The hardship of the work far exceeded Ji Ye's imagination. Before starting work, Ji Ye had half-sarcastically said that Li Shouxian was more meticulous than a woman. But once the actual work began, problems of insufficient preparation were exposed one by one.

The bamboo forest was on the mountain south of the market town. Since arriving at Lijiaji, Li Shouxian had already inspected the terrain around the area. Not only Li Shouxian, but other comrades including Ji Ye had also inspected the terrain. What surprised Ji Ye was that at daybreak the next day, Li Shouxian took everyone to inspect it again.

"Captain Li, didn't we go there once already?" Ji Ye was very puzzled by such meaningless repetitive work.

"We went there a while ago," Li Shouxian corrected Ji Ye very implicitly.

"Why go again now?" Ji Ye was very perplexed.

"Don't know if there have been any changes recently," Li Shouxian replied.

Ji Ye was extremely baffled by such fussy actions. What was even more baffling was that the work team split into two groups, carrying ropes and wooden sticks, advancing along two small paths leading up the mountain respectively. Since they had just been there not long ago, the scenery and road conditions along the way seemed consistent with Ji Ye's memory. Perhaps because she was carrying heavy luggage, Ji Ye felt that the road this time seemed much longer than last time.

But walking on the mountain path, Ji Ye was surprised to discover that there were suddenly quite a few fellow villagers on the originally uninhabited mountain. They seemed to be "strolling" aimlessly on the mountain. Ji Ye immediately became alert; what made her feel even more uneasy was that some people were holding wooden sticks and ropes, as if they wanted to do something strange.

"Captain Li!" Ji Ye asked Li Shouxian in a low voice.

"It's fine," Li Shouxian comforted.

The masses on the mountain also saw Li Shouxian. Embarrassed expressions appeared on their faces, or they simply pretended not to see him. Li Shouxian ignored these people completely. He walked a big circle around the mountain and finally pointed to a large patch of moso bamboo, saying, "Comrade Ji Ye, let's fence off this bamboo forest together."

A large part of Ji Ye's attention was not on Li Shouxian. The villagers on the mountain were following the two of them somewhat sneakily; some could no longer be seen. Hearing Li Shouxian speak, Ji Ye asked nervously, "Captain Li, what exactly do they want to do?"

"Maybe just coming up the mountain for a stroll," Li Shouxian didn't care about these things at all. He just took out a revolver and handed it to Ji Ye.

The revolver was beautiful, with a dense blue-black layer on the gun body. Ji Ye gritted her teeth and asked, "Are we going to fight?"

"Fight what war, comrade?" Li Shouxian couldn't help laughing. "Those villagers are just coming up to see if we are here. If we aren't, people will think we are talking nonsense and not really wanting to buy bamboo. The villagers are diligent. Besides checking if we are here, they are also checking along the way to see which good bamboo forest they can stake out first. If they decide to participate, isn't it more convenient to be closer to the foot of the mountain?"

"Then why give me a gun?" Ji Ye was very puzzled about this.

"Didn't you feel afraid in your heart? Giving you a gun to embolden you. Besides, you are a girl; carrying a gun looks quite good," Li Shouxian answered while unfastening the holster and handing it to Ji Ye.

The pigskin belt attached to the holster did look quite good. At least in Ji Ye's view, it was very imposing and gave her a lot of security. The two took ropes and began to enclose a large area of bamboo forest. Just as they were busy, the other team of comrades also arrived. The situation they brought was the same as here; people had already appeared on the mountain.

The bamboo forest to be cut was determined, and the road was also determined. Leaving two comrades to guard, Ji Ye firmly requested to go back with Li Shouxian to lead the villagers. Being alone on the mountain made her feel very uneasy. In the desolate mountains, if someone had evil intentions... Ji Ye felt afraid just thinking about it.

