People who eat melon are in 70 - Chapter 52

Deep in the mountains of Yunyan District, the capital, there was a little-known special prison. The prisoners here were few, but the prison was heavily guarded, with a sentry post every five steps and a watchtower every ten.

Xia Heyu sat in her designated room, looking out the window. The sun was shining perfectly, warm as always, yet she felt extremely cold.

It had been over a month since she was sent here, but it felt like an entire lifetime.

Life here was undoubtedly comfortable: there was no shortage of food or drink, no need to work for labor points, and she didn’t have to cook or even wash her clothes. By all accounts, this was the life Xia Heyu had always wanted, yet she felt no satisfaction.

Because there was no freedom here. As soon as she stepped outside, soldiers with guns would appear right behind her.

Every day, she also had to undergo an hour of psychological counseling. The doctor would dangle a gold necklace in front of her, and she’d get sleepy, closing her eyes to fall asleep. When she woke up, an hour had passed, and her mind was completely blank, unable to remember anything.

On top of that, every week, two soldiers would interrogate her, making her repeat the events of the next decade or so.

Xia Heyu was already tired of saying the same things over and over. The thought of reliving the next ten years made her feel nauseous; she didn’t want to remember it at all.

Suddenly, there was a commotion outside. Xia Heyu looked up and saw someone being escorted by two soldiers with guns. She froze. “Xu Baozhu?”

Although Xia Heyu had lived in Liushu Village for more than ten years in her past life, she still recognized Xu Baozhu. After all, she was the village’s well-known “lucky star.” Who didn’t know her? But how did she end up here? Wasn’t she supposed to be in Liushu Village, studying hard, waiting for the college entrance exams to resume, and eventually marrying a wealthy man from the capital?

Xu Baozhu sensed Xia Heyu’s gaze and quickly turned her eyes away.

She wasn’t familiar with Xia Heyu, but she did have some connection with Xia Heyu’s ex-husband, Su Yang. Xu Baozhu had once known an older sister who had been involved with Su Yang for a period. During that time, Xia Heyu and Su Yang had been passionately in love.

Xu Baozhu had little sense of morality. She thought Xia Heyu was so foolish that she couldn’t even realize her own man was seeing someone else. She saw her as dumb as a pig. She had no interest in playing with such a person. In fact, she thought the older sister she knew was clever enough to manipulate Su Yang, making him dance to her tune, which she found quite impressive.

Xu Baozhu had even learned a few tricks from her and planned to use them on the county leader’s son and the neighbor’s young man. However, she was caught and brought here just as she was starting her tactics.

Xu Baozhu was frustrated.

“Your room is here. Go in, tidy up, and in ten minutes, you’ll need to have a psychological consultation.” The door to her room was pushed open, and with a slam, it was closed behind her.

Xu Baozhu glanced around. White walls, a bed with blue stripes, a white wardrobe, a huge window—apart from that, there was no other furniture. The simplicity of it all made her uncomfortable just by looking at it.

A soldier stood guard outside the door. In the distance, in the guard tower overseeing the prison, Commander Xu put down his binoculars and instructed his subordinate, “They know each other. Create an opportunity for them to meet. Everything they say must be recorded.”

“Understood.”

Commander Xu turned and walked back to his desk. A soldier jogged up to him, “Commander Xu, trouble at Cell 02.”

Commander Xu stood up and headed toward the door.

The entire prison housed four inmates, including Xu Baozhu, but the soldiers stationed there numbered an entire regiment. Not far from there, in the research building, lived some of the most authoritative scientists in various fields from all across the country.
Inmate 02 was named Liu Bing. According to his own account, he had traveled from the future and carried a dimension trading system with him. His goal was to restore the feudal society and become emperor. He also mentioned that he planned to take in 3,000 beauties for his harem. Upon meeting Commander Xu for the first time, he claimed he wanted to make Xu his subordinate, promising him high official positions, a life of luxury, and supreme power.
Commander Xu thought about Liu Bing, and his hands itched slightly, as if he wanted to reach for the gun at his waist.

