Ning An actively supported her mother’s hard-work-to-get-rich campaign. She had studied the matter carefully—this world’s control over side occupations was really quite lax. Occasionally, individuals were arrested for “speculation and profiteering,” but that was because they bought low and sold high to profit from the price difference, a practice that was severely cracked down on. There was absolutely no problem with farmers selling what they raised themselves. The ones targeted were all middlemen resellers.
Zhao Fengxia and Jiang Xuegong had both built up their health well, and the two were full of energy. Besides completing their regular work duties, they poured tremendous enthusiasm into their side occupations. Both were quick and nimble, always racing to finish the household chores before the other, trying their best to let their daughter do less.
During the wheat harvest, Ning An witnessed a new spirit—the “Basket Spirit.”
It was said to have come from the capital: during busy farming seasons, Gongxiaoshe staff would carry baskets on shoulder poles into the countryside, delivering daily necessities right to the fields for the convenience of ordinary people.
As the Basket Spirit spread to various places, many local Gongxiaoshe branches wanted to emulate it. The Santang Gongshe Gongxiaoshe where Ning An worked was no exception.
Considering that many production brigades now had consignment points and no longer needed a “mobile Gongxiaoshe,” they set their sights on the production teams in those poor mountain valleys.
Ande Shi was plains territory, but plains weren’t entirely flat either—there were rolling hills. Some production teams were located in hollows between the hills, practically surrounded by mountains, with poor roads and poor soil quality, so their development was relatively backward. Such production teams had no consignment points, making them perfect targets for their Gongxiaoshe to carry forward the “Basket Spirit” and deliver warmth.
At the Gongxiaoshe’s all-staff mobilization meeting, the leader said to Ning An, “Comrade Xiao Jiang, you stay behind and hold the fort. We can’t all go to the countryside—someone has to mind the store. Otherwise, if people come to shop and we’re shut tight, that wouldn’t look good.”
“Yes. Rest assured, everyone. I promise to complete my mission.”
Ning An agreed crisply.
Staying behind was wonderful! The leader and comrades were looking out for her because of her young age—that’s why they made this suggestion. The original owner had foolishly refused every time, insisting on carrying the spirit like the veteran comrades and going to the countryside with a shoulder pole, coming back dead tired every time, with several big blisters worn into the soles of her feet and her face nearly sunburned raw.
Seeing her agree, the leader breathed a sigh of relief.
It was good that the young comrade worked hard and was willing to endure hardship, but one had to consider practical realities, right? Comrade Xiao Jiang was young and thin-skinned; going to the countryside, she couldn’t really bond with the farmer brothers.
Those rural aunties and sisters-in-law spoke without restraint, with no filter on their mouths—they’d say anything, even hollering about things that happened on the kang. In previous years when Xiao Jiang went to the countryside with them, these veteran comrades not only had to sell goods and deal with villagers, but also had to divert attention to look after her. Honestly, they truly didn’t want her to go.
Thankfully, this year she had figured it out on her own and come to her senses.
“All right, then it’s settled.”
The leader quickly made the final call, as if afraid she would change her mind a second later.
She wouldn’t!
On June 15, 1971, Ning An arrived at work an hour earlier than usual, helped her colleagues organize the goods, watched them depart into the distance with their baskets on shoulder poles, then returned to her office to write.
It wasn’t yet the Gongxiaoshe’s official opening time.
At this point in time, doing anything was inconvenient.
Writing articles for publication? Publishing a book? No royalties!
Translating books? Don’t make me laugh. In the 1950s there had indeed been a group of professional translators, and translation fees were even higher than royalties for original works. It was said that one professional translator earned nearly a thousand yuan a month. But starting from the “Anti-Rightist” campaign, author payments began a downhill slide. During the ten years, all royalties were abolished—and since translation fees counted as royalties, they were naturally abolished along with everything else.
Some professional translators were transferred to translate so-called “yellow-cover” and “grey-cover” books for internal reference—purely unpaid volunteer labor. Others were assigned to work in government-established “translation and compilation institutes,” receiving a fixed monthly salary of anywhere from 40 to 120 yuan, with no additional payment for translation work.
Ning An wrote and submitted articles not to make money, nor for literary creation, but to take the “citizen scientist” route.
“Citizen scientist” is, in most cases, a derogatory term, connoting “overestimating oneself” and “wild fantasy,” and sometimes even “stubbornness” and “being anti-science.”
But in reality, some very famous scientists were self-taught citizen scientists. Some of them had only middle school diplomas, yet through long periods of diligent, serious study and research, they became outstanding figures in their fields—true scientists.
They came from citizen science backgrounds, but possessed genuine scientific spirit.
Ning An wasn’t trying to do anything cutting-edge, either. What she wrote about was “how to improve the growth rate of pigs.” As a worker rooted in the countryside, helping her farmer mother raise pigs at home, working hard and summarizing some methods and experience from it—was that so unreasonable?
