Chapter 14: New Task Issued

　　The rain continued until dark, and she had missed the bus back to Zao Township that day. Gu Nianwei went to the house she rented in the county town. The next day, the sky had cleared up, and Gu Nianwei went to the bus station early in the morning. When she returned to the educated youth point, Jiang Youtao and the others had just got up.

　　Gu Nianwei hurried to wash up and eat. It was Zhao Yonglan's turn to cook for the next few days. After Zhang Huihui helped her twice and was scolded by her, she no longer wanted to humiliate herself. Zhao Yonglan cooked alone.

　　Her family is well-off and her mother is a full-time housewife who takes care of everything at home. However, Zhao Yonglan still can't cook even when she grows up.

　　She followed Zhang Huihui's example and boiled a pot of water, then poured all the cornmeal that everyone was going to eat in the morning into the pot. However, because she poured too much at once and she didn't know how to cook it, the pot soon got burnt.

　　The smell of paste attracted everyone who was resting in the dormitory.

　　"Are you a pig? You can't even cook!"

　　Zhao Rongguang looked at the pot of corn paste that was no longer edible and immediately became angry. He was wearing a light blue work suit and his hair was neatly parted in the middle.

　　He was an outlier in the educated youth camp. His parents were both government officials, and he went to the countryside just to gild his identity. On the first day he arrived at the production team, he made an agreement with the team leader that he would pay for his food and drink regardless of the team's food. He would even help buy things that the production team couldn't buy.

　　The only requirement is that he don't have to go to work, but full work points must be recorded in the workbook.

　　He is often not at the educated youth site, and new educated youth like Zhao Yonglan have only spoken to him a few times so far.

　　Zhao Yonglan was already feeling guilty for ruining the meal, and after Zhao Rongguang's shout and the condemning looks from the educated youths who arrived one after another, Zhao Yonglan's guilt turned into anger: "How can you talk like that? You are a pig and your whole family are pigs."

　　Jiang Youtao and Gu Nianwei stood together, looking at Zhao Yonglan with emotion. It turned out that when you curse someone, the whole family will be implicated, no matter what era it is.

　　As children of cadres, Zhao Yonglan is quite capable, and Zhao Rongguang is no less so. However, most of his family members are in politics, so he is much more low-key and introverted.

　　Compared to Zhao Ronglan, who became disliked by everyone after only ten days of arrival, most people had positive comments about Zhao Rongguang.

　　But being low-key and introverted does not mean that he has no temper. On the contrary, he has a pretty bad temper.

　　Last year, there was a drought. The people from the neighboring Wangzhuang Brigade came to drain water from their brigade's fields in the middle of the night. Zhao Rongguang, who had just returned from playing cards in the town, happened to see them. He felt very comfortable staying in Liushugou. Although he seldom participated in group activities, he still felt a sense of belonging to the Liushugou Brigade.

　　He rushed forward to stop them without saying a word and got into a fight with the two men from Wangzhuang Brigade. In the end, he was covered in injuries and the two men didn't get anything out of it.

　　This incident allowed Zhao Rongguang to immediately integrate into the Liushugou Brigade. He now gets along very well with the young people in the brigade, and they are almost as close as family.

　　"What's wrong with me saying that? If you can't cook, just say it directly. If you pretend that you can cook and waste everyone's food, you deserve to be scolded and you should pay compensation." Zhao Rongguang snorted, "Miss Zhao, you won't refuse to pay, will you?"

　　In less than half a month, Zhao Yonglan had revealed everything about her family. As the daughter of the deputy director, she attracted much attention in the village.

　　Those young men in the village who had originally been indifferent to her also began to pay attention to her. Zhao Rongguang hung out with them all day and often heard them talk about Zhao Yonglan.

　　Zhao Yonglan was unwilling to compensate. She had not prepared enough food during this period, so she had to borrow from others. After more than ten days, she had almost one pound of food left. She had planned that when she saved more, she would go to the grain station to exchange for fine grains and send them back.

