She smiled and said, “This is a good thing. After the sweet potatoes are dried, the men will plough the land and grow the wheat. We women don’t have much work, so it would be a good time to organise and study.”
She gave Dong Huaihua a list of procedures in an orderly manner. She arranged what they had to do first but also planned out their next steps. Then, she was going to spread the news to a small group of women before opening it up publicly for the women of the village.
At the same time, they could also rehearse the program and promote it in the brigade or even in other villages during the slack season(4).
(T/N: A period of time where farmers are less busy due to the lesser activity of the crops)
“The best thing to do is to add performances— opera, singing or dancing will work just fine. Don’t we have some of our sent-down youths? Some of them can sing and dance whilst Teacher Huo can play various musical instruments. When the time comes, all sorts of dances will be performed and a bunch of songs will be sung. In winter, the members of the commune will be easily annoyed and are more prone to cause troubles, so if we take turns in publicising, their irritation would be soothed a bit better.”
She spoke clearly and logically whilst Dong Huaihua listened to her with an incredulous expression on her face. At this point, it was as if Lin Lan was a deity that was imparting knowledge upon the mortal realm.
Dong Huaihua grabbed Lin Lan’s hand and couldn’t help saying, “Lin Lan, say, how did you become this capable? It’s like you’ve completely changed.”
Lin Lan smiled and said nothing. If you were the more courageous type, you would have guessed what happened.
She said, “I went all out and came close to dying quite a number of times. After such incidents, you’d just come to your senses and become more open-minded. With that, nothing seemed to be improbable anymore.”
The more Dong Huaihua thought about those words, the more interesting she felt it was. All this time, she had felt something similar, but never had the ability to convey that feeling into words. She would eventually use this phrase as a consolation towards other women who were in a mentally bad place.
The two discussed the matter for a while before Lin Lan asked, “Director, if we do this, will we be given some work points? Or will they give us some money?”
That was the main reason as to why she came here, so she couldn’t forget about it.
Dong Huaihua laughed and said, “I will most definitely subsidise your work. Even if others wouldn’t do that, I will do it for sure. I myself am getting 10 work points, so I’ll give you 10 as well. If you are ever needed to go out to the village on extra publicity errands, there will be extra payments on top of it.”
Lin Lan was happy, “All we need is food; money doesn’t matter.”
If there was food, her family would not have to go hungry and the children could continue to study with peace of mind.
Otherwise, Erwang was anxious as he worried that the family would go hungry at any time all day long. He also wondered if it was time to pull his Eldest Brother and Sanwang from the school since they didn’t like studying at all.
Dong Huaihua had a clear idea on what to do, so she dragged Lin Lan to look for Han Yongfang, “Secretary Head, the task from above is for publicity, but I really can’t handle it by myself. Hence, I had Lin Lan help me.”