The Little Matter of Kicking Down a Door

This program was produced by Tomato Listening.

Lin Yuzhu shot her a glance and said disdainfully, "Tch. Other than spicy, this stir-fry has no flavor at all. No wonder Zhang Yanqiu picks on you."

"Hey!"

The moment Wang Xiaomei heard that, she refused to take it lying down. "If I had oil and soy sauce, even if my cooking were worse, it wouldn't turn out like this!"

Lin Yuzhu nodded. It wasn't entirely unreasonable, but she rolled her eyes again. "Could you at least knock before coming in next time?"

"You just kick the door open and walk in. Isn't that a little too arrogant?"

Wang Xiaomei took a bite of cornbread, blinked, and looked at Lin Yuzhu as though she were baffled. Then she muttered, "What pointless fussiness. Don't go trampling on my good intentions."

Lin Yuzhu rolled her eyes.

The two spent the whole meal bickering. The next day, Wang Xiaomei kindly made enough food for both of them again.

Her habit of kicking doors open and barging in remained as unruly as ever, leaving Lin Yuzhu grinding her teeth with no way to deal with it.

On the final evening of the holiday, Lin Yuzhu prepared dinner early.

She had deliberately added plenty of white flour to the cornbread, steaming it until it was soft and fluffy. It looked delicious.

There was nothing particularly new about the dishes—eggplant and green beans picked from the garden, stewed together in one pot. Still, she had used plenty of oil, and soy sauce from her space enhanced the flavor. It tasted quite good, at least several levels above Wang Xiaomei's cooking.

After keeping the food warm in the pot, Lin Yuzhu sat on a small stool, drumming her fingers endlessly against her leg as she waited for Wang Xiaomei to return from work.

Ever since Wang Xiaomei had started living her own little life, she had become extremely proactive about returning to the Educated Youth Dormitory after work. She came back not long after getting off.

The instant Lin Yuzhu heard the neighboring door open and close, she picked up the pot and left, marching off in high spirits to kick down a door.

By coincidence, Wang Xiaomei had just changed out of her work clothes and turned to open the door when Lin Yuzhu kicked it. Before she could react, the door smacked her right in the forehead.

It wasn't that Lin Yuzhu was petty. She had simply wanted Wang Xiaomei to experience what it felt like to have someone kick open her door—and, well, vent a little frustration while she was at it.

Naturally, she hadn't kicked lightly. The whole point was to make a statement. Fortunately, she wasn't very strong, or Wang Xiaomei's forehead might have suffered more than just a bump.

With a huge lump on her forehead, Wang Xiaomei glared furiously and flung open the door. "Which bastard did that?"

When she saw Lin Yuzhu standing there awkwardly with a pot in her hands, the flames in Wang Xiaomei's chest burned even hotter. She cursed Lin Yuzhu every way she could in her heart, and the atmosphere became exceptionally awkward.

Relying on the large, red bump on her forehead, Wang Xiaomei extorted a full twenty hard candies from Lin Yuzhu before letting the matter go.

As Wang Xiaomei happily ate the fragrant food, Lin Yuzhu's gaze drifted back to her forehead. The bump seemed to have swollen even larger. Even though she had paid quite a few candies in compensation, why did she still feel the urge to laugh?

After paying twenty candies, Wang Xiaomei finally learned her lesson. From then on, she never kicked open Lin Yuzhu's door again. Whenever she came looking for her, she would open the door, stand at the entrance, and call out to her.

That was already quite good. Not to mention the countryside, even in towns, neighbors rarely knocked before visiting. The more polite ones might open the door and call from the entrance, waiting for the host to come out and welcome them. Those who were closer would greet them while walking straight inside.

If Lin Yuzhu truly made a big fuss over it, others would only think she was making a mountain out of a molehill and being unreasonable.

Wang Xiaomei was her little partner now, and Lin Yuzhu didn't want to hurt her feelings too badly. More importantly, she needed to stay on guard against the female lead and watch for any signs of trouble. This outcome was good enough.

Life settled down again, and Lin Yuzhu returned to her routine of working at sunrise and resting at sunset.

But gradually, she noticed that the villagers seemed to look at her differently than before. She couldn't figure out why, so she didn't take it to heart for the time being. By the time she learned what was going on, a month had already passed.

The villagers' gazes had changed because they all felt that anyone who could come out unscathed after dealing with Auntie Li Si was no harmless person. And anyone close to Wang Xiaomei from the Educated Youth Dormitory was probably no good either.

There was no need to mention Auntie Li Si. She was a notorious rascal. Anyone who got tangled up with her would lose a layer of skin at best and end up covered in filth at worst.

Not only had Lin Yuzhu gotten away unscathed, she had even made Auntie Li Si cough up two eggs. Clearly, she was ruthless.

People like that were best kept at a distance. Lin Yuzhu, who had not even seen so much as the shadow of an egg, felt that this conclusion was a little hasty.

Then there was Wang Xiaomei. What kind of person was she?

Ask around the entire Educated Youth Dormitory—who had ever gotten even a cent's worth of advantage from her? That young woman was fierce and overbearing, a complete little shrew. She could drive people to jump into rivers. What kind of good person could be so close to her?