Li Shouxian walked back while saying, "Comrade Ji Ye, to judge if there is hostility, you first have to judge what the other party is plotting. Is it to stop us from cutting bamboo? Or block the road to demand a toll? None of these situations can happen right now. I'm not saying whether they are capable of doing such things. It's just that right now, no one is taking the lead to do this kind of thing. And for these one hundred sets of farm tools, it's not worth it."

"Are you saying these people will come to rob us by force?" Ji Ye couldn't help asking. Her uneasiness was actually an indescribable uneasiness; having to specify the content of the uneasiness was really beyond Ji Ye's ability.

"Robbery pursues efficiency. The things robbed must either be something we definitely need, so if they rob it, we are forced to redeem it. With bamboo all over the mountains, we are not lacking these ten thousand poles at all. If they want to block the road, this mountain forest doesn't belong to the masses either. This mountain belongs to the county. Since we drove away the Manchu Qing, this belongs to us. Blocking the road, they can't come up with a justification. You don't need to be afraid," Li Shouxian replied.

"Then what if someone has evil intentions and kidnaps us?" Ji Ye knew about bandits kidnapping people for ransom in the mountains.

Li Shouxian was really somewhat helpless regarding Ji Ye's timidity. He laughed, "Kidnap us? Leaving aside whether these people exist or not, or if they can succeed in kidnapping. Even if we are kidnapped, the Party and the government will definitely come to save us."

"But what if..." Ji Ye was actually scared by Li Shouxian's analysis of the possibilities of danger. She felt the gloomy bamboo forest gave her an extremely uneasy feeling.

Li Shouxian was defeated by Ji Ye. He said helplessly, "There are no what-ifs. Fearing wolves ahead and tigers behind, what kind of revolution are you doing? Besides, kidnapping is for money. what property does our work team have? Are we wearing gold and silver, silk and satin? Or do we have piles of luggage in big and small boxes? Bandits with brains definitely know that provoking us has no benefit in the long run. Bandits without brains have no immediate benefit from robbing us either. What are you afraid of?"

"But there are always bad people, right?" Ji Ye became more and more uneasy as she was told.

"Bad people are divided into two kinds. One kind sets rules to harm people. As long as you are on their turf, they use these bad rules to harm you. Since we arrived in Guangde County, we have already killed quite a few of this kind of bad people; no need to fear them. The other kind of bad people covet petty profits right before their eyes and can't help reaching out to take something that isn't theirs. So our work team doesn't have anything valuable on us, not giving them the chance to do bad things. Most importantly, Guangde County is far from being pushed to that extent now; it's impossible for bad people to be everywhere." Speaking of this, Li Shouxian's voice suddenly deepened, and his face became very grim.

"Why hasn't it been pushed to that extent?" Ji Ye was just a seventeen-year-old child, and hadn't been "roaming the Jianghu" for long. Hearing that Li Shouxian made sense, she couldn't help getting to the bottom of it.

"Nothing! Just do your own work well!" Li Shouxian suddenly shouted angrily in a vicious tone.

Just a moment ago he was explaining gently and rationally, and suddenly he became full of malice. Ji Ye had never been shouted at with such a disgusted tone from childhood to adulthood. She first stopped in her tracks, stunned on the spot, and suddenly her nose soured, and her eyes turned red.

Li Shouxian walked another two steps before seeing that Ji Ye hadn't followed. He stopped, turned his head to look at Ji Ye. Li Shouxian pulled a long face and sighed deeply, "Comrade Ji Ye, have you seen the aftermath of a flood?"

Seeing Ji Ye covering her mouth and not speaking, Li Shouxian changed his phrasing, "You should have seen people selling sons and daughters in famine years. Being too poor to live, so they sell children. First, the adults can survive; second, after the children are sold to others, they can also survive. But after a great flood, selling sons and daughters won't help you survive. No one buys. At that time, doing bad things isn't for anything else, just to live for another half a day or a day, snatching a couple of mouthfuls of food from others. If you snatch someone's food, the person robbed will starve to death. At that time, for hundreds of miles around, there is nothing left; you can't even dig up Guananyin soil (kaolin clay). Even if you snatch a few mouthfuls of food, that stuff is usually something pigs wouldn't eat, dogs wouldn't eat."

