It Really Was Them

This program was produced by Tomato Listening, Episode 43. Being old really had its advantages. Aunt Li blushed at the remark, anger simmering in her heart. This girl was calling her thick-skinned!

Lin Yuzhu gripped her sickle, rolled up her sleeves, and stared coldly at Aunt Li.

The meaning was clear: Come on, keep going!

Aunt Li stared at the sharply honed sickle in her hand.

She chickened out. Even Auntie Li Si had gotten nowhere against this girl, so she'd better forget it.

This time, the old Small Team Leader had learned his lesson and firmly paired Song Zhigao with Lin Yuzhu.

He had realized that Lin Yuzhu clashed with all the village women. Even when she worked honestly, she could somehow stir up trouble. It was better to pair educated youths with educated youths.

Lin Yuzhu no longer found Xiao Song annoying either. After all, the kid had good sense. Though he was not much of a worker, at least he knew how to be grateful.

Did they think harvesting the wheat meant it was all over?

They still had to thresh the wheat. For those two days, there was not a spot on Lin Yuzhu's body that was not covered in wheat chaff. Her face and hair were covered too—she looked like a living wheat person. If she had not had the Thatched Cottage, even bathing would have been a major problem.

After the wheat came sorghum, then millet. After the millet came peanuts, then soybeans, corn, and so on.

It got cold early around Shanshui Village, and the snow melted late in spring. Unlike the south, where many crops could be planted multiple times, the crops here could only be planted once a year. So during the autumn harvest, the crops lined up in long queues waiting to be gathered.

By the end of the autumn harvest, Lin Yuzhu truly looked like a dead dog.

After the harvest, the village gave the team members two days off. Once the grain had dried enough, they would be busy bagging it again.

There was another round of hard work ahead. Lin Yuzhu had already planned to sleep for two days and two nights, but Wang Xiaomei, who usually loved joining in the fun, had not come over. Finding it strange, Lin Yuzhu went to see what was wrong with her.

Hadn't they agreed to be partners?

When she knocked, she heard Wang Xiaomei weakly call for her to come in. Lin Yuzhu raised her brows and pushed open the door.

Good lord. Wang Xiaomei was lying on the kang like she was at death's door, with a towel draped over her forehead.

"You're sick?"

Lin Yuzhu blinked as she asked.

Wang Xiaomei snapped irritably.

"I've been sick for a whole day, and you're only coming to see me now."

Lin Yuzhu kept shaking her head and spoke slowly.

"I never thought you could actually get sick."

"Why can't I get sick? I'm human too. And I'm a girl."

As she spoke, her voice took on a tearful edge.

Perhaps being sick made people emotionally fragile.

Tears suddenly streamed down Wang Xiaomei's face. After all, she was only twenty, in the bloom of youth. Seeing her cry made Lin Yuzhu soften a little.

Lin Yuzhu pulled over a stool and sat beside the kang. The towel had already dried out. She touched Wang Xiaomei's forehead—it was burning hot.

"Oh, you have a fever. Have you taken any medicine?"

Huang Xiaomei shook her head. Her fever had started in the middle of the night. In her haze, she had put on a wet towel, but by daytime, she had no strength to get up.

Lin Yuzhu was speechless. That meant she had been burning up for more than half a day. This was no joke.

Lin Yuzhu told her to wait in the room while she went to figure something out.

The village had an Ox Cart, but it was being kept for hauling grain to the commune in a few days.

The village chief was unwilling to lend out the Ox Cart right now, afraid something might happen.

Lin Yuzhu took a deep breath, not knowing what else to say. With no other choice, she had the old man write two letters of introduction. She was taking Wang Xiaomei to town for treatment.

The village chief frowned and thought it over. In the end, he helped her borrow a bicycle and wrote the two letters of introduction.

This was when the downside of the village not having a clinic became obvious. Even a minor illness had to be endured. Looking at that twenty-eight-inch bicycle, Lin Yuzhu broke out in a cold sweat. If she accidentally shook Wang Xiaomei to death, it could only be blamed on bad luck.

Wang Xiaomei had been struck down by the illness. She was not tall, but she was deadweight. Lin Yuzhu carried her outside alone, then worried about how to get her onto the bicycle. The key was that she still had to climb on and ride it herself. At barely five foot three, she was really not tall enough for this. So she called Xiao Song over with great fanfare.

With Xiao Song's help, Lin Yuzhu wobbled along with Wang Xiaomei for several meters before finally stabilizing the bicycle.

Xiao Song wiped the sweat from his forehead, thinking that Lin Yuzhu's bicycle skills were really not very good.

Wang Xiaomei might not even get to see a doctor before falling into a ditch.

Wang Xiaomei had been holding on with her last bit of strength, just waiting for Lin Yuzhu to come. Once Lin Yuzhu arrived, that breath gave out, and she truly fell asleep. She leaned against Lin Yuzhu and slept soundly, completely unaware that she could be flung off at any moment.

If the two of them had not been tied together with a strip of cloth, she really might have been thrown off.

Lin Yuzhu wanted to cry. If she had known Wang Xiaomei was this useless, she would never have made her a partner. Once she recovered, they were breaking up.

A bicycle was faster than an Ox Cart, no matter what.

Lin Yuzhu panted as she brought Wang Xiaomei to the town hospital. It had only taken half an hour.

After the doctor examined her, he said it was fortunate they had brought her in early. Otherwise, it might have developed into pneumonia.

Lin Yuzhu resigned herself to paying the fees and ran up and down the stairs. Only after Wang Xiaomei was lying in a hospital bed with an IV drip did she finally let out a breath.

