At the Xiang Family Home
After dinner, Mother Xiang let out a long sigh. “It’s been several days already, and we haven’t received a single letter from Shanshan. I wonder if she can handle life in the countryside. And that neighborhood committee—why did they assign her there of all places? If she’d been sent north, she could at least hibernate through the winter for a few months. Farm work isn’t easy. I wonder if she’s being bullied.”
Xiang Wenyi tried to comfort her. “Mom, my little sister’s smart. She won’t suffer too much. And it’s far from here—even if she wrote, it would take days to arrive. Don’t worry so much. Huihui is with her too. At least the two of them won’t feel alone in a strange place. And when it comes to work, we already told her not to overexert herself. We’ll send things from home.”
That only made Mother Xiang more anxious. “Huihui? What can that child do? She can’t lift with her hands or carry on her shoulders. Delicate as can be. She’s probably crying in the countryside right now. Those two are just being ridiculous.”
Xiang Wen’er suddenly spoke up. “Mom, how about I switch with my sister? I’ll go to the countryside and let her come back. She’s a girl—how can she handle farm labor? I’m different. I’m strong. And I’m a man—it’s safer. I heard from a friend whose family also sent someone down that girls aren’t safe in the countryside. The local hooligans might set their sights on them.”
The moment he said that, Mother Xiang grew even more worried.
Xiang Wensi’s face darkened instantly. Under the table, he stepped hard on his second brother’s foot.
“Ow!” Wen’er hissed. “Why did you step on me?”
Wensi rolled his eyes. “Accident.”
Wenyi frowned at her second brother. “Stop making things worse. If you went, the family would be even more worried.”
“What? What do you mean by that?”
Wensi replied flatly, “If you can’t even understand what Big Sister means, how are you going to survive in the countryside? She’s worried you’d get sold off and help count the money for them.”
“What?! I’m not that stupid!”
Everyone at the table turned to look at him with identical expressions: Aren’t you, though?
Wen’er opened his mouth to argue, but seeing their obvious looks, he shut it again.
Father Xiang also looked troubled. “What’s done is done. Let’s all keep an eye out for job opportunities. When we find one, we’ll bring Shanshan back.”
Everyone nodded, though they all knew finding a job wasn’t easy.
Wen’er’s brows remained tightly knit. He believed in his sister’s abilities—but her being alone in the countryside still made the family uneasy. And who knew what kind of people were in that brigade?
All they could do was wait for her letter.
That night, in the educated youth dormitory, Xiang Wenshan said to Wenhui, “We’ve been here several days and haven’t written home to let them know we’re safe.”
Wenhui’s eyes widened. “Oh! I forgot.”
Wenshan: …This girl’s heart is way too big.
When she first arrived, she hadn’t fully accepted her identity. She’d been unwell that day and wanted time to familiarize herself with the environment.
People in the brigade said it took two hours on foot to reach the commune. Four hours round trip. Just thinking about that exhausted her.
Now that a couple of days had passed and she’d gradually adapted, she felt she should fulfill her duty. The original owner’s family had treated her well, and she had taken over this body.
Old educated youth Song Tao, lying with her eyes closed, spoke up after listening to their conversation. “It’s not busy right now. You can ask the brigade leader for half a day or a day off and go to the commune to send a letter home. In two months, during wheat harvest, it’ll be peak season. Everyone will be scrambling to reap the crops. It’ll be hard to ask for leave then. At that time, from sixty-year-olds to three-year-old kids, everyone goes to the fields to pick up fallen wheat.”
Sun Lijuan chimed in. “Song’s right. If there’s anything you need to buy, do it within these two months. After that, it’ll be nonstop work.”
Cao Yu bit her lip. “If we ask for leave so soon after arriving, will the brigade leader have an opinion of us?”
Song Tao understood that feeling. When they first arrived, they’d been nervous too—overly concerned about what others thought. Over time, they’d gotten used to it.
“He won’t. The brigade won’t say anything either. In fact, some of them probably feel like we’re taking their work points just by being assigned here. They’d rather we work less. But we can’t really work less—otherwise we won’t earn enough to feed ourselves. If some people see us doing too little, they’ll start nitpicking.”
Cao Yu nodded with her eyes closed. “Okay. Thank you, Comrade Song and Comrade Sun.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Song Tao replied. “We’ve just been here two years longer and know a bit more. No need to be so polite. We’re all comrades who left our hometowns to contribute to rural construction.”
Sun Lijuan added softly, “Exactly. No need to be formal.”
They chatted quietly—until Wenhui’s snoring began.
Cao Yu turned her head. “Hmm? Little Comrade Xiang’s asleep?”
On the other side, Wenshan frowned slightly and rubbed her temples. “Yeah. She’s asleep.”
“Let’s lower our voices then, don’t wake her. She sleeps well.”
Song Tao suddenly remembered something. “Wait, she sleeps well? Does she really sleepwalk? I haven’t noticed anything.”
Cao Yu slept deeply at night and hadn’t noticed either.
Wenshan’s heart skipped a beat—but her expression remained calm.
“Don’t be fooled by how well she sleeps. She’s very restless at night. When she sleepwalks, we’re all asleep. Last night she was wandering around—she even climbed over to my side and stood by the window staring out.”
“I was still half-asleep at the time. When I saw someone standing by the window, it scared me half to death. So I brought her back.”
Sun Lijuan’s eyes widened suddenly. “Oh—I think I know something about that.
In the middle of the night, I felt itchy, like there were fleas on me. I scratched a bit. Half-awake, I heard some noise.
It sounded like the bed moving.
Could it have been that time?”
Xiang Wenshan followed her lead. “Probably.”
Now, everyone except Xiang Wenshan believed that Xiang Wenhui sleepwalked.
As for the bed moving last night—it was because Xiang Wenshan had felt something crawling around near her legs. She sat up and looked through the moonlight.
But she saw nothing. Since she couldn’t find anything, she assumed she had dreamed it and didn’t think much of it.
Now that she thought about it, a chill crept up her spine.
Why did it feel like that thing crawling around in the night had been a rat?
As two more snores started up, Xiang Wenshan’s brows knit so tightly they could’ve crushed a mosquito. She sighed, pulled the covers over her face, and fell asleep.
It probably didn’t help much—but at least it felt like the noise was a little quieter…