The refugee camps were divided into ten camps: five male camps and five female camps. The purpose of separating men and women was to facilitate management. This had been implemented since the Insurance Corps began to save refugees.

Zhang Xiuhua walked out of the No. 4 female camp holding a document. One of the signs distinguishing Insurance Corps soldiers now was clothing. Chen Ke asked Qi Huishen in Shanghai to rush-produce a batch of cloth. It was completely Chen Ke's production method from last year. The work was entrusted to Zhou Yuanxiao. Cheap Indian cloth, dark blue foreign dye. With the last experience, plus sufficient funds, plus the Insurance Corps' transportation team, and the cargo transportation route map made during the social investigation last year, they managed to transport a large amount of cloth to the base area without paying much *lijin* (transit tax). Not only cloth was transported, but also a lot of needle and thread. Clothing production was provided in the female camps.

The clothing style Chen Ke took out was the most common old army green uniform style. Except that the color became dark blue, everything else was exactly the same. Since it was a military uniform, there was naturally a soft military cap. Zhang Xiuhua wore such a uniform.

It was already the Beginning of Autumn (*Liqiu*). The heat in the wind began to decrease. The feeling facing the wind was no longer humid and hot, but a refreshing feeling. Zhang Xiuhua took off the soft military cap and tidied her hair with her hand. She didn't understand why the big officials of the Insurance Corps required women joining the team to cut their hair. The female camp naturally couldn't let men be guards. One of You Gou's official positions was the Chairwoman of the Women's Federation. She personally mobilized women and selected cheerful and healthy women to form a guard team. All members of the guard team had to cut their hair.

Since You Gou started cement research, she rarely came to the female camp. Tidying her short hair, Zhang Xiuhua couldn't help but think of Female Teacher You Gou. She suddenly felt she missed You Gou very much. This emotion made Zhang Xiuhua feel very incredible.

When the female refugees of Fengtai County first saw You Gou, what they saw was not the image of a gentle woman. From when You Gou began to lead the female camp to when she transferred to the R&D department, in these four months, she never established any reputation as a gentle woman. Timidity, hesitation, fear of difficulties, and panic about the future that women usually have—none of these existed in You Gou.

This famous Female Teacher You Gou of Fengtai County always appeared in front of everyone with a bold and fearless, even "lawless and rebellious" image. Everyone knew that there was only one person who could make You Gou bow her head, and that was the true master of Fengtai County who was now rumored to be god-like by the refugees, the supreme leader of the Insurance Corps, Chen Ke. Only beside Chen Ke would You Gou occasionally bow her head. Besides this, there was no other person who could make Female Teacher You Gou soften.

Zhang Xiuhua was not originally named Zhang Xiuhua. She came from an ordinary peasant family. Her family had a few *mu* of land, two older brothers, one younger brother, and one younger sister. Her parents always called Zhang Xiuhua "Third Girl" (*San Ya Tou*). They didn't really mean to give her a formal name. There were at least ten thousand such women in Fengtai County. Zhang Xiuhua still remembered that when Female Teacher You Gou took a dozen men to ask for the names of refugees, a man asked in difficulty: "Secretary You, so many people don't have names at all; what should we do?"

That day was a rainy day. Refugees who had just escaped death were forcibly separated by gender. Everyone didn't know how these people who braved the heavy water in the wind and rain to save them would deal with them. If they hadn't seen the city wall of the county town nearby, many people would probably have cried out in fear.

Because she participated in the action of steering boats to save people, You Gou was wearing wet clothes at that time, and her short hair was also wet. When the refugees were trembling all over due to hunger and cold, You Gou stood as straight as a flagpole. Her beautiful body curves were outlined by the clothes tightly attached to her body. While trembling, Zhang Xiuhua watched You Gou issue orders to the men loudly and heroically. "If they don't have names, then give them a name now. No need to be too formal; give a formal name later."

The men didn't resist the order of this woman You Gou at all, but obeyed obediently. This made Zhang Xiuhua feel incredible. A woman could actually command men, and a dozen men. These men were by no means incompetent; it was they who saved Zhang Xiuhua's family and many people from the same village from the flood. Those strong arms, that kind of determination and tenacity unique to men focusing on work, impressed Zhang Xiuhua deeply.

But the men who dared to steer boats to save people in the boundless flood not long ago showed submission in front of this woman You Gou. This was no longer just to the extent of incomprehension. The boundless flood destroyed Zhang Xiuhua's hope for the world, while You Gou's appearance overturned Zhang Xiuhua's understanding of this world.

Registration was simple: sewing a cloth strip on everyone's clothes. There were some strange symbols embroidered with needle and thread on the cloth strip. Zhang Xiuhua now knew those were Arabic numerals. At that time, she completely couldn't understand these weird symbols. The only feeling was that the stitches were coarse and large, and the handiwork was extremely poor. Later she learned that these numbers were actually rush-made by the men of the Insurance Corps from top to bottom, including Chen Ke, during breaks. This fact once again overturned another layer of Zhang Xiuhua's understanding of the world.

Thinking of this, Zhang Xiuhua couldn't help touching the label on her chest. These cloth labels were made in the female camp. Zhang Xiuhua's number was 200009527. Matching this number, the former Third Girl of the Zhang family had her own name, Zhang Xiuhua.

Since Zhang Xiuhua's whole family entered the refugee camp, there had been no act of infringing on or plundering the refugees' property. Zhang Xiuhua completely didn't understand why the Insurance Corps wanted to help the common people, even giving food and clothes to the hungry and cold common people, and settling their lives. Even more incomprehensible was that the Insurance Corps actually provided education to the common people.

