Shen Yao returned home fuming.
After thinking carefully about the times she had gone to the educated youth compound, she realized it was true that she had happened to run into Song Jincheng every time. Still, these people were imagining far too much.
She liked Song Jincheng?
After washing up, she lay in bed and turned over several times.
Deep down, she knew she was simply annoyed with He Shi. Once she calmed down, she also understood how dangerous baseless rumors and idle gossip could be.
She imagined the bed beneath her as He Shi’s head and punched it once.
That alone made her feel much better.
Her emotions settled, and she closed her eyes and went to sleep.
At daybreak the next morning, Wang Yunzhi got up to make breakfast. Only after most of it was ready did she call Shen Yao out of bed.
In Wang Yunzhi’s words:
“You’ve got to move quickly, otherwise all the pretty fabrics will be picked over.”
Shen Yao had been to the supply and marketing cooperative once before and did not think things were as exaggerated as her mother claimed.
However, before she had even finished breakfast, Li Jieyong’s wife had already arrived.
Shen Yao had no choice but to eat a little faster.
Before the sun had risen, the three women left the village and headed toward the township.
This time there was no need to rush back for work, so they had plenty of time.
When they arrived at the township supply and marketing cooperative, Shen Yao was startled to see twenty or thirty people already gathered outside the still-closed store.
There certainly hadn’t been this many people the last time she came.
Wang Yunzhi rarely brought Shen Yao out of the village. As she pulled her daughter toward the crowd, she explained in a low voice,
“The last time we came, everyone was busy with farm work, so there weren’t many people. Now the busy season is over and everyone has time. Besides, new fabric arrived these past couple of days. Word got around. Just wait, there’ll be even more people later.”
In the countryside, new fabric only arrived at the cooperative a few times a year.
If there were any attractive patterns, you had to get there early or they’d all be snapped up.
Just as Wang Yunzhi predicted, the crowd kept growing, and almost all of them were women.
When the vertical wooden door panels at the front of the cooperative were finally removed one section at a time from the inside, the crowd immediately surged forward.
The moment three panels had been taken down, some of the more aggressive shoppers squeezed their way inside.
One of the sales clerks was jostled and became so angry that she started cursing.
“What are you all rushing for? Is someone hanging themselves? Why are you charging in like this?”
She could scold all she wanted.
No one had time to pay attention to her.
Everyone was busy scrambling for goods.
The people at the back shoved forward toward the front. The crowd poured continuously into the not-so-large cooperative.
Shen Yao and the other two women were swept inside along with the flow.
Most areas of the store were manageable, but one counter about five or six meters long was already packed three or four layers deep with customers.
Wang Yunzhi and Li Jieyong’s wife protected Shen Yao on either side.
Both were veterans of this kind of battle.
Pushing and maneuvering through the crowd, they successfully squeezed all the way to the front of the counter.
Only then did Shen Yao get a clear look at the fabric counter that had women behaving as if they’d been injected with stimulants.
At first glance, row upon row of gray, blue, black, and dark green fabric stretched before her, as monotonous as stacks of bricks in a wall.
Amid that sea of dull colors sat five or six bolts of plaid and floral fabric.
Against all that drab gray cloth, their modest beauty seemed magnified several times over.
Wang Yunzhi excitedly pointed at several bolts of fabric and called Shen Yao over to look. “Yaoyao, look, aren’t those plaid and floral fabrics pretty?”
Before Shen Yao could answer, several women had already asked the sales clerk to pull out those bolts for inspection. Clearly, these were the highly sought-after goods her mother had been talking about, the kind that would be sold out if you arrived too late.
At least half the people here had probably come specifically for those plaid and floral fabrics. The clerk was fairly accommodating and brought all of them onto the counter. They were called bolts of cloth, but they were no longer complete bolts. Quite a bit had likely been sold since the shipment arrived yesterday. At this point, it was a matter of first come, first served.
With quick hands, Wang Yunzhi grabbed a length of red-and-black plaid fabric and rubbed it between her fingers. Her eyes lit up as she asked Shen Yao, “What do you think of this one? Wouldn’t it look nice made into a skirt like the female educated youths wear?”
Shen Yao thought about those skirts that barely covered the shoulders and knees and immediately shook her head. The habits and ideas about clothing she had developed since childhood were not so easy to change. Besides, she did not find the color combination particularly attractive.
Assuming Shen Yao simply disliked plaid patterns, Wang Yunzhi asked which fabric she preferred. After looking around, Shen Yao pointed to a bolt of apricot-colored cotton cloth nearby.
“Mom, that one looks nice.”
Seeing that she had not chosen any patterned fabric, Wang Yunzhi hesitated. “Isn’t it a little too plain?”
Even Li Jieyong’s wife agreed. It was too plain. Young girls looked best in floral prints.
