Chapter 71: Dog Fight Dog
Wu Guifang went to call the brigade captain. When the captain heard that it was Ning Xiaoxiao causing trouble again, and this time even disrupting the unity of the educated youth courtyard, he was utterly fed up with her.
As soon as Liu Yao saw the captain arrive, she immediately pointed at the jar on the ground and accused loudly:
“Captain, look! This is the urine bottle Ning Xiaoxiao brought. She’s disgusting and malicious. I saw it with my own eyes — there’s both eyewitness and physical evidence!”
The captain’s good mood — from the fact that the entire brigade had received some wild boar meat to eat — was instantly ruined.
This arrogance must be punished severely. Otherwise, managing the educated youth would become impossible.
“Ning Xiaoxiao, what else do you have to say? You received meat from the wild boar that Xiyue hunted, and instead of being grateful, you repay kindness with malice and destroy unity. Your ideology is clearly a problem.”
The captain sternly scolded Ning Xiaoxiao, who was crouched by the edge of the courtyard rinsing her mouth and retching.
“All you do every day is stir up trouble. Starting tomorrow, you’ll join the river-digging team. Maybe that’ll keep you too busy to make trouble.”
Digging the river was the hardest, most backbreaking work — relying solely on brute strength and a hoe. They had to dig out silt and rocks from the riverbed one swing at a time, and larger stones had to be broken into smaller pieces first.
This work wasn’t just about clearing the riverbed — it was also about widening it, so that when the snow melted next spring, there would be a place to store water for irrigation during planting season.
Usually, only strong laborers were sent to dig rivers, or families with many mouths to feed who wanted to earn extra work points. The rest were “people who had made mistakes.”
Digging rivers was the most exhausting, dirty, and difficult task — the one educated youth least wanted to do.
For someone like Ning Xiaoxiao — pale, pampered, weak, and unused to hardship — earning work points there would be almost impossible. If anything, she’d be despised for slowing things down.
The veteran educated youth who knew the situation looked at Ning Xiaoxiao with pity. This was the price of digging her own grave.
Chen Yechu, with memories of her previous life, knew that some powerful people worked in the river-digging team. Not wanting Ning Xiaoxiao to have even the slightest chance to curry favor or gain anything there, she deliberately stepped forward and said:
“Captain, she stole Xiyue’s pork cracklings and tried to destroy Xiyue’s oil and meat. Altogether, those things are worth at least ten or twenty yuan. That’s intentional property damage — grounds for the public security bureau to get involved. Someone who deliberately sabotages unity like this should be locked up.”
Ning Xiyue looked at Chen Yechu in surprise — she hadn’t expected her to speak up before she did.
With Chen Yechu’s personality, this was unusual. Could it be there’s more going on with that river-digging team?
Hmm… she’d check it out later. For now, they needed to deal with Ning Xiaoxiao.
“Captain, Yechu is right. I want to report this to the police and let the comrades from the Public Security Bureau handle it. That way, she’ll finally settle down — and it’ll be good for everyone and for the team’s future unity. It will help us build an advanced collective together.”
Ning Xiyue deliberately mentioned the phrase “advanced collective” — something the captain cared deeply about — planting the idea in his mind.
She’d realized that whenever it came to things affecting the brigade’s rating as an advanced collective, the captain preferred to deal with them lightly. That had been obvious from how he handled Wu Xiuli’s incident a few days ago.
In between bouts of vomiting, Ning Xiaoxiao shook her head pitifully. “Captain, I didn’t… I didn’t do it…”
After hearing Ning Xiyue’s words, the captain thought about it and agreed. Ning Xiaoxiao had only been here a short while, yet she’d already stirred up trouble repeatedly. Ever since Wu Xiuli’s incident, she had been involved in every single mess — a professional troublemaker. If they didn’t punish her now, who knew how much worse things would get in the future?
He barked sharply, “There’s both evidence and witnesses. And you’re still denying it? We’ll do as Comrade Chen suggested.”