Reading characters, learning to write one's own name, and learning to read some simple announcements—these were things that rich families could only do by spending a lot of money. Children from poor families like Zhang Xiuhua didn't need to think about it at all. Those teaching teachers would absolutely not teach children from poor families to read. Let alone teaching girls.

As for the multiplication table and arithmetic knowledge, those were learnings only taught to children who were sent to be apprentices since childhood and were specially appreciated by the accountant. Zhang Xiuhua's parents originally planned to let Zhang Xiuhua's younger brother go to be an apprentice. This was what the introducer said to Zhang Xiuhua's parents upfront. Apprenticeship is bitter. If you want to be an apprentice, don't treat yourself as a human being before you learn the trade. If you haven't figured this out, don't try to be an apprentice at all.

But the Insurance Corps actually taught these learnings, which cost so much money and suffering to obtain, to the common people without charging a single coin.

The Insurance Corps indeed made the refugees work, and these jobs were heavy. But the Insurance Corps themselves worked just the same. Not only ordinary soldiers below had to work, but from the big leaders of the Insurance Corps, Brigade Commander Chen Ke, Teacher You Gou, and many other officers, down to ordinary soldiers of the Insurance Corps, everyone from top to bottom worked desperately. Zhang Xiuhua looked down on those who gossiped behind backs, saying that Brigade Commander Chen Ke and Magistrate Shang Yuan hid behind when encountering work and only came out occasionally to put on a show.

Brigade Commander Chen Ke and Magistrate Shang Yuan indeed couldn't come to work every day, but they were not idle. Normally, it was impossible to make landlords collect even one grain less. Now landlords could actually "lend land" to the common people. If Brigade Commander Chen Ke and Magistrate Shang Yuan hadn't used every means, how could landlords have such "good hearts"?

Zhang Xiuhua was convinced that everyone in the Insurance Corps from top to bottom was a good person. Although most people in the Insurance Corps were actually local common people of Fengtai County—Zhang Xiuhua's eldest brother joined the Insurance Corps—for some reason, Zhang Xiuhua felt the Insurance Corps was still that incomprehensible team. This was something that had never existed in Zhang Xiuhua's world.

She also asked many Insurance Corps soldiers and officers why they were so good to the common people. Many of those officers gave a long speech that Zhang Xiuhua couldn't understand, while most soldiers hadn't thought about this question at all and didn't know what to say for a moment. But whether officers or soldiers, no matter how they reacted, everyone said a sentence that Zhang Xiuhua understood but didn't understand, "The Insurance Corps is our common people's team; of course, we must be good to our common people."

Zhang Xiuhua also met her eldest brother who became an Insurance Corps soldier. After all, the eldest brother was her relative; he said a lot about the Insurance Corps. Regarding Zhang Xiuhua's question, the eldest brother also couldn't explain it clearly at all. The eldest brother cared more about the fact that besides distributing land to the common people, the Insurance Corps itself also had land to farm. The eldest brother was full of thoughts about getting good land distributed to the family, and then working well in the Insurance Corps himself. He felt that the grain grown on the Insurance Corps' land would be distributed to the soldiers no matter what. The Insurance Corps was responsible for meals, so he didn't need to eat from home. If the grown grain could be distributed again, the family would have enough grain to eat.

Zhang Xiuhua was not interested in her eldest brother's calculation. Listening to her eldest brother chattering incoherently about his longing for the future, Zhang Xiuhua simply asked her eldest brother what exactly the sentence "The Insurance Corps is our common people's team; of course, we must be good to our common people" meant. Zhang Xiuhua's eldest brother scratched his head and said: "That's what it means. Our Insurance Corps wants to be good to the common people."

"Why?"

"This, why exactly I don't know either. But every time we have a meeting, the officers tell us this. Asking us to memorize it and keep it in our hearts," Zhang Xiuhua's eldest brother said.

This answer made Zhang Xiuhua understand one thing. Why did the Insurance Corps want to be good to the common people? Because those officers above in the Insurance Corps wanted to be good to the common people.

And a new question emerged: why did these officers want to be good to the common people? Since the flood, with the expansion of the Insurance Corps, more and more things about these officers spread. It was heard that many of these officers had studied abroad thousands of *li* away. Brigade Commander Chen Ke and Teacher You Gou were such people. Although she didn't know what kind of people returned students were exactly, in rumors, returned students were people with great learning. And many other officers were scholars with titles like *Xiucai* and *Juren*. As for Magistrate Shang Yuan, it went without saying. Those who could be officials were not ordinary people.

Why did such a group of people want to be so good to the common people? Why did they want to be the common people's team? Zhang Xiuhua didn't understand. Reasonably speaking, these people should be high above, and even if they dared not do bad things, they wouldn't do good things for the common people.

Why did these people do this? This question made Zhang Xiuhua want to understand more and more. So she missed Teacher You Gou doubly. Teacher You would absolutely not deceive her, and Teacher You could absolutely explain it clearly to her.

Zhang Xiuhua's task today was to deliver a document to Lu Huitian. She decided privately that after delivering the document, she would go to see Teacher You Gou. She had found out clearly a few days ago that Teacher You was burning kilns near the county town. If she ran fast, she could make a round trip in half a day. Zhang Xiuhua wanted to figure out this question troubling her no matter what.

Putting down the hand combing her hair, Zhang Xiuhua put on the military cap and adjusted its position. She ran quickly towards the male camp. Lu Huitian worked in the No. 1 Camp.