Li Shouxian had struggled to survive the great flood in Anhui. That massive flood, which covered a vast area from Anhui and Eastern Henan to Northern Jiangsu and caused the deaths of over a million people, left very few survivors in Li Shouxian's family, which had never been considered poor. The remaining family members managed to survive only after barely reaching the Fengtai County Base Area before death by starvation ruthlessly destroyed them. Whenever he recalled that tragic experience, Li Shouxian felt as if a thousand-jin boulder was pressing on his heart.

This was the reason Li Shouxian couldn't help showing malice towards Ji Ye. That hellish experience made one shudder just to recall it.

Ji Ye had never experienced that kind of suffering, and she couldn't imagine what that terrifying scene actually looked like. The only thing she could be sure of was that Li Shouxian's malice was not directed at her. This made Ji Ye feel much better in her heart.

"There is a lot of work to do; let's hurry back and prepare." Li Shouxian left this sentence and went towards Lijiaji without turning his head.

Under the mobilization of the work team's three groups yesterday, a total of ten households came out to cut bamboo. Neither Li Shouxian nor the other comrades expected that these families would mobilize men, women, old, and young. A large moso bamboo had a diameter of over ten centimeters and a height of over ten meters. When the moso bamboo stood there like a jade tree in the wind, it didn't feel like much. But after cutting the moso bamboo down with the axes provided by the work team, when dragging the bamboo, one felt it was truly heavily deadly. Although the comrades didn't participate in the work of cutting moso bamboo, it didn't mean everyone stood by with folded arms as overseers. They helped pile the cut bamboo together and cut off the bamboo branches with choppers. After doing this work for a while, they were covered in sweat.

Everyone was burying their heads in work, and the masses didn't react at all to the People's Party joining the labor. When it was time to eat, the People's Party took out bamboo tube chestnut braised rice, salted vegetables and duck eggs, and canned meat in large glass jars to share with the common people. Only at this time did the masses actively express their gratitude. But they didn't say many words of thanks either; the bamboo chopsticks in everyone's hands moved swiftly, sending meat, salted duck eggs, and vegetables rich in salt and chili into their mouths, then burying their heads to vigorously eat the white rice mixed with chestnuts.

Ji Ye secretly looked at the food brought by the masses themselves. It was mixed grain rice with wild vegetables and chestnuts. The green vegetable juice dyed the rice an ugly color. The food was not only poor in quality but also small in quantity. Although the work team usually didn't eat that well either, relying on the breeding farm near the county seat, they could still eat duck eggs and meat twice a week. Even though Ji Ye's family wasn't poor, she wasn't able to eat meat so openly like this. So Ji Ye couldn't help looking up at Li Shouxian, who looked calm and ate slowly. She really couldn't imagine if Li Shouxian had truly suffered the torture of hunger he spoke of.

After cutting the moso bamboo, it had to be transported, and the problem of road arrangement was exposed. From the mountain to the foot of the mountain were small paths. Even if they were "small paths", they were trodden out by people. This kind of small path definitely pursued the efficiency and convenience of single-file walking. Dragging or carrying heavy objects like large moso bamboo, the small path was completely unsuitable. How to choose a road convenient for transport was a big problem. Men of short stature, three of them carrying a large bundle of moso bamboo, had to walk six or seven li along the winding small path to return to Lijiaji.

Ji Ye also tried carrying a moso bamboo and walked for a while. It was okay at the beginning. But before long, she felt the hard moso bamboo pressing painfully on her shoulder. Moreover, as she walked, the elastic bamboo bounced up and down or even slid, making her shoulder hurt even more. Forced to slow down, Ji Ye walked slowly on the mountain path and was soon left behind by the men in front.

