Time Travel: Volume 1! Starting from a Small Mountain Village

In the afternoon, their group finished the task ahead of schedule.

After dinner, Long Lifan lay in bed, her mind filled with images of several middle-aged women holding new sickles, their passion and excitement surging through her.

The small object was treasured by the women, who used it with utmost care.

She replayed the afternoon's scene in her mind, her heart filled with questions. If her journey to this era was merely a second chance at life, then what was the point of it?

Once the thought crossed her mind, she tossed and turned in bed, unable to fall asleep for a long time.

The next day she woke up unusually late. It was only when Hu Lili called her several times during the meal next door that she finally woke up.

"What's wrong? Are you too tired and haven't rested well?" Yang Qianqian looked at Long Lifan and thought she was too tired from work yesterday.

"No, I was thinking about something else!" Long Lifan shook her head.

"what's up?"

"I'm thinking, what's the point of us going to the countryside?" Long Lifan almost blurted out that she had time-traveled, but the words that came out were "going to the countryside."

"Who knows!" The others couldn't help but sigh when they heard Long Lifan say that. None of them knew how to farm, and many of them didn't even know how to weed.

Sending young intellectuals to the countryside was a policy implemented by the government, and these educated youths were to be reformed by poor and lower-middle peasants. Working all day long earned them only a few work points, and some of them couldn't even fill their stomachs.

Many people couldn't stand it and either married or moved to the local area. They even heard that some people disabled themselves to apply for medical retirement in order to return to the city.

Even today, a steady stream of educated youth continues to be sent to the countryside, and their return to the city seems a distant prospect. They feel mostly lost about the future!

The harvest lasted for five days. On the last day, when the brigade leader announced the end of the harvest, the commune members erupted in a thunderous roar. This meant they would receive their share of grain again, and many had been waiting for it, some even having run out of food.

Isn't this all we can hope for all year round?

Next came the task of drying the grain and selecting the best to hand over to the state. This was all physically demanding work, usually done by the men. Of course, none of this concerned the women.

The group returned to their posts cutting pig feed, and after the recent rush to harvest, they all felt much more comfortable cutting the feed. Hu Lili, in particular, now felt a strange sense of familiarity when she saw pig feed.

Although Chen Ying helped them in the past few days, they hadn't stopped for a moment. The long hours of bending over made her feel like her back was about to break, but thankfully the five-day harvest was finally over.

If it had gone on any longer, she felt she would have collapsed, but thankfully they supported each other. Especially with Yang Qianqian, a fellow educated youth, ensuring they could have a well-prepared meal after work every day, she felt truly content.

Long Lifan had been physically and mentally exhausted these past few days, but thankfully it's all over now, and she's enjoying a wonderfully pleasant time.

"Long Zhiqing, someone is looking for you!"

While she was teaching the children to read, a member of the commune ran up the mountain and pointed in the direction of her house.

Long Lifan was quite curious. She heard from the commune member that he was not from this village and that he had come by bicycle, which made her even more curious.

It seems like I don't know anyone else!

So she told Jiang Nian'an and Hu Lili, and then went back. When she was less than two hundred meters away from the courtyard, she saw a middle-aged man in a suit pacing back and forth in the distance.

As I drew closer, my mind raced, trying to recall if I recognized the person. A glance confirmed it—it wasn't someone I knew! So, I tentatively asked:

"Who are you…!"

"Comrade Long!!!"

Just as Long Lifan was about to ask the middle-aged man a question, a figure suddenly jumped up from the stone steps beside her, calling out enthusiastically. Long Lifan had been squatting in the corner because she was bored, so she hadn't seen her at first.

"Qiu Dongdong!"

Long Lifan was surprised to see Qiu Dongdong. She had just been wondering if people from the Xigou brigade had come to cause her trouble. So she quickly opened the door and invited the two of them in.

