infinitely better than Song Wei’s.
He was clever and loved learning. With so many teachers giving him extra help, Lin Ping’an absorbed knowledge eagerly, like a sponge, without any resistance.
Thanks to these excellent conditions, Lin Ping’an’s grades were consistently and overwhelmingly the highest in school.
The educated youths adored teaching him because it was incredibly rewarding.
Amid this positive learning atmosphere, Minor New Year arrived.
The pigs had grown quite large. The production team leader picked a clear day without snow and gave the order. Strong laborers from the team cheered as they went to capture the pigs.
The butcher, who had long been prepared, stepped forward.
All three pigs were slaughtered, with the smallest weighing in at 370 jin.
Together, the three pigs yielded over a thousand jin of meat—though this was the gross weight.
After removing the organs, the weight was less.
But many of the organs were edible too, though everyone preferred meat when given the choice.
Ping’an Production Team had over 150 households. Even including the educated youths, each family could receive a considerable share.
“These pigs were raised with care by the educated youths. Is it alright if they get to choose first?”
Everyone was eagerly awaiting the distribution of pork. Most had no issue with the brigade leader’s suggestion.
Those who objected were mainly the types who liked to take advantage and feared others might get more.
But under the brigade leader’s authority, the dissenters could only grumble quietly.
The educated youths were especially excited. They had sought out books and materials to learn how to raise pigs, gathered pigweed for them every day, and even after school, the teachers helped collect pigweed, scoop snails from the river, and gather nuts from the mountains to crush and feed to the pigs.
After all that hard work, it was finally time to reap the rewards.
With plenty of pork to go around, even the smallest share was at least two jin of meat, along with some organs.
Of course, during this era, people preferred fatty meat—it had more grease, and no one found it too rich.
As the distribution proceeded, when it was Song Wei’s turn, she chose meat from the hind leg.
That section was almost entirely lean meat, and it was high-quality lean meat—exactly what she liked.
She also selected some offal.
When cleaned and cooked properly, offal could taste even better than pork.
Lin Zhen also picked his share of meat. Since they weren’t married yet, they naturally collected their portions separately.
Everyone joyfully carried their meat home. Some even splurged, immediately chopping the meat to make dumplings.
Lin Zhen went to the backyard to retrieve the last fish.
That three-scaled carp was remarkably resilient—it had survived until now with just a little food.
Today, they would not only have pork dumplings but also fish dumplings.
The fish was large. Part of the meat was minced for dumplings, while the rest was stewed with vermicelli.
In the warm room, the three of them ate to their heart’s content.
“The New Year is almost here too.”
Song Wei seemed to catch the underlying meaning in his words: the New Year was approaching, and so was their wedding.
Sometimes time felt like it passed slowly, and other times it felt incredibly fast.
Winter offered fewer entertainment options and wasn’t a busy season, making it the perfect time for banquets.
In their production team, it wasn’t just Song Wei and Lin Zhen getting married—two other families were also holding weddings this year.
One family was celebrating a marriage, while the other was marrying their daughter off to another production team.
Now that their production team was gradually prospering, many families from outside were inquiring about their unmarried young men and women. It seemed like those who hadn’t married yet had suddenly become highly sought after.
The other two families’ weddings were scheduled earlier than Song Wei and Lin Zhen’s.
On the wedding days, they hosted impressive feasts. After all, before Minor New Year, they had sold quite a bit of greenhouse vegetables, and everyone had earned some money.
Besides meat, vegetables were now readily available. The prices for their own production team members were very low, so putting together a table of good dishes was no problem.
Song Wei and Lin Zhen also attended the banquets.
The brides wore festive red outfits. Though not dresses, they still looked quite beautiful.
During this time, wedding makeup was simple and unadorned, reflecting a genuine simplicity.
Soon, it was almost time for Song Wei and Lin Zhen’s wedding.
Three days before the wedding, Song Jing arrived, dust-covered and weary from his journey.
“Brother!”
Song Wei was overjoyed to see him.
Song Jing’s face broke into a smile. “I took leave to come. I can stay for half a month.”
He had become Song Wei’s only family here.
Both of them tacitly avoided mentioning Song Wei’s other relatives.
After resting, Song Jing brought up the matter of the Song family when no outsiders were around.
“After you went to the countryside, I stopped sending my allowance to them. Somehow, they found out about my situation and came to the military base to see me before the New Year.”
Song Wei thought of that family from her memories, a flicker of disgust in her eyes.
“Are you okay?”
A sharp glint flashed in Song Jing’s eyes. “I’m fine. But I reported them. The spot you took for going to the countryside was originally meant for Song Tian—they pulled strings to replace her. However, the most that’ll happen is they’ll be reprimanded and slink back home.”
“That’s still good.”
As Song Wei spoke, she suddenly remembered something. “They actually wrote me a letter, but when I saw who it was from, I threw it away without reading it.”
The letter had arrived around the same time as one from Song Jing. She’d received both together but only read Song Jing’s. The other one, after seeing the name, was discarded.
“It’s good you didn’t read it.”
Song Jing’s eyes filled with disgust at the mention of the letter. “They wrote to me too, demanding I continue sending my allowance. I ignored it. They sent a few more letters after that, but I didn’t read any of them. I suppose that’s why they came looking for me.”
“Good thing they didn’t come after you.”
Song Wei waved it off. “Let’s not talk about them—they’re bad luck. Brother, you came just in time. Let’s go fishing—did you bring the fishing net?”
The banquet would definitely require meat dishes. Hunting in the mountains wasn’t ideal—the taste of wild game differed significantly from domesticated animals, and it could easily be recognized, potentially causing trouble.
But fish was fine. However, buying a large quantity of fish at once wasn’t easy, and the roads outside were difficult to traverse now.
There were no specialized fishing nets for sale here, so when Song Wei thought of this, she had sent a telegram to Song Jing in advance.
Sending a telegram was much faster than writing a letter, but it was expensive—three mao per character.
“I brought it.”
The lakes and rivers in Ping’an Production Team were frozen solid. They came to the reed lake area.
The lake was frozen firmly enough for people to walk on.
They first had to use tools like shovels or hammers to break a hole in the ice.
All three of them were strong, so this wasn’t difficult for them.
The rest was even simpler.
They started by scattering some fish food around the ice hole to attract the fish. After waiting a while until fish gathered, they cast the net.
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