Zhao Hanzhang and Fu Tinghan followed along.

The group was led directly outside the city. The dark-faced youth planted his hands on his hips to look at them and admonished, “Although this is work relief, the government’s money isn’t so easy to take. Everyone must complete their assigned tasks and not slack off, otherwise your tokens will be confiscated and you’ll be expelled! Now, everyone come get your tools!”

Everyone lined up to come forward. The dark-faced youth held several sheets of paper in his hand—precisely the papers recording their information. He called out names while scanning the information on them, then matched people’s faces with names before beginning to assign tasks. “Take a hoe and go dig.”

“You take the wooden frame to transport mud.”

When Zhao Hanzhang came forward, the dark-faced youth glanced at her, then looked at the record and showed extreme disdain, his face dark as he said, “You load mud.”

He was somewhat irritated. “You really have great strength? If not, go pick up stones.”

Zhao Hanzhang immediately said, “I can load mud.”

The dark-faced youth snorted and called the next person—Fu Tinghan—forward.

Seeing on the paper that Fu Tinghan could read, his expression improved somewhat. After calling him up, he looked him up and down before saying, “You also load mud. This small team is under your management—you record how long the foundation was dug, how many baskets of mud were loaded, how many were transported out. If the task isn’t completed, everyone’s wages are halved!”

Everyone’s hearts clenched upon hearing this, and they immediately began to resent the women in the group, saying in succession, “Official, our team has too many women—seven of them! They have little strength—won’t they drag us down?”

“Stop shouting! She’s weak, so her wages are lower too, and her work quota is also less. Stop pushing everything onto them. If you can’t complete it, no one escapes.”

Several men couldn’t help muttering and grumbling, though they didn’t dare speak out openly despite their discontent.

Including Zhao Hanzhang, the women all silently gritted their teeth, thinking they’d show them their capabilities shortly.

Everyone received their respective tools and headed to the field. By now the snow in the field had been trampled black and had also melted into water. Stepping on it with their shoes, cold air continuously drilled up from the soles into their bodies.

Even Zhao Hanzhang felt the cold, but sweeping her gaze around, she also saw many people wearing only straw sandals or going barefoot directly on the snow.

She stared blankly, and Fu Tinghan was also stunned. Looking at their bright red large feet, he was heartbroken. “Like this… they’ll get frostbite, won’t they?”

A middle-aged man beside them was about to swing his hoe to dig. Hearing this, he glanced over and curled his lip unconcernedly. “Those soles are thicker than horse hooves—what could happen? All right, you can’t even feed yourselves, yet you’re worrying about others. Hurry up and work—don’t drag us down from getting our wages.”

Hearing this, Zhao Hanzhang quickly pulled Fu Tinghan back to let them dig.

The weather was cold and the ground was not easy to dig at all, but they still dug. After swinging the hoe a few more times, their bodies warmed up. When the cold wind blew over them again, they didn’t feel it was so unbearable.

The dug-up soil was tossed aside. Zhao Hanzhang and the others were responsible for loading mud, but this digging would still take some time, so several people had nothing to do. Thinking that after all this was a collective effort and whether the task was completed also depended on the collective, they simply found work for themselves.

They took the shovels in their hands to help dig together.

Fu Tinghan struck down several times but only went in a little bit, and the mud he dug out wasn’t even as big as a fist. For a moment he was dumbfounded.

After pondering for a moment, he finally changed his angle, thrusting down at a slant. This time it did go in quite deep, but he couldn’t dig anything up.

A refugee elder nearby saw this and couldn’t help calling out anxiously, rushing forward to push him aside and take over. “You can’t dig like that—the shovel will break! Do you know how hard it is to get tools?”

He pulled out the shovel and demonstrated for Fu Tinghan, shoveling a few times. “Like this, like this—it saves effort and is also fast.”

Zhao Hanzhang learned while watching from the side, and in just a few tries learned to mimic his actions.

Fu Tinghan noted the angle and speed at which he inserted the shovel, also thinking he had learned it, and so nodded.

But…

Reality and ideals always had some gap.

Fu Tinghan silently continued. After shoveling for a while, the refugee elder turned back to look and couldn’t help saying, “Young man, you grew to such a big size for nothing—you’re not even as good as the little miss beside you.”

Only now did Zhao Hanzhang, who had been burying her head in hard work, turn back to look. She couldn’t help laughing heartily. Seeing his face flush and his ear tips nearly burning, she laughed and said, “Your method is correct—you just have little strength. This requires gradual progress. Don’t rush, or tonight you won’t be able to lift your arms.”

Because Zhao Hanzhang needed to practice archery, she had been training her arm strength for over a year now, not to mention that her original body had always practiced martial arts, so her strength was considerable.

She could now draw a one and a half stone bow, but she wouldn’t use such a heavy bow unless she needed to stand and shoot from afar. Otherwise, for mounted archery she generally only used a seven dou bow, which all required great strength.

Fu Tinghan was also practicing archery. His accuracy was good, but his strength was only slightly better than ordinary people. This “ordinary people” referred to regular soldiers. Compared to Zhao Hanzhang, he was far inferior.

So he always used a short bow. Moreover, he had made himself a short crossbow that only required accuracy, not strength—you just had to lift it, aim, and shoot. It was a sharp weapon for short-range killing.

At the same time, he had made a long crossbow for Zhao Hanzhang, though that was for use in the military and couldn’t be used for his personal armament.

Based on this, he had always considered his arm strength quite good. Although he couldn’t compare to impressive people, he wasn’t inferior to ordinary people. But now he just couldn’t dig as well as others.

Fu Tinghan felt somewhat depressed.

Zhao Hanzhang inserted the shovel into the soil, stepped on it with her foot and dug once, glancing from the corner of her eye to see Fu Tinghan make the same motion as her but just dig up less soil each time. She couldn’t help but laugh again.

Fu Tinghan heard her laugh and finally couldn’t help but turn back to glare at her.

Zhao Hanzhang immediately sealed her mouth shut, but the smile in her eyes couldn’t be concealed no matter what. “This is actually a good thing. No one is perfect—people always have some things they’re not good at. The Way of Heaven is balanced.”

The elder nearby heard her say so much and couldn’t help but interject, “Little miss, you needn’t comfort your husband so much. He’s literate and earns far more in wages daily than any of us, far more than you. You should worry about yourself instead—be careful he earns money and doesn’t want you anymore.”

Zhao Hanzhang’s mouth fell open.

Fu Tinghan was displeased. “Old sir, why would you guess such things about me? How could I not want her?”

The elder glanced at him and said, “What’s impossible about it? In peaceful times there were already plenty of heartless men. Now in chaotic times, there are even more heartless men. You look handsome and refined, and you’re literate. Can you really stick with your wife through hard times?”

Fu Tinghan: “…Then can’t I just earn more money so we can both have better lives?”

The elder just snorted and turned to Zhao Hanzhang. “Men are all like this—sweet words cost nothing anyway, so you shouldn’t easily believe them. Just make him suffer through hard times with you for a few days, and then you’ll know if he’s a good person or a bad person.”

—