Traveling back to 1977

Chapter 9 Come fetch water!
After the storekeeper Huang walked away, Chen Fan looked at the grain on the ground for a moment, then turned to Jiang Lili and asked, "Do you usually eat separately or together?"

"what?"

Jiang Lili paused for a moment, then realized, "Oh, there was only one stove at the educated youth settlement, so everyone cooked together. They would put rice in lunchboxes, soak it in water, and then put it all in a big pot to steam. No one would mix up their own food. As for stir-fries, they would prepare them separately, each person cooking their own."

He paused for a moment, then said in a low voice, "But usually no one cooks. We usually eat rice with pickled vegetables. The pickled vegetables are also our own, and the vegetables in the garden are all reserved for making pickled vegetables and kimchi."

Chen Fan's eyes darted around slightly. So, those two dishes were specially prepared for him?

After a two-second pause, he came to his senses and said with a smile, "Oh, so we should eat them separately."

Jiang Lili nodded, "The rice is stored separately, but we take turns tending the fire, so no one loses out or gains an advantage."

Chen Fan smiled and said, "That's fine too."

He paused for a moment, then looked worried. "But what am I going to do if I don't have a lunchbox?"

Jiang Lili thought for a moment, "I can use a vegetable bowl, and I can also steam rice in a vegetable bowl."

Chen Fan gave a thumbs up, "You're really smart!"

Jiang Lili's pretty face turned red. She hadn't been praised in a long time, and she was a little unaccustomed to being praised suddenly.

Chen Fan placed his hands on the carrying pole, like Sun Wukong carrying the golden cudgel, and laughed, "Okay, then I'll go fetch water. Could you please carry the rice into the house for me?"

Jiang Lili nodded quickly, "Oh, okay."

Then one of them carried a shoulder pole and went outside, while the other carried rice into the house.

But just a few seconds later, Jiang Lili heard Chen Fan shout, "Wait."

She turned around blankly, looking at him with some confusion.

Chen Fan stood at the door, his face serious, and asked, "Where do you fetch water?"

Jiang Lili's lips moved slightly as she suppressed a laugh, then pointed eastward, "The riverbank."

"okay."

Chen Fan turned and left.

Jiang Lili suddenly remembered something and quickly called out, "Wait!"

Chen Fan turned around and looked at her. "Huh?"

Jiang Lili said loudly, "When you get to the river, you'll see three rocky beaches. The uppermost one is for fetching water, the middle one is for washing vegetables, and the lowest one is for washing clothes. Don't get them mixed up."

Chen Fan chuckled, "Quite particular."

Then he waved and said, "Let's go."

This time he really left.

He carried a shoulder pole with two buckets hanging from it and walked towards the dike. The two buckets swayed erratically back and forth and side to side, attracting a few little kids in the distance to giggle and laugh.

Chen Fan wasn't annoyed. He made a face at the mud monkeys, and the little guys laughed even louder, running around happily.

The educated youth settlement was very close to the river embankment. After walking less than 50 meters along a small path, we arrived at the bottom of the embankment. Then, following a sloping path worn into the withered grass on the slope, we soon reached the embankment.

Turning around, he finally got a clear look at the small village.

The village was built on a narrow, elongated earthen slope not far from the riverbank. The slope's height difference was probably less than 10 meters. Dozens of houses were arranged in a staggered pattern along a winding path that stretched from the bottom of the slope to the bottom of the slope, ending at the largest educated youth settlement. Looking around, all the houses were mud-walled, thatched huts with rice paddies in front and vegetable gardens in the back. Most of them didn't have walls around their yards, and even those that did had bamboo fences, making it easy to see inside and outside the yard. Unlike the educated youth settlement, which had mud-brick walls that were nearly two meters high, so that even standing on the top of the slope, under the cover of large trees, one couldn't see inside the yard.

This makes the houses in the educated youth settlements seem particularly special.

At this moment, some houses had smoke coming out of their chimneys, indicating that people were probably cooking lunch. It was unclear whether the houses without smoke were eating or hadn't started cooking yet.

In the distance from the village are irregularly shaped rice paddies, stretching as far as the eye can see. However, now only burnt rice stubble remains in the paddies, with patches of black and yellow that don't look very appealing.

There are also many ponds of different sizes around the small earthen slope. The ponds are only shallow pools of water. These must be the fishing lake that Captain Yang mentioned.
Further away, a small village could be vaguely seen, which Chen Fan guessed was another production team.

After watching for a while, Chen Fan exhaled a long breath, composed himself with complicated feelings, and turned to walk to the other side of the riverbank.

The side near the water is also a long slope, covered with grass that is much longer than the grass on the other side. However, all the grass is now withered and yellow, lying obediently on the ground, and even the howling north wind cannot move it.

Not far down the slope, there were several black spots, clearly burn marks. I wonder whose kid was playing with wildfire here.

Further afield, there are many trees planted, including fir and poplar trees, as well as some other miscellaneous trees that I don't recognize, stretching far along the dike.

Turning to look across, the river is quite wide. If you consider the width of the embankment and the distance between here and the opposite bank, it's probably over 500 meters.

It's winter now, and the river only has a shallow layer of water at the bottom, and the surface is about 100 meters wide, maybe even wider.

Chen Fan followed a path downhill and soon saw the three rocky beaches that Jiang Lili had mentioned.

The so-called stone beach is actually a simple foothold built with stones on the riverbank. A dozen or so stones make up a stone beach, and each stone beach is about ten meters apart. This is where the villagers fetch water and use water in winter.

summer?

In summer, the water rises and the rocky beach is submerged, so how can we go down to fetch water?

Chen Fan walked to the upstream rocky beach, carefully stepped on it, and when the stone didn't budge, he felt relieved.

There was no one by the river at this time. He looked around, put down the carrying pole, picked up a bucket, and took two more steps down into the water, stepping on the stones in the water, only ten centimeters away from the surface.

He put the bucket into the clear river water, then struggled to lift it up, his face turning red from holding his breath. "Damn, it's really heavy!"

This type of bucket is an old-fashioned wooden carrying bucket. In thirty or forty years, it may only be used for medicinal baths, but now it is an essential item for every household.

A bucket is about 60 centimeters tall and about 35 centimeters in diameter. It can be slightly larger or smaller. The bucket itself is quite heavy, weighing more than 10 kilograms. When it is filled with water, it can weigh up to 70 kilograms. A load of water weighs close to 150 kilograms.

Chen Fan held the container in both hands to feel its contents, hesitated for two seconds, and then decisively poured some out, leaving only half the water inside.

Fill a second bucket, still half full.

Then he picked up the carrying pole, hooked the hook onto the handle, squatted down to hold onto the two handles, struggled to stand up, and in less than two seconds, he decisively squatted down again.

Chen Fan squatted on the ground, staring blankly at the two buckets of water.

Damn, 5 points of strength is such a waste! It can't even lift half a bucket of water?
He was about to pour out some more water to see if it would help when a group of figures appeared on the embankment.

Chen Fan looked up and saw a group of sturdy middle-aged women carrying buckets of water, chatting and laughing as they walked down the river.

Someone with sharp eyes spotted Chen Fan and immediately shouted, "Come fetch water..."

Ah, ah, ah...

Chen Fan's face fell. Why was there still an echo?
With so many people here, how is he supposed to pour water?

If people see that you've brought back some water from the bottom of the river, what about your reputation?
(End of this chapter)