　　Her younger brother is in poor health and needs to eat fine grains every day. If she sends it back, she will definitely be praised by her parents.

　　Just looking at Zhao Rongguang's sarcastic face and thinking about the stories about Zhao Rongguang that she had heard in the team during this period, Zhao Yonglan became scared.

　　She stiffened her neck and said, "I'll compensate you. Just wait." Zhao Yonglan ran back to the dormitory and soon brought back some food, which was almost the same as the food everyone had pooled together.

　　Seeing this, Jiang Youtao and the others had nothing to say, as they didn't have much to lose anyway.

　　Li Yunying said: "Zhao Yonglan can't cook, so we won't need her to cook anymore. Then we'll follow the old calendar. Zhao Yonglan, you have to choose between collecting firewood and carrying water."

　　Zhao Yonglan didn't want to choose either of the two. She just wanted to do nothing but wait for the food. But she already knew that this was not a TV factory and no one would spoil her.

　　After a long while, she stammered, "I'm collecting firewood."

　　It starts to get cold in Northeast China as soon as autumn begins. In today's coal shortage, the importance of firewood is self-evident.

　　This was an era when villagers would take home any palm-length branch they saw on the road to use as firewood.

　　Zhao Yonglan felt bored and ashamed just thinking about picking up firewood for the educated youth every day, so she turned and ran out. Zhou Zhenfeng in the crowd glanced at Jiang Youtao and quietly chased after her.

　　According to the shift schedule at the educated youth point, it was Jiang Youtao's turn after Zhao Yonglan's turn. Now Zhao Yonglan was no longer working, so Jiang Youtao was asked to clean up the mess and then roll up her sleeves to cook.

　　She grew up in an orphanage. From a young age, they had to do work within their ability. When they were nine years old, just taller than the stove, they had to start learning to cook. Most of the people who came out of their orphanage had very good cooking skills.

　　Even if they have no money after entering society, as long as they have rice and vegetables, they will not starve to death.

　　Soon a pot of rice noodles was ready. Jiang Youtao cut some pickles that Li Yunying and the others had made before, and went to the vegetable garden outside to cut a handful of leeks to stir-fry.

　　After a quick meal, it was time to go to work. The educated youths hurried to gather. The team members had already arrived at the place in advance, and Jiang Youtao hurried to the second group to find Xu Dazui to report.

　　Xu Dazui handed her a few red sand apples and said, "My sand apples are ripe. I'll bring you one to try."

　　Jiang Youtao is generous. After she became familiar with Xu Dazui and the others, she would specially share some snacks with the three of them.

　　When those things came into their hands, they only ate a bite, then wrapped them up and took them home to share with their grandchildren.

　　They are not ungrateful people. They have brought food to Jiang Youtao many times over the past few days.

　　Jiang Youtao put it in her mouth and took a bite. It tasted sour, sweet and especially crispy.

　　The team leader was walking in front with the flag. Aunt Jiang approached Jiang Youtao and asked her secretly, "Youtao, do you have any brown sugar tickets? Can I buy some from you?"

　　Fourth Aunt Jiang's daughter just gave birth to her third child, but brown sugar is hard to buy these days. Her daughter has not had a chance to eat brown sugar poached eggs even once during her confinement period. Fourth Aunt Jiang was heartbroken.

　　When Jiang Youtao went to the countryside, Ying Caixia gave her brown sugar, but she had kept it in her space without eating it. Upon hearing this, she said, "Yes, but not much, only half a pound. If you don't mind, I'll bring it to you this afternoon."

　　Fourth Aunt Jiang was overjoyed and said, "What are you talking about, kid? If you can give me even a little bit, I will be grateful to you, so how can I despise you? Don't worry, I will give you a little more than the price outside, and I will never let you suffer a loss."

　　Sugar has always been in short supply. You may not be able to buy it on the black market even if you pay a lot of money. Aunt Jiang has asked her son to go twice but still failed to buy it. Give Jiang Youtao more money so that it will be easier to ask for it later.

