Lin Lan smiled and said, "You also have to subtract the cost of labor, firewood, and gypsum!" 'Seeing Yang Liying get so excited over a little more than one yuan... People from this era are really easy to please,' she thought.
Yang Liying shook her head, unable to hide her joy. "Labor doesn't cost us anything! Your brother-in-law and I have plenty of strength!"
Lin Lan recalled hiring two bricklayers to fix up her house for just a few yuan a day, not including meals. She sighed, "You're right. The least valuable thing right now is manual labor."
Yang Liying nodded. "Exactly. I sometimes wonder—factory workers do their jobs, and we farmers do ours. During the busy season, we work harder than they do. So why do they get a monthly salary and new work clothes while we toil all year long for nothing?"
Lin Lan chuckled. "It just proves how enlightened we farmers are!"
When the two sisters-in-law got back, Zhao Dehai had already gone home.