Not only was she left behind by the male laborers, but those female commoners also shouldered moso bamboo and walked on the mountain path, and soon Ji Ye also fell behind them. Ji Ye was someone who had been on the battlefield. The battlefield seemed terrifying, but when really in the midst of it, everyone only knew to shoot, shout, run forward, or retreat. Being hit by a bullet was just that. The crazy battlefield atmosphere sucked everyone in, forcing you to face the battlefield and turn into a beast killing each other on the battlefield. Precisely because it was so close to death, it was easy for people to escape death by forgetting death.

But laboring was completely different. The road was fixed, the object of labor was fixed. What was needed was unavoidable exhaustion and even pain. persisting for another while, the pain in her shoulder made Ji Ye feel her eye sockets heating up in waves. Six or seven li seemed to have no end. The soles of her feet wearing straw sandals felt painful. A gust of mountain wind blew, and the clothes soaked in sweat made Ji Ye feel a chill. Finally carrying a moso bamboo back to Lijiaji with great difficulty, Ji Ye felt as if her whole person was about to collapse. Sweat mixed with possible tears made the corners of her mouth salty. It wasn't until she almost collapsed onto the bamboo chair and wiped the thick salty taste from the corner of her mouth with her hand that she discovered that at some point, the hair at her temples had also run into her mouth along with the corner of her mouth.

Compared to such hard labor, Ji Ye suddenly felt the battlefield wasn't that scary. At least back then there were comrades charging and killing together with Ji Ye. Completely unlike now, where Ji Ye could only walk alone on the long and arduous small path.

Wiping sweat while looking towards the bamboo forest, against the background of the sky starting to dim, the road appeared extremely long. Thinking that she had to do this one more time, great worry couldn't help rising in Ji Ye's heart. Could she carry another heavy moso bamboo down from the mountain? At this point, Ji Ye completely forgot that she had once worried about people robbing the moso bamboo. If someone really robbed it, Ji Ye would give the big burden of moso bamboo to others without hesitation.

While Ji Ye walked once, the women among the villagers participating in labor had already walked twice. And the male laborers including Li Shouxian had already gone back and forth three times. A huge pile of moso bamboo was piled up in front of the work team's residence.

"Comrade Ji Ye, you don't need to go. Count the moso bamboo here. Then watch over it." Li Shouxian dropped this sentence and walked towards the mountain again with other villagers.

There weren't many people participating in labor, but quite a few onlookers came to watch the excitement. When Li Shouxian and the others walked past with that simple and cold expression unique to hard laborers, these people knew better than to cause trouble. Seeing Li Shouxian and the others walk far away, they surrounded Ji Ye and struck up a conversation.

From where exactly these moso bamboos were to be used, to how many were needed. Some cared about what price moso bamboo could sell for, or where the ironware provided by the work team came from and at what price. There were also some who were very interested in the private intelligence of the work team. Ji Ye was tired to death at this moment and simply had no mood to chatter nonsense with this bunch of idlers. She said coldly, "Folks, don't delay my work, I still have to count the bamboo."

Immediately someone volunteered to help Ji Ye count the bamboo. The hypocritical enthusiasm of these guys who didn't work made Ji Ye want to kick them flying.

However, there were finally some people behaving much more normally. Seeing someone start cutting bamboo, some villagers asked formally, if they also participated tomorrow, would people still be needed here?

"Wait until Captain Li comes back to talk about this kind of thing. I can't make the decision." Ji Ye replied. She was so tired now that she didn't want to talk to these people at all. Not only tired, although the burning pain on her shoulder was weaker, once soaked by sweat, the skin stung as if pricked by needles. Leaving aside physical fatigue and pain, the work of counting bamboo wasn't finished yet. Ji Ye's mind was full of thoughts of finishing quickly and then resting for a while. Talking with this bunch of villagers, wait until Ji Ye was in the mood.

After counting the bamboo, seeing more and more villagers gathering outside, Ji Ye had to deal with the villagers' questions for quite a while. Li Shouxian finally returned to the station with the large group of people. Wiping his sweat, Li Shouxian first checked personally once before asking Ji Ye for the original count of bamboo. Sixty or seventy people spent a day to transport over a hundred bamboo poles.

