Luckily, the driver’s truck arrived before long, and we all piled aboard, setting off in a big crowd.
With twenty-some people chattering away on the truck, we jolted along for over a day, stopping a few times along the way—some people went to relieve themselves, others found something to eat. My brother and I had pancakes for lunch. At first everyone was still joking and laughing, but as time went on, the jolting shook us half to pieces. Covered head to toe in dust, we were too exhausted to even talk.
It wasn’t until past two in the afternoon that we finally reached Laoming Shan—the place where we’d be working for the next month or more.
I looked around, filled with emotion.
Everyone in the surrounding villages knew this place: extremely desolate, drought-stricken nine years out of ten, with soil so barren that basically any crop planted there yielded nothing. Even the wild weeds that grew couldn’t be eaten by cattle or sheep, so even livestock farming couldn’t develop here.
Nobody wanted to come to Laoming Shan.
But I knew that decades from now, this would become a huge industrial city—a base specializing in producing parts and components for mobile phones and computers. Who could imagine that this place would one day be full of high-rises, where every inch of land was worth gold?
If I could, I’d buy a shopfront here and just sit back collecting rent. What a deal that would be!
“What are you thinking about?” my brother asked, standing in front of me with a grin. “You look pretty happy.”
I nodded with a smile. “Because it’s so open here.”
“The work here is really tough. Oh—the boss is here.” My brother pointed.
I saw a gray pickup truck speeding toward us, kicking up a cloud of dust.
A man in a yellow plaid suit stepped out, in his early thirties, looking rather slick and sleazy. With a cigarette dangling from his lips, he gave the crowd a once-over, looking quite satisfied.
After the Reform and Opening-Up, the ones who got rich first were all bold types like this—hooligans and the like. They used to be speculators and profiteers; now that business was legal, these were the ones with the sharpest minds, the ones who could make a fortune.
The truck behind him was loaded with supplies. I spotted two bags of rice and a dozen or so heads of cabbage. I figured that must be what we’d be eating for this stretch of the job.
When they saw him, everyone flocked over, fawning: “Boss Wang, you finally made it! You’ve gotten even more handsome since we last saw you!”
“No kidding, Boss Wang, you look sharp. One look and you can tell you’re a rich man!”
Boss Wang just smiled.
Someone said, “Same price as last year? Everywhere else has raised their rates!”
“Damn it, the price I’m paying you is already the highest, alright? Whoever pays more, go work for them. This is my price.” Boss Wang ground out his cigarette underfoot, looking every bit the shameless rogue.
The crowd grumbled and complained—they’d been hoping prices would go up this time—but they couldn’t stop sucking up all the same.
Boss Wang said cheerfully, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Let me put it bluntly: all this sweet talk now is useless. If you don’t do good work later, I’ll dock your pay without mercy!”
Everyone agreed.
My brother had been drilling wells for almost three years and was considered a skilled hand. Plus, he was strong, so his wages were the highest—almost thirty yuan a day.
But the well locations weren’t easy to find. My brother and the others had to wait until experienced experts located the water source, and only then could they cooperate to drill the well. The process was extremely hard work, and in some places, even after the area was marked off, there might be no water—hours of drilling could turn out to be wasted effort. So there was no guarantee of income every day. We also had to do other odd jobs. In any case, the area where we worked was on the east side of the Hepaozi.
The other women were responsible for miscellaneous chores—cooking and washing clothes. If there was extra work to do, they could do that too, but it wouldn’t be paid separately.
The fixed wage was one hundred yuan a month. The pay wasn’t high and the work was exhausting, but because farmers these days rarely saw actual cash, many people scrambled for the job. At least it could buy the kids a couple of outfits and pay their school fees. If not for my brother’s connections, I probably wouldn’t have been kept on so easily.
They all tried to curry favor with Boss Wang while I stood to one side, looking out over the vast stretch of wild grassland, taller than a person, dotted with many nameless wildflowers, their color a purplish red—not much to look at, but very fragrant.
They said this plant was extremely drought-resistant, which was why only this kind of thing grew here.
Walking a few dozen meters ahead, there was a Hepaozi with very clear water, used for washing clothes and cooking. On the far side of the pond, the area had already been blocked off with wooden fences—supposedly the state was going to carry out a construction project there. That must be the section Gao Shanfeng was in charge of.
Boss Wang had set his sights on the project here, which was why he wanted to drill wells in this area. Whatever the work was, it would need water! Once the wells here were found, any construction crew that wanted to use the water would have to pay. It was a guaranteed, risk-free profit.
At this point, Boss Wang started counting: “All right, let me see how many people came. One, two… twenty-four! Fine, that’s it. We’ll split into three groups and start working soon. I’ve already had someone locate the spot, so let’s move fast! Let’s try to get one well drilled before tonight.”