And then there was Lin Yuzhu herself. Look at how outstanding she was at work in the summer—she couldn't carry on her shoulder or lift with her hands. She was useless at farm work, yet ranked first in fighting. If someone married her into the family, wouldn't there be endless trouble? Whoever married her would be cursed with bad luck.

Of course, some people held the opposite opinion. Educated Youth Lin had been in the village for so long, and judging from her complexion, it was obvious she had never gone hungry. Her family must be quite well-off.

And so, the villagers went from saying Lin Yuzhu was not a good person, to saying she was unfit for marriage, to discussing her family circumstances. In the end, they concluded that even if her family was well-off, once she married, who would keep supporting their daughter? Whoever married her would still bring misfortune upon the husband's family!

Therefore, Educated Youth Lin absolutely could not be married. Bringing her home would surely turn the household upside down.

Lin Yuzhu had behaved herself properly and never imagined her reputation could become this terrible. For a while, she found it hard to accept.

Wang Xiaomei was used to it and even comforted her. "Every female Educated Youth at the dormitory has a bad reputation in the village. Just look at Zhao Xianglan. She's such a soft and gentle person, right?"

"Yet the villagers say she's weak-willed, timid, and too meek to show off. They say whichever family's son marries her will end up being bullied."

"Some people are even more ridiculous. They say a woman with such a meek temperament can't bear sons."

Lin Yuzhu was utterly speechless.

Did these aunties have some kind of warped understanding of people? Then, in an instant, she understood. The village women were probably deliberately smearing the female Educated Youths, for a very practical reason: they were afraid the village's good young men would fall for them.

Thinking about it, nearly every village received one or two female Educated Youths each year.

These female Educated Youths had all received some education. Elementary school graduation was the bare minimum, middle school was common, and high school graduates were not particularly rare. They were also pretty and well-groomed, completely overshadowing the village girls.

There were only so many capable young men of marriageable age in each village. How many could resist such beauty?

Young men without experience had no idea about life's twists and turns. Full of passion, they believed they could support an entire family through their own efforts. They could not see life's hardships, but the elders could. Whenever two or three female Educated Youths arrived in the village, those young men would become fired up, each one acting as though they had been injected with chicken blood.

To the parents of both sons and daughters, that was a warning sign full of danger.

In an era that believed in parents' orders and matchmakers' words, the village aunties had all tacitly begun maligning the female Educated Youths, all to keep the village boys from marrying them.

Lin Yuzhu found the reputation she had gained both laughable and absurd.

As for whether to change it, Lin Yuzhu felt there was no need to waste energy. Deep-rooted thinking could not be changed much, and trying would only take effort. Her stage in life was not this tiny village. Put another way, her target was not the village's young men, so there was truly no need to change anything.

During that month, Lin Yuzhu only went to town once. The rest of the time, she honestly worked in the fields to earn work points.

She went to town with the other Educated Youths. Wang Xiaomei had nothing left to sell, so she did not go.

Other than Wang Xiaomei, Lin Yuzhu's relationships with the other female Educated Youths were only average. If she had to name someone she was closer to, it was probably the female lead.

Li Xianglan found an excuse to wander off alone. Soon after, Zhao Xianglan sighed and made some ambiguous remarks. Naturally, Lin Yuzhu was not foolish enough to walk into her trap, so she also found an excuse to go off by herself.

Zhao Xianglan then took Zhang Yanqiu's hand, shook her head, and said regretfully, "The three of you came together. Logically, you should have been the closest. Why are those two so cold-hearted? I really pity you. When Wang Xiaomei bullied you before, we couldn't take sides, and we thought they might help you. Who would have thought they would all ignore whether you lived or died?"

Zhao Xianglan said a great deal more, leaving Zhang Yanqiu's eyes heated and her heart warm.

Zhang Yanqiu came to regard Zhao Xianglan as a confidante, though Lin Yuzhu naturally knew nothing about it.

By then, she had already entered her space, disguised herself, and turned back into a skinny, dark little boy. This time, she had not planned to visit the Black Market. Because of the female lead, the Black Market was unsettled lately. People without plot armor needed to know their limits. It was best not to wade into that muddy water.

Thanks to the connections she had built while going door to door last time, Lin Yuzhu sold another batch of goods. She sold even more this time, and the income was considerable.

After that, she repeated the same method and sold quite a lot more goods door to door.

In summary, as long as one had goods on hand at this time, there was no need to worry about being unable to sell them.

With another pouch of money and ration coupons earned, Lin Yuzhu returned to her space contentedly and did the math. Her income had actually increased by over a hundred compared to last time. That was a good result. Since she had already come to town, it would look strange to return without buying anything.

When the Educated Youths gathered again, Lin Yuzhu's basket was half full. Zhao Xianglan and Zhang Yanqiu kept glancing over at it. Once they realized that half the basket was filled with grain, their expressions toward Lin Yuzhu became complicated, with a hint of unwillingness in their eyes. Their thoughts were not hard to guess.

Lin Yuzhu had not intended to hide the grain in her basket. She had done it somewhat deliberately. She was no good at work, so how could she not buy some grain to eat on the surface?

It was a disguise. As for what others thought, that had nothing to do with her. As long as no one tried to snatch it openly, it was none of her business.