Since they were already in town, Lin Yuzhu felt a little tempted to sell some things. But seeing Wang Xiaomei sleeping like the dead, she decided against it. She was a girl, after all, and Lin Yuzhu did not know what kind of people were in town. What if someone saw that no one was watching over her and came over to grope her?

Sigh, her heart was just too kind. This time, she had to get some glucose back, or how else could she say her foundation was good?

Wang Xiaomei's fever went down after one bottle of IV fluid, and she woke up. Her eyes were watery as she looked at Lin Yuzhu, filled with gratitude.

Lin Yuzhu rolled her eyes. "That IV cost me quite a bit of money. Remember to pay me back."

"Come over here."

The young nurse removing the needle covered her mouth and smiled. Cheerfully, she said, "Even though the fever has gone down, it may come back. The doctor prescribed fever medicine for you. You need to pay for it before you can collect it."

After speaking, she specifically told Wang Xiaomei, "You two have such a good relationship. Your friend has been running all over the place for you. She's exhausted."

Lin Yuzhu coughed for quite a while. Something about that sounded off. This was a romance story, not a girls' love story.

Tears welled up in Wang Xiaomei's eyes again as she gazed affectionately at Lin Yuzhu.

Lin Yuzhu was speechless. "I'll go pay. You rest here."

After saying that, she rubbed at the goosebumps all over her body.

After paying and collecting the medicine, Lin Yuzhu turned on her heel and went to find the doctor. She wanted him to write her a certificate so she could buy pork ribs and big bones.

The doctor understood why she had come and laughed. "Only an orthopedic doctor can write that certificate for you."

The implication was clear: a patient with a fever could not get a certificate for bone soup and braised ribs. Forget it.

Lin Yuzhu shook her head in disappointment. Why did buying ribs these days require a broken bone? Maybe she should break Wang Xiaomei's bones. They were in a hospital anyway, so treatment would be convenient.

Wang Xiaomei sneezed in the ward. Why did she suddenly feel even colder?

Huang Xiaomei had gone hungry all day, and after being busy for most of the afternoon, Lin Yuzhu was starving too.

The fever had gone down, the medicine had been prescribed, and the doctor said they could go home. If the fever did not go down after taking the medicine, they could come back.

By the time the two left the hospital, the sky had already darkened. Their stomachs both rumbled with hunger.

At the thought of riding all the way back to the village on an empty stomach, Lin Yuzhu's vision went dark. No, she decided to take Wang Xiaomei to the State-Run Restaurant and try their luck.

When they reached the entrance, they saw it had not closed yet. The two quickly pushed the door open and went inside.

As soon as they entered, they saw a fat man chatting with the server at the service window. Lin Yuzhu gestured for Wang Xiaomei to sit and wait, then hurried to the window herself. The fat man was looking at the server with a fawning expression. Worn down by him, the server snorted coldly and said, "The chef has already gone home. At this hour, I can only make you two bowls of dough-drop soup. I'm not making anything else."

The fat man immediately grinned. "Sure, sure, dough-drop soup is fine. Who doesn't know that the dough-drop soup at the State-Run Restaurant made by this young lady is the best?"

After saying that, he gave a foolish grin.

"One bowl of dough-drop soup costs two liang, a grain coupon, and thirty cents."

The fat man promptly took out sixty cents and two two-liang grain coupons.

Lin Yuzhu took the chance to hand over her money and grain coupons as well. Smiling sweetly, she said, "Miss, give me two bowls too. My older sister has a fever and really wants to drink your dough-drop soup."

The server looked at Lin Yuzhu, who was clearly younger than herself. Yet being called "miss" pleased her. It seemed she did look young. With a smug expression, she accepted the money and coupons, then lazily said, "You people sit at one table. It'll make it easier for me to clean up later."

Lin Yuzhu and the fat man nodded repeatedly, not daring to offer a single objection.

The two looked at each other and froze. Why did the other seem familiar?

"Huh?"

"Hey, aren't you the girl who ate a plate of braised pork at the restaurant last time?"

The fat man recalled Lin Yuzhu, and Lin Yuzhu remembered the fat man too. She looked around the restaurant but did not see anyone else. The young postman probably had not come.

Not long after the three sat at the same table, the postman Lin Yuzhu had been thinking of pushed open the door and entered, dusty from the road. Seeing the fat man sitting with two girls, he paused before continuing over.

"Sit."

The fat man muttered a few words to him. Only then did Shen Bojun understand what had happened. He looked up at Lin Yuzhu, thinking that they really were fated. "As it happens, I have a letter for you. I was planning to deliver it tomorrow."

The fat man froze, then smiled.

"Oh, bro, you two know each other?"

The teasing in his eyes was almost overflowing.

"I delivered a package to her a while back."

Shen Bojun explained expressionlessly. It concerned a young woman's reputation, and he did not want others to misunderstand.

The fat man spoke slickly to Lin Yuzhu. "Miss, you seem to know my brother too. You clearly recognized him just now. You remembered him after seeing him only once?"

Lin Yuzhu replied with a smile.

"He's a mailman who delivers letters. Wouldn't I be blind if I didn't recognize him?"

The fat man got nowhere. Sure enough, this girl was fierce. Even if she was smiling sweetly today, she had been quite vicious last time. Then he thought of something else and shouted, "That's not right, bro! You deliver who knows how many letters every day, so why do you remember this young lady's name?"

"If there's nothing fishy going on, who would believe it?"

Shen Bojun stared at the fat man coldly. He had never seen anyone so stupid. There were not many people surnamed Lin. Without another word, he lowered his head and searched through his bag for the letter.