Just at this moment, a middle-aged man over forty from among the villagers participating in labor walked out. "Captain Li, us guys have discussed it. We've scraped together a hundred bamboo poles anyway, can you give us a set of farm tools first?"

"Do the fellow villagers have any objections?" Li Shouxian asked loudly.

The villagers participating in labor expressed they had no objections one after another.

Li Shouxian strode into the room, took out a set of sickle and hoe, and seriously handed it to the middle-aged man who came out to speak. The middle-aged man's face was full of joy. He turned back and smiled at everyone, "I said it, the comrades of the work team won't tell lies."

Hearing the heartfelt voice of the masses mixed with joy and surprise, Ji Ye suddenly wanted to say something unpleasant, "Do you think we came to your poor mountain valley to cheat you? With this leisure time, I might as well go fight the Manchu Qing."

But these words couldn't possibly be spoken. The work team repeatedly emphasized discipline, resolutely not allowing abusive language towards the masses. All complaints were strictly forbidden to be said to the masses.

Instead, she heard Li Shouxian say loudly, "Folks, let's set off early tomorrow morning and finish cutting the bamboo as soon as possible. I'll say this upfront, for us people, we only provide meals for three days."

"Captain Li, look at what you're saying, we'll do it even without providing meals!" A hearty voice came from among the villagers participating in labor. Ji Ye could tell that was the one who ate the fastest and most during the meal.

Other common people who hadn't participated in labor immediately requested to join the second day's labor. Li Shouxian again told the masses his idea of hoping every household could be distributed a set of farm tools. This train of thought received unanimous approval from everyone. There were two or three households in the village lacking male laborers; obviously letting them participate in moso bamboo cutting, it was estimated they might not complete the task even in half a month.

"We walk all the way carrying bamboo, everyone gets thirsty too. How about this, let the masses of these few families boil water. At the place where bamboo is cut, in our market town, and on the road, set up places to drink water. These few households of villagers will deliver water to everyone. Everyone is a fellow villager; each household cutting a few more bamboo poles will be enough for them. What does everyone think?" Li Shouxian's voice was particularly loud in the crowd.

Li Shouxian held the power of distributing farm tools, so the masses had to give some face no matter what. Moreover, this request really wasn't excessive, so the masses agreed one after another. Li Shouxian seemed to have made a plan long ago. He calculated an account for everyone: if each family participating in cutting bamboo cut one hundred and eight bamboo poles, the task could be completed.

Getting definite news, the masses then dispersed. The masses dispersed, but Li Shouxian didn't take the comrades to rest. He first went door to door visiting those few mass families assigned the water boiling task. Because these families knew they couldn't do this heavy work, two families hadn't even joined in the excitement. Even hearing neighbors come back to give them the "good news", they still dared not believe there could be such a good thing. In these times, a lack of male laborers meant being bullied; good things absolutely wouldn't be their turn. It wasn't until Li Shouxian visited personally to tell them that these people knew the neighbors weren't telling lies.

Li Shouxian agreed with them to come and call them up early in the morning to boil water. The excited villagers expressed they wouldn't sleep tonight and would boil water overnight. Then Li Shouxian came back to organize the work of boiling and transporting water. This place in Guangde County didn't lack bamboo; bamboo tubes were the most commonly used water containers by villagers. Filling hundreds of bamboo tubes was a very heavy job. Those firing the stove fired the stove, those transporting firewood transported firewood. Food also had to be prepared. These advance arrangements could be described as complicated. Ji Ye was sleepy and tired, so she went to sleep early.

When she woke up, the sky was already dim, approaching dawn. She saw Li Shouxian preparing things to be used during the day in the firelight of boiling water. Heaven knew if Li Shouxian slept last night.

"Comrade Ji Ye, you are literate. You take charge of the bookkeeping work," Li Shouxian said to Ji Ye.

