6: Work Hard to Earn Work Points -

Zhao Weiguo knew that Li Lijuan had deliberately wanted to avoid this responsibility. In the past, he might not have given an order to her and only asked Zhao Xiulan to help out at home. Now that Zhao Xiulan is sick and Li Lijuan is fine, it’s only appropriate for her to do the housework.

Zhao Weiguo said with some dissatisfaction, “Can’t a girl cook some porridge? What’s so difficult about this? You don’t know or you just don’t want to do it?”

Li Lijuan didn’t dare to say anything no matter how unhappy she was, she could only follow Zhao Weiguo’s orders.

However, she glared at Zhao Xiulan fiercely, feeling that it was because of Zhao Xiulan that her stepfather asked her to do the housework. The cooking job shouldn’t have fallen on her.

An imperceptible smile appeared at the corner of Zhao Xiulan’s mouth, and then she ‘sensibly’ said to Zhao Weiguo, “Dad, I will go to work later and earn work points.”

“Xiulan, you are not completely well, so can you still work? You should rest at home!” Zhao Weiguo asked worriedly.

“Dad, I’m fine, I can still hold on. We don’t have much foodstuff in our family. If we earn more work points, we can get a little bit more foodstuffs and our family can have more provisions.”

Hearing Zhao Xiulan’s words, compared with Li Lijuan, Zhao Weiguo felt that this daughter was more sensible.

He used to be too negligent towards this daughter, so he needs to love this daughter more in the future.

Their breakfast is a thin porridge with few grains of rice, one bowl per person, plus a wowotou, but there was no reaction in Zhao Xiulan’s stomach when she ate it.

However, in this era, when supplies are scarce, there are not many people who can fill their stomachs. Their stomachs are either half-full or empty, so it’s good to be able to fill something in their stomachs.

After breakfast, Zhao Xiulan, like everyone in the whole village, went to the rice field of the production team to gather, waiting for the leader to assign their tasks for the day.

When all the people in the village who were going to work came over, the team leader, Liu Gensheng, took the workbook and began to distribute tasks to the people in the village.

***Original translation is from enchantesstranslations.com. Please read it on the translator’s website.

“Qian Weihua, go and plow the field along the ditch near the Sun family.”

“Li Weihong, go and mow the grass on the field in the east end.”

“Wang Chaoying, Liu Fubang, you two, go and open the river ditch in the west end…”

After everyone received their tasks, they all went to start working.

The tasks assigned by Liu Gensheng are based on their genders. Basically, men do some heavy physical tasks, such as digging waterways, plowing fields, and carrying heavy things. On the other hand, women do light tasks, such as mowing grass, sowing seeds, and watering the ground.

The tasks are different and the work points are also different.

In this era, a full-day of work is equal to 10 work points. Men who do heavy work will be given a little more work points, and if they do a good job, they will be given 10 work points.

For women who do light work, even if they do well, they will get at most 6 to 7 work points or 7 to 8 work points in a day. However, they usually get 3 to 4 work points or 4 to 5 work points in a day.

The foodstuff distribution is linked to the work points. The higher the work points, the more foodstuffs can be allocated. Therefore, every household wants to be able to get more work points, so that the family can eat more meals.

Soon, Zhao Xiulan was also assigned a task – cutting hogweeds!

Liu Gensheng knew that Zhao Xiulan fell into the water and had a fever. After seeing Zhao Xiulan’s face, she didn’t look good today, so he simply assigned Zhao Xiulan an easy task.

Zhao Xiulan saw that Liu Gensheng deliberately assigned her an easy task, so she thanked him gratefully. Then, she took a sickle and a basket from the production team’s farm tools, and went to the mountain to cut hogweeds.

The few people who were sent to cut hogweeds, as well as the cattle herders, were allowed to go to the foot of the mountain.

Zhao Xiulan went up the mountain based on the memory of the original owner.

Now is the era of the Great Famine, coupled with the great steel production in the previous few years, many trees have been cut down, so the mountain hills are a little bald and there is not much vegetation. It is no wonder that you can earn work points by cutting hogweeds