An Hao listened as small groups of people passed by the door, calling for An Ping’s name. She walked to the door and indeed saw him standing there with his head hanging low.
"What’s with that expression? Didn’t do well in the exams?" An Hao felt a sinking feeling in her heart as soon as she saw his demeanor.
An Hao sneakily glanced upwards and murmured in a low voice, "Sister, I... didn’t pass any."
"Didn’t pass?" An Hao’s voice raised a notch, "What did you tell me the other day? If you didn’t get into Changzheng No.1 Middle School, you could still make it to the town’s high school, and now you’re telling me you didn’t pass any of them?"
An Ping nodded lightly, his head almost drooping to the ground.
"Alright, stop being an ostrich. Let’s go home first, we can talk after having dinner!" An Hao finished speaking and pulled An Ping by the arm, heading home.
An Shuchao had bought a bottle of white liquor, preparing to enjoy a couple of drinks with his son that evening, but when he saw An Ping’s dejected look, he knew he hadn’t made it.
"What happened? Didn’t pass?"
"Study for it. We’ll try again next year." An Hao hoped that An Ping would attend high school and university, because she knew the crucial role education would play in the coming decades.
"No, I’m not going to try again!" An Ping outright refused, "Sister, I’m just not cut out for studying. Have you seen how poor my grades are in every subject? It would be a waste to study another year! Besides, I’m not interested."
While serving An Ping food, An Hao said, "Then what do you want to do? The production team has been disbanded, and all the villagers are having a meeting tomorrow, we’re going to implement a land contract system. Are you really planning to contract a few acres and farm at home?"
"What’s wrong with that? Sister, let me exert my strength rather than wrack my brain." An Ping said; he was considering the fact that at least in winter, he could rest at home without farming, but he never considered the future livelihood issues.
It wasn’t the first or second time An Ping had brought up not wanting to go to school.
If he wasn’t interested, forcing him would yield nothing.
An Hao thought for a moment and said, "If you’re really willing to farm, then that’s fine. Tomorrow we can contract a few more acres, allocate half for growing crops, and the other half for greenhouse vegetables."
"Greenhouse vegetables?" Both An Shuchao and An Ping were taken aback.
Greenhouse vegetables first appeared in 1965, but they only started in their region in the 1990s, and the first person in the area to start a greenhouse made a fortune.
Winter was the season with the scarcest vegetables.
That year, the person who ran the greenhouse grew vegetables that thrived well inside, unaffected by the seasons, and the harvested vegetables fetched a good price.
Since An Hao had witnessed Dapeng’s profits and advantages, why not start planting early!
If An Ping was to engage in greenhouse agriculture, it would be an excellent idea!
An Hao shared her thoughts and the methods of growing greenhouse vegetables with An Shuchao and An Ping, and the father and son immediately thought it was a brilliant idea.
So, they decided to contract more land the next day.
The next day, the village secretary gathered all the villagers for a meeting. The production team was completely disbanded, and the position of the production team leader ceased to exist.
The village implemented the land contract system.
Families contracted land based on the number of people in their households. When it was An Hao’s family’s turn, An Shuchao boldly contracted for about ten acres.
This astonished the people in the village.
Beyond the land allocated by the village to each household, any extra land would require the payment of contract fees.