I was stunned. We were starting work right away?
I asked my brother in a low voice, “Where are we staying?”
“We’ll put up a shack in a bit—we’ll just sleep right here.”
I said nothing. These conditions really were harsh.
The men went off to set up the drilling machinery, while we women went to prepare the sleeping area. We propped up several wooden poles as supports, laid fertilizer sacks over them, then cut down the wild grass as if harvesting rice and spread it over the wooden frame. Just like that, a simple shack was built.
These women were all old hands, quick and deft. Since I was new, they had me do odd jobs—going over there to cut grass.
I bent over without lifting my head, swish swish swish, cutting the wild grass like harvesting rice until I’d produced a whole haystack, piled up like a small hill. They all said I worked like a proper hand.
“Looks like you didn’t get off easy at home.”
I smiled. I’d been doing this kind of farm work for over thirty years, until later, when I went to work at the quarry to put Jiaojiao through school.
The technique of cutting rice had been drilled into my mind. I barely had to think—my hands just moved in one continuous flow.
My brother glanced over at me from time to time, and I smiled and waved the sickle in my hand at him, feeling completely at ease.
Two sheds were put up in total—the big one was for the men, the small one for the women to sleep in, and the two sheds were about ten meters apart. Boss Wang’s truck had some cardboard and wooden boards, which we carried over and laid on the ground first, then spread out the bedding on top so it wouldn’t get damp.
I asked what we’d do about the mosquitoes: “In weather this hot, the mosquitoes are bound to bite.”
Boss Wang heard me and said with a smile, “See this grass? Grab a handful and burn it before bed, set it by the door—it drives the mosquitoes away.”
I thought to myself, so this wild grass actually has its uses.
Boss Wang pointed to the sacks of rice and vegetables on the truck, and I hurried over to carry them down.
“I’ll deliver food once every ten days. This cabbage has to last ten days, so be careful with it when you cook.”
I saw a big chunk of meat in the far corner, a bag of potatoes—only three or four jin at most—half a jug of oil, and nothing but soy sauce and salt for seasoning. I thought, this is really stingy. With this many people, giving us nothing else—will this even be enough to eat?
Boss Wang gave us a few more instructions and drove off in his little truck. He was a big boss, after all—how could he stay here and suffer alongside us?
We women began setting up the cooking. We made three fire pits, piling up stones, then placing chunks of wood, branches, and wild grass underneath to boil water, cook rice, and stir-fry. It was already hot, and the smoke and heat from the flames came billowing over. I got so hot I could barely breathe several times, and my lungs ached from coughing.
Sweat poured down my forehead like a little stream, but I still had to keep feeding the fire.
I saw the oldest woman among us pour rice into the big pot, add water, throw in some salt and chunks of potato and cabbage, and put the lid right on. You could imagine how it would taste—half raw, half cooked. After it was dished out, they’d pour some soybean paste over it, and that was a meal—rice and vegetables all in one.
I didn’t think it was much of a spread, but one of the women beside me laughed and said, “As long as there’s something to eat, it’s fine. If the boss delivers the vegetables too late, later on we’ll probably just be mixing salt into our food. This is already good. Let’s be frugal.”
I could only nod. Then a few of them skillfully stewed that big chunk of meat first, rering out the fat, then set the meat aside to use just a little each day. Afraid it would spoil, they put it in a shady spot with cool water all around, though I figured it would only last three to five days at most.
Someone also explained to me that the men couldn’t live on rice alone, so the boss had left some flour and corn buns too—after three days of rice, they’d eat buns for a day. I nodded and carefully took it all in.
Then the older woman called out loudly, “Food’s ready!”
The men working over there answered right away: “Let’s eat, quick! Eat first, then get back to work—I’m starving!”
Everyone rushed off to the Hepaozi to wash up, then came running back bare-chested.
I figured this meal definitely wouldn’t taste good—the rice was the cheapest small-grained stuff.
The lid on the pot was full of gaps, so the rice came out half raw, and with all the black smoke billowing into the pot, the rice came out gray.
But when these people came over, they all ate ravenously, scooping rice into pots and lunch boxes they’d brought with them, wolfing it down in big mouthfuls. Some who had no chopsticks just grabbed any old branch, snapped it in two, peeled off the bark, and started eating with it.
I sat on the ground eating, watching a big iron kettle, already blackened with soot, boiling water. The water came from the ditch over there—it had to be left to settle and then boiled before anyone could drink it. Supposedly, at first they hadn’t liked drinking boiled water and just drank it straight from the source.
Anyway, the conditions here were terrible, that much was certain.