Shen Yao genuinely felt that the floral fabrics were not nearly as attractive as the apricot-colored cotton. Firmly insisting that she liked it, she left Wang Yunzhi little room to argue. Wang Yunzhi was always willing to indulge her daughter anyway. Since Shen Yao would be the one wearing the clothes, what mattered most was that she liked them.
In fact, the apricot-colored fabric was also in high demand. If they had come any later, it would have been sold out as well. Wang Yunzhi looked it over and thought it was decent enough. At least it was prettier than black, gray, or navy blue. She nodded in agreement and immediately called out for the clerk to cut the fabric.
Watching from the side, Shen Yao quickly told her mother to have extra cloth measured out according to the dimensions for a long-sleeved blouse.
Wang Yunzhi was taken aback. “You’re not making a skirt? Then at least make it a short-sleeved blouse.”
Shen Yao lowered her voice. “It wouldn’t be worth it. By the time the clothes are finished, the weather will turn cool before I can wear them for long.”
In truth, she was simply more accustomed to long sleeves. Although the cotton fabric was somewhat coarse and not especially thin, if the cuffs were made a little loose, the breathable material would still be comfortable to wear.
Wang Yunzhi thought she had a point. Feeling that her daughter was sensible and considerate, she gave the clerk the revised measurements. The clerk filled out a slip and told her to go pay.
Leaving Shen Yao to watch over the fabric, Wang Yunzhi hurried off to make the payment.
When she returned with the receipt stamped in red and handed it to the clerk, she watched carefully as every inch of fabric was measured and cut precisely. Only then did she smile in satisfaction. She folded the cloth neatly and held it carefully in her hands.
After waiting for Li Jieyong’s wife to finish buying her fabric, the three women prepared to leave. None of them suggested purchasing anything else. In those days, most necessities came from what was produced in the fields. Earning money was especially difficult for rural families, and every penny had to be stretched as far as possible.
Just as they stepped out of the supply and marketing cooperative, two young men in their early twenties, dressed in military-style trousers and short-sleeved shirts, brushed past them.
Wang Yunzhi and the others paid them no attention, but the two young men stopped and turned to look back.
Zheng Xuejun’s eyes brightened as he stared at Shen Yao’s retreating figure. Nudging Chen Dingkun with his elbow, he said, “Dingkun, did you see that girl? She’s gorgeous!”
Naturally, Chen Dingkun had noticed her too. Raising an eyebrow, he thought that after spending more than a year as a sent-down youth in Huangxi Township, he had never seen such a beautiful girl in a place this small.
Who were these two?
They were educated youths from Beijing. And one should not assume that being an educated youth automatically made someone decent. These two were certainly not.
The 1960s were a unique era. The young people of that generation truly dared to challenge heaven and earth. Once groups of Red Guards banded together, they could target whoever they wanted, arrest whoever they wanted, and smash up whoever they wanted.
Zheng Xuejun’s and Chen Dingkun’s fathers had both come from military compounds. Several years earlier, their fathers had been placed under investigation and isolated, leaving no one at home to discipline them. They were the sort who, given wings, would try to fly into the sky. Picking fights, starting trouble, harassing girls, there was hardly anything they had not done.
At the time, the policy from above was that although parents under investigation were being scrutinized, their children were still considered redeemable through education. Every month, they could still receive living allowances from the organization.
It was not difficult to imagine what happened when such a large group of officers’ and officials’ children grew up without supervision. Some kept their heads down and behaved themselves. Others spent their days idling around the streets of Beijing, venting their youthful energy. Carrying spring-lock knives in their pockets and moving around in groups of three or five, they regularly got into gang fights just to prove how tough they were.
They were all children of military officers and government cadres. Every one of them loved to boast about their elders’ glorious revolutionary exploits. The military uniforms they wore were often old uniforms from their fathers’ early years after receiving rank appointments. Whether they came from government compounds, military compounds, or ordinary Beijing families, none of them was willing to admit inferiority to anyone else.
It was not until the end of 1968, when the authorities ordered these educated youths to go to the countryside and mountainous regions, that Beijing finally became somewhat calmer. Neither Zheng Xuejun nor Chen Dingkun had connections that could get them into the military, so they ultimately ended up being sent to the countryside.
Even after arriving there, their temperaments had not changed much. Just as now, after spotting Shen Yao and being instantly captivated, neither of them hesitated before following behind her.
They trailed the group all the way into Shenjia Village before finally moving closer. Hearing one of the women call the girl Yaoyao, they learned her name. Only then did they approach and strike up a conversation, asking for directions to the educated youth residence, claiming they were looking for fellow townsmen.
Li Jieyong’s wife suspected nothing and carefully gave them directions.
Their claim about looking for fellow townsmen was not entirely fabricated. Among the earliest batch of educated youths living there were indeed two people they knew. Now that they knew Shen Yao’s name and that she was from Shenjia Village, their goal was simply to get acquainted with her, not to do anything improper. So they stopped following behind and headed off to gather information from their acquaintances instead.