In Liushu Village, after Aunt Xu left, Jiang Yutao and Gu Nianwei quickly briefed Xu Manqiu before hurrying to the commune.
At this time, there were many well-informed people. The first place Jiang Yutao passed by was the elementary school, where about 20 or 30 young people were standing in front of the entrance. They were all there to take the teacher exam for the elementary school.
After a quick discussion with Gu Nianwei, they decided to head to the middle school. Compared to the elementary school, the middle school’s curriculum was more challenging. Although there were more teaching positions available, fewer people showed up to take the exam.
The commune’s teacher recruitment this time aimed to be transparent and fair. At such a critical moment, taking shortcuts or using connections was absolutely not allowed.
Liu Manzhu never obstructed the young people from finding their own paths. After looking at the documents provided by Jiang Yutao and Gu Nianwei, Principal Huang of Zao Xiang Middle School nodded and said, “Go into the third classroom inside, wait there. The exam will start at 10 o’clock, and candidates will be selected based on their performance.”
The two of them entered the classroom and sat down. Soon, the classroom was filled with people.
At exactly 10 o’clock, Principal Huang and several teachers from the school entered, holding a stack of papers. They had spent two days preparing the exam, and every question reflected their hard work. As a result, the difficulty level had been significantly increased.
After the papers were distributed, the teachers didn’t leave. Instead, they stood around, scanning the room, their eyes vigilantly moving from one candidate to another, ensuring that there was no possibility of cheating.
At this moment, incidents like Xu Baozhu openly cheating and the teachers ignoring it were impossible to happen.
Jiang Yutao and Gu Nianwei were both top students. With the knowledge they had acquired in their previous life as a foundation, they found this exam to be no challenge at all. Unlike the other candidates, many of whom had already put down their pens halfway through the exam, the few who hadn’t looked increasingly serious, and eventually, they too put down their pens.

A small part of the papers on the desks was left blank—not because they didn’t want to answer, but because they genuinely couldn’t.

Most of the people taking the exam were around the same age as Jiang Yutao and Gu Nianwei. During their school years, it was the time of the Cultural Revolution, and many teachers, to protect themselves, were unwilling to teach proper knowledge. The students’ academic lives were incredibly easy.

They attended all the required classes, but most of the necessary knowledge was never taught.

It wasn’t until sometime later, when the higher-ups began focusing on education, that teachers started teaching more. But the previous costs were too severe, and the teachers were still reluctant to get involved with the students’ affairs.

Many teachers had adopted the philosophy: “I’ve taught the knowledge, how much you learn is up to your own ability.”

This exam covered Chinese, mathematics, politics, chemistry, physics, and geography, and many candidates had no recollection of most of the material.

The 90-minute exam ended, and everyone handed in their papers. However, except for a few, most of the candidates looked unhappy.

Principal Huang told them, “Don’t leave just yet. Wait here for a while. The results will be out soon.”

This year, many things happened in Zao Village Commune, with the number of teachers being removed from their positions due to corruption and bribery reaching a record high in recent years.

Zao Village Commune gained quite a reputation in Yangping County. This time, when the commune recruited teachers, the leaders, taking all factors into account, could not ignore the situation.

The teachers collected the exam papers, sealed the names, and under the supervision of both the commune leaders and the candidates, they corrected the papers, ensuring that there was no possibility of cheating.

None of the candidates left; they anxiously waited in the school. Half an hour later, the teachers stopped grading, removed the covers from the papers hiding the candidates’ names, and selected the highest-scoring papers.

Jiang Yutao and Gu Nianwei were among them.

Because of the transparency of the exam, the scores were clearly displayed, and no candidate raised any objections.

Jiang Yutao and Gu Nianwei were accepted on the spot. They were assigned to teach at the middle school, with a monthly salary of eighteen yuan, but the commune did not provide food or housing.

At that time, this salary was quite good. The teaching profession also came with many holidays, and they would still receive their salary during the winter and summer breaks.

Jiang Yutao and Gu Nianwei were full of excitement as they headed back.

“Tao Tao, should we go to the county town to buy a bicycle?” The distance from Liushu Village to the commune was not short. Normally, walking wasn’t an issue, but now that they were teachers, they would have to make the trip regularly, and Gu Nianwei really didn’t want to walk it every time.

“Sure.” Jiang Yutao didn’t have much money on her, but that was fine. After restoring another small world, the Melon System Mall added a button to exchange melon coins for real currency, with a 1:2 exchange rate.

After restoring two small worlds, Jiang Yutao had become quite wealthy, with a balance of over six thousand melon coins, which equaled more than twelve thousand yuan when converted to RMB.

The two or three hundred yuan needed to buy a bicycle was no problem for her.

“The school wants us to report the day after tomorrow, so let’s go to the county town early tomorrow.”

“No problem, it’s settled then. Let’s cook a little extra tonight, and tomorrow morning, we can just heat it up and eat.” Jiang Yutao’s space door had accumulated a lot of melon seeds, and this trip to the county town would be a good opportunity to sell some of them, as otherwise, her bag would be too full to fit anything else.

The two of them laughed and chatted as they returned to the youth station. The atmosphere there was rather gloomy. Li Yunying and the others had gone to the county to take the exam, but there were many people, and of the seven who went from their youth station, only Liu Yingjun, Zhang Huihui, and Zhao Rongguang passed.

Li Yunying and Wang Shanxi didn’t pass because they had been away from school for too long. Although they had reviewed during this period, the time was short, and they had already forgotten many key points.

