The day before National Day, the school organized all students to go harvest in the fall, a tradition of the school, supposedly to help students understand the hardships of farmers and remember not to waste food.
On the walls of each classroom, there were poems about the hardships of farmers, including the two famous poems:
"Under the noon sun, the farmer weeds the field,
Sweat drips onto the soil beneath the crops.
Who knows the food on the plate,
Each grain is hard-earned."
"In spring, a single seed is sown,
In autumn, ten thousand grains are reaped.
No idle fields across the land,
Yet farmers still starve to death."
These were famous works by the Tang Dynasty poet Li Shen. However, Feng Yu, who was interested in history, knew that Li Shen wrote these poems merely to win the emperor's favor and gain a promotion. After his promotion, Li Shen reverted to his old ways, indulging in luxury and completely ignoring the suffering of farmers.
Although Feng Yu had no particular fondness for Li Shen, these two poems were indeed well-known and recited for generations.
Riding in a large bus borrowed by the school, it took more than two hours to reach a farm north of Bingcheng, which was less than an hour's drive from Feng Yu's home farm.
There was a cornfield here, and Feng Yu's school was responsible for cutting down the corn, stripping the ears, and piling them up, waiting for the tractor to collect them.
Currently, the main crops grown in Heilongjiang were wheat and soybeans, with very little corn. That's why they had to come so far; this was the closest cornfield the school could contact.
With over five hundred students from three grades, the school divided the work areas by class.
Each class of about forty students was assigned a small section of corn. If this were on a farm, five people could finish the work in less than a day. However, Feng Yu noticed that the students were quite enthusiastic, treating it like an autumn outing.
But some students were complaining. Those from farming families or rural areas said they didn't do this kind of work at home, yet they were forced to do it by the school.
Feng Yu, Wen Dongjun, and a few others from farming backgrounds were clearly more skilled at farm work than the city kids. The teachers assigned them to cut the corn with sickles, while the other students followed behind to strip the ears and pile them up.
Wen Dongjun, the strong and hardworking one, worked at a rapid pace and soon took the lead.
"Look at me, how fast I am! You guys are as slow as snails," Wen Dongjun said, shouldering his sickle with a proud look.
Feng Yu shook his head. What an idiot.
"Dongjun, have you noticed that you're the fastest at cutting corn, even faster than the seniors? Have you thought about why?"
Wen Dongjun scratched his head. "Why?"
"Because there's only so much land. If you finish cutting the corn, what will you do in the afternoon? Watch the other students strip the ears? The faster you work, the more you have to do! Do you think the teacher will praise you, or the other students will admire you?"
Wen Dongjun was stunned. It wasn't that the others were slow; they were all deliberately slacking off. He looked back and saw that the students sitting on the corn stalks were chatting more than working. He was the only one working hard!
"Here, learn from us. Work for a while, then stand and rest, or even sit on the corn stalks to rest. If you keep working like this, it will make us look lazy. Do you think that's good?" Feng Yu patiently taught Wen Dongjun the art of slacking off. Where was this guy's usual cleverness?
Without a word, Wen Dongjun sat down on a corn stalk and started to rest. But he couldn't sit still for long. With nothing to do and no one to chat with, it was boring.
Seeing the corn stalks, Wen Dongjun had a good idea.
Feng Yu saw two thin, still green corn stalks. He cut them with his sickle, peeled off a section, and bit into the juicy part, filling his mouth with sweet water.
In the south, there was sugarcane, and in the north, there was a similar plant called sweet stalk. It was about the thickness of a finger and tasted similar to sugarcane. If corn stalks grew slowly, with plenty of rain and less sunlight, the lower part would be very sweet.
Feng Yu quickly cut the part he had bitten off and peeled the skin from two sections of corn stalk, holding them in his hand as he walked over to Li Na.
"Thirsty? Have some sweet stalk."
Feng Yu handed the one he had tasted to Li Na, and the other was snatched by Li Na's plump classmate. Only Li Na and the plump girl were in this section of the cornfield. The other students were hesitant to play with Li Na, mainly because the plump girl had said Feng Yu's family was in the Black Society, and Li Na had been implicated.
Li Na had hesitated, but at this age, her young mind couldn't match Feng Yu's mature thinking. A few words from Feng Yu dispelled her doubts, and they remained as close as before, their feelings continuing to grow.
Li Na took a small bite, slowly chewing it in her mouth, her eyes narrowing into a crescent moon, and a happy smile appeared on her face.
"Ugh, what sweet stalk? It just tastes like sour water and is a bit astringent." The plump girl spat out the residue, complaining.
Feng Yu calmly said, "Maybe you just had bad luck. After all, these are just corn stalks, not sweet stalks. It's normal for some to be not sweet."
Li Na looked at her sweet stalk, then forcefully broke it in half and gave a section to the plump girl. The plump girl cautiously took a bite, and her eyes lit up. It was really sweet!
"Break this in half, one for each of us." Li Na handed the remaining section to Feng Yu, noticing that his lips seemed a bit dry.
"I can't break it, you eat it. I'll keep cutting corn; I'll definitely find more."
Li Na insisted on giving the corn stalk to Feng Yu, at least for him to take a bite. Feng Yu was about to bite it, especially where Li Na had bitten.
"Who? Who hit me?" Feng Yu angrily turned around, feeling something hit the back of his head just as he was about to bite.
"Ha ha ha, how about it? My homemade corn bow is pretty good, right? From so far away, I hit you right on the back of the head!" A few meters away, Wen Dongjun was holding a homemade bow made from corn stalks, looking at Feng Yu with pride. The thing that hit Feng Yu was a small piece of corn stalk.
You idiot, you're ruining my good time again!
"Is it a corn bow? Let's see if your aim is better than mine!"
Feng Yu picked up the piece of corn stalk that the plump girl had thrown, broke it into smaller pieces, and threw them at Wen Dongjun. Wen Dongjun retreated while retaliating. Feng Yu broke the corn stalk into smaller pieces and threw them one by one, determined to teach this idiot a lesson!
Li Na saw Feng Yu easily break the corn stalk into small pieces, and then she remembered that he had said he couldn't break it and planned to bite it. Her face turned red.
PS1: Li Shen was not a good person, and his reputation as an official was not great, but his poetry was very powerful. It's said he loved eating chicken tongues, and a single dish required dozens of chickens, which he could afford! PS2: Thank you, Zhang NB, thank you, Yoying Mengyue, thank you, Escaping Rat, and thank you, Snake~ for your generous support. The book is currently 13th on the new book chart, and we urgently need recommendation votes. The book above us has been stomping on us for two weeks. Damn it, I won't be satisfied until I burst it!