These days, the state was calling for “vigorously developing the pig-raising industry,” promoting the slogan “more pigs, more fertilizer, more grain, more money,” and also calling for the vigorous development of agriculture, animal husbandry, and side occupations.
Having been here for over half a year, Ning An understood these policies inside and out.
Her approach focused mainly on feed ratios, proposing that with existing conditions, proper feeding could increase pigs’ weight at market by 40%.
To make her argument credible, over the past six months she had taken full charge of preparing the feed for the family’s livestock and poultry, accumulating first-hand data. The pigs, chickens, and rabbits raised this way had her mother, Ms. Zhao Fengxia, singing their praises nonstop.
Moreover, the newly raised young hens had already started laying eggs. Her family had more eggs than they could eat—far more than they could eat.
Ning An had already sold her first batch of eggs to the Gongxiaoshe. Eggs were currently thirty cents per jin; sold individually, they went for two to five cents each depending on size. Ning An chose to sell by weight—less hassle. The first batch was ten jin, earning her three yuan. She could sell three times a month, which meant nine yuan a month.
Comrade Zhao Fengxia went around grinning from ear to ear all day, the wrinkles on her face deepening. She would mutter to Ning An, “No wonder they say a hen’s backside is the common folk’s bank! Aiya, we shouldn’t have eaten so many eggs before—we should have saved them up to sell. We could have put away quite a bit more money.”
Looking at her money-obsessed mother, Ning An said speechlessly, “Then your daughter wouldn’t look as fresh and pretty as I do now—I’d have grown into a skinny little wolf instead.”
Zhao Fengxia looked at Ning An’s plump, rosy little face, then at her daughter’s bright, clear eyes, and her heart nearly melted. She quickly said, “Yes, yes, you’re right. I was overthinking it, hahaha. Saving money is for living a good life, but I mustn’t let saving money come at the cost of my daughter’s nutrition.”
At this point, Comrade Zhao Fengxia was no longer worrying about livestock capacity—her mind was set on getting rich through the “chicken-butt bank.” She hatched another batch of chicks herself. The roosters would be raised and sold for meat; the hens raised to lay eggs.
She even came up with her own justifications: “The policy doesn’t say we can’t raise chickens, and it doesn’t say we should raise fewer. I think everyone’s been scared stiff by how things were in past years and doesn’t dare spread their wings. The key thing is, other families don’t have enough grain to eat, so they have none to spare for feeding pigs and chickens. But our family doesn’t have that problem. Your dad alone gets sixty jin of grain coupons.”
“Mom’s right.”
“Like they say, the bold get stuffed while the timid starve. We’ve got to strive a little.”
Zhao Fengxia had a bit of a venturesome spirit, but on the whole she was quite cautious. She never let anyone come over to visit, and she never let the chickens roam free—they were all kept in cages, divided into two large coops: one coop with six hens in the front yard, and the rest in the backyard.
She herself never went to the Gongxiaoshe to sell eggs either; she always had Ning An take them along to sell.
Ning An had Xiao Juza keep part of his attention on watching over her, making sure nothing happened to her.
Although she wasn’t violating any policy, what she feared was someone with ill intent deliberately picking a fight.
Ning An’s writing was an academic paper, with data and real examples. Once the Gongxiaoshe opened for the day, she took her writing to the shop to work on it.
Not many customers came to the shop today. The news that the Gongxiaoshe would be going down to the countryside had been posted a few days earlier. Two years ago, the entire Gongxiaoshe staff had gone to the countryside—not a single person was left behind, and the store simply closed. Probably people, seeing the words “going to the countryside,” assumed it would close again this year and didn’t bother reading the details.
The whole morning, Ning An served only one customer—an old lady coming to buy soy sauce, who’d genuinely run out at home and was trying her luck. Seeing the Gongxiaoshe door open, she broke into a smile: “So it’s not closed this year!”
Ning An smiled back. “What can I get you, ma’am? Our director said that while we must make things convenient for the villagers, we can’t forget our old neighbors either. So this year they left me here to mind the store, to make shopping easier for everyone.”
“That’s good, that’s good! If you hadn’t opened today, I’d have no soy sauce for cooking lunch. Dishes just don’t taste right without soy sauce.”
The old lady took out five cents. Soy sauce cost eight cents a jin, so strictly speaking she should only get 6.25 liang. Ning An gave her a tiny bit extra, weighing out six and a half liang, and the old lady left beaming.
The whole morning passed quietly at the shop, and Ning An’s writing went very smoothly.
After finishing the piece on pigs, she planned to write about chickens and rabbits too.
The only meat sold at the Gongxiaoshe these days was pork—no other meats at all. Chicken, duck, rabbit? Don’t even think about it. Although Ning An didn’t like rabbit meat, finding it a bit tough, it couldn’t be denied that for ordinary folks it was an excellent source of meat, and plenty of people liked it.
Their family raised rabbits too. Zhao Fengxia had slaughtered one for themselves to eat. Ning An didn’t eat much of it, but her mom and dad both loved it.