The life of a female cannon fodder

8

Yu Hongying knocked on the door early in the morning. Li Qiu had already packed up. She was wearing all black, carrying a small backpack and a small basket on her back, and her trouser legs were tied up to prevent mosquitoes from crawling into her body. She had no experience in the mountains, and she didn't know any wild vegetables or mushrooms. She knew what bamboo shoots looked like, but there were none in Heilongjiang Province.

Fortunately, Yu Hongying didn't despise her. She and another female educated youth named Wei Kangmei took her with them. When they saw something edible, they told her. She had a good memory and picked half a basket in a short time.

"Oh, these you picked are really tender. You can eat them after blanching them in water and sprinkling some salt. They are so fragrant." Wei Kangmei said as he looked at the wild vegetables in Li Qiu's basket.

Li Qiu smiled and said, "I have to thank Comrade Wei and Comrade Yu for teaching me."

Wei Kangmei was very pleased with these words. It was not that she was vain, but no one wanted to meet an ungrateful person like Liu Meiling. Although telling whether wild vegetables are edible or not was just a small matter, she was happy to teach them because they were polite. Thinking of this, Wei Kangmei remembered something else. While picking wild vegetables skillfully, she asked Li Qiu, "Comrade Li, does the Capital Supply and Marketing Cooperative also sell that?"

Li Qiu was confused by her question, "Which one?"

Wei Kangmei blushed. Although she was already in her twenties, she was still an unmarried girl. "It's the one that girls use when they have sex?"

Which one is that? Li Qiu was confused for the second time.

She knew what it was, her period, but which one did she use? She always used the sanitary napkins she had stockpiled. What did women use during their periods these days?

She thought about it for a long time but couldn't remember it. Yu Hongying couldn't help but interrupt her: "It's a menstrual belt."

"Yes, that's it." Wei Kangmei stamped her feet: "I saw that the menstrual belt Comrade Liu used was not the one with plant ash added. Hers was filled with cotton. I asked her and she said that her family bought it from the capital and sent it to her. Have you seen it?"

Really not.

But isn't a menstrual belt with cotton added very similar to a sanitary napkin?

Although Li Qiu didn't know much about menstrual belts and didn't know whether they were sold in the capital, she still shook her head: "I don't know about that. I haven't been to a department store in the capital."

After hearing Li Qiu's answer, Wei Kangmei was a little regretful: "Comrade Liu cherishes it very much. She said she would wash and dry it and then use it. I saw that she had such a big bag." As she spoke, she stretched out her hand and gestured: "It also takes a lot of cotton. It would be great to take it apart and make clothes. Isn't it good to use plant ash to make menstrual belts? A small piece of cloth can be used to sew a menstrual belt that can be used until it is broken. The plant ash inside can be changed frequently. There is no need to waste cotton."

Li Qiu: "..." Isn't it said that women of this era are relatively conservative? Or do I have some misunderstanding about conservatism?

Li Qiu, who used several packs of sanitary napkins for daily and night use and never recycled them, dared not speak. However, from Wei Kangmei's words, Li Qiu could also initially understand how little they knew about gynecological hygiene. She frowned slightly: "If you use things on your body, you will get sick if they are not clean. It is better to pay more attention to them."