Chapter 50 Alone in the Storeroom (1/2)

Yan Yu's icy gaze slowly swept over their eager faces, his voice devoid of any warmth.

"The modified iron bucket is scrapped and can no longer be used."

His meaning was clear: he didn't want to end up having people blocking his door and arguing over a broken bucket after solving the food problem.

"No way! Engineer Yan, don't worry. If you can really do it, you'll save our entire brigade! We'll be so grateful to you!"

At this point, Chen Defu stopped calling Yan Zhiqing and started calling him Engineer Yan directly.

"That's right! Anyone who dares to cause you trouble over this, I, Chen Fengshan, will be the first to break their legs!"

Having received the assurance, Yan Yu said no more.

He turned around, pushed the cart into the field, and said as he walked, "Call me when the materials are ready."

Before he finished speaking, he strode away without looking back.

Only a group of brigade cadres remained, standing there excitedly as if they had been injected with chicken blood.

Seeing the people behind him staring blankly at Yan Yu walking away, Chen Fengshan quickly called out, "What are you doing? Hurry up and get ready!"

"Oh, right, right, hurry up and get ready!"

As if waking from a dream, the group immediately dispersed and ran towards the village.

This was a matter of life and death for the entire brigade, and no one dared to neglect it.

The entire Jixiang Brigade began operating with unprecedented efficiency.

In the rural areas of 1965, finding the kind of large iron barrel that Yan Yu described was simply a pipe dream.

But the iron sieve that Chen Fengshan mentioned can still be found.

Chen Fengshan mobilized all the village cadres and searched every nook and cranny of every household. In the end, they only managed to gather five buckets, each about the size of an iron bucket and capable of holding about 30 kilograms of water.

He ran back to the brigade headquarters warehouse, stuffed several badly worn shovels and chipped pickaxes into a sack, and then ran breathlessly toward the threshing ground.

While running, he shouted for people to collect firewood from each household, and also arranged for people to collect dry firewood at the foot of the mountain.

On the other side, Chen Zhangmin was also busy registering and making this dryer. Apart from Yan and Ruan, all the other members of the commune who contributed their labor and materials were given double work points.

The other squad leaders weren't idle either. They went home and called their children to collect firewood at the foot of the mountain. If they had a lot of firewood at home, they had their children load it onto the cart and take it to the threshing ground.

……………………

When Chen Fengshan carried the sack to the threshing ground, he immediately saw Yan Yu holding a wooden fork, slowly helping Ruan Tang turn over the small patch of wheat she was responsible for drying.

In the sunlight, the man was tall and moved nimbly.

The little girl stood to the side, handing him a water bottle, her eyes crinkling as she looked at him.

Their oblivious displays of affection made Chen Fengshan's teeth ache.

He noticed the unusual relationship between the two educated youth the day he arrived, but he never expected them to be so affectionate.

However, he only muttered it to himself for a moment.

Ruan Zhiqing was never idle; it was Yan Zhiqing who insisted on helping the young girl.

Besides, these city kids don't receive a personal ration in their first year; they have to earn work points to get enough to eat. Given how much Yan Zhiqing dotes on his girlfriend, he figured she wouldn't go hungry, so there was no need for him to be the gossipy villain.

These thoughts flashed through his mind, and he strode over there; his voice arrived before he did.

"Xiao Yan! No, Engineer Yan! Do you think this is enough? This is all we could find in the village!"

Yan Yu carefully turned over the last handful of wheat straw before slowly putting down the wooden fork.

He took the sack from Chen Fengshan, opened it, glanced at it, and weighed it in his hand.

That's enough.

His voice was calm, and then he added a sentence to confirm again.

“I will disassemble all these iron baskets; they cannot be put back together.”