Ji Ye recognized a few hundred characters. Although reading the Four Books and Five Classics wasn't very realistic, she could count as an intellectual in this era. She had confidence in the bookkeeping work. Li Shouxian explained some key points and was dragged up the mountain by the impatient villagers.

Ji Ye originally thought this job wasn't hard, just bookkeeping—record however much bamboo came. But when she really started doing it, Ji Ye realized this was a very complicated job. Villagers threw down the bamboo and prepared to hurry for the next trip. And Ji Ye hadn't recognized all the villagers at all; she had to pull and drag to stop people from leaving, count the number of bamboo poles, and then record it in the book. Since she hadn't received training in bookkeeping, the account book Ji Ye wrote was simply a bit "magical".

Fortunately, Li Shouxian looked it over once when he returned for the first trip. Suppressing his laughter, he taught Ji Ye the method of using the character "Zheng" (tally marks) to keep accounts. And he helped Ji Ye check the previous accounts once. Finally, no mistakes were made.

Everyone worked for three days in a row. At the very end, Ji Ye encountered a new problem. Nearly half of the families cutting bamboo hadn't cut enough of the one hundred and eight poles. They were all short by two or three. And at this time, the villagers said one after another, "Doesn't matter about those few." "My family is busy." "We've cut enough of our one hundred."

Some even simply said first, "I'll find someone to substitute for me." Then they pulled over other villagers, and unknown if these people were in collusion, they resolutely denied they had agreed to cut bamboo for others. Requiring Ji Ye to "go find that person."

Fortunately, Ji Ye figured it out this time. She stated, "If the quantity isn't enough, we won't issue farm tools to you." This reasonable request finally ended the fantasies of escaping labor for those guys who wanted to slack off. However, these guys indicated they would deliver the bamboo tomorrow.

When summarizing work at night, Ji Ye reported this matter to Li Shouxian. Li Shouxian immediately ordered, "Tonight, gather the few families of villagers boiling water to watch the site. We will also take turns patrolling and keeping watch. Absolutely won't let anyone steal a single one."

Things turned out exactly as Li Shouxian expected; there were quite a few who came to steal bamboo in the middle of the night. Seeing the site where bamboo was piled was heavily guarded, they had to leave resentfully.

After the bamboo cutting work was finally completed, the county issued an order to transport the bamboo to the county seat. Ji Ye was quite strange why this work wasn't arranged from the very beginning. If the villagers were asked to transport the bamboo to the county seat, these farm tools would probably be enough to tempt the villagers.

"In the initial stage, we cannot overuse labor so excessively. Moreover, we also have things the masses need." Li Shouxian answered this question raised by the comrades at the work meeting.

"Next step we should organize the work of the mass cooperative. We are unlikely to pay a large amount of money in the village. Nor is it necessary to pay a large amount of money. In our area, the main daily necessities the masses need in the near future are iron, salt, and cloth. We can provide all these products."

"Then why not distribute them directly to the common people? This way, quite a few common people would be willing to follow us to fight." Ji Ye was a bit baffled. The Guangfu Society had always been troubled by the difficulty of gathering military strength. Rather than laboriously collecting daily necessities, giving money and promises would actually be easier.

Li Shouxian was very speechless. In the People's Party's mass work, solving the masses' livelihood problems was the entry point, and they were determined to do it first before talking. Or even do it without talking. The Guangfu Society's working method really gave Li Shouxian some ideas of wanting to say something. But the gap between the two sides was so big that he didn't even know what to say.

Although he learned various training in the cadre school and party school, that was for the masses and the People's Party members and cadres. The masses' goal was a better life; overthrowing the Manchu Qing and establishing a new socialist country wasn't what the masses pursued. And the masses wouldn't have any special interest in this.

The members of the Guangfu Society were different; their needs were more political. This brought greater difficulties to communication.

After thinking for a moment, Li Shouxian replied, "Let's finish discussing the immediate work before talking about these issues."