“Captain…” Ning Xiaoxiao crawled forward, clutching Zhang Dawei’s pant leg, crying bitterly:
“Captain, I was wrong! It wasn’t me, I didn’t mean to… Captain…”
But the captain remained unmoved, his expression growing more impatient. Desperate to avoid re-education through labor, a flash of malice crossed Ning Xiaoxiao’s face. She suddenly pointed to Wu Zhigang standing behind the crowd.
“Captain, that urine — Wu Zhigang gave it to me! It’s not my fault! He’s the one holding a grudge because his pride was hurt. He told me to do it. It wasn’t my idea!”
“Ning Xiaoxiao, you’re slandering me! You said you wanted boy’s urine to ward off evil, so I gave it to you. How was I supposed to know you’d use it to sabotage people? Don’t dump your mess on me!”
Wu Zhigang was furious. His good impression of Ning Xiaoxiao had already been half-shattered before, and whatever pieces remained had not yet fully reattached.
Now? That illusion was completely destroyed. Before, he might have hesitated to help her — but now there was no way he’d take the fall.
The memory of Ning Xiaoxiao drinking his urine made him sick to his stomach. All he wanted now was to distance himself from her.
“I see through you now. You’re always saying you’re the one at fault, but underneath it all you’re implying everyone else is to blame. Turns out, if it’s not someone else’s fault, then it’s yours. You used me like a weapon and profited behind my back. Now that you’re in trouble, you want to pin it on me and make me the scapegoat? Ning Xiaoxiao, you’re unbelievable.”
“Captain, it was Wu Zhigang — he admitted it was his urine!” Ning Xiaoxiao continued accusing him while secretly signaling Xia Zhipeng to speak up for her.
But Xia Zhipeng wasn’t stupid — he pretended not to notice.
Zhang Dawei’s patience ran out. He yanked his leg free.
“Enough. Both of you, shut up. I don’t care who did it — the Public Security Bureau will handle this. All this nonsense is affecting our autumn harvest.”
Ning Xiyue found the dog-eat-dog spectacle in front of her highly entertaining.
Humans really were selfish. When their own interests were threatened, they turned on each other instantly. Reality was nothing like those brainless dramas where male cannon-fodder side characters willingly took the blame for the heroine.
Wu Zhigang now hated Ning Xiaoxiao’s guts. She had dragged him down with her — and going to the police station was never good for anyone’s reputation.
Once the captain made his decision, he ordered someone to keep watch over Ning Xiaoxiao and the jar of urine. He also sent someone to contact the police.
There happened to be officers nearby on duty, so they arrived quickly. Ning Xiyue noticed that one of them was Comrade Sun — the same officer who had delivered her commendation letter last time.
Seeing a familiar face among the officers reassured the captain slightly.
The police quickly got up to speed on the situation. When they asked about the urine jar’s intended use, Ning Xiyue spoke up before Ning Xiaoxiao could say a word, wearing an apologetic look:
“Comrade, I’m truly sorry. I saw her trying to pour the contents of the jar into my meat, and I got angry. I stopped her before she could do anything, but then I thought — if that oil and meat were contaminated by whatever’s in the jar, wouldn’t it ruin the flavor? I was furious, so I poured the jar’s contents into her mouth and made her eat it.”
At this point, her face turned from apologetic to furious and indignant:
“But who could have imagined she was so vicious? She actually filled the fruit jar with urine! That’s disgusting! What if we’d eaten it? She knew I was planning to share the pork cracklings with everyone, and she still did this. Her heart is rotten.”
Chen Yechu stepped forward. “Yes, comrade, I can testify.”
“I witnessed the whole thing,” Liu Yao also stepped up. “I can testify better than anyone — everything Comrade Ning Xiyue said is true.”
In the end, everyone in the educated youth courtyard came forward to testify — and Wu Zhigang, eager to throw Ning Xiaoxiao under the bus, emphasized every detail. Since it was all true anyway, Ning Xiaoxiao had no way to refute it.
To the seasoned officers, the situation was obvious after only a brief investigation. They already had a clear judgment in their minds.