　　Rural women's wisdom and experience are reflected in all aspects.

　　If it were in the future, she would have given half a pound of brown sugar, but she couldn't afford it now, so she didn't act pretentiously and nodded generously.

　　Aunt Jiang was even happier. With the brown sugar, she could hold her head high when she went to her son-in-law's house, and her narrow-minded mother-in-law would also look up to her daughter.

　　When they arrived at the field, Aunt Jiang not only did her own work, but also rushed to help Jiang Youtao. While Jiang Youtao was slacking off, she decided to give Aunt Jiang a White Rabbit milk candy when she gave her candy in the afternoon.

　　Milk candies are very expensive these days, and it was given to her by her uncle. She felt bad that he gave her too much.

　　After slacking off until the end of the work day, Jiang Youtao went back home with Gu Nianwei. On the way, a piece of beef jerky was stuffed into Jiang Youtao's hand.

　　"My cousin is serving in the army in Mongolia and sent some beef jerky. My aunt gave me some." Gu Nianwei put the beef jerky in her mouth and chewed it.

　　The things about cousins and aunts were all made up by her, but the beef jerky was indeed from Mongolia. She had stockpiled several hundred kilograms of it. She would chew it whenever she had time in the past two years, and it tasted very good.

　　Jiang Youtao hasn't seen meat for more than ten days. She is really greedy. Her melon-eating system has also learned its lesson recently. Whenever she wants to get some meat, it disappears.

　　This made Jiang Youtao, who had been unilaterally crushing the system, somewhat depressed.

　　The beef jerky is spicy, with a very strong beef flavor. It is spicy, fragrant and numbing. It is so delicious that Jiang Youtao almost cried.

　　She grabbed Gu Nianwei's hand and said, "Sister, please help me contact your cousin and ask him to get me two kilograms of beef jerky. I'll pay any price."

　　Jiang Youtao's eyes were filled with tears.

　　She finally saw clearly that the melon-eating system was just a pie-in-the-sky system, saying that as long as she completed the tasks, she would be able to eat well, wear warm clothes, and reach the pinnacle of her life.

　　It's all bullshit. Since she traveled through time, except for the batch of supplies she got by tricking the melon-eating system at the beginning, she has never gotten anything from the melon-eating system.

　　There are no missions at all, and the only use of the melon-eating system for her now is as a storage space.

　　The system is just like men, they are unreliable.

　　As a woman who loves small animals so much that she can't live without them every day, Jiang Youtao ate meat dumplings yesterday and beef jerky today, which aroused the appetite that Jiang Youtao had been hiding for some time.

　　As expected, if you want to eat meat, you have to rely on yourself! She decided that she would follow Gu Nianwei from now on. From now on, Gu Nianwei would be her big sister, and she would do whatever Gu Nianwei asked her to do as long as it did not violate the law and morality.

　　As for the melon-eating system and the various melon-eating characters, just let it go. Anyway, she figured out that this melon-eating system, like the awesome systems in the novels she had read before, it doesn't have a punishment mechanism for the host.

　　Since it doesn't have those, so why should she be afraid of it? If it have the guts, then just wipe her out.

　　As a spectator of the new century, Jiang Youtao possesses all the characteristics of young people of the new era, such as being bad.

　　The melon-eating system has been released by Jiang Youtao, and Jiang Youtao's thoughts have been read by it without missing a single detail.

　　The melon-eating system was so aggrieved that tears were about to fall: [ Host, you probably forgot that since we traveled through the gap in time and space to come to this era, you have unilaterally blocked me. Even if I want to send you a task, I have no way to send it out. ]

　　Jiang Youtao was dumbfounded. She thought about it carefully and found that it was indeed the case.

　　The total time she had spent in releasing the system was probably less than ten hours.

　　After all this fuss, she turned out to be the clown?

　　In order to prevent Jiang Youtao from locking itself in the small dark room, the melon-eating system quickly issued a task: [ Ding ~~~ Triggering the key plot, please go to the Lin family to eat melons immediately. The task reward is random. ]