In the end, Li Qiang accepted no special treatment. He moved into the cooperative's third communal sleeping room with the boys from his class.
A faint scent of pinewood filled the room. Pine boards ran the entire length of the left side from the entrance, with a passage about a meter and a half wide on the right.
Everyone could put their luggage and washbasins beneath the sleeping platform. Some students were already making their beds.
With plenty of space available, the cooperative had built its rooms long-over twenty meters from end to end, like large warehouses.
The supervising teachers allotted each student eighty centimeters of space. With twenty-four boys in Li Qiang's class, there was more than enough room.
While they were making their beds, his chubby classmate Du Wenlong asked, "Li Qiang, I heard the fields we're picking cotton in this time belong to your family?"
Li Qiang paused. "Who told you that?"
"Liu Ying from Class Five. She said she's from your village." Du Wenlong lay on the sleeping platform and grinned. "If they really are your family's fields, you'll have it easy. Whatever happens, you'll be able to meet that little quota of yours."
"Even if they weren't our fields, I could still meet the quota. It's only thirty-five kilos. Fifty kilos a day would be easy, wouldn't it?" Li Qiang explained. "The fields belong to the cooperative. Our family put our land into it too, so some of it is ours."
"They still have cooperatives these days? I thought those were something from the fifties and sixties." Du Wenlong looked surprised. Other classmates gathered around, and Ma Zhijie, who was fairly good at modern and contemporary history, said, "Exactly. I remember cooperatives were followed by people's communes. Weren't they disbanded ages ago?"
"Cooperatives count as