"Comrade Long, my daughter told me the other day that you saved her, so I've come today specifically to thank you." Qiu Dongdong's father, Qiu Yuansheng, had a square face and a receding hairline. But one could see from his eyebrows and eyes that he did indeed resemble Qiu Dongdong somewhat.

At this moment, he looked at the little girl in front of him. The little girl seemed to be about the same age as his daughter! He was very skeptical that such a young girl could rescue her daughter from human traffickers.

However, he still smiled and unloaded some items from the bicycle. He said sincerely:

"This is just a small token of my appreciation, please accept it!"

Long Lifan looked at the items that Qiu Dongdong's father had taken out: steamed rice cakes, a can of malted milk powder and biscuits, and most importantly, a piece of cured meat.

These things would cost at least 20 yuan to buy! They're really too expensive these days.

"Uncle Qiu, this is far too valuable, I can't accept it!" Long Lifan was stunned by the item for a moment and quickly said.

"Compared to my daughter, this is nothing." Qiu Yuansheng waved his hand and said with a smile, "Dongdong is the youngest child in our family. She has two older brothers. She has been protected and cared for since she was a child and has never seen or experienced the harshness of society."

"If it weren't for your help this time, I'm afraid my daughter would have..." Qiu Yuansheng said, still somewhat fearful. He had gone to the police station to find out more and knew how dangerous his daughter's life had been that day.

"Comrade Long, I know you are an educated youth from a big city. Your family certainly doesn't lack these things, but these are truly a token of our family's affection, and we hope you will accept them."

"Then thank you, Uncle Qiu!" Seeing Qiu Yuansheng's sincere and resolute expression, Long Lifan had no choice but to accept it reluctantly.

The group chatted for a long time and learned that Qiu Yuansheng was actually the director of the production department of the county machinery factory. Long Lifan was tempted.

A few days ago, she was thinking about what she could do after traveling to this era. Was she really going to live a mediocre life lying down and doing nothing?

Upon hearing that Qiu Yuansheng was a factory cadre at the machinery factory, she immediately had an idea.

She felt she could promote the sickles she bought from the system; she had checked the system and found that this model of sickle should have appeared around the 80s.

Once it was introduced, it was widely promoted in rural areas, especially with the implementation of the household responsibility system around the 80s, so that almost every household had several of these sickles.

Even in the 21st century, when she lived, and despite the beginning of agricultural mechanization, this type of sickle remained popular and widespread in impoverished or remote areas.

She thought it would be possible to collaborate with the county machinery factory to produce this time-saving and labor-saving sickle. Promoting this sickle as soon as possible would also improve the harvesting efficiency of the commune members.

"Uncle Qiu, what do your provincial machinery factories usually do?"

"This is the planned economy era, and many large state-owned factories operate according to tasks assigned from above." Thinking of this, Long Lifan tentatively asked.

"Our county's machinery factory mainly processes the parts distributed from above," Qiu Yuansheng said, not understanding why the girl was asking him this, but he answered anyway.

"Is the production workload heavy?" Long Lifan asked cautiously. If the other party had a heavy production workload and was too busy, even if they understood the benefits of the new sickle, they certainly wouldn't consider these things.

"Hey, what's so heavy about it!" Upon hearing the young girl mention this, Qiu Yuansheng sighed heavily and said, "Pingwu County is a well-known impoverished county, so there's not much work to be done."

"Later, the city took the lead and asked us to process some parts for other cities and counties, which allowed the factory to continue operating."

"In recent years, firstly, the overall economic environment has not been good, and secondly, the quality of our products is not as good as that of other companies, so orders have been decreasing."

"You didn't see Director Fang from the sales department. He's almost lost all his hair trying to get orders."

Based on Qiu Yuansheng's description, Long Lifan could roughly guess the current state of the machinery factory. But this was for the best; it suited her perfectly.

As Uncle Qiu just said, if the machinery factory continues like that, it will likely face either demolition or merger. I believe they wouldn't refuse a cooperation offer now.

"Uncle Qiu, I have a good suggestion that might change the current situation of the machinery factory!"