Her whole body was still tense, every breath carrying suppressed sobs.
The canvas flap of the tent was gently lifted, letting in a shaft of light along with her father’s deliberately softened footsteps.
“Yueyue?” Her father’s voice was hoarse from labor, tinged with a barely perceptible caution. “You’re not asleep, are you? Dad brought you a bowl of porridge. I just cooked it—have some while it’s hot.”
Even though rice was scarce here, he couldn’t bear that his daughter hadn’t eaten rice for several meals, so he had saved a little for her.
Ling Yue didn’t move, nor did she dare lift her head. She was afraid her father would see her swollen eyes.
Seeing no response, her father assumed she was asleep, or still sulking.
He tiptoed to the makeshift bed and set the bowl of lightly steaming rice porridge on a wooden crate beside it, which served as a table. The bowl belonged to the village and had a chipped edge, but it was washed very clean.
“You need to understand…” He let out an extremely soft sigh, almost inaudible. “Dad is always doing this for your own good. You’ve never suffered hardship since you were little. What I worry about most is that you’ll always feel superior to others. One day, when Dad isn’t around anymore and there’s no one to protect you—what will you do if you’re still like this?”
She said nothing.
Her father lowered his voice even more. “I’m a cadre. You’re a cadre’s daughter. You also have to go among the people—whether it’s the city or the countryside…”
“I don’t want to!” Ling Yue snapped, anger flaring as she recalled the villagers’ ingratitude, the way they had shouted at her father.“You’re so good to them, and they’re just a bunch of ungrateful wolves—stupid and nasty!”
Her father only replied, “As a cadre, my job is to make sure the basic needs of the grassroots people are met—not to get anything in return from them, and not to make them feel grateful to me.”
She fell silent again. When it came to reasoning, she had never been able to win against her father.
She knew she had a very good father. Such a high-ranking leader, responsible on his own for everything from the urban districts to the townships—yet he never put on airs, always placing the people first.
But she refused to think the same way.
After seeing firsthand what “harsh lands breed troublesome people” really meant, she had decided to take back her goodwill.
After the phone rang “beep—beep—” a few times, the call finally connected.
“Yueyue?” Her boyfriend Shen Shu’s pleasantly surprised voice came through the line, accompanied by the background noise of city traffic—so different from the dusty, sweaty, clamorous environment Ling Yue was in now that it felt like two separate worlds.“How are things over there? The signal’s been terrible—I’ve been worried sick! Are you okay?”
“Not okay.” She squatted by the edge of the field, her voice still thick with the remnants of crying. “I’m really miserable here.”
“Yueyue, don’t cry. I’ll come pick you up, okay?” Shen Shu coaxed her gently. “If it’s that uncomfortable, then let’s not stay there. I’ll come get you.”
As soon as he said that, Ling Yue lifted her head and glanced at her father standing on the ridge between the fields. The back of his shirt was already soaked through, clinging tightly to his spine as he listened attentively to the villagers’ endless complaints.
Should she leave?
She had come to this wretched place in the first place because she felt sorry for her father.
But the longer she stayed, the more painful it became…