“What if someone falls for another?”
The brigade leader glanced at the security officer and said, “You’re young, served a few years in the army, and have seen the world out there—how can you ask such a question? Isn’t it all about freedom of marriage these days? If they fall for each other on their own, willingly and mutually, what business is it of mine to interfere? What right would I have to interfere?”
The security officer laughed. “We’re just chatting, aren’t we? Besides, even if I’ve seen the world, could I have seen more than you? You fought in the War of Liberation!”
The brigade leader chuckled. “You’re a smooth talker, kid. Back then, if I hadn’t been wounded and unable to fight anymore, maybe I could have stayed in the army for life.”
His tone was full of regret.
Back then, he had been hit by a stray bullet during the war. Although the shrapnel was removed, his body never recovered to what it once was, and he had no choice but to be discharged and return home.
The security officer grinned. As a former soldier himself, he held great respect for this senior.
“Let me escort you back to the brigade office first, then I’ll drive the ox cart to the shed. We set off in the middle of the night yesterday—this old ox is worn out.”
After the two of them left, the five zhiqing in the Zhiqingyuan faced the unfamiliar courtyard, feeling at a loss. On the train, they had been full of passion, but that had faded by the time they transferred to the truck. By the time they finally boarded the ox cart, all they could manage were forced smiles. Now, they didn’t even have the strength for that—only anxiety remained, along with confusion and fear about the future.
The oldest among them was Li Changwei. The others had all gone to the countryside right after graduating from middle school—the youngest was sixteen, the oldest only eighteen—while Li Changwei was already twenty-one. He had been working for four years, and coming to the countryside was the result of careful deliberation. So now, amid a group of anxious young people, he appeared especially calm.
His composure gave the zhiqing a shot in the arm. Naturally, everyone gathered around him, treating Li Changwei as the “spiritual leader” of the Zhiqingyuan.
They had all come from the same train station and ridden the same truck, so they had already gotten to know one another by then.
One male zhiqing said, “Brother Li, now that we’re here, we’re all outsiders. We need to stick together so the locals don’t bully us. There are few of us zhiqing, so we must be united as one. You’re the oldest, so we’ll listen to you. From now on, you’ll be in charge of Zhiqingyuan matters.”
The others chimed in in agreement.
Li Changwei smiled slightly and accepted this responsibility without false modesty. Having worked for four years, he had gained plenty of insight into human relations and considered himself more experienced than these half-grown kids.
“All right, since you all trust me, if anything comes up, come talk it over with me. I wouldn’t say I’m in charge—we’ll decide things together. We zhiqing are one unit to the outside world. Whatever we do, we must consider our collective interests. Don’t act recklessly.”
“Got it! We’ll listen to Brother Li.”
“Then you all pick your rooms first. I’ll pick after you’re done.”
With someone taking charge, everyone seemed to have an anchor. Most of the earlier bewilderment vanished, and they all began to move.
Xiao Juza, who had nothing better to do, had been keeping watch on the Zhiqingyuan. Seeing this, he couldn’t help complaining to Ning An: “This male lead is such a poser. Letting others pick their rooms first is just his way of showing off his generosity and doling out little favors.”
Ning An smiled. “We know what a rotten core he has, so naturally we interpret his behavior that way. But to people who don’t know his true colors, this comes across as high emotional intelligence—steady and dependable.”
Xiao Juza conjured up a Plot Book, flipping through the pages noisily with his cat paws, and said to Ning An: “None of these educated youths are good people—they’re all refined egoists. Li Changwei held out until next year’s wheat harvest before making his move on the original owner. There was also a girl who got married, to a young man from the village, but in the end she did the same as Li Changwei—divorced, abandoned her husband and child, and returned to the city. She was even more shameless. When she got old, she suddenly had a crisis of conscience and wanted to compensate the son she’d abandoned, so she came back to find him. When he refused to acknowledge her, she went online to wail about it, claiming she’d had no choice, that it was all a tragedy created by the times.”
“If she could go online to make a fuss, that must have been forty years later, right?”
“Right. She was actually just old with no one to care for her, felt lonely, and thought of the son she’d barely raised, trying to morally blackmail him. So disgusting.”
“What about the other three?”
“One pair of educated youths got married, and the last one stayed single to the end. But he never stopped mooching off Li Changwei. To show off his ‘leadership qualities,’ Li Changwei took extra care of these educated youths, constantly squeezing money out of the original owner to subsidize his companions. The original owner was foolish too—she actually thought a man like that was loyal and devoted. Who knew she’d end up abandoned in the end.”
“That male educated youth surely knew exactly what was going on?”
“Yep. He was mocking Li Changwei and the original owner as fools behind their backs.”
“And the married couple?”
“They were a tiny bit better. They sensed that Li Changwei and that female educated youth had impure motives, but as members of the educated youth group, the two of them pretended not to know. Later they kept a certain distance from the other three and reduced their interactions.”
Ning An remarked: “That couple are the true refined egoists—minding their own business and staying out of others’ affairs. The other three aren’t that at all—they’re just bad. Their self-interest came at the expense of hurting others, and they knew it and did it anyway. In fact, from the very beginning, their intentions were impure.”
