Back to the 60s: The Struggle Career of a Charmed Wife

Cooking is no easy task.

This thought occurred to Feng Qingxue on her first day of work.

Strong laborers from seven or eight production teams had turned up to work. Despite only having to cook for her own team, and with the help of two other women, her workload was sizable.

The team from Caohu was represented by Feng Qingxue, her aunt, and Feng Shuanzhu’s wife.

In addition, Feng Qingxue also brought along her sister.

She had initially wanted to send Feng Qingyun to school, but they refused her due to her young age. Moreover, Caohu’s primary school was closed, so if they wanted to continue school, they would need to walk to the well-off Wanglou Brigade.

While the laborers toiled, they dug up wild vegetables and plucked young leaves from the trees, cleaning and preparing them for their soup, which was served as a comfort for the workers.

As Feng Qingxue dug for vegetables, she noted the labor scene along the riverbed. Some laborers were immersed in water up to their legs, filling large wicker baskets with the soil they dug up. Another group would transport these soil-filled baskets up to the embankment for dyke construction.

Small pushcarts were useless here, and everything depended on the strength of human labor - carrying loads on shoulders, bearing on poles, or hoisting together in pairs.

Her grandparents had once told her when she was a child about baskets that could hold six to seven hundred kilograms of soil. Larger ones could hold up to a thousand kilograms. Often, the laborers shouldered these gigantic loads or bore them on poles. And the time when these tasks took place was always during the winter, the only time in the year that was not busy with farming. Many laborers burned themselves out from their labor in the icy water, consequently suffering from chronic ailments in their old age.