Zhao Rongguang, however, had never forgotten about studying over the years. The recent review made the knowledge he had already learned even more solid. As for Zhao Yonglan, the reason she didn’t pass was even simpler—she had never paid attention to learning in the past.

Now, seeing Zhang Huihui and Liu Yingjun, who had gone to the countryside with her, both become workers, Zhao Yonglan felt a sense of discomfort. Besides the feeling of being left behind by her peers, she also felt uneasy about Zhao Rongguang becoming a worker while she couldn’t.

Wang Shanxi noticed their silence and smiled. “It’s not a big deal. Why are you all making such faces? Yunying and I already said on the day of the exam that we were unlikely to pass. Now, it’s just that our earlier prediction came true. Although we’re a bit disappointed, it’s not something we can’t accept.”

Li Yunying also suppressed her disappointment and said, “Shanxi is right. If you keep this up, I’ll get upset.”

With the two elder siblings speaking up, the atmosphere lightened a bit.

Jiang Yutao shared with everyone that she and Gu Nianwei had been accepted as teachers at the commune, and everyone was very happy for them.

Li Yunying said, “We ran into Aunt Xu on our way back just now. She told me about you both going to the commune for the teacher exam. Among all of us, your results were the best, and we’re all very happy that you both became teachers.”

Xu Dazui also mentioned that she had just received this news in the morning. They had all gone to the county, which was why they missed this great opportunity.

But if they missed it, they missed it—no one could be blamed. Wang Shanxi and Li Yunying were both broad-minded people. After so many years in the countryside, they had learned to comfort themselves. If they couldn’t even get over something like this, they would have been frustrated long ago when their classmates found jobs after graduation and they were sent to the countryside.

Zhao Yonglan had nothing to say either. With her poor grades, she couldn’t even imagine becoming a teacher. If they told her to go back to school and learn again, she would probably struggle.

The canning factory was different from the school; it had dormitories for singles, and Zhang Huihui and the others were planning to stay there.

If they were going to the city, Zhao Rongguang should have been happy, but lying on the kang that night, he just couldn’t feel any joy.

The next morning, he woke up unusually early, and Zhao Yonglan hadn’t slept well all night. As soon as he got up, Zhao Yonglan noticed. She pursed her lips, covered her head with the quilt, and stayed under it until she could hardly breathe, then finally poked her head out. Peering out the window, Zhao Rongguang was still standing in the yard like a statue.

After thinking for a while, Zhao Yonglan decided to get up and wash up.

Seeing this, Zhao Rongguang immediately stepped forward to help her fetch water. The water drawn from the well was different from the coolness of summer; after the weather had turned colder, it had a slightly warm touch. However, it was still too cold for washing her face.

Zhao Rongguang quickly took out his thermos and added some hot water to Zhao Yonglan’s basin.

Zhao Yonglan thanked him and squatted down to wash up. She slowly brushed her teeth and washed her face, while Zhao Rongguang stood two steps away in silence.

Zhao Yonglan grew irritated and decided not to waste any more time with him. After all, this was the only opportunity. Zhao Rongguang missed it, and that was his loss.

She poured the water, tossed her towel and toothbrush into the basin, then stood up and started to walk away. Zhao Rongguang called out to her.

“Comrade Zhao Yonglan, I’ll be coming back every weekend.”

When Zhao Yonglan had just arrived in the countryside, she didn’t know how to cook and ended up burning everyone’s rations. Zhao Rongguang had even argued with her about it. After that, whenever they saw each other, it was always with an unspoken tension, as if they were both irritated by each other.

When had his opinion of her changed? Zhao Rongguang thought, it must have been that time when he saw Zhao Yonglan fighting with Zhu Yuemei in the crowd.

At that moment, Zhao Yonglan had been beaten, unable to fight back, but still refusing to give up. When he thought back on it, it seemed rather endearing.

But he truly began to care after Zhao Yonglan gradually improved. That night when they were arresting Xu Song and Xu Bai, Zhao Yonglan accidentally bumped into his arms, and his heart nearly jumped out of his chest.

Zhao Yonglan’s hand, gripping the basin, turned slightly pale. “Whether you come back or not, what does it have to do with me?”

She said that, but her lips couldn’t help but curl into a smile.

Seeing her smile, Zhao Rongguang smiled too. The two of them stood there, surrounded by a pinkish glow.

Meanwhile, Jiang Yutao, who had gotten up early and was trying to go to the bathroom, was almost about to burst.

Where’s the sense of public decency? It’s one thing to witness dog abuse early in the morning, but why hasn’t it stopped yet? They’ve been staring at each other for five minutes, and the tension in their gazes could weave a silk quilt!