“They always behaved so well on the surface that they fooled everyone, giving the people of Erdaogou a vivid lesson in ‘you can’t judge a book by its cover.'”
During the lunch break, Ning An went to the Gongxiaoshe storefront to join in the fun. The Gongxiaoshe’s goods were divided into sections. There was one salesperson in the food section and one in the fabric section. Everyone sold different things and each had their own duties—some were busier, some more idle.
The salespeople were all quite a bit older than Ning An, old enough to be her elders. Fortunately, people addressed each other as “comrade” or “big sister” these days, so there was no worry about getting the form of address wrong.
When she arrived at the storefront, there were no customers. The salespeople were all sitting there, each busy with their own things—the women stitching shoe soles, the men flipping through comic books that had clearly been borrowed from the Xinhua Bookstore next door.
Seeing her come in, Sister Zhang from the fabric section smiled and said: “Why are you out and about today? Have you got your eye on those flawed bolts of cloth?”
The salesgirls at the Gongxiaoshe had considerable “power,” in that they could quietly handle certain ration-free goods sold at negotiated prices, as well as defective merchandise. Ordinary folks had no idea how much of this stuff actually existed, so the salesgirls could sell it to whomever they pleased, and no one would question it. Many defective items were hidden away the moment they arrived, reserved specifically for the salesgirls’ own relatives and friends.
They were all also clever with their hands. When someone bought a liang of liquor, you would watch them fill up what looked like a full one-liang measure, but in reality only nine qian went in. Over time, the surplus added up to quite a bit, which the Gongxiaoshe staff could divide among themselves. Even the fabric sellers could pull this trick, doing their best to short customers by a small strip of cloth.
When Sister Zhang asked this, Ning An, who hadn’t originally had the idea, instantly broke into a flower-like smile. “That’s right, Sister Zhang, could you save some for me? I want to make my mom a new outfit. She’s been busy all year—she deserves something new to wear.”
Sister Zhang was dazzled by her smile and couldn’t refuse at all.
“All right, I’ll set aside some from this batch for you. It’s because you’re such a filial girl.”
Ning An thanked her with a smile. This was clearly not just because of her filial piety—more importantly, she rarely took part in this kind of profit-sharing. Since she came around only once in a while, didn’t she deserve a bit of priority?
She spent 4 yuan and 8 mao to buy twelve chi of defective fabric at 4 mao per chi—more than enough to make her mother a loose-fitting outfit.
Ning An’s salary was now 28 yuan a month. This was only her second year of work, and her wages would rise in the future. Of that 28 yuan, her mother took 20 each month to save for her, leaving her 8 yuan in pocket money.
Eight yuan didn’t look like much, but in this era it went a long way—it was enough to cover a person’s living expenses for a month. The original owner had hardly any expenses, so she had saved up most of that money too. So even though she had only worked for two years, she had already accumulated a small fortune of over 500 yuan—480 saved by her mother, plus the hundred-plus she had saved herself. And that didn’t even count her monthly welfare ration coupons or her 28 jin of grain rations.
Her father, as a miner, worked an eight-hour day and earned over 60 yuan a month, with a monthly grain allotment of 60 jin—double that of workers in other positions, 90% of it refined grain.
Her mother’s work points were enough to cover her own keep too. In Erdaogou, one work point was worth 6 mao. Her mother earned seven or eight work points a day, bringing in over 4 mao daily—at least 10 yuan a month.
The family also raised poultry and livestock. The eggs from their hens didn’t need to be sold or traded for salt—they all went into the bellies of the three of them. They also had a sizable private plot, and the vegetables they grew were more than the family could eat, leaving a surplus. Every penny a farming household could earn, her mother earned.
So their household had few mouths to feed, few troubles, plenty of money, and abundant supplies. The house was spacious and bright, the yard clean and tidy, the parents got along harmoniously, had good temperaments, and both doted on their daughter.
In Erdaogou, Jiang Ning’an was a genuine rich, beautiful young lady. No wonder Li Changwei had set his sights on her.
Ning An carried the defective fabric back to her office and unfolded it for a careful look. Calling it defective was an exaggeration—only a few spots had uneven dyeing, which didn’t affect its use at all. This batch of fabric was precisely the “Zhenqingshilan” that her mother, Comrade Zhao Fengxia, loved best.
“Zhenqingshilan” describes a color close to deep indigo, also known as “indigo blue.” From the original owner’s memories, Comrade Zhao Fengxia was especially fond of this color—her clothes were this shade all year round. The original owner had once bought her a piece of light gray fabric, only for it to be shelved away untouched. To her, this one color was the only “proper” one.
Fine then. Your own mother, you spoil yourself—use these twelve chi of Zhenqingshilan fabric to make her a set of clothes.
Actually, Ning An liked this color too. If it could be made into a spaghetti-strap dress to wear, showing off a bit of porcelain-white skin, it would surely look beautiful. Sadly, she already understood this world well enough to know that if she wanted to openly wear spaghetti straps, she would have to wait at least another twenty or thirty years.
What she was wearing now was a white cotton shirt and a blue work uniform set. Though not particularly pretty, walking down the street, everyone envied her. It was mainly the “class” this outfit represented—it was the uniform of their Gongxiaoshe. Wearing it out, anyone could tell at a glance she was a worker. It made people green with envy!