"Pfft, pfft. Is there any sound? There is... good. Listen up, Fourth Team. Here's an announcement, an announcement. Every household-I mean one person from every household-come to the Team Office to collect your meat. Hurry up. One person from each household, come to the Team Office to collect your meat. All right, I'll repeat that..."
That morning, the voice that suddenly came over the Fourth Team's loudspeaker brought a pleasant surprise to every household listening.
Those who already knew the news were one thing, but those who did not were truly surprised and delighted.
After all, since the land had been allocated to individual households and the days of communal meals had ended, when had anything been handed out? Everyone looked after themselves. The team's former communal property had all been sold off at assessed prices, with some of the proceeds used for communal expenses and some spent repairing irrigation channels, floodgates, and the like.
As for money, there might have been some left, but certainly not much.
And now they were actually handing out meat? Had the sun risen in the west?
The Third Team's people, separated from them by just Reed Gully, were very envious when they heard the announcement.
Because the Fourth Team could take on several big jobs a year, they were already better off than the other teams. Many people had bought tractors or bicycles-the Third Team currently had only one Dongfanghong 75 Crawler Tractor, and not a single small four-wheel tractor.
There was simply no comparison.
Now the other team was handing out meat again. What had their own team ever handed out?
No need to think about it. Nothing, of course.
People began heading to Xu Chengjun's house, where they found his entire courtyard covered in